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Despite the vast body of research surrounding collaborative group work (CGW) and its potential to enhance learning and engagement, questions persist in relation to the effectiveness of CGW initiatives in the development of teamwork skills amongst students in higher education. Prior studies have tended to measure the effectiveness of teamwork and group work through student grades, however, this is increasingly seen as problematic, with more researchers stressing the importance of student perceptions as a better measure of the efficaciousness of CGW. This paper presents the findings from an Australian study which set out to investigate student perceptions of the effectiveness of a technology-enhanced groupwork assessment on student learning outcomes, including teamwork skills and self-evaluative judgement skills. An unexpected event in the beginning of 2020, that being the global COVID-19 pandemic, affected learning and teaching in significant ways, with all students forced to learn online, inevitably impacting their experience with this CGW initiative. Adopting a qualitative inductive research methodology, the findings suggest that students perceive collaborative group work as beneficial in many ways, though it is not without its challenges, one of those being the global pandemic and its ripple effect of remote learning, isolation and increased difficulty with collaboration. This unforeseen event and its impact on the delivery of education elicited interesting results about CGW in the online context. Findings may advance the understanding and implementation of CGW in higher education, particularly in an online learning context.

In light of widening participation initiatives internationally, including those in Australia, much has been written about equity policies in education. There is a growing body of research related to the outcomes of such policies and the experiences of non-traditional students, including those from low socio-economic status (LSES) backgrounds and students who are First Generation and/or First in Family, as well as other equity groups. This paper presents data related to a less researched effect of widening participation: the experiences of and impact on academic staff and those providing support services to students. We focus particularly on students from LSES backgrounds. Qualitative data were collected through focus groups with academic and student support staff in a large regional Australian university, with several themes emerging. In this paper, we investigate staff experiences related to diversity in student cohorts, drawing on Bourdieu's concept of capital. Results show that the academics are supportive of LSES students and sensitive to the range of student backgrounds in their courses, including differences in cultural capital and students experiencing extreme hardship, but the support provided is affected by staff gender. It is evident that staff endeavour pedagogically and pastorally to support students, often at personal cost. There are workload and welfare implications evident for staff, institutions and funding.

There is a burgeoning interest in how best to support and facilitate the development of writing and writing output of research students. One pedagogy is the use of writing groups for and beyond the period of the doctorate; however, there is relatively little empirical research that helps explain "how" the pedagogies of research writing groups actually work. This article draws on academic literacy, and writing research and practices to explore what is learned, and how learning occurs through participation in research writing groups. This pedagogical analysis is developed by reference to a retrospective evaluative study of research writing groups in one large metropolitan university. Through self-reporting by members, and as demonstrated in practice, scholarly writing was learned in complex and timely ways; one particular feature was through the construction, articulation and critique of peers' texts. (Contains 1 table.)

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed a real -- albeit rare -- test for human and organisational resilience worldwide, including those in the higher education sector. In this paper, I reflect on my observations of the pandemic's impacts that have rippled through the university sector in Australia in the first three quarters of 2020. The pandemic has not only heightened existing issues in universities, such as the tensions between university management, union, and part of university staff, but also posed new ones, such as supporting doctoral students to overcome research disruptions at an unprecedented scale. In terms of supporting doctoral students, the case of the University of Melbourne, one of the largest Australian universities, shows that there are still hidden issues even with a relatively flexible approach based on good intention. Given the uncertainties caused by the pandemic, the sustainability and effectiveness of the university's current support measures remain to be seen.

The year 2020 began with grand ideas about building future higher education. Thereafter universities have been through a constant swirl of uncertainties and confusions as they respond to a novel suite of radically reconfigured fundamentals and prospects. This essay charts this journey in order to document 2020 experiences and to clarify evolving circumstances. We present our personal situations as the basis for articulating perspectives. We discuss shifts with higher education systems, education reconfigurations, research developments, the mobility of students, and faculty members. Finally, we explore the need and opportunity to design future higher education. Engaging with transformed fundamentals provides a means, we propose, to design a new, global hybrid higher education.

