Map of Regional University Study Hubs, from Department of Education, 2024
The UK Open University found more than 50 years ago that distance students formed their own local study groups. The Australian Government is funding Regional University Study Hubs, which any Australian university student can use. Suburban University Study Hubs are being added to the program for disadvantaged students in outer metropolitan areas. Some metropolitan universities, such as UWA, already had satellite campuses, which are only for use by their students, and are continuing to operate alongside the study hubs (the UWA Albany Center is only a few blocks from the Albany Study Hub).
As soon as I became an online student, I had an overwhelming urge to attend class. This was a surprise, as I was a practitioner of online learning, as well as a mature, postgraduate student. It was not so much for face to face tuition by a teacher, but to talk to other students. Unfortunately, I couldn't find anyone else studying at the same universities nearby, so I attended workshops and seminars at the local university for students, and staff, of the same discipline. In this I had an advantage of being on the staff of one of the universities, so having access the average student does not. In one case I convened my own interest group at the offices of my professional body.
This is to suggest Australian universities test they have an online learning option ready for use in an emergency. There is no specific threat at this at this time, but it would be prudent to be ready. Two developing situations are Avian influenza being tracked by the World Health Organisation, and military tension in the Yellow Sea.
Universities were forced to implement adhoc online teaching in 2020, due to the SARS-COVID-2 virus. This was ad-hoc, because university academics and administrators failed to learn from the experience of universities in our region, which a decade before were shut down due to the SARS-COVID-1 (Chandran, 2010). After that experience some Singapore campuses implemented annual e-learning emergency drills. Unfortunately the experience with COVID-2 at Australian campuses is now fading from memory, without the staff training, and procedures, in place.
A natural disaster could close down a campus at any time. A disease outbreak could happen without warning. Regional tensions could cause international students to leave Australian within days, as well as forcing all Australian staff to evacuate overseas campuses.
Cooper, and Cardenas-Vasquez (2023) suggest COVID-129 has accelerated optional classroom attendance to be the "new normal" for university students. This was a small study of capstone students from one US university, but useful for the clarity of the way the researchers explained their conclusions, and jot just because they cited a paper I help write (Cochrane, et al. 2020). ;-)
"This study has shown that students have become comfortable engaging with these online materials, and that access to these materials has impacted their decisions to attend class due to tangible benefits such as time savings and convenience. It would appear that these expectations and factors are unlikely to change – indeed, this is likely the new normal." (Cooper, & Cardenas-Vasquez, p. 9, 2023)
However, I don't agree with the researcher's suggestion that an attendance policy be used. The problem is that the paper details why students don't attend, but then frames non-attendance as if it was a problem to be solved, rather than a good thing for students. I suggest online learning as the new normal, except where there is a need to attend in person to meet learning objectives. Most studnts will be graduating into a blended workplace, so it makes sense to teach them in one. Failing students who can't attend class must only be done where there is a very good reason.
References
Cochrane, T., Birt, J., Cowie, N., Deneen, C., Goldacre, P., Narayan, V., ... & Worthington, T. (2020). A collaborative design model to support hybrid learning environments during COVID-19. ASCILITE Publications, 84-89. http://publications.ascilite.org/index.php/APUB/article/view/412
I will be taking part in the HERDSA panel “Is engagement the same off and online?” (Wednesday 19th April 1pm, Sydney time). So are my thoughts on the subject:
The question should be: "What is engagement? How do we know when
we have achieved it?"
Engagement is the same for face-to-face and online. The challenge is to
make person-to-person connection with the student, more importantly
*between* the students, and ideally with an external client. This can be
done online, just as, or more effectively, than face to face.
For eight years I have been helping with the Techlauncher program at
ANU. This has hundreds of students in teams of a half dozen, working on
projects for clients, from academia, business, industry and government.
It was designed for face to face delivery. Clients give 60 second
pitches competing for students, in an intensive two hour session, on
campus. Teams form and then work for a year on the project.
The format worked fine. But in 2016 I suggested Canberra's universities
should be ready if a regional crisis kept international students off
shore. I argued international and Australia students could work together
online.
In 2019 I described flipping the classroom activities for part of
Techlauncher, and adding a pure online option ready for an emergency (Worthington, 2019).
This was implemented for COVID-19 in 2020 (Worthington, 2020). There was no change to the
course content, or assessment, replacing classrooms with Zoom rooms. A
key part was the use of a Learning Management System (Moodle), online
forums (Piazza), and specialist project management tools (Slack), which
are routinely used for running software development teams spread around
the world.
