Ideating Australian Higher Education

Professor Quigley at ANU.
Photo by Tom Worthington CCBY, 6 May 2026 

Greetings from the Australian National University where Professor Aaron Quigley as the new Dean of the ANU College of Systems and Society, welcomed entrepreneurs. ANU is hosting Canberra Innovation Network's First Wednesday pitch night. Before the one minute pitches, Professor Quigley invited everyone to comment on the university's draft strategy. 

Here are the comments I have submitted: 

Comments on ANU Draft Strategy

As requested, here are some comments on the "Draft Strategy v1.0, University Strategy", 21 April 2026:  

Answering the questions asked in the document:

* How can we best capture and articulate the distinctive, and complex, contribution that ANU makes to the nation?

I suggest starting from the functions of the ANU, as set by Parliament in legislation. In particular "... in relation to subjects of national importance to Australia ... its national and international roles and to the needs of the Australian Capital Territory and the surrounding region ...".

* How do we attract and support the talent that we need – in students and staff – to maximize the impact that we have through our research and education?

ANU can continue to use the marketing approach of promoting itself as a research intensive university with a national mandate. This sets ANU apart from other Australian universities and most around the world.

However, whatever the marketing says, being good at research doesn't make you good at education (the opposite in fact), so the university needs to ensure it has staff who are trained and formally qualified to teach. We could expand ANU's science communication area to provide training and qualifications in education, so staff and students don't have to obtain this elsewhere. To maximize impact we should expand collaboration with the Canberra Innovation Network, encouraging researchers to train in innovation and offering this as a formal part of degree programs.

* What do we need – in the ways we work, where we focus, or what we do – to be resilient to change from external forces like AI, demographic shifts and climate change?

The ANU should implement nested qualifications, work integrated learning and blended/online options. This will require staff to be trained in new ways of teaching and assessment.

AI is easily addressed, as has been discussed at numerous ANU symposiums. Staff need to be trained in how to use AI and how to teach this to students. Assessment needs to be changed from examination, to project based, with students presenting evidence of consistent long term work, then being questioned on what they have achieved.

Climate change can be addressed in part by ANU offering courses to combat it, such as ICT Sustainability, COMP7310 (Worthington, 2012). One of the techniques outlined in that course can be applied at ANU to reduce its carbon footprint: intensive use of facilities. ANU can increase the use of classrooms and other facilities, by doubling the number of students. This will reduce the carbon emissions, per student.

* What should we fix for our University to work better?

Opening University House should be a priority. The lack of opportunities for senior staff to mix informally at events may have hindered good governance over the last few years. One of the features of a great university, which I noticed when visiting Oxbridge, was the way wide consultation could be informally done. Senior university people need to hear unwelcome messages and it is best to do that is informally (Worthington, 1999).

ANU should call on its in house experts for advice on how to run the university. There should not be a need to call on external consultants, given that ANU staff, including myself, are called on for expert advice by industry and government.

* What’s missing?

The ANU should start from the functions set by the Parliament and devise strategies to achieve those. ANU should not try to find "new ideas" for the future of the university. As the experts at CBRIN point out, innovation is not about new ideas, it is about identifying who the client is, what they need, and providing that. There are many well tested approaches used by universities around the world, which ANU could adopt.

ANU can enhance its reputation by being seen to be addressing current national priorities. These include climate, economics, social and defence issues. ANU plays a significant role in these, but this rarely receives the attention it deserves.

As a postgraduate student of education, I looked at how to provide better learning at a research intensive university (ie: ANU). In studying the history of Australian universities, I found that, from the first, they had two main missions: firstly to provide trained professionals and secondly research for the benefit of society. An act of parliament directs ANU to those same two functions.

References

Worthington, T. (1999). "Cambridge live from a Double Decker Bus" in Net Traveler: Exploring the networked nation (2nd ed.). Australian Computer Society.

Worthington, T. (2012, July). A Green computing professional education course online: Designing and delivering a course in ICT sustainability using Internet and eBooks. In 2012 7th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE) (pp. 263-266). IEEE. Presentation: https://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/green_computing_professional/

ps: A previous version of this post was titled "Hacking Australian Higher Education". This was in the sense of hacking being about quick innovation. But then there was a hacking attack on Australian universites, so I changed the title to "innovating".

ANU 2025 Strategic Plan

The Australian National University has invited comment on its ANU 2025 Strategic Plan. Like previous consultations, for the ANU Strategic Plan 2017-2021, this is a very broad invitation to the community, not restricted to staff and students.

In suggestions for the 2017 plan I wrote:

"... a campus should be seen as a supplement to the primary way universities already carry out their mission: in the digital realm. This allows greater equity, with those of limited means able to work, research and study at university without having to leave their community. ..."

By 2021, I suggest the typical Australian university student will still attend classes, but for only 20% of their program, with the other 80% on-line. .."