In this paper, we report on an attempt to systematically discover reliable and high-quality evidence on teaching practices that have an impact on student learning. We adopted an innovative approach that was modelled on some of the practices of a systematic review. Papers that met certain quality criteria (population generalisability, ecological validity, measurement validity, logical clarity and design justification) were examined and a weighted-average score for each paper was calculated. These were then ranked to derive lists of best-evidenced and most impactful teaching and curriculum strategies. The results reveal that this method provides a reasonable approach to distilling the available literature into a concise representation of the most effective practices that are backed by good research design attributes. The results will be useful for curriculum designers, university leaders and policy makers, and have already informed policy at one Australian university.

In this paper we contribute to the emerging literature on the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the gender gap in research productivity. We extend previous studies by considering men and women academics from science and non-science disciplines through an analysis of data from academics at 14 universities across two countries (seven in Australia and seven in Canada) and focusing on the role of primary caregiving. Our empirical approach used logistic regressions and the Blinder-Oaxaca decomposition technique. The latter enabled us to ask: 'How much of the gender gap in perceived productivity during the pandemic is due to gender differences in primary care responsibilities?' Within the sample (N = 2,817) of academics, 33% of women and 25% of men reported that their perceived publication ability decreased a lot during the pandemic. This is an eight percentage-point gender gap in perceived publication ability. Statistical analysis revealed that two-fifths (40%) of this gap may be explained by gender differences in having primary responsibility for the care of children. Gender differences in other characteristics such as age, discipline, and increased teaching and administrative work were not, as a group, significant. There were also no differences between Australia and Canada. The findings are important, particularly for the pursuit of gender equality within academia. In the absence of specific mitigating interventions, research disruptions in 2020 may have long-lasting career scarring effects (e.g. hiring, promotion, tenure) and, as a result, see women further disadvantaged within the academy.

This paper provides an analysis of the literature on transnational education to identify the key challenges and success factors for the sustainable operation of transnational higher education (TNE) programmes as perceived by key stakeholders. Probing the stakeholders' perspectives and applying a systematic approach, this study analyses 227 English-written articles retrieved from the Web of Science database published from 2000 to 2021. Key challenges identified include difficulties in managing the TNE programmes, ensuring quality assurance, adapting the curricula to the local contexts, accommodating offshore students' learning styles, creating studying environments for TNE students equivalent to those in the home institutions, ensuring preparedness of the academic staff, and facilitating the knowledge transfer in the host countries. The analysis also highlights six factors for the sustainable development of TNE programmes, including the effectiveness of the operations, the internationalization of the curricula, the transnational experience of the students, the development of the transnational staff, the existence of a proper regulatory framework in the host countries, and the development of a global systematic data collection for quality assurance. In addition, the evidence collected suggests that while the transition from domestic into a foreign programme can be rewarding, it demands appropriate planning and implementation.

Post-pandemic, many universities are seeking ways to better engage students and support them to stay with and succeed in their studies. Immersive scheduling, whereby students complete units over shorter time periods than the traditional 12-15 week semester or trimester, may be a way to do this and improve academic outcomes at scale. This paper focuses on the impact of an immersive scheduling model at a public Australian university where higher education is being delivered over 6-week terms using active learning pedagogy. Student grades (N = 9,655) and unit feedback survey responses (N = 3,267) were collected from a suite of non-award pathways, sub-bachelor and Bachelor units offered in the immersive scheduling model in 2021 and the traditional trimester model in 2019. Results were compared across the two models for commencing, continuing, pathways, undergraduate, on-campus, online and mixed-mode students. Success rates improved in the immersive scheduling model compared to the traditional trimester model to a statistically significant degree for all cohorts, with particularly strong achievement enhancements observed for online students. These improvements exceeded results for a control group of units delivered in the traditional model in both years. Strong improvements in the pathways units, which were delivered using active learning pedagogy before and after the implementation of immersive scheduling, demonstrate that the more focused way of learning created through the model may be an important factor underpinning improved academic success. High levels of unit and teaching satisfaction were maintained in the immersively-scheduled units, indicating that the model supports high student satisfaction.

Developing leadership in students is part of the remit of higher education institutions. In recent decades, student leadership development programs have proliferated at universities worldwide. However, the contested understanding of the term 'leadership' has resulted in lack of clarity regarding how this may be 'developed' in higher education. There are many programs that contribute towards developing leadership in students and not all of them do so explicitly. Moreover, in the absence of clear conceptual underpinnings and pedagogic approaches, it is questionable whether these programs can deliver the graduate capabilities employers are increasingly expecting. Recognising this diversity and range of different understandings of leadership that underpin these programs, this paper presents an overarching inclusive framework that provides guidelines to support quality assurance across the broad range of leadership development initiatives in higher education. The paper describes the development of the framework, explains its core components and provides an illustration of it.