This semester I have been mentoring a dozen interns, doing individual
projects at workplaces in Canberra, and across Australia. Most of those
in Canberra have opted to come to the campus to talk face to face. But
this is not an option if they are in Perth, and Zoom works fine. One who
was in transit between workplaces Zoomed from a car (not driving). The
shaky-cam made me slightly sea-sick, but otherwise this worked okay. ;-)
The key part of the student engagement is for the teacher to be trained
in how to teach real world relevant skills. It helps if they have been
trained to do this using online courses. I had the advantage of training
at TAFE, and online universities, in these skills. We need to have our
teaching academics routinely exposed to these tools and techniques, to
get them away from the nonsense of lectures and exams.
Reference
Worthington, T. (2019, December). Blend and flip for teaching
communication skills to final year international computer science
students. In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering,
Technology and Education (TALE) (pp. 1-5). IEEE.
https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE48000.2019.9225921
Greetings from the Coffee Grounds Cafe, at the Australian National University, on a wet monday morning. According to media reports, the government of China has placed restrictions on its citizens studying online at foreign universities (Australian universities welcome snap decision by China to ban online studies, The Guardian, 29 January 2023). Australia's universities were already preparing for the return of students, so this is not a major difficulty.
While media reports refer to online being "banned", the announcement from China's Ministry of Education, characterise this as a return to previous policy, and there is provision for students who are unable to get to campus. An example given is those who can't get to a Ukraine campus due to war:
In investigating how Australian universities might offer online learning to international students, I noticed China, in particular, was wary of this (Worthington, 2014). COVID-19 required a softening of attitudes to online learning, in Australia, China, and other countries. There is a wish to get back to "business as usual", however, what was usual, and is that the best for the students, or the community they aim to serve?
Reference
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. URL https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCSE.2014.6926448
Athabasca University (AU), my alma mater, is in dispute with government. This is not a new dispute, and not one confined to Canada. It is about the nature, and future, of universities. AU wants to be virtual, with staff working online from wherever they are, but the Government of Alberta wants staff to live in the town of Athabasca, where the campus is. AU is an online university, so it makes sense to give the staff, as well as the students, the flexibility to work from wherever they want. On the other hand, the Government is funding the university for the benifit of its citizens, particularly those outside cities, in regional areas. Both sides have reasonable points, and this is a dispute not unique to AU, nor new.
Australia has a similar university to AU, which has also had difficulties with government. The University of New England (UNE), is located in the inland Australian city of Armidale. UNE was a pioneer of distance education, providing some of the model for the UK Open University. UNE made the transition to online learning, and has attempted several innovations to suit this environment. However, UNE keeps running up against federal government regulations designed for conventional campus based institutions, and the norms this sets.
Speculation over the future of AU is not new, and there was press speculation of a merger with a conventional Alberta university back in 2013, when I was a student. There was also speculation about moving to a larger city. I asked my tutor at the time, as any student worries that there will not be a university for them to graduate from. The tutor wisely said that this is a perennial issue and not to worry. But the current dispute, seems more heated, and political.
As Robert Pirsig wrote:
"...the real university exists not as the physical campus, but as a body of reason within the minds of students and teachers ..."
From Chapter 13, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig, 2006
My studies at AU were to explore this idea. By 2016 there were millions of graduates from online universities. However, this was still seen as not the mainstream. This was despite decades of research showing online universities produced good graduates, and the techniques for teaching them being refined. In 2020, with the COVID-19 pandemic, all universities suddenly became online universities. Unfortunately, there was not time to train all university academics in how to teach online. Also some academics were unwilling to accept that teaching online was a well developed field they could learn from.
The Government of Alberta appears to be acting like academics of the pre-Internet age. The backed a university in a small regional town, to help that town, so they want the university to make its staff live in the town. However, university education doesn't work like that any more. The Government can choose to impose that restriction, and cripple the university, or choose to compromise.
There are dangers both for government and university in this dispute. Students will be reluctant to enroll in an institution which might be sent broke by the government which accredits it. Staff may also simply not apply for jobs at AU, if they may be later required to move to Athabasca. The Government of Alberta needs to be seen to be applying a clear policy on regional development, or face allegations of politicalpork barreling. Perhaps it is time for the parties to reach a compromise: AU will retain a campus and some academic staff, but will be free to have most academic and teaching staff based elsewhere.
