R&D is a People Business

ANU College of Systems & Society Showcase, 
Photo by Tom Worthington CC-BY 21 October 2025

Professor Roy Green reviewed the new Acton Institute for Policy Research and Handbook on Innovation Ecosystems, highlighting the need to address placemaking, economics, business and governance. But I suggest more important, are relationships. R&D is about people working together, something neglected in PhD training. The Canberra Innovation Network is an example of a place which does this well. Another example was the Australian National University gymnasium yesterday, where the ANU College of Systems & Society students were showing off their projects. This was a mix of research projects and industry ones. As well as academics, there were business people who projects were for, wandering around. I bumped into an ex-student, now successful in industry who won a prize for their group project previously. 

He argues that policy effectiveness depends less on the volume of expenditure and more on the coherence of the system surrounding it. 

Improving the quality of governance at Australian universites

The Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee released an Interim report on the Quality of governance at Australian higher education providers, 19 September 2025. The report makes 12 recommendations. While all useful, the recommendations are very narrow and modest in scope. Australian universities are key to the economic future and security of Australia, deserving a much more wide reaching investigation by Parliament. Our universities face threats far larger than in the recent past, including from COVID-19. 

The recommendations call for universities to publish minutes of council meetings, disclose spending on consultants, publish a  conflict-of-interest register and executive annual remuneration reports, and the composition of governing bodies. The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency's (TEQSA) would then enforce these. None of that seems particularly onerous. 

The third recommendation is a bit more vague, with universities to adopt best-practice meaningful consultations. The fourth is for government to set vice-chancellors and senior executive remuneration. This might be challenged by higher education providers which are private institutions and particularly for-profit companies.

Recommendation 5 & 6 are for a set proportion of members with public administration and higher education expertise, as well as staff and students on councils. Recommendation 7 is for universities ensure respectful treatment of staff and students on governing bodies. However the Australian Parliament is hardly in a position to lecture on workplace culture, given its own poor track record.

One reform I suggested, which was for senior university positions, including VCs, to be elected by the student and staff bodies, was not adopted in the report. 

Research to Product

Greetings from the  InnovationACT: Research to Impact Panel at the Canberra Innovation Network. Damith Herath nominated a coin operated robot he built at school as his first innovation. Inger Newburn described her Thesis blog as a career saving strategy. Elizabeth McGrath nominated her space research project.

I asked the panel if enterperur skills should be in the curriculum. The panel's consensus was this would work for undergraduates but not research students.

This event was part of Innovation ACT a competition for tertiary students.

Australian Sovereign Research Wealth Fund

In a speech to the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences & Engineering, Professor Brian Schmidt, Australian National University Vice Chancellor is reported to have said: 

“We are the only country in the world crazy enough to prop up our sovereign research capability with international funds. It produces huge distortions and vulnerabilities in our higher education system." 

I suggest this could be addressed with an Australian Sovereign Research Wealth Fund. International student fees would be treated as a windfall, with a levy applied. The levy would go into the central research fund. This would be invested in developing the results of Australian research. The earnings from the fund would be distributed as competitive grants to universities. 

The levy would be calculated at a level which would allow university to retain a proportion of the surplus from international student fees. This could be set at a 75% share for universities initially, reducing to 25% over ten years.

It might be argued that taking away most of the revenue from international students would be a disincentive for universities to have them. But a university would still be receiving a reasonable return on each student. Also it could be argued that this is the government profiting from the hard work of universities. But the money would be going back to universities in the form of research grants. Also it is not the quality of individual institutions which attracts students, as Australia as a desirable destination.

Australian Universities Accord Interim Report

  Australian Universities

Accord Interim Report

The  Australian Universities Accord Panel, chaired by Professor Mary O’Kane, has released a 152 page Interim Report (19 July 2023). I have been putting off reading such a daunting document, but it is actually very readable. The report rightly highlights the under representation of First Nations low socio-economic (SES) background, and students with a disability. Also the difficulty of access from regional, rural, remote and outer suburban areas. The need for lifelong  flexible and adaptive learning is also mentioned. These are areas which can be addresses using a mix of online and work integrated techniques. However, that will require news skills of university academics, similar to those vocational teachers already have.

The report argues that "... too few Australians are going to university". In support of this it cites research saying 50% to 55% of jobs in the next few decades will require a degree or other higher education qualifications. However about 40% of the workforce already have a degree, so this only needs an increase of about 10%. Meanwhile only about 30% of the workforce have a vocational qualification, so I suggest that is were the main effort needs to go.

The interim report provides some early recommendations. Here are some comments on them:

Priority Action 1: More RUCs

"Extend visible, local access to tertiary education by creating further Regional University Centres (RUCs) and establish a similar concept for suburban/metropolitan locations."

As the report notes RUCs, essentially small university shopfronts, have been successful. What is not mentioned is how these can complement online learning. Online studnts feel isolated, and this can be overcome with a local facility. 

This is a recommendation which will be politically palatable, being something tangible, and which a politician can cut a ribbon on. 

Priority Action 2: Drop 50% pass rule

"Cease the 50% pass rule, given its poor equity impacts, and require increased reporting on student progress."

This change has already been accepted by government. However, a

Introduced as part of the JRG package, the 50% pass rule disproportionately disadvantages students from equity backgrounds. Enhanced reporting on student progress will increase the focus on improving the success rates of at-risk students. While the Review believes other aspects of the JRG package need reform, this change should proceed at the first possible opportunity.

Priority Action 3: Funded places for all indigenous students

"Ensure that all First Nations students are eligible for a funded place at university, by extending demand driven funding to metropolitan First Nations students."

This is a relatively easy and low cost recommendation for government to implement. There should be a higher take-up rate from metropolitan areas, simply because access to university is easier. However, that leaves many impediments in place. Also I suggest the measure apply to Vocational Education.

Priority Action 4: Extend HE Continuity Guarantee to 2025

"Provide funding certainty, through the extension of the Higher Education Continuity Guarantee into 2024 and 2025 ..."

How long can the can be kicked down the read without rethinking these measures?

Priority Action 5: Improve university governance

"Through National Cabinet, immediately engage with state and territory governments and universities to improve university governance ..."

State and national government are hardly in a position to provide an example of good government, given recent scandals. These include Robodebt, involving illegal demands for payment causing deaths, and the cancellation of the Commonwealth Games, due to a multi-billion dollar cost blowout. Universities have had their own scandals, but are these due to a systemic problem? Who are the people with "expertise in the business of universities" who would join governing bodies? Few academics have qualifications in education. I have a MEd in digital education, and would be happy to be on a few boards. ;-)

Part 2: Areas for further consideration

    A. Putting First Nations at the heart of Australia’s higher education system

Placing First Nations at the heart of Australian universities would require first removing the discrimination which prevents indigenous studnts enrolling, and graduating

    C. Meeting Australia’s future skills needs

I suggest that Australian governments first look to the vocational sector for vocational education, then to universities to supplement that. This requires a transfer of funding from universities to the TAFE system. This also requires incentives for university to train some staff in vocational education techniques. At present proposals such as a national skills passport is not feasible, as university academics lack the skills needed to implement it.