The paper contributes to the growing and often controversial study of higher education productivity measurement. The paper clarifies core productivity ideas, and considers alternative models for productivity assessment. Results from these models are explored using data from Australian higher education. Findings reveal implications for the technique and the practice of higher education productivity measurement. The paper provides evidence that productivity change estimates in higher education are not robust to the choice of estimation method. The research then demonstrates how the practice of higher education productivity measurement may benefit from approaches different to conventional econometric means of estimating frontier efficiency. Focusing on the drivers of productivity change and on the value weighting of data elements in models may provide more nuanced and actionable information for stakeholders and decision-makers. The paper concludes by urging more work to advance this field.

A voluminous empirical literature has examined scale economies in public organisations, particularly in local government. By contrast, little effort has been directed at the empirical investigation of economies of scale in higher education administration, including in Australian universities. To address this gap in the empirical literature, this paper examines administrative scale economies and task density in Australian public universities for the period 2009/10-2018/19 using a pooled data framework. We find that there are administrative scale economies in Australian universities and that task density is a key determinant of administrative intensity. In addition, regional universities exhibit a higher level of administrative intensity than their metropolitan counterparts. We conclude by canvassing some of the main public policy implications of our findings.

In recent times, there has been a strong focus on moving university teaching away from a so-called 'instructivist', lecture-centred mode, in which the focus is on what teachers are doing, towards a more student-centred 'constructivist' approach, centred on active learning and students' own constructions of knowledge. This paper considers the tensions and challenges raised by the ways in which constructivist ideas are being taken up in higher education, highlighting two particular issues (1) the positioning of curriculum knowledge as settled and easily transferable across modes of teaching; and (2) the neglect of important disciplinary differences as a result. These issues are explored in relation to two particular case studies of universities introducing new online learning reforms. These case studies show the problems potentially raised by the limited attention to curriculum in the push for more constructivist pedagogies, including a limited interpretation of what constructivist teaching entails and an inattention to the conditions required for its practice.

Universities might aspire to teaching excellence, but do they enable academic teachers to make good teaching decisions? Using a critical realist perspective, a qualitative interview study in England and Australia explored academics' experiences of teaching decisions and their responses to strategic, institutional and departmental teaching policy and planning. Complex and contradictory conditions that challenged academics' experiences of teaching and prevented effective decision-making were found. The paper identifies aspects of university functioning that act to prevent the achievement of teaching excellence. It argues that excellence in teaching requires coherent and integrated approaches and commitment right across the institution. For this to happen, universities need to consider how stated strategic learning and teaching ambitions are communicated, implemented, supported and, importantly, how they are understood and enacted throughout all levels and areas of the organisation, including many that hitherto do not consider they have a role in learning and teaching.

Findings from interviews with mid-career academics in English and Australian universities elucidate how academics interpret and navigate complex institutional contexts in shaping academic jobs. The paper argues that how they do this is a function of what they notice and respond to as well as the mode of reflexivity they employ. Three core areas are seen to affect academics sense of agency as they shape their own jobs: how they orient themselves to the world around them including the academic institution and department; their underlying goals and purposes as they seek to have a fulfilling role; and how they relate to structural conditions of the workplace. The paper argues that understanding academics' differing foci of awareness in these areas is helpful to institutional policies and strategies.

This paper analyses the development of a collaborative relationship between one academic and one educational development professional (EDP). The paper aims to assist academics and EDPs to establish successful long-term collaborations. Improving the success of such collaborations is important because the adoption of technology enabled learning and teaching materials in higher education requires academics and EDPs to collaborate successfully over extended periods. Despite the critical importance of successful collaborations between academics and EDPs, even well intentioned collaborations are subject to high rates of failure. In addition, existing guidance in the literature has thus far been unable to improve this situation successfully. This paper uses an autoethnographic research approach to analyse the development of a successful collaboration between one academic and one EDP over time. The paper's findings highlight the existence of a small set of key success factors, as well as the change in the relative importance of these factors during the lifespan of the collaboration. The paper is valuable for academics, EDPs, and higher education managers because it provides practical evidence-based guidance that supports the creation of successful and sustainable collaborative working relationships between academics and EDPs.