With campus closures due to COVID-19 all universities were suddenly forced to face the implications of the Internet. For years it has been possible to run a university, with most students, and staff, not on a campus. What has held up wider use of this model has been the perception that online education, and work, is inferior. Universities have been able to take the lazy option, promoting their education and research via images of the campus, be it ivy covered stone, or mirrored glass. Now that it has been proven the campus is not important, except for marketing, universities are scrambling to formulate new ways of working. Those institutions were built on a model of distance education, such as Athabasca, have an advantage, as they are set up, with trained staff, to prosper in this new world. I suggest the Government of Alberta allow the university to flourish. It is ironic that I selected AU to study the topic of the virtual university, to help Canberra's institutions.
In "Five Ways to Rethink Online and Blended Learning Post-COVID" Erin Lief (Monash University), provides a list of very useful techniques to improve university teaching. However, without incentives for higher education techniques to provide quality learning, institutions, and individual academics are unlikely to make the upfront investment needed.
As Lief points out, Australian universities did not really shift to online learning due to COVID-19. Some, particularly the regional universities, had already embraced online learning (a few have been doing it for decades). I suggest the more conservative capital city universities were doing a form of ad-hoc blended learning, but not admitting it. They provided recorded lectures and online assignment submission, while lecturers expressed mock wonder as to why students were not turning up. This was not good online learning, but it was online learning.
Distance education has been offered for 100 years for students from marginalized groups, and with the advent of the Internet over the last few decades, this continued online. There are decades of research, and how to books, and training courses on this.
The problem, I suggest, is not the availability of techniques, but providing incentives for universities and academics to use them. There is a large upfront cost in technology and training, which many institutions, and individuals are reluctant to invest in.
Universities are well aware that reputation based on research output attracts students, even though this has little to do with teaching quality (and may even detract from it). Promoting campus life has proved good marketing, even if it has noting to do with learning outcomes, and many universities see no reason to change this approach.
Individual academics know they will be promoted for research output, even if they spend most of their time teaching, and that is how they bring in the most money for the university. Until there are measures of teaching quality, and academics are rewarded for this, there will be little incentive for change. One way to do this is for universities who value quality education to develop and promote measures of it. The Webometrics World Ranking of Universities, from the Cybermetrics Lab is Spain, is a good example of how to do this.
This is my home office setup for teaching online. I will be discussing this in my Keep Calm and Carry Online Webinar. Normally I talk sitting down, as it is then much easier to access the equipment, and I can't wander out of shot. I use a small wired headset for better sound ($50). I use a wired keyboard (second hand $5) and wired mouse (second hand $5) to operate the presentation. I have tried various wireless headsets, remote controllers and pointing devices, but find they get in the way, get lost and the batteries go flat at inconvenient times.
I use a low cost laptop ($500) plugged into a 24 inch monitor (second hand $100). Internet access is provided by a 4G wireless modem ($50 plus $15 a month for access), plugged into a router configured to limit bandwidth ($100).
Behind the monitor is a web-camera (under $100) with a clip on telephoto lens (under $20). The camera is on a telescopic tripod, so I can push it down out of sight behind the monitor, when not in use (and so it can't see me). I appear in front of a folding green screen (second hand $10, plus $5 for green paint). There is a sound absorbing pin-board behind the monitor, which can also b used as a green screen ($30).
Under the desk is an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) , in case mains power is lost (UPS $10 secondhand, new battery $50).
Beside the monitor is a ring light for better illumination ($10) and my smartphone ($500). I dial-in to the video conference to provide a more reliable audio channel, and as a backup in case the power, laptop or primary Internet connection fails. Also I can monitor how well the audio and video is received using the phone.
I have an ergonomic chair to provide comfort (free second hand). The blood-pressure monitor is just to remind me how stressful online learning can be. ;-)
Ian Bushnell in "More online learning is not the answer for students or universities", suggests the internet "... can be a good servant but a poor master" (RiotACT, 12 April, 2021). He warns that moving courses online is not going to be a financial bonanza for universities looking for new international markets, and can make learning more stressful, dehumanized experience. However, I suggest online learning can provide academic and student outcomes as good as a classroom, with adequate resources and staff training.