    D. Equity in participation, access and opportunity

While well meaning, talk of "encouraging students from underrepresented groups to aspire to higher education and fulfil their potential" is insulting and misses the point. A student from a group barred access to opportunity doesn't lack aspiration, they just know they will be denied a fair chance. That said, there are some easy changes which can be made. The first and simplest way is to provide online access to learning. 

    E. Excellence in learning, teaching and student experience

It is unfortunate the Review is perpetuating the myth that online learning started with COVID-19. Millions of studnts had studied and graduated online, in the decades before then. Detailed studies had been undertaken to show that students did at lest as well in this environment. The impediment to advancement is a business and marking model for universities to function this way. 

    G. Serving our communities

Universities play a role in communities, however these should not distract from the university's primary missions of conducting education, and research. If those can have local connection, all to the good, but universities should not be positioned as a form of political pork-barreling.

    H. Research, innovation and research training

Australia’s university research is subsidized by international student fees. These have proved remarkably stable, but can't be guaranteed. But this is outside the remit of the Higher Education Whisperer, and I will leave it to the Research Whisperer. ;-)

    B. Strengthening institutional governance 

University governance might be strengthened by increasing democracy. As an example, a majority of places on university councils, and departmental committees for elected students and staff. 

    C. Sustainable funding and financing

The Reviews assertion that "The success of the Australian higher education system relies on a secure, predictable, enduring and sustainable funding system" shows a lack of understanding of the real world. Organisations need to be able to survive despite insecure, unpredictable, funding. Australia's universities have had a relatively stable supply of grants from government, and fees from students. Deteriorating geo-political conditions could see this situation worsen. Universities need to ensure they can operate in less certain financial conditions. As an example, in 2016 I suggested universities be ready to teach online in an emergency, if international studnts could not get to Australia due to a regional emergency. COVID-19 gave a small taste of what such an emergency might be like, but it could be much fater, and more severe, next time.

Submissions on The Future of Australian Universities

 Submissions Report,
Universities Accord,
Nous Group, 21 February 2023

The Australian Universities Accord Panel, chaired by Professor Mary O’Kane, has released a 118 page report of Submissions on priorities for the Australian Universities Accord (Nous Group, 21 February 2023). There is also the full text of most of the 185 submissions available. This includes my submission "Some Thoughts on the Future of Australian Higher Education" (December, 2022).

The report found some common themes:

"Improving access to the higher education system, particularly for underrepresented cohorts and identifying programs to improve student outcomes.

Reviewing the current higher education funding model to ensure it supports the long-term success of teaching, learning and research, in line with national priorities.

Investigating the regulatory arrangements which govern the higher education system

Reviewing how the institutions within the higher education sector interact with each other, the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector and industry to deliver the skills needs of the future."

About all I would add is the interconnected issues of teacher training and online education. The issue of training staff to teach is particularly difficult for research universities, which have conflicting priorities. Measures of university quality are based primarily on research, not teaching. 

Australian universities have had a similar conundrum with online learning. Online learning provides a quality of education outcomes at least equal to classroom teaching, but is perceived as lower quality. Students like the idea of classroom learning, but in practice most do not turn up to lectures.

Discussion Paper on The Future of Australian Universites

The Australian Universities Accord Panel, chaired by Professor Mary O’Kane, has released a 44 page Discussion Paper. I submitted Some Thoughts on the Future of Australian Higher Education in December.

There are a series of questions in the paper. Here is my attempt to answer some. An underlying these in these, I realised later, was to make Uni more like TAFE, with shorter, nested, competency based, work integrated courses, delivered by people trained to teach:

Role of higher education:

1. "How should an Accord be structured and focused to meet the challenges facing Australia’s higher education system? What is needed to overcome limitations in the current approach to Australian higher education?
2. How can the diverse missions of Australian higher education providers be supported, taking into account their different operating contexts and communities they serve (for example regional universities)?
3. What should the long-term target/s be for Australia’s higher education attainment by 2030 and 2040, and how should these be set and adjusted over time?"

There is enough in just these three questions to keep academia busy for decades. I suggest the diverse mission of Australian higher education can be supported by allowing for a diversity of institutions. In particular vocational education needs to be strengthened, to become the first option for post-school education, not just something you do if you can't get into a  university. A reasonable aim would be to have 80% of the 25-34 year old population with at least an AQF Level 4 Qualification (Certificate IV). This would be more useful goal than aiming for a bachelor's degree for the majority of the population.

Challenges and opportunities for the higher education system

4. "Looking from now to 2030 and 2040, what major national challenges and opportunities should Australian higher education be focused on meeting?

5 How do the current structures of institutions, regulation and funding in higher education help or hinder Australia’s ability to meet these challenges? What needs to change?

6 What are the best ways to achieve and sustain future growth in Australian higher education, given the changing needs of the population and the current pressures on public funding?

7 How should the mix of providers evolve, considering the size and location of existing institutions and the future needs of communities?"

The challenge I suggested Australian universities face in 2016 was how to provide quality education online. I warned that international students could be prevented from getting to Australian campuses, due to a regional crisis. Unfortunately universities failed to heed this warning, and were largely unprepared when COVID-19 struck.

However, I also warned of a longer term challenge with competition for international and domestic students from offshore, and online universities. Australian universities are also failing to meet this challenge, assuming that with COVID-19 receding, they can scale back ad-hoc online learning. As a result, international and domestic studnts will choose to study elsewhere.

Challenges and opportunities for the higher education system

9 "How should Australia ensure enough students are studying courses that align with the changing needs of the economy and society?

10 What role should higher education play in helping to develop high quality general learning capabilities across all age groups and industries? 

11 How should Australia boost demand from people to study in the higher education system? 

12 How should an adequate supply of CSPs be sustained and funded, as population and demand increase?"

Australian governments can fund vocational education programs in areas of demand. Some of those students can then go on to university study. This will ensure that there are incentives for study in particular fields, without burdening the taxpayer with the entire cost.

Universities can provide work integrated, competency based, nested programs, which allow new and mature students to gain the skills they need quickly. A student should be able to undertake a microcredential which takes only a few weeks study, and have that count towards a certificate, diploma, and degree.

Collaboration with industry

13 "How could an Accord support cooperation between providers, accreditation bodies, government and industry to ensure graduates have relevant skills for the workforce?

14 How should placement arrangements and work-integrated learning (WIL) in higher education change in the decades ahead?"

Professional associations have a key role in setting the standards for the professions. 

Unpaid internships should be outlawed through state and federal legislation. Those industries willing to pay for trainees will get staff. Those companies unwilling to invest in their future will not have a future.

Lifelong Learning

15 "What changes are needed to grow a culture of lifelong learning in Australia?

