The Response - UWA Staff - The University of Western Australia

‘There is significant potential to collaborate with other institutions on developing teaching materials…. Authors of
undergraduate textbooks at UWA could be stimulated to develop online resources to share with other universities,
which will increase UWA’s web-presence as well as the sale of their textbooks…. For postgraduate units, it
would be worthwhile exploring opportunities for co-taught units at the Masters or PhD level…. Where UWA has a
comparative advantage in a certain field, it is worthwhile exploring the possibilities to widely advertise specialists
units and open those up for enrolment from other universities. Such a possibility should be reciprocal, so that our
Postgraduate students can get credits for units taken at other universities.’
‘You expressed an opinion that we shouldn’t grant credit for content studied with free providers such as
Coursera…. My concern is that the current advanced standing policy is silent on this point, and that I’d estimate
that there are 30 or so people across campus who assess and approve credit (of whom I’m one) and who might
well form their own diverse opinions in the absence of policy guidance. Thus, there’s a risk of an unintended
precedent being established by an individual’s decision, which might be eliminated by the circulation of appropriate
guidance to these staff members.’
‘To the extent that entry into, and completion of, a degree program from a highly regarded, academically rigorous
university is a strong signal of a student’s quality in the job market (independent of what he or she may actually
learn while there) top students may still prefer to enrol in “traditional” programs at highly regarded schools. If so, we
need to be especially vigilant with regard to standards and reputation. I agree that “Quality, quality, quality” is the
way to go if we are to prosper in future.’
2. Education
‘We advocate that the University strive to achieve international best practice in terms of our educators and to
continue to provide opportunities through professional development and the teaching-research nexus. We therefore
recommend the inclusion of an additional proposal to recognise, recruit and retain high quality educators as a
strategic component in the attainment of best student education.’
‘Is there anything we want to say about the teaching-research nexus? We have built research skill development
explicitly into the UG curriculum under NC2012 and we claim to distinguish ourselves from other kinds of institution
by the nature of learning in a research-intensive environment. Do we still believe this? Should it figure in the next
iteration of our Strategic Plan? I would suggest it should but there are skeptics.’
Proposal 1: That the University conduct a full review of pedagogic purpose and practice in 2013, with
the aim of introducing new pedagogies from the beginning of 2015. The review will consider, among
other factors:
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the effectiveness of different teaching styles;
the preferences of students for different combinations of on-line and face-to-face learning;
the technological and infrastructure requirements of different approaches to teaching and learning;
the skills and capabilities required of teaching and support staff.
General reactions:
‘The challenge will be to provide for a diversity of approaches, which will be required across different disciplines,
whilst maintaining overall coordination. Our current exploration of alternate pedagogy has been very piecemeal,
often driven by the interests of the lecturer at the individual unit level. This has produced some very worthwhile
initiatives, but meant that student experience varies widely from unit to unit…we need to ensure uniform
engagement.’
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