Online courses may be part of the solution to over-reliance on
international students from one country. But this will require an
understanding of what students in the region want from education and how
to provide it, including the right balance of online and classroom education. However it takes years to learn to train staff to teach online and to establish
international partnerships.
Australian universities may not have long before the next crisis hits. So the sooner they
start, the better equipped. There is no need to
start from scratch, as Australian academics have spent years looking at
how to provide international online courses to the region, while
maintaining the human element.
The
online lecture can provide a similar quality experience to a
face-to-face one. But lectures are only one form of form of teaching and other more engaging ways work well, both in a classroom, and
online.
The risk is that if Australian universities don't provide education where, and when, the students want it, they will get
it elsewhere. It is not just international students who could be lost to
overseas competitors, it is Australian domestic students as well.
The
campus experience can be engaging, but I suggest can't be relied on as a
key driver for student choice. Rather this should be offered as an
attractive option, like leather seats for a car: get 'em if you can afford it, but this doesn't determine which car you buy.
The
logistical issues with online courses around the world were solved
years ago. Similarly, digital educators learn techniques to overcome
technical problems and to assist student access. Two of the original
categories of distance students were prisoners and military personnel on
deployment. For obvious reasons, these groups have limited Internet
access, but can still be online students.
Online students can
have better access to staff and resources than on campus. Students can
have high stress levels, both online and on campus if an effort is not
make to help them make friends and feel part of the instruction.
Unfortunately
online courses are not a money-spinner for universities, as most of the
cost is in staff, which you need online or on campus.
The
internet has not changed the idea of the university, which was never a
place, but an experience. Over-reliance on campuses can limit access to that experience. Before abandoning the progress made with online courses, I
suggest academics and policy makers look at the body of
work which has been published, on what works and how this aids
graduates entering the workforce.
Athabasca University recently renamed their Master of Education in Distance Education (MEd DE) to be a Master of Education in *Open*, *Digital* and Distance Education (MEd ODDE). Join Tom Worthington, one >of the graduates, to discuss what open education is, what are the benefits and pitfalls and how to do it.
Pre-reading "Use of Open Education Resources", from Digital Teaching In<br>Higher Education, Tom Worthington, 2017. URL http://www.tomw.net.au/digital_teaching/use_open_education_resources.shtml
Athabasca University have renamed their Master of Education in Distance Education (MEd DE) to be a Master of Education in Open, Digital and Distance Education (MEd ODDE). As I had graduated in 2017, I was able to pay a small fee to have my certificate replaced. This is the cheapest extra two letters I ever got after my name, but does this now make me Odd -e?
Athabasca is the only university I could find which has digital and open in the name of the degree. The use of "distance" seems a bit dated. The second "Education" in the name seems a bit redundant: perhaps "Learning" could replace the second one.
Vector Consulting report on a survey of Australian universities and TAFEs in "The Tipping Point for Digitisation of Education Campuses" (26 November 2020). The study was commissioned by telecommunications companies Cisco and Optus, so it is not surprisingly upbeat about the prospects for the digitization of post-secondary education. But this is a well researched study and, if anything, it is not as pro-Internet some. The study suggests there will still be campuses, with classrooms, but these will be fully integrated with online facilities for research and education.
I called the E-Learning Tipping Point in 2017, as respected Australian universities started offering credit towards degrees for online learning. The Vector Consulting report argues that campuses are changing due to COVID-19, with fewer people, more "experiential", promotion of "health" and space for industry partners. However, this was happening long before. Universities were replacing lecture theaters with flat floor flexible internet equipped classrooms. There were new entertainment, sport and dining facilities installed. Students were studying more online than on campus.
An example of this new campus is ANU's Kambri development, opened in 2019, with flexible classrooms, reconfigurable lecture theaters, bars, a gym and swimming pool. The nearby computing building opened a few years before has offices for the Defence Department collocated.
The strategy the report recommends is to first get a secure digital platform, then apply a digital first strategy, apply campus master planning and make use of industry partnerships. The timescale proposed is 18 months, but I suggest any university which is not already doing these things is unlikely to be still in business in 18 months time.
It would be unwise to over-invest in one overall digital platform, as resilience comes from having multiple platforms and layers. At the extreme, a university doesn't need any campus, or any digital, infrastructure of its own, being able to use whatever the staff and students carry around in their pockets. In practice there are likely to be new infrastructure needed as technology and requirements change. Even if many staff still have offices, they may not need telephones, or computers on their desks.