16 What practical barriers are inhibiting lifelong learning, and how can they be fixed?"

A major impediment to life long learning is the assumption that school leavers attend a campus full time for three years to obtain a degree for a first job. Shorter qualifications, part time, and mature students are therefore seen as an afterthought by universities. This can be changed by requiring universities to offer online, nested, qualifications which suit mature working students. 

Connection between the vocational education and training and higher education systems

17 "How should better alignment and connection across Australia’s tertiary education system be achieved?

18 What role should reform of the AQF play in creating this alignment?

19 What would a more effective and collaborative national governance approach to tertiary education look like?

20 How can pathways between VET and higher education be improved, and how can students be helped to navigate these pathways? 

21 How can current examples of successful linkages between VET and higher education be integrated across the tertiary education system? 

22 What role do tertiary entrance and admissions systems play in matching learners to pathways and supporting a sustained increase in participation and tertiary success?"

Better alignment can be achieved by directing more of the funding to the vocational sector, so it becomes the first choice for students leaving school. That will then give the vocational sector the power to negotiate alignment with universities, as most university entrants will be coming from the vocational sector, and that sector will be able to influence which university they select.

The tertiary entrance and admissions systems are poor at matching learners to pathways, and should be scrapped.

Solving Big Challenges

23 "How should an Accord help Australia increase collaboration between industry, government and universities to solve big challenges?

24 What reforms will enable Australian research institutions to achieve excellence, scale and impact in particular fields?

25 How should Australia leverage its research capacity overall and use it more effectively to develop new capabilities and solve wicked problems?

26 How can Australia stimulate greater industry investment in research and more effective collaboration?"

Australian government can consult the education sector, as well as others, when setting national priorities.  They can then allocate funding for universities in accordance with those priorities.

Compulsory industry training for research students will help increase impact. There is little point in having excellent research if the researchers do not see it as part of their job, and do not have the skills, to put that research into practice.

Research Workforce

27 "How can we improve research training in Australia including improving pathways for researchers to gain experience and develop high-impact careers in government and industry?"

The Australian Government can improve pathways by transferring funding from research doctorates to professional doctorates. Professional doctorates provide more rounded, useful graduates for government and industry.

Academic Preparadness

28 "What is needed to increase the number of people from under-represented groups applying to and prepared for higher education, both from school and from other pathways?

29 What changes in provider practices and offerings are necessary to ensure all potential students can succeed in their chosen area of study?"

Open universities have for decades shown how to provide for under-represented groups, by offering part time, online studies, recognising prior experience as being as valuable as formal study.

Addressing barriers to access

30 "How can governments, institutions and employers assist students, widen opportunities and remove barriers to higher education?

31 How can the costs of participation, including living expenses, be most effectively alleviated?"

Governments can increase funding for vocational education, to make it the default pathway to university. Government can require universities to make online, part time, work integrated learning the default option.

Training can be provided to university program and course designers to show them how to design out the privileged assumptions built into current university programs. Government can require universities to built in study skills courses to programs, rather than have these an optional extra for disadvantaged students.

System-wide approaches to increasing access and equity

32 "How can best practice learning and teaching for students from under-represented groups be embedded across the higher education system, including the use of remote learning?

33 What changes to funding and regulatory settings would enable providers to better support students from under-represented groups in higher education?"

Governments, and professional accreditation bodies, can make teaching qualifications for university teaching staff mandatory. Staff will then have the skills needed to design out the discrimination currently built into courses, due to lack of competence.

Communities

34 "How should the contribution of higher education providers to community engagement be encouraged and promoted?

35 Where providers make a distinctive contribution to national objectives through community, location-based or specialised economic development, how should this contribution be identified and invested in?"

Community engagement can be fostered by building on social enterprise programs run through organisations such as the Canberra Innovation Network. Academics and their students, need specific training in how to identify community needs, and how to talk to the community. This can be built into professional curricular, as is done in the ANU School of Computing's Techlauncher Program.

Regulation and governance

36 "What regulatory and governance reforms would enable the higher education sector to better meet contemporary demands?

37 How could a more coherent and dynamic national governance system for higher education be achieved?"

One of the strengths of the Australian education system is the mix of federal state and non-government. The temptation to simplify, and centralise, should be resisted.

Academic workforce

38 "How can the Accord support higher education providers to adopt sector-leading employment practices?"

The Accord can recommend legislation making wage theft a crime, with jail terms for the Vice Chancellors where institutions deliberately, and systematically, steal money from their staff.

The problem of insecure employment can be addressed by ensuring that doctoral students are trained for jobs which exist in government, or industry, and not given the false impression they have a well paid secure future in academia. With the ability to get a job elsewhere, academic staff will be much harder for universities systematically to exploit.

Quality experience for students

39 "What reforms are needed to ensure that all students have a quality student experience?

40 What changes are needed to ensure all students are physically and culturally safe while studying?"

Having students first undertake vocational education, and paid employment, will ensure more maturity on entry to university. Compulsory courses on study skills can incorporate familiarly with what students can expect, and how to complain when they don't get it. Compulsory group work for new students can incorporate cultural sensitivity training.

Compulsory training for teachers in how to teach can incorporate cultural sensitivity training.

Research quality

41 "How should research quality be prioritised and supported most effectively over the next decade?"

The Australian Government can fund the development of an international university ranking scheme which prioritises education quality over research quantity. This will correct the current imbalance where universities strive to maximise the production of research papers, at the expense of quality, to achieve a high ranking, and thus attract students. 

Academic integrity

42 "What settings are needed to ensure academic integrity, and how can new technologies and innovative assessment practices be leveraged to improve academic integrity?"

Academics can be trained in how to design courses which incorporate authentic work integrated assessment, rather than essays and exams. This will be more effective than continuing the arms race between AI to create essays, and AI to detect them.

International Education

43 "How should the current recovery in international education be managed to increase the resilience and sustainability of Australia’s higher education system, including through diversification of student enrolments from source countries?

44 How can the benefits of international education be shared broadly across the system, including in regional areas, and what level of reporting should there be?"

The resilience of Australian Higher education can be increased by providing a quality online option. A condition of funding of Australian universities should be cooperation, not competition, with international marketing. Existing cultural contacts with Vietnam, Indonesia, and the region, should be exploited.

The Australian Government should scrap the New Colombo Plan, and instead fund a virtual Colombo program, which subsidises students from developing nations to study online alongside Australian students.  

Investment and affordability

45 "How should the contribution of different institutions and providers to key national objectives specific to their location, specialist expertise or community focus be appropriately financed?

Q46 How can infrastructure development for higher education be financed, especially in regional and outer urban locations?"

Government funding of regional campuses should be conditional on those campuses being shared, between institutions, and with the local community.

Commonwealth funding for higher education research and teaching and learning

47 "What structure of Commonwealth funding is needed for the higher education sector for the system to be sustainable over the next two decades?"

