CQUniversity Annual Report - Central Queensland University

CQUniversity ANNUAL REPORT 2012
27
FACILITIES AND INFRASTRUCTURE
During 2012, investment in services, infrastructure and facilities
has enabled the significant expansion of program offerings to the
University’s current and future student cohort, as well as step-change
improvements in the delivery of available services across the campus
portfolio. The University has continued its strategy of infrastructure
investment as part of the renewal program and Strong to Great initiative
in 2012, ensuring that there is a clear focus on multi-city development.
REVIEW OF OUR ACTIVITIES
TABLE 1: BUILDINGS INFRASTRUCTURE HIGHLIGHTS FOR
LEARNING AND TEACHING IN 2012
Campus Description Cost/Budget
Rockhampton Final completion of Engineering
$10.7m
refurbishment B28/29
Allied Health Clinic – Stage 1 construction $6.6m
Allied Health Laboratories B7/8/9
$1.3m
Campus realignment
$0.2m
Mackay Nursing Laboratory, teaching and staff $0.3m
spaces
Chiropractic Laboratory, teaching and staff $0.1m
spaces
Noosa Final completion of campus expansion (Inc. $2.7m
Nursing)
Cairns Distance education study centre $0.3m
Sydney Sonography Laboratory, teaching and staff $1.1m
spaces
Melbourne Campus upgrades and improvements $0.1m
Various Master planning activities – Rockhampton
and Melbourne
Upgrades to security systems including
surveillance
Music lecturers Peter McKenzie and Derrin Kerr prepare for class.
The strong connection between physical building infrastructure and
information technology and systems has created excellent learning and
teaching outcomes for the University during 2012 and beyond. Service
delivery areas are working together in more strategic ways to create
physical and online learning environments which exceed the needs of
the modern student, helping to create workplace-ready graduates.
Collaborative learning spaces have become feature facilities
at various campuses. These spaces use technology and fl exible
configuration to promote group work and remote collaboration across
the University’s campuses to improve learning outcomes through
facilitated peer-to-peer learning. Within Rockhampton and Noosa,
the collaborative spaces are either included within or are located
adjacent to the campus libraries - a symbiotic relationship which
works to further enhance student success. Once again during 2012, the
library has been showcased as a key learning and teaching partner for
students and staff alike, with the results of client satisfaction surveys
setting new Australasian benchmarks in fi ve best-practice categories.
Reliability and performance of online learning and teaching systems
has been significantly bolstered by the execution of major upgrades to
underlying infrastructure including enterprise storage, core network and
learning management system software (Moodle 2.2) and associated
Indigenous graduates are presented with special sashes before each
graduation ceremony.
tools. Additionally, new core video servers have been implemented to
support significant growth in online video learning and teaching across
the University’s 10 campuses during 2012.
These upgrades enable access to major new features including
collaboration between staff and students using high-quality video, new
mobility features for mobile devices, enhanced grade book, improved
online assessment functionality, and improved integration with
electronic portfolios, and coupled with a high level of scalability. These
exciting upgrades have, for example, been used to host the University’s
first Open Online Courses (OOCs), and will be used to provide
professional short course offerings. The University has launched its
Online Live Classroom capability to support its distance education
cohort of students using Blackboard Collaborate. This has improved
student engagement by enabling interaction with peers and lecturers,
leading to improved student satisfaction and retention.