Manisha suggested an additional webinar to explore issued raised in the previous ones. In particular, how can teaching staff convert courses for online delivery, while continuing to teach and carry out other responsibilities. This is an issue confronting educational systems, institutions, and individual teachers.
The Australian National University recently invited comment on its ANU 2025 Strategic Plan. As with the previous 2017-2021 plan, I suggest the major issue is the transition to online working. However, this has to be done while keeping the day to day teaching and research happening.
There may be educational designers and educational technologists brought in from a central pool, or contracted companies, to help convert courses. However, teachers need to do a considerable amount of work to collect teaching material, discuss online learning options, evaluate proposals, review drafts, alpha test designs, beta test with students, collate test results and recommend changes.
As an IT professional and educational designer, I have decades of training and experience in design, test and delivery of such complex systems, but it is still not easy. Many teachers have no formal training in online education and don't have years to do it (or the tens of thousands of dollars this education cost me).
Dogfooding
The first step I suggest is for the teacher to experience being an online student in a short course about teaching online. Such dogfooding is useful in showcasing good online teaching techniques, building the teacher's confidence and giving them the sense they are not alone by participating in group exercises with other teachers. There are many courses of a few hours, to a few days, duration available free online. One I tried out recently was "Blended and Online Learning Design" from UCL through Future Learn (set up by the UK Open University).
Professionalism
Teachers should look to their professional associations, both teaching and discipline based, for guidance and support with online learning. As an IT professional who teaches I am a member of IT and education bodies which provide training, advice, and someone to listen. This is not just about the technical aspects of teaching, but of being a professional. It is useful to remind teachers that being a professional is not about working long unpaid hours, it is about deciding what is most important to do with the resources available (especially your own time).
When given an impossible workload, the responsible professional makes recommendations to their boss as to what should be done and not accept the reply "do everything!". Where given no workable set of priorities, the individual professional must apply their own judgement. Attempting to do everything, knowing this is impossible is bad for the teacher, for their students, and ultimately for the community. Professional associations can be useful in seeking guidance and getting support in this situation.
Online learning lends itself to the use of standards. Rather than trying to invent everything from scratch, the teacher can apply a standard set down by international, national, local, discipline or professional bodies. When designing industry training or a university course I look for some defined skill definition to base the learning on. This might be set by the institution, or the profession. They then can look for pre-prepared learning materials, including free open access ones, to use. This can include electronic versions of old fashioned text books, as well as videos, interactive materials, and educational games.
As an example of standards the Skills Framework for the Information Age (SFIA) has a set of skills definitions for computer professionals. The Queensland State Government in Australia has mapped the SFIA Skills to public service levels. If designing a vocational course, this provides a useful shortcut (once you have found your way around all of SFIA's levels).
Results
The teacher needs to keep in mind the aim is to provide skills and knowledge for their students. The best way to do this may not be to teach everything which was in a face to face course, or test it the same way online. Often courses have accumulated content which someone thought a good idea in the past. If the content is not going to be tested, then it should not be included in the course. If there is no way to test it, then there is no point in teaching it. Online communication offer new options for teaching and testing. The student can learn using simulations, or in a real workplace, with their performance of the task as the test. This approach works for plumbersandprogrammers. As an example in the Australian vocational education system, a prospective plumber needs to plan the layout of plumbing, to show they know how to do that.
Loose Integration
Online courses delivered to thousands of students have to be tightly integrated for maximum efficiency. The learning materials guide each of the thousands of students through the steps required. However, this requires a large team of highly skilled staff to design, test and maintain. This is not something a teacher can do part time on their own. Instead they can design an online shell which tells the student what the steps required are and provides pointers to the materials needed. The materials can be in many different formats on different online systems. The student will need more frequent help from a teacher with this, and there will be more manual work for the teacher to do. However, this is much quicker to set up, and allows greater flexibility.
As an example of loose integration providing flexibility, in 1995 I was on holidays on the Australian south east coast. At the same time I was updating the website for an Australian Defence Force exercise taking place at the other end of the continent. The defence media people would send me reports by email, which I would then add to the website. I did not have to speak to the media people, or have any video conferences, just collect, post and reply.
Senior Science TeachMeet, February 21
"meriSTEM are hosting a simple online TeachMeet for the meriSTEM Teacher Community. Whether you’re perfectly organised for the year or wildly rushing about the staffroom, take an hour to reflect, inspire and invigorate your lessons for the second half of term."