Funding for teaching and learning should continue to be limited to accredited institutions, public and private. Rather than open degree awarding to a larger range of institutions, students should be encouraged to obtain more vocationally relevant sub-degree qualifications. The current degree awarding institutions can then be incentivised to grant credit to a degree for these.

Student contributions and the Higher Education Loan Program

48 "What principles should underpin the setting of student contributions and Higher Education Loan Program arrangements?

Government should fully fund the equivalent of one Certificate IV for each Australian citizen, with subsidies reducing as the student completes each higher level of study.

Job-ready Graduates (JRG) package

49 "Which aspects of the JRG package should be altered, and which should be retained?"

Undergraduate Certificates should be retained as part of nested degree programs. However, the option of the student undertaking this in the vocational sector should be encouraged.

What is China's Tech Policy?

Greetings from the Australian Centre on China in the World,at The Australian National University, where Rogier Creemers from  Leiden University i speaking on China’s Techno-Developmental State: Achieving the Future. He began by noting there were few China tech policy watchers, despite there being plenty of Chinese government documents available to work from. Also Dr Creemers suggested China is a "future oriented authoritarian state", in contrast to Russia's "eternal present". 

Working out what the thinking is in the Chinese government is of vital interest to Australia. It is also of immediate interest to me, as yesterday new reports indicated China has banned their citizens studying online. But exactly what had the Chinese government decided, and why?

In 2003 I attended a conference in Beijing to provide advice on building the website for the 2008 Olympics. As a former Australian government technocrat, and academic, I felt very comfortable talking to Chinese technocrats and academics. The US representative, in contrast, seemed to expect everyone to be in Chinese tunics, waving little red books.

Dr Creemers argued that Chinese tech policy is shaped by being a late adopter. China had to have its Internet first hosted by a Western university, and accept its libertarian underpinnings. This is perhaps a little overstated. When we needed to set up the Australian Defence Department's web site, I turned to a university. Admittedly this was the Australian Defence Force Academy, but the Government bureaucracy could not cope with what to do, I bypassed it. Similarly, the laissez-faire ethos of the Internet is something which the Australian Government could not comprehend. In a Senate Internet inquiry we had to explain why there could not simply be a government agency which approved every document before it went online. In contrast, when I visited the People's Daily, they had a sophisticated view of how to guide discussion online. 

Dr Creemers suggest that the rise of the smartphone took the Chinese government by surprise, but an office was established to regulate this, and coordinate digital policy. 

As Dr Creemers explains it, the Chinese government had some surprises and made adjustments to policy. This reminded me of Juan Du's "The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China’s Instant City", which challenged the idea that the city's success was due to a single central policy decision. One insight was that China wants not to just master a technology, but apply it profitably. This is an approach the Australian Government could perhaps learn from. Successive Australian Governments have attempted to set up defence industries. However, these have failed, due to a lack of competitiveness. 

Dr Creemers argues that China is trying to design a new economic model which provides economic prosperity, but is not the same as western liberal capitalism. 

At question time I asked Dr Creemers: "Given how important China is to Australia, what should the Australian government be doing, apart from generously funding a tech policy unit at ANU? ;-) ". He explained he had just arrived, but would tell European governments to work out what they see as a long term acceptable relationship with China, rather than short term knee jerk reactions.

Philippa Jones, from China Policy asked about China's interest in the Digital Economy Partnership Agreement (DEPA). Dr Creemers suggested China was heavy handed in expressing interest in this, and there would need to be involvement from the USA, for balance. He made the interesting point that DEPA is a rare example of an agreement to regulate trade of something which was not regulated, rather than removing trade barriers.

Some Thoughts on the Future of Australian Higher Education

The Higher Education Review Terms of Reference, lists seven key areas for consideration (Department of Education, 2022). Here are some thoughts on the topic. Please note that while I am an Honorary Lecturer in Computing at the Australian National University, and a member of the Professional Standards Board of the Australian Computer Society, these recommendations are my own, and may not represent the views of any organisation I am associated with. 

The Review has asked for priorities. I suggest no radical change is needed. Universities should continue to provide educated professionals for the workplace, and applied research for industry, supported by fundamental research. Better funding of, and linkage with the VET sector is needed. This can be facilitated by training university academics in how to teach, using the work integrated techniques used in VET. Australia should double down on the use of online blended, and mobile learning, and promote this for international students. Government should target strategic areas for HE/industry cooperation, starting with a $20B defence drone program.

Recommendations on the Review Topics

1. Meeting Australia’s knowledge and skills needs, now and in the future

Recommendation 1: Australian universities should continue to be funded to focus on educating professionals, conducting applied research for industry, supported by fundamental research. The funding for the Vocational Education and Training (VET) sector in preparing professionals, both before and after university, should be expanded. 

Discussion: Universities should continue to provide first, and advanced degrees, with some vocational institutions offering first degrees, and other shorter qualifications. All should offer options for competency based, stacked short qualifications, with work integrated learning, and project capstones, as recently announced by Singapore Institute of Technology.

From the establishment of the first university, the top priority for Australian higher education has been to educate professionals for the workforce. The second priority has been applied research, in support of industry. Both education and applied research have been supported by fundamental research. There is no need to change these priorities. 

Alongside universities, have been vocational institutions, providing more focused courses, and providing  specific skills needed immediately. Schools have also been able to provide vocational qualifications, as well as preparation for university. A minority of jobs will require a bachelor's degree, or higher, as the specific skills required will be specified using small skills units, which can be obtained via industry certification, VET, or university.

2. Access and opportunity

Recommendation 2: Government funding should be contingent on universities continuing to offer online, blended, and mobile learning, as a way to enhance access for those who can't get to a campus regularly. Qualifications be required to be  stacked, so that students will receive a worthwhile outcome from months of study, while still being able to go on to a multi-year one.

Discussion:  hose from First Nations, low socioeconomic backgrounds, disability, regional and rural areas, have been underrepresented at Australian universities, both as students and staff, in part because they simply could not get to a campus. Online access can help correct this form of discrimination, further enhanced with a mobile option (Cochrane, Et. al, 2020). Allowing for online and hybrid access also forces better design of courses and work, lowering other more subtle barriers to access. The Australian government should make online access for staff and students a condition of funding. 

COVID-19 caused Australian higher education, & much of the research effort, to move online. For those trained to teach and work online in a pandemic emergency, this was less challenging (Worthington, 2020, & 2006). 

However, most students were already undertaking most of their studies online pre-COVID, even when officially enrolled on-campus. Researchers also collaborated online, across campus, the continent, and the world. The pandemic made these practices official. Australian institutions should build on the work done during COVID-19, with training provided for staff in how to teach, and work in teams online.

Having shown it is possible to provide an online option for staff and students, universities have a legal obligation to continue to do so. Remove the online option would unlawfully discriminate against those who cannot be there in person, for reasons of economic circumstance, disability, family care, community, or cultural obligations.