Becoming a researcher is one of the roads travelled in the emotional, social, and intellectual process of PhD journeys. As such, developing a researcher identity during doctoral study is a social undertaking. This paper explores instances and practices where doctoral students identify as becoming researchers. Based on interviews with 30 PhD students from two Australian metropolitan universities, this paper presents students' experiences of moments when they feel like researchers. The paper finds identification as a researcher occurs early on in the PhD, and such instances are underpinned by external and internal validation of the student as a researcher. Validation is gained "through research outputs" ("mainly publications"), "doing research," and "talking about research." Such experiences are often mundane, occur daily, and constitute personal, social, informal, and formal learning opportunities for researcher development. Supervisors are largely absent as students draw on multiple individuals on and off campus in assuming a researcher identity.

Many nations now enrol large numbers of tertiary students with English as an additional language, raising concerns over academic literacy standards. As a result, calls for whole-institution approaches to enhance language proficiency have grown. This paper describes the issues faced by one university that attempted such an approach. We first outline three theoretical assumptions, that is, that academic literacy is facilitated by (1) the attention to discourse at the discipline-specific level, (2) the engagement of students with their social, institutional and cultural surroundings, and (3) the provision to students of the tools for self-directed, ongoing learning. The paper then explains how one Australian university implemented a mandatory programme of credit-bearing discipline-specific English language enhancement courses as foundational units across all degree programmes. Describing the first programme of its kind in Australia, the paper focuses on the issues emerging from practice identified from the first five years: (1) stakeholder perceptions, (2) student reception, (3) materials development, (4) programme management, (5) assessment and (6) measuring outcomes. Rather than a panacea for a notoriously complex issue, the paper presents strategies for dealing with the challenges that emerge for other institutions that might be contemplating reform of a similar magnitude.

This paper reports findings from a recent study of Australian Aboriginal higher education student experience. Reported here are extracts from a set of case studies of staff, specifically those working in Indigenous Centres, involved with these students in both teaching and support capacities. These participants provided a rich set of qualitative data regarding their own experiences in the learning and teaching of Australian Aboriginal students. The paper raises important issues for the improvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander university student experience and for increasing their representation in higher education, a strategy strongly supported by several current government initiatives. Best practice in the context of this paper not only includes teaching and learning, which in turn has implications for raising the awareness of university teaching staff, but also applies more broadly at the level of university-wide responsibility including policy-making and future directions.

Digital technologies are now an integral aspect of the university student experience. As such, academic research has understandably focused on the potential of various digital technologies to enable, extend and even "enhance" student learning. This paper offers an alternate perspective on these issues by exploring students' actual experiences of digital technology during their academic studies--highlighting the aspects of digital technology use that students themselves see as particularly helpful and/or useful. Drawing on a survey of 1658 undergraduate students, the paper identifies 11 distinct digital "benefits"--ranging from flexibilities of time and place, ease of organizing and managing study tasks through to the ability to replay and revisit teaching materials, and learn in more visual forms. While these data confirm digital technologies as central to the ways in which students experience their studies, they also suggest that digital technologies are not "transforming" the nature of university teaching and learning. As such, university educators perhaps need to temper enthusiasms for what "might" be achieved through technology-enabled learning and develop better understandings of the realities of students' encounters with digital technology.

Massification is a reality facing universities around the world. While increased access to higher education has significant social and economic benefits, rapid growth in class sizes challenges institutions to maintain quality standards while teaching at scale, amidst ongoing cost pressure. This paper analyses this issue within the Australian higher education context. It employs the notion of the 'Iron Triangle' to examine the tensions between what appear to be mutually conflicting concepts of access, cost and quality. It also highlights key strategies that can be employed to potentially enhance quality without dramatically inflating costs.