The prediction online working came true a year early, regrettably forced by COVID-19.As many universities found, it was feasible to move from blended to pure online working (Cochrane et al., 2020).

However, it should not be assumed that the COVID-19 pandemic will end soon, or that other situations will not keep students from campus. It will therefore be prudent to design an online option into every course, even after COVID-19 restrictions are lifted. Also it would be prudent to design research and work procedures so most staff need not be on campus.

Previously, I had suggested ANU invest in flexible classrooms and lecture theaters with retractable seating. This was done with the Kambri development at ANU, which opened in 2019. This worked well before the pandemic (Worthington, 2019) and was useful for implementing social distancing in response.

However, Australian universities now face a much larger threat than COVID-19, with onshore international student numbers expected to drop 60% by 2030, due to international competition (Guthrie et al., 2021). I suggest a flexible blend of quality onshore, offshore and online learning to remain competitive. Online courses with a mix of domestic and international students have worked, as envisioned (Worthington, 2014).

The main challenge with a blended approach is having staff who are sufficiently skilled to implement it. As well as support staff, this requires tutors and lecturers who are trained and qualified both in their primary discipline and in teaching. I suggest this be addressed by offering teacher training to both undergraduate and postgraduate students, as part of their degrees. The same training can be offered to external professionals, and staff, as micro and short credentials.

References

Cochrane, T., Birt, J., Cowie, N., Deneen, C., Goldacre, P., Narayan, V., ... & Worthington, T. (2020, November). A Collaborative Design Model to Support Hybrid Learning Environments During COVID19. InProceedings of the ASCILITE 37th International Conference on Innovation, Practice and Research in the Use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education, Armidale, Australia(Vol. 30). URL https://2020conference.ascilite.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ASCILITE-2020-Proceedings-Cochrane-T-et-al.pdf

Gwilym Croucher, Kristine Elliott, William Locke and Edward Yencken (0 Mar 2020)Australia’s higher education delivery offshore and online – trends, barriers and opportunities, Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher Education. URL https://melbourne-cshe.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0009/3568275/Australias-higher-education-delivery-offshore-and-online.pdf

James Guthrie, Martina K Linnenluecke, Ann Martin-Sardesai, Yun Shen, and Tom Smith (January 2020).On the resilience of Australian public universities: Why our institutions may fail unless Vice-Chancellors rethink broken business models, Macquarie University Business School working paper. URL https://www.dropbox.com/sh/f3idf8xogq5r8rj/AAA35NWKaxYTmR2DF3V0FcFIa?dl=0

Worthington, T. (2014, August). Chinese and Australian students learning to work together online proposal to expand the New Colombo Plan to the online environment. In 2014 9th International Conference on Computer Science & Education(pp. 164-168). IEEE.

Worthington, T. (2019, December). Blend and Flip for Teaching Communication Skills to Final Year International Computer Science Students. In2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Education (TALE)(pp. 1-5). IEEE. URL https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE48000.2019.9225921

Digital Infrastructure in ANU Strategic Plan 2017-2021

The ANU Strategic Plan 2017-2021, has been released by Professor Brian Schmidt, Vice-Chancellor of the Australian National University. While most attention will be focused on upgrades to the physical infrastructure of the campus, the plan includes digital infrastructure:

 "ANU should be known for the quality of its research and digital infrastructure, for its collections, its contemporary educational facilities and campus amenity that befits its status as the national university." (Pages 12 to 13) 

Two of the key initiatives include digital aspects:

"1.8 Evidence of learning and satisfaction will drive a regeneration of our approaches to curriculum, teaching and digital and physical learning space design."

"1.11 We will revitalise our learning and teaching infrastructure, beginning with state-of-the-art facilities at Union Court and a major refresh of digital infrastructure."

In February 2007 a severe hailstorm damaged many of the buildings at ANU, causing closure of the campus for several days. However, this did not stop the university functioning. Like many other staff (and students) I was still able to work on-line from home.

The ANU will still benefit from having a campus in 2021, as will most of the world's great universities. However, a campus should be seen as a supplement to the primary way universities already carry out their mission: in the digital realm. This allows greater equity, with those of limited means able to work, research and study at university without having to leave their community. This also allows those with a disability, and work, family or cultural commitments to participate in university life, where the requirement for physical attendance would have previously excluded them.

The last century university, where students had to travel to a campus, is being transformed into one where the students learn primarily on-line, in the workplace, wherever they are in the world. This e-learning can be supplemented, when required and where convenient for the student, with campus based education.

By 2021, I suggest the typical Australian university student will still attend classes, but for only 20% of their program, with the other 80% on-line. These classes may not be at the campus of a university, but in a local community facility, wherever in the world the students are.

Some Australian universities have invested heavily in satellite campuses with conventional teaching rooms, in Australian cities and in Asia. ANU has not pursued this strategy and so does not have as large a stock of now obsolete lecture and tutorial rooms. ANU will be able to use modern teaching techniques to provide access to students on-line wherever they happen to be.