3. Investment and affordability

Recommendation 3: Governments fund VET programs for new students, nested with intermediate programs at university. All programs would have the option of competency based assessment, and recognition of prior learning. Funding be provided for university academics to be trained in how to design and teach using these techniques. 

Discussion: The lowest cost course is one the student doesn't have to do. If the student already has the required skills and knowledge, there is no need for them to do a course, and they can move on to something more advanced. This approach is well established in the Vocational Education Sector, but not higher education. It requires staff trained in how to carry out experience based assessment, and to accept qualifications of other institutions. It also requires embracing competency based assessment, which university academics are reluctant to do. These staff need training in how to perform such assessment, and be familiar enough with it that they are willing to accept it.

4. Governance, accountability and community

Anduril Dive-LD Ghost Shark XL-AUV, 
made in Sydney

Recommendation 4: The Australian Government fund  coordinated industry/education programs, starting with a $20B drone defence program. This would research, develop, build and deploy autonomous sub-sea, sea, land, air and space systems. This would include developing  automated systems for additive manufacture, train military personnel in tactics, and set up for mass production.

Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat UAV, 
made in Queensland.

Discussion: Past education/industry programs have been short term and piecemeal. The Australian Government is expected to spend $171B on nuclear submarines, to be partly built in Australia. However, remote sensing, and drone technology, may have rendered the submarines obsolete, before the first can be completed. The Australian government is already investing in joint air and subsurface drone development with US companies, with prototypes already being tested.

The Boeing MQ-28 Ghost Bat stealth unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) which is made in Queensland, and Anduril Dive-LD Ghost Shark extra-large autonomous undersea vehicle (XL-AUV) recently completed in Sydney, show potential. The Australian Higher education sector has already assisted through activities such as the Navy Warfare Innovation Workshop 2020, which featured drones. Funds diverted from the nuclear program could make Australia a world leader in drones.

5. The connection between the vocational education and training and higher education systems

Recommendation 5: Governments fund university academics in the teaching techniques and course design approaches, including online, blended, work integrated, and other techniques used in VET.

Discussion: A striking feature of the Australian education system is how the higher the level, the less teaching qualifications are required. School teachers are required to have at least a first degree, and increasingly an advanced degree in teaching. VET teachers need at least a Certificate IV in Training & Assessment. However, university academics are expected to teach, and design learning, without any AQF qualification. 

Connecting VET and universities would be much easier if universities had staff qualified to teach. It would help if the teaching include the techniques used in the VET sector, both to improve the quality of university teaching, and allow better integration with the VET sector. This doesn't require university academics sitting in lecture halls listing to lectures on teaching. In fact they should not be doing that, and instead learning online, while teaching. 

6. Quality and sustainability

Recommendation 6: Discontinue the New Colombo Plan program, and instead fund university programs which allow domestic and international students to learn together collaboratively online.

Discussion: After a virus closed campuses in 2003, the National University of Singapore conducted an annual "E-learning Week", to practice teaching online in an emergency (Chandran, 2010). The Australian Government, and universities therefore had plenty of warning of the possibility of a pandemic, and prudent precautions to take.  Unfortunately Government, and most universities, failed to prepare for this known risk. As a result universities had to put in place ad-hoc online learning, using staff untrained for the challenge.

International students could again be kept offshore by a regional security crisis (Worthington, 2017). Also Australian universities face increasing international competition. Rather than just retreat into serving a shrinking premium market for onshore courses, Australian institutions can also offer premium online and blended programs. This can be done by training staff in how to teach online, and challenge the myth that online learning is inferior in quality. This learning can be engaging, and offer international students the chance to study with Australians (Worthington, 2014).

7. Delivering new knowledge, innovation and capability

Recommendation 7: Governments fund training for undergraduate, and graduate students to learn commercialisation techniques, at centres such as the Canberra Innovation Network, while receiving course credit, as exemplified by the ANU Techlauncher program (Worthington, 2019).

Discussion: For university research to deliver practical outcomes, researchers need to learn commercialisation skills. It is not sufficient for a researcher to pass on their discoveries for others to commercialise, they need to be actively involved. This training is best done at the innovation centres located near universities, in partnership with local, state government, and industry. This training should be integrated with formal programs of study, not as an optional extracurricular activity.

References

Terms of Reference, Review of Australia’s Higher Education, Department of Education, Australian Government, 10 November 2022. URL https://www.education.gov.au/australian-universities-accord/resources/terms-reference

Responding to the Coronavirus Emergency with e-Learning, Worthington, Tom, Athabasca University, April 17, 2020.  URL https://news.athabascau.ca/beyond-50/responding-to-the-coronavirus-emergency-with-e-learning/

Wireless Web System for an Avian Influenza Pandemic, Worthington, Tom, Australian National University, March, 2007. URL https://www.tomw.net.au/2005/wd/sahana3.shtml

Digital Teaching In Higher Education: Designing E-learning for International Students of Technology, Innovation and the Environment, Worthington, Tom., 2017. URL http://www.tomw.net.au/digital_teaching/introduction.shtml

Chinese and Australian students learning to work together: online proposal to expand the New Colombo Plan to the online environment. Worthington, T. (2014, August). In 2014 9th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (pp. 164-168). IEEE. URL https://doi.org/10.1109/ICCSE.2014.6926448

National University of Singapore's Campus-Wide ELearning Week. Chandran, R. (2010, May). In Global Learn (pp. 2062-3302). Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE). URL https://cpb-us-w2.wpmucdn.com/blog.nus.edu.sg/dist/0/119/files/2011/03/national-university-of-singapores-campus-wide-elearning-week.pdf

Blend and flip for teaching communication skills to final year international computer science students. Worthington, T. (2019, December).  In 2019 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Education (TALE) (pp. 1-5). IEEE. URL https://doi.org/10.1109/TALE48000.2019.9225921

A collaborative design model to support hybrid learning environments during COVID-19. Cochrane, T., Birt, J., Cowie, N., Deneen, C., Goldacre, P., Narayan, V., Ransom, L., Sinfield, D., & Worthington, T. (2020, December). In Proceedings 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/2021/04/ASCILITE-2020-Proceedings-Cochrane-T-et-al.pdf

Judging Universities by Papers Published and Grants Got is a Really, Really, Bad Idea

The Australian Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA) is considering how to measure the quality of research undertaken at a university. This is important, as Australian law does not allow for teaching only universities. If an institution doesn't have quality research, it can't be a university, regardless of the quality of the education provided. 

TEQSA's draft  proposed legislative instrument includes the volume of citations in peer-reviewed journal papers. Ironically, there is a considerable body of peer-reviewed literature to say citations are not a good measure of research quality. 

Australia's first university was established  to advance "... religion and morality and the promotion of useful knowledge ..." and  provide professionals with "... proficiency in literature, science and art ..." (Sydney University Act, October, 1850). The aims of universities to the present day are similar, for cultural and useful knowledge, plus the training of professionals. Publications in peer reviewed journals may go some way to do some of this, but I suggest measures of how useful the research carried out at universities is and how widely its is disseminated beyond the academic community.