Work-integrated Learning (WIL) can be a vehicle for the development of students' work-ready skills. This paper presents the views of undergraduate business students and academics about the role and perceived importance of work-ready skills in the business curriculum and the perceived role of WIL activities in enabling the development of work-ready skills. A total of 50 business students and 24 academics from a number of faculties across the university participated. While students and academics both agree that a combination of on and off campus WIL activities are most effective for developing work-ready skills, students and academics hold different views to the importance of work-ready skills in the curriculum and the importance of including specific skills such as project planning. These findings have implications for the development of work-ready skills and embedding both WIL and non-WIL activities in undergraduate courses for business school educators and university policy makers.

The purpose of this paper is to expound on an innovative approach to cultivating work-based Doctorates and Masters of Philosophy degrees, which involves close collaboration between industry organisations and a tertiary institution. This paper also reports on an examination of the programme's structural ability to help develop the learning capability of the candidates involved. This network model inspires and facilitates these work-based candidates' research actions and builds individual (and organisational) knowledge while enhancing their learning capability. The primary considerations for higher education practice revolve around work-based research degrees being actively and fittingly supported by all direct stakeholders and the management of those stakeholder relationships. This approach to fostering work-based research degrees provides tertiary institutions pragmatic avenues to be more relevant to and valued by industry, while facilitating the development of highly educated and skilled industry-based scholars.

This paper examines the international education market and Australia's significant and growing involvement. Whilst much research has been carried out, it is less common for this research to be undertaken from the perspective of those who have yet to make the decision to study abroad. This study examines Indonesia, which was once a prominent source country for Australian international students. Student intention to study in Australia is examined through the Theory of Planned Behavior. Both qualitative and quantitative studies identify several factors influencing students' study intentions. Significantly, this study explores the concept that cultural ethnicities may be a better indicator of student intention, than the commonly held demarcation of political boundaries. Using Indonesia as an example, it is shown that country alone may not always be the best indicator of a homogeneous unit that demonstrates similar homogenous cultural traits. This has implications for all marketers of international education.

Research into higher education has shown that for those who identify as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans* and/or Queer (LGBTQ), universities are places where both direct and indirect discrimination is experienced. This paper reports the findings from a systematic search and review on gender and sexual diversity in professional practice placements. This was part of a broader project exploring the way that students were supported and educated to provide appropriate support for LGBTQ people using their services and whether students who identified as LGBTQ experienced specific issues regarding the (non)disclosure of their gender or sexual diversity in placement settings. Three primary themes were identified. Environment: which relates to the way that homophobic and transphobic discrimination is experienced in professional practice. Influence: the importance of faculty on the environment as both a positive and negative force. Interventions: how students support LGBTQ people who use their services and how educators intervene with students who identify as LGBTQ. Our review showed how students in all included disciplines report feeling under-prepared for the realities of working with LGBTQ people in practice. However there are examples of positive practices which can support LGBTQ students through navigating disclosure of their own identities, as well as enabling all students to act as advocates and allies for the LGBTQ service users and peers/colleagues that they will inevitably work with and alongside, throughout their careers.

Measuring impact from university research is increasingly seen as important, not least because of its use in resource allocation processes by governments. These measurement approaches, however, often take 'wide and shallow' economic effect-based views that are ex-post, linear and uni-directional. Consequently, research collaborations between universities and external stakeholders are often ignored, particularly when stakeholders are local or community-based and the research focus is on social rather than purely economic ends, because impacts of these projects are less easily measured, and are more likely to have narrower (though deeper) effects spatially. Using an illustrative case study, this paper shows that there are mechanisms able to measure broader concepts of impact, specifically ones where impacts also occur through the PROCESS of undertaking the research itself (as opposed to just as a RESULT of it), highlighting ways in which this type of analysis could be utilised for future evaluation of research collaborations.

A large-scale investigation was conducted at an Australian University to document and analyze authentic work-related assessment types for a university-wide major course review (Kaider, F., and R. Hains-Wesson. 2016. "Enhancing Courses for Employability." Melbourne: Australian Collaborative Education Network. Report.). This study provides further insights into Science, Engineering, Technology and Mathematics (STEM) teachers' experiences in undertaking authentic assessment-led reform. STEM teachers participated in an online survey and a recorded interview to elicit their perceptions of authentic assessment-led activities. A mixed methods approach was used with two key themes emerging: (1) purpose and approach, which highlighted the importance of introducing a shared understanding for effective authentic assessment-led reform and (2) working with industry, which illustrated the requirement to provide teachers with additional support options when working with industry. In this paper, we discuss the implications of the findings along with the presentation of a set of key recommendations for supporting teachers when renewing STEM education.