From meriSTEM (modular educational resources in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), The Australian National University, 2021
ANU's meriStem provides science teachers with free teaching materials, plus forums on how to better teach science.
ANU Coffee Courses on Teaching & Learning with Technology
"The coffee course is equivalent to a one-hour or two-hour training session, but broken down into small pieces. Grab a cup of coffee (or tea) while you do a short reading or activity at morning tea time, at your own desk. It should take about 15 minutes a day, over one week. You just need to subscribe to theANU Coffee Courses blogto get the updates as they happen, and join in at any time.
"This webinar was presented by the ASCILITE Open Educational Practice SIG on 24 September 2019 and presented by Jay Cohen, Associate Professor Transform Online Learning at Charles Sturt University. The SIG convenors are Adrian Stagg (University of Queensland), Carina Bossu (The Open University UK) and Michael Cowling (CQUniversity).
The session detailed how Charles Sturt University’s Transforming Online Learning (TOL) project has incorporated an agile approach to online subject development so that learning design for an online cohort of students can occur at scale, by presenting the experience of a pilot within the Business Faculty. Agile is an iterative approach to project management that, in this instance has afforded learning designers the opportunity to develop online learning subjects at scale more quickly quicker and with fewer errors." From: ASCILITE OEP-SIG webinar "Scaling Online Education" by Jay Cohen, CSU 24 Sept 2019
How do we get students to engage beyond the class?
Education is supposed to be a social and cultural experience, not just learning stuff. With students online, how do we get them to engage outside formal coursework? Athabasca celebrated the end of year with their Athabasca University Cozy Mountain Lodge and the Australian National University is holding a hybrid multi-location virtual/real& Grand Graduation: Class of 2020. Join me and be ready to give your examples of informal student interaction (presentation Powerpoint and PDF).
Athabasca University Cozy Mountain Lodge
In December I visited the Athabasca University Cozy Mountain Lodge in Canada. I was not actually in Canada, this was via the Remo video conference system. As well as small group chats around virtual tables, in front of a virtual log fire, the group "PostScript" singing country and western.
I had spent three years studying at AU (and previously designed one of their courses), but have never actually been to the campus or seen a student face to face. But as an online university, AU have put considerable effort to providing a social experience for remote students. Thus is well in advance of the efforts made this year by conventional universities suddenly forced online by COVID-19.
Australian National University Grand Graduation
The Australian National University (ANU) is holding a hybrid multi-location virtual/real Grand Graduation: Class of 2020. on 8 February. This will be streamed from the regular graduation location, ANU's Llewellyn Hall in Canberra. There are satellite locations in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane, Shanghai and Beijing.
Students who can't make it to one of these venues have been invited to celebrate with a Virtual Graduation Party Pack. Like the Athabasca University Cozy Mountain this has taken on elements of the surreal, if not just silly, with ANU students given a template for a cardboard "DIY Mortarboard" and "Cake Toppers".
How Do We Engage Students Day to Day to Stop Our Universities Going Broke?
James Guthrie, Macquarie University An extreme form of learning beyond the usual classroom is Transnational Education (TNE). Croucher, Elliott, Locke and Yencken (2020) define two types of: offshore campus-based and online. They are are cautiously optimistic about the future of Australian TNE, both in existing markets, particularly China, and new ones, such as Sri Lanka and Indonesia.
However, the authors don't mention a third form of TNE, a blended model using an onshore campus in Australia, plus online study in the student's nation. I suggest this could prove an attractive option for students and is, in effect, what many international students have been forced to do, due to COVID-19. It is also cost-effective and logistically easier for universities, as they do not have to maintain overseas campuses. This also could be applied more generally to on-shore vocational education.
Guthrie et al. (2021) have warned that ten Australian universities are at a "high risk of financial default" due to dependence on revenue from international students who can't get to campus because of COVID-19 restrictions. Their "probable" scenario is for onshore international students dropping 33.3% in 2021 due to COVID-19 and 60% by 2030 due to competition from China. So Australia's universities, I suggest, need to improve the quality of student engagement to remain competitive.
Virtual mountain lodges and ceremonies with cardboard hats are good for occasional fun, but how do you engage students, domestic and international, day to day? While traditional institutions like to cultivate an image of students enjoying themselves, most are busy studying. Students have jobs,families, and other commitments, so little time to do any more than study. However, some of the most useful parts of study are the contacts with other students and staff, outside formal courses. Also some of the most valuable professional skills for graduates are some of communication and teamwork. Is there a way to build this into programs, without taking all the fun out of it?