The COVID-19 pandemic has shown the value of the professional training provided by university, with medical researchers and professionals key to combating the disease. However, this has also shown limitations. The paper review process has been unable to respond quickly enough to need, with un-reviewed papers being relied on. Also the dangers of scientific research being misunderstood, and in some cases deliberately misrepresented has been seen.

Global warming is another instance where scientific publications have been of limited value. Researchers have show a lack of ability, and willingness, to engage publicly, thus making their research of far less value.

I suggest that universities need to be judged on the value of their research output to the community and on the effectiveness of their researchers to communicate the results. The quality and quantity of research graduates should also be part of this measure.

ps: Any discussion of research quality quickly gets philosophical, putting me in mind of Pirsig. ;-)

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle
Maintenance, Robert M. Pirsig, 2006

"... 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

To Win the Academic Hunger Games Don't Play by the Rules

In Rich academic, poor academic? Making an academic living in Covid times (5 August 2020), Dr Inger Mewburn, The Thesis Whisperer, discusses how to craft a career in higher education. With dark humor Dr Mewburn characterizes the challenges of working in the university sector as being the Academic Hunger Games. Many academics are working casual rates, or short contracts, and research work dependent on getting the next grant in competition with their peers. This is at a time when several universities have been found to have systematically underpaid academics for decades and some engaged in unconscionable practices, such as allowing only three minutes to mark an assignment. 

Dr Mewburn points to increased numbers of students without corresponding increases in staff to teach them, due to inadequate public funding. She then discusses what the individual can do: leave academia, supplement income with ‘non-academic’ sources, have a mission focus, provide free material online to promote yourself and be cautious "side hustles" don't damage your reputation.

This is all good advice, but I suggest academics can take a lesson from the Hunger Games by working with their students to reform the system. In The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins, 2008) a dictatorship selects children at random to be trained to fight each other to the death: the one remaining wins. But a small group of contestants, and their teachers, decide to work together to change this and ultimately come out alive. I don't suggest firing flaming arrows at the chancellery, but teachers can help students to be better equipped for academia, and by doing so improve conditions for everyone.

The first way teachers can help their students is by equipping them with skills, knowledge and qualifications suitable for a career outside academia. Otherwise Dr Mewbur's first option: leave academia may not be possible. Only after equipping themselves to work in industry, should students be encouraged to consider additional studies for academia.

To be able to promote themselves, have a focus, and not be burnt by side hustles, I suggest students should be encouraged (or required), to undertake entrepreneurial training. If students aspire to a career in academia they will have to develop entrepreneurial skills of working out what the customer (grant bodies) want, and promoting a product (themselves and their project) to obtain funds. They also need to learn to work cooperatively with others, while looking after their own individual interests.

Also students who aspire to work in academia need to learn to cope with the inevitable failure of most of their projects. Most research proposals are not funded, not because of a lack of funds, but because this is a competitive process. Of those few projects funded, most do not produce a significant result. In the start-up world, entrepreneurs are trained to cope with repeated failure, and to try to turn it to their advantage with techniques such as pivoting. 

Teachers should also encourage (or require) students who aspire to academia to learn to teach. Teaching is not just giving lectures (in fact this is the least useful form of teaching). It includes how to estimate the resources required to design a course, deliver it and assess students. Along with the entrepreneurial training, this will lessen the risk of falling into the trap of being overloaded with students and assessment. When presented with an offer to teach, the properly trained educator can work if the hours and remuneration offered are adequate. If not, they can propose an alternative, such as different teaching and assessment, present a credible proposal for more resources, or confidently decline the offer, falling back on their in-demand skills outside academia.

This is not to say that efforts should not be made to lobby for increased funding for research and education at universities. Or that the wrongs done, particularly to early career academics, should not be righted. As well as financial compensation to victims of wage theft, senior university executives should be investigated to see if they should be dismissed for improper conduct, and charged with a crime. However, it is not within the power of individual academics to ensure that increased funding, or legal remedies, happen. Academics who are teaching students can, through their own efforts, provide an education which prepares their students for the competitive world in, and outside, academia.

Teaching Universities Proposed for Australia

Griew, Borthwick, Barnes and Murali (2018), have proposed a new category of teaching university for Australia, along with invigoration of the VET sector. The most controversial aspect of this is removing the current cross subsidy of research from course fees. Course fees would be lower, with increased government research grants.

Existing Australian Teaching University Models

Australian law currently requires universities to carry out research in at least three disciplines. The proposal is to have a new category of teaching university. There are already Australian institutions devoted to teaching, but these can't be called a "university", and so have difficulty marketing their programs.

However, there are Australian universities which have been able to operate under the current rules, with a teaching focus. Two examples are Open Universities Australia (OUA) and Torrens University Australia (TUA).

OUA is a consortium of universities offering online degrees. Students can choose courses from any institution, but then graduate from one. This provides the flexibility of an on-line program, but with the prestige of a bricks-and-motar one. TUA is registered as an Australian university, but with a relatively small staff. It is part of a international consortium of mostly teaching universities.

Research Reputation as a Key University Marketing Tool

 What Griew, Borthwick, Barnes and Murali (2018) don't address is the role of research as a university marketing tool, particularly for attracting international students. Students, and their parents, look at university ranking when selecting an institution. This is despite these rankings having little to do with teaching quality, being largely based on research reputation. A teaching only institution will not rate well for research, and so not attract students.

Will Teaching Only Universities Lower Costs?

The claim that separating research and teaching would lower costs would need to be tested, along with the claim that the savings would go to research. The UK has had the experience where government freed up fee setting expecting completion leading to lower fees, but universities charged as much as they were allowed to. Also if government take funding from fee subsidies, there is no guarantee this will be invested in research.

Focus on Fixing VET

The proposals for the VET sector are less contentious. Successive Australian state and federal governments have implemented poor policy, badly implemented, which has adversely effected VET and TAFE institutions. An approach which encourages students to study in the VET sector, before, alongside and after university should be introduced.

Reference

Robert Griew, Jessie Borthwick, Cameron Barnes & Arun Murali (October 2018). "
Diversity in Australian tertiary
education: turning words into action", Nous Group, url https://www.nousgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Diversity-in-Australian-tertiary-education-.pdf

How Scholars Trumped Teachers at the Modern University

Browsing the shelves of the UNSW Canberra Library, I came across "How scholars trumped teachers: change without reform in university curriculum, teaching, and research, 1890-1990" by Larry Cuban (1999). This book is a case study comparing the history and medical facilities of Standford University.  The author argues that the modern US university evolved from a combination of German research university and English teaching colleges. The result of this merging is tension between between the role of teaching and research, which has been unresolved for more than a hundred years. The author argues that the many attempts to change have failed.