This paper investigates computing students' entrepreneurial intentions, motivations, recognisable barriers and encouragements towards entrepreneurship, with a focus on gender. Two universities, one in Australia and one in the UK (n = 247), were used as locations for the research to consider two distinct contexts. In each university there were similarly high levels of interest in entrepreneurship among computing students, however some significant differences in responses were found, especially between male and female participants. Job flexibility was a strong motivation for the UK-based female participants; while female participants at the Australian university identified internal barriers (such as lack of confidence and experience). Enablers to entrepreneurial activity were identified, including access to incubators and academic support. Directing such support towards computing students, while recognising gender differences, could increase interest in, and take-up of, entrepreneurship. Recommendations are made regarding how universities can best support would-be entrepreneurs and encourage inclusive entrepreneurship into the future.

Traditions associated with the physical studio in design education have obstructed translation to an online model. Literature on design pedagogy reveals the studio is considered essential for design education. This perception can be traced to the "atelier" model in the fine arts, in which students practised under a master. This method also underpinned the early twentieth-century development of design curriculum at the Bauhaus, whose mission was to unite art and industry. This paper examines the essential attributes of the traditional design studio alongside current on-campus experience to better understand studio dynamics. I argue that, while teaching design in an online environment may be complex, it is possible. Barriers to online design education relate to the traditional studio experience, which differs to the contemporary on-campus design studio. Only through in-depth consideration of the current context can an equivalent online learning environment and community of practice occur.

Assessment is a crucial factor in higher education where marks gained can determine future study and career options. Increasing student numbers, and an increasing proportion of international students, raises concerns regarding marking practices, and whether the same criteria are used to mark both native-speaker (NS) and non-native-speaker (NNS) essays. This paper examines the essays of five native and five non-native speakers written in English for the same undergraduate subject. The essays were marked by 10 experienced assessors. Results reveal distinct differences in the approaches taken by the assessors resulting in, in some cases, the same NS essay being awarded every grade level from the highest possible grade, to a failure. Similar results were found in the NNS essays although the variability was somewhat less. The paper examines reasons for this and discusses its implications for assessment in higher education and for potential approaches which might mitigate against this outcome.

The paper questions the prevalence of "green students" and their impact on decision-making in sustainability programmes in Australian universities. While the universities studied provide numerous opportunities for student involvement in sustainability programmes, comparatively few students actually become involved, making student impact on decision-making in these programmes low. University employees are the primary drivers of university sustainability programmes, with the "green student" not highly visible in these universities. The paper concludes by suggesting that all four universities in the sample could enhance their sustainability programmes by adopting a more evidence-based understanding of student attitudes towards sustainability.

This paper examines factors affecting parental expectations of higher education prospects for their children using Australian household survey data. We find that a variety of factors influence parental expectations, of which parents' assessment of their children's academic performance is the strongest. Factors known to impact upon actual higher education participation, such as parental education and remoteness, are already evident in parental expectations, but with limited evidence of expectations being shaped by financial constraints. We also find evidence of a 'same gender' effect, with mothers exhibiting higher expectations for higher education for their daughters. This may be in part due to significantly lower expectations held by fathers with sub-bachelor qualifications. These factors contribute to higher expectations overall for girls entering university. The research points to the importance of interventions commencing in early childhood, and accounting for key household background characteristics when designing, implementing and evaluating programmes for widening participation in higher education.

Capstones, as culminating educational experiences, are expected to meet many purposes: synthesis and application of prior learning, developing skills and attributes related to employability, and more recently, quality assurance. However, research has not yet identified a comprehensive list of capstone purposes or considered how multiple purposes are prioritised. This paper presents an analysis of ratings of importance for a series of literature-derived capstone purposes by staff involved in capstone design and delivery across disciplines (n = 216). Findings confirm the broad range of purposes reported in the literature with the addition of an affective dimension. The number of purposes rated as highly important suggests a highly pressured curriculum space. Analysis of cross-disciplinary ratings also revealed a large set of 'core' capstone purposes that are equally important across disciplines, and a smaller set that vary significantly. Results provide an empirical basis for interrogating capstone purposes and their implementation through curriculum design and delivery.