As a graduate student I avoided contact with students outside what was required in each course and only communicated with a staff member when required to do so. It was only at the very end of the program, just before graduating, I undertook a course on how to connect with students online that I did so.
The solution, I suggest, is to explain to students that what they do off-campus and outside a particular course is important to learning. However, students need guidance as to what experiences are educationally useful, to be guided while doing these and rewarded with course credit when they do them. This can be as small as a worksheet which students use for a fled project, or as large as multi-year fieldwork or work experience, with hundreds of skills requirements to meet.
Due to COVID-19 many academic conferences were moved online in 2020. This was a temporary expedient measure. However, it did highlight some advantages as well as disadvantages for the format. People who could not previously attend a conference, due to cost, accessibility or family commitments, could now do so. Normally I would prepare one paper for an international conference, help with reviewing for it and attend. But busy with my own online teaching, and helping others, I had assumed I would write no papers in 2020. Instead I co-authored three papers, helped present two and attended more conferences than I would normally. This was because I could do so from the comfort of my home office. Admittedly, watching a video conference presentation was not the same as being in some exotic city. There is still work needed on how to replicate the informal and accidental conversations which happen at conferences. Also the differing aims of delegates and sponsors need further consideration. In may ways the same issues apply to students as they do to academics and researcher at conferences: how can we get real engagement from participants?
James Guthrie, Martina K Linnenluecke, Ann Martin-Sardesai, Yun Shen, and Tom Smith (January 2021). 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. Download link at: https://campusmorningmail.com.au/news/the-three-threats-to-australian-universities-and-the-ten-most-exposed/
These are the notes for the third of four webinars on "Engaging students in the online environment", Wednesday, 3 February at 11 am AEDT Sydney time (Tuesday, 2nd, 5 pm MST in Edmonton). Please register now for the webinar and send your suggestions.
Hackerthons for Learning
Hackathons came from the computer industry, where teams competed over a few days to collaborate intensively on a project. These have now expanded into other fields. Can we use this format to keep students engaged, solving real world problems? I will talk about his experience with hackerthons involving students and military personnel. Be ready to contribute your ideas.
My last hackerthon was the Navy Warfare Innovation Workshop 2020 (NWIW), where I am facilitated one of the teams. Participants were from the military, public servants and defence contractors. They had to form teams, select a challenge to work on and then work on a solution. Each day there were presentations from experts, help with techniques and tools. A panel of experts then judged the final presentations. A visual summary of the projects was produced by Paul Telling. My team came up with TIDE: Treat Identification Detection and Effects for dealing with swarms of RAS (Robotic Autonomous Systems). The real value of such competitions is not to produce a product (or win a prize), but to have the participants learn new skills and meet people they can later work with on projects.
Tools for Hackerthons
Remo Conference
Hackerthons traditionally took over a building at a university or school, with lecture halls used for presentations and class rooms for teams to work in. In 2020 this all moved online due to COVID-19. Zoom was the popular video conferencing choice for presentations and Slack for teams to work together. The Virtual Hackathon on Fighting Pandemics by the Australian National University Humanitarian Innovation Society (ANU HISoc), with the Clinton Global Initiative University and IBM, made the unusual choice of using Remo Conference, a video conferencing tools which looks like a conference room floor plan. While the tool looks promising, more work is needed.
Logistics of Hackerthons
The Australian Computer Society ran two Hackerthons, in 2020, using Slack, Zoom, and the usual collaboration tools. What makes these effective is that they recruit a team of volunteers to be actively involved with participants. These events had many hundreds of participants and the second around 80 mentors. These are large scale undertakings requiring careful planning. The Shockproof hackerthon on Secure Supply Chains for the Australian and NZ Defence Forces was unusual as it was aimed at defence force personnel, but open to anyone.
Hackerthons for Education
ANU TechLauncher,
Team Formation Exercise, 2018
Hackerthons are run by educational and research organisations, professional bodies and companies for promotional purposes. This is a good way to get positive publicity. However, I suggest the same format could also be used for education. The hackerthon essentially takes the group project format used in schools and universities (such as ANU TechLauncher), and compresses it from weeks, to a few days. The competitive element makes it more exciting for students. The short duration helps get by-in from expert helpers.