Unfortunately the Cuban does not offer an explanation as to why the combined teaching/research model of the US university (and university in Australia) has been so successful. I suggest it is simply that a research reputation is a good way to market courses. A student may well get a better education from a college which has staff trained to teach, but the resulting qualification will not be as prestigious as one from a research institution.

As Cuban points out, university academics tend to be promoted based on research results, not teaching expertise, despite attempts to reform this. Unfortunately, what is detailed as having been attempted and failed at Standford decades ago sound very much like some of the reforms proposed to promote education at Australian universities today. Those reforms appear to be doomed to failure, just as those at Standford were.

The problem, as Cuban details, is inconsistency between universities saying they value quality teaching, and rewarding staff with promotions for it. One way to resolve this would be to by using specialist staff for each function. This would be, I suggest, similar to a car company which has a motor racing team to bring prestige to the brand. The racing drivers, mechanics and engineers are not expected to be involved in the design or manufacture of mass produced passenger cars, but just help promote them trough success on the racetrack.

Even if they wanted to build passenger cars, a racing car team  would not be qualified to do so, as the demands of racing and ordinary day driving are very different. Similarly, even if researchers wanted to teach, their research skills do not equip them to teach. The researchers can bring prestige to the university, and thus promote enrollments in courses, but not teach the courses.

Academic Open Access Publishing Needs Education and Auditing

A move to open access research publishing will need, I suggest, a well resourced information campaign, and a well staffed anti-fraud unit. European and UK research funding bodies have decided to move to open access publishing by 2020. As a condition of receiving funding researchers will be required to publish papers from that research where they are available free. The researchers will be provided with finding to pay for publication. However, it is likely that some academics and publishers will attempt to game the new system, placing public money and the integrity of research at risk.

In 2014 the Australian Government expanded student loans from universities to non-government  vocational and educational training (VET) colleges. A 2015 Parliamentary inquiry heard "... harrowing and concerning evidence of misconduct by private VET providers ...". Education providers, and brokers, offered students inducements such as laptops to sign up for courses. This came at a cost of hundreds of millions of dollars to the Australian community and harmed the reputation of Australian vocational education.

Similar scams are likely with open access publishing, unless controls are in place from the start of the scheme. Academics are under pressure to publish and will be tempted to accept inducements from publishers and brokers, to place their business with them. We will likely see offers of free equipment and trips in return for publishing. We are also likely to see offers to the heads of research organizations for all research by their staff to be directed to one publisher in return for favorable treatment.

It should be made clear to publishers and researchers from the outset that offering, or accepting, cash and gifts in return for publishing is a crime. It should be made clear there are trained criminal investigators looking for such behavior and those responsible with be prosecuted.

Inquiry into Funding Australia's Research

The Australian Parliament is holding an inquiry into funding Australia’s research. Submissions are due by 30 June 2018. I suggest government funding should be conditional on Open Access publishing of the results and researchers receiving start-up training in how to apply their results. The era where researchers did the research and did nothing with it should end. Researchers need to be trained in how to take their work to the community.

"Terms of Reference

The House Standing Committee on Education, Employment and Training will inquire into and report on the efficiency, effectiveness and coherency of Australian Government funding for research, in the following terms:

• The diversity, fragmentation and efficiency of research investment across the Australian Government, including the range of programs, guidelines and methods of assessment of grants;

• The process and administrative role undertaken by research institutions, in particular universities, in developing and managing applications for research funding;

• The effectiveness and efficiency of operating a dual funding system for university research, namely competitive grants and performance-based block grants to cover systemic costs of research; and

• Opportunities to maximise the impact of funding by ensuring optimal simplicity and efficiency for researchers and research institutions while prioritising delivery of national priorities and public benefit.

This inquiry will be focused on federally funded research agencies, their funding mechanisms and university collaborative research. The inquiry will not consider the National Health and Medical Research Council, nor non-federal research funding."

Australian Higher Education Reforms Revised Implementation

Yesterday the Australian Government announced the "HigherEducation Reforms — revised implementation", which has been reported in the media as a "$2.1B cut". This caps funding to universities for bachelor degrees at 2017 levels, reduces the income level at which students have to begin repaying loans, fixes the pool of research funds at the current level and limits postgraduate places. However, this is less than the cuts the government planned (but could not get through the Senate). A larger issue is the proposed 2020 performance requirements, which if based on completion rates, could require universities to discriminate against students from disadvantaged backgrounds who have a lower completion rate.

The Australian Government appears to limit its scope of reform to a few cuts and attempt some form of market mechanism (which has been tried and failed in the UK university system). There appears to be no policy initiatives to take into account the changes in the way education is being provided, with the adoption of flipped, workplace and on-line learning, nor that education is now a major Australian export industry. The current approach appears reminiscent of government manufacturing industry policy, which resulted in the collapse of the Australian automotive manufacturing industry.

Higher education is undergoing a technological and vocationally driven change world wide. The Australian government is not addressing these changes, or helping Australian universities to adapt. The result may be that the Australian university system is not viable within the next five to ten years. Some campuses will likely be retained as the local shop-fronts of off-shore on-line institutions (such as Torrens University in Adelaide) and a few will survive as research centers. However, we may see the closure of most universities in Australia, when they are no longer viable.

The Teaching-Research Nexus Does Not Exist

A quick skim would suggest the Australian Productivity Commission's review "Shifting the Dial" (2017), into the Australian economy, has much to say about vocational education, but not much on universities. However, buried down under a bland sounding recommendation (3.4) that consumer law apply to universities is "The teaching-research nexus".

The teaching-research nexus

The commission notes that:

"Part of the rationale for universities undertaking both research and teaching functions is the ‘teaching‐research nexus’ — the theory that close proximity to world‐class researchers makes students more engaged, develops their critical thinking, aids their research skills and keeps them up to date with the latest research findings."

This was part of the reasoning behind the late 1980s Dawkins reforms, merging the colleges of advanced education with universities. As the Commission point out, there is a lack of evidence that research helps with teaching and the opposite is the case: research being detrimental to education.

The Commission stops short of recommending action, but observes "There is no compelling policy rationale for requiring high‐quality providers to conduct research in
order to be able to label themselves as a ‘university’." This may be correct in a very narrow technical point of view, but I suggest shows a lack of understanding of today's global education marketplace.

Australian universities are a major export industry. This industry attracts international students, partly based on the research reputation of the universities, as measured by international ranking systems. These ranking systems have little, if anything, to do with the quality of the education provided by the universities. However, students and their parents use these rankings to select universities and employers judge the quality of students partly based on these rankings. Australian universities are understandably reluctant to do anything which will jeopardize their research rankings.

As it is, Australia has some universities with a research focus and some education. The Australian Government has encouraged universities to pair up to learn from each other, an example is the Digital Future project undertaken by USQ, ANU and UniSA, under the Collaborative Research Networks (CRN) program (Murphy & Farley,  2012).