If media reports are to be believed, Australian universities are facing a significant and growing problem of students outsourcing their assessment to third parties, a behaviour commonly known as 'contract cheating'. Teaching staff are integral to preventing and managing this emerging form of cheating, yet there has been little evidence-based research to inform changes to their practice. This paper reports on the findings of a large-scale survey of teaching staff in Australian universities on the topic of contract cheating. It investigated staff experiences with and attitudes towards student cheating, and their views on the individual, contextual and organisational factors that inhibit or support efforts to minimise it. Findings indicate that contract cheating could be addressed by improving key aspects of the teaching and learning environment, including the relationships between students and staff. Such improvements are likely to minimise cheating, and also improve detection when cheating occurs.

Recent Australian media scandals suggest that university students are increasingly outsourcing their assessments to third parties -- a behaviour known as 'contract cheating'. This paper reports on findings from a large survey of students from eight Australian universities (n = 14,086) which sought to explore students' experiences with and attitudes towards contract cheating, and the contextual factors that may influence this behaviour. A spectrum of seven outsourcing behaviours were investigated, and three significant variables were found to be associated with contract cheating: dissatisfaction with the teaching and learning environment, a perception that there are 'lots of opportunities to cheat', and speaking a Language Other than English (LOTE) at home. To minimise contract cheating, our evidence suggests that universities need to support the development of teaching and learning environments which nurture strong student--teacher relationships, reduce opportunities to cheat through curriculum and assessment design, and address the well-recognised language and learning needs of LOTE students.

In 1986 (first published 1983) Clark's triangle of coordination compared national higher education systems according to the dimensions of state authority, market and academic oligarchy. The picture was of a particular time, one in which those three factors could be ably used to illustrate major differences in how coordination took place. Subsequent sweeping changes in higher education coordination have led to the alteration of the triangle's features and assumptions as it has been adapted over time. This article argues that the vertices of any such triangle must themselves be alterable in order to indicate changes in the constitution of salient forces that have been observed, and can be expected. A new, less time-bound heuristic -- "microcosmographia" -- facilitates such comparisons, with a recast, unified triangle as its kernel. (Contains 8 figures.)

Universities have focused on teaching and learning at a time when quality has become the marker of distinction in international higher education markets. Education markets have meant pedagogical relations have become contractualised with a focus on student satisfaction, exemplified in consumer-oriented generic evaluations of teaching. This article argues, by analysing one example, that generic evaluations are more about accountability and marketing than about improvement of teaching and learning. Furthermore, what students want is not the only criterion for judging teaching. Rather, professionals require, as do academics, a capacity for critical judgement about what constitutes valued knowledge in the pedagogical relationship between teacher and student. (Contains 1 table.)

Increasing enrolment of Chinese students has become a key feature of internationalisation for Western universities, but there is limited research into how curriculum internationalisation affects Chinese students' learning experiences. Using the typologies of curriculum internationalisation as a framework, this paper explores and compares how Scottish and Australian universities integrate international and intercultural elements into their curriculum to support Chinese postgraduate taught students' study. Interviews, focus groups and a survey are used as the main research methods. Analysis reveals that the practice of curriculum internationalisation in both countries is rather limited, and that Chinese students express a desire for more international perspectives in the course content, and for more mobility experiences, in order to prepare for their future careers. The mismatch between academics' and students' understandings of curriculum internationalisation is highlighted as an arena of power differential and an area for further study.

Organisational change literature is littered with labels for those who instigate, support, resist, or implement change. Absent is research into the perspectives of those who are given these labels. This paper reports findings from a literature search, journal scan and a case study of an Australian university where change agents were labelled 'School Champions.' Data analysis of the authors suggests that labels do matter, not only to change agents, but also other academics who interacted with them such as Associate Deans. The authors found that, because a label implies an identity, when the choice of labels is unexamined, unintended consequences can result. These include ridicule, derision, and serious or light-hearted teasing, plus dismissive and cynical attitudes towards senior management's endorsement of buzz words as labels. The authors suggest strategies to ensure that a label or identity badge suits academe, has minimal potential to cause emotional or professional harm, and is embraced rather than renounced.

Global moves to integrate Indigenous perspectives and histories into university curricula are growing. In