Rather than suggest teaching-only universities, or the reintroduction of pre-Dawkins colleges of advanced education, the Commission suggests work relevant "... skills and attributes can be nurtured by high-quality teaching-only academics as well...". However, I suggest teaching-only academics will not necessarily improve the quality of education, what is needed are academics with teaching skills and attributes. Academics who spend part of their time as a researcher can still make excellent teachers, but they need to be trained in how to teach. We can teach academics to teach quickly and efficiently on-line.

One simple way to improve the quality of teaching at Australian universities, I suggest, would be to encourage (or require), academics who teach to be qualified to teach. This could begin with a qualification at the level of a vocational education teacher: a certificate  (graduate certificate). Specific disciplines may have their own forms of certification, such as the Australian Computer Society's Certified Professional, which could have a teaching specialism added (as Cybersecurity was recently).

I will be discussing this at  the EdTechPosium 2017
educational technology conference, UNSW Canberra on Monday.

Reference

Murphy, A., & Farley, H. (2012). Development of a framework for evaluating the impact and sustainability of mobile learning initiatives in higher education. In Proceedings ASCILITE 2012: 29th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education: Future Challenges, Sustainable Futures. Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE). URL https://eprints.usq.edu.au/22363/1/Murphy_Farley_ASCILITE2012_PV.pdf

Redefining the Research Doctorate

Professor Imelda Whelehan, Dean of Higher Degree Research at The Australian National University (ANU) has invited staff and students to help in Redefining the ANU PhD:

1. "What should a 21st century PhD look like?
2. How can we ensure that the ANU secures our position as a world leader in graduate research education?
3. What is best practice for PhD delivery worldwide?
4. What changes can we make?"

Some of thoughts on the questions (my own, not necessarily the ANU view):

1. What should a 21st century PhD look like

The Australian Qualifications Framework (AQF) recognizes two forms of Doctoral Degree, both at Level 10 (the highest level of qualification): a Doctoral Degree (Research) and Doctoral Degree (Professional). A PhD, while clearly a research doctorate, I suggest should include elements of a professional degree. The community expects a PhD graduate to not only be able to conduct research on a very focused topic, but also to be an expert in their field, able to teach, lead and advise. Teaching, leading and advising are not skills which can be obtained just by conducting research: these require formal training and testing by staff qualified to teach and test.

Research graduates are expected to be teachers and supervisors in academia, as well as leaders industry. So I suggest that doctoral students should be required to undertake teaching and supervision of students and learn education, leaderships and communication theory, sufficient of awarding of a Graduate Certificate in Education (University Teaching and Supervision).

This education can be tailored to the needs of specific disciplines, to meet professional certification requirements. For example, the computing profession has skills definitions for computer educators.

2. How can we ensure that the ANU secures our position as a world leader in graduate research education?

 

ANU should reestablish formal programs in education, including a Graduate Certificate in Education (University Teaching and Supervision), Masters and a Doctoral Degree in Education. These can build on the reflective portfolio approach of the existing education fellowships, along with e-learning, supplemented with classroom based learning. This can be designed as an exemplar of a new flexible approach to non-lecture based education. The new education programs can be based at the ANU's new union court teaching building.

3. What is best practice for PhD delivery worldwide?

 

Dilly Fung's new book "A Connected Curriculum for Higher Education" (UCL Press, 2017), proposes a framework building on the Humboldtian teaching /research approach (full text is free on-line).

The Cambridge University Doctoral Training Centre for Social Sciences provides support for PHDs and might be a useful model for Australian universities. In 2015 I talked to Cambridge University staff on how they could use e-learning for their graduate students, the notes from the meeting are available from their Office of Scholarly Communication.

Athabasca University (Canada) offers doctorates in education, with the students required to be at the campus for only five days. This reflects a new reality of higher education, which Australian universities need to embrace, where students will be out in the field, or workplace, not on campus.

4. What changes can we make?

 

ANU could require research supervisors to obtain formal education in teaching at the level of at least a graduate certificate in education, in addition to any fellowships obtained.

Universities could offer doctoral students the opportunity to obtain real-world relevant qualifications and certifications, alongside their doctorate. Using the same e-portfolio evidence based techniques for the Grad Cert in Education, students could obtain certifications required for other fields by collecting evidence in a structured way.

This year I have been helping ANU TechLauncher students in computer science and engineering complete their Personal Development Review (PDR). This is a portfolio describing what skills and knowledge the students have acquired in their project work, in a format suitable for a future employer. Some of this is covered in my book "Digital Teaching In Higher Education".

University for the Future

Consulting company Lee Hecht Harrison have released "University for the Future: Evolutions, Revolutions and Transformations" (March 2017). This does not say anything new, but provides a well researched and readable summary of issues facing Australian universities. With higher education being a global industry, and Australia taking a significant share of the international student market, the report is also of relevance to those outside Australia.

The report is really six papers by different consultants:

1. The Higher Education Sector: Where Have We Been and Where are We Now?, Yana Halets 
2. The View From the Top: Findings From Interviews Conducted with Australian University Vice-Chancellors and Human Resources Directors, Dr Rod Gutierrez
3. Community Impact and External Partnerships: From Transactions to Partnerships in Innovation Systems, Dr John Howard.
4. The Student of the Future, Dr Onnida Thongpravati
5. An Opinion on Leadership in the New World, Brad Griffiths
6. Human Resources Transformation: People, Process, Structure and Systems, Peter Watson

One problem with the report is that it discusses on-line learning from the point of view of Massive
Open Online Courses (MOOCs). However, MOOCs are just an adaption of long developed on-line learning techniques for university extension programs and marketing of for-fee courses. MOOCs are a distraction from the real significance of e-learning.

The report does go on to make the case for blended or flipped learning. However, the report does not go into detail on the implications of this for universities, in terms of the new skills teaching academics require or the effect on physical infrastructure.

By the end of the decade I expect the average full time university student will need to be in a classroom for one day a week and a part time student one day a month. The distinction between campus based and on-line students will disappear as almost all students will do most of their study on-line.

Courses need to be designed to language students who are not in a physical classroom for most of their study. Academics need to learn how to teach and assess these students on-line.

Universities are already reconfiguring campuses to have more flexible learning spaces. A good example of this is the ANU Union Court Redevelopment currently underway:

"Existing teaching facilities in University Avenue and Union Court, including the Manning Clark Centre, will be replaced by a number of multi-purpose, multimodal, flexible learning spaces which will be embedded with new digital infrastructure." From "Teaching and learning", ANU, 2017

Even allowing for the incorporation of leisure facilities and accommodation for international students, an 80% drop in students on campus, due to e-learning will require Australian universities to reconfigure the size and number of campuses. With students studying primarily on-line at home or work, there will be a demand for more distributed group study facilities, particularity in city and suburban centers, close to the student (this effect was noted fifty years ago with the establishment of the UK Open University).

It would not be practical for individual universities to each have their own distributed  campuses and these will be, of necessity shared. An example of this approach is 220 Victoria Square, Adelaide. The building has been shared by three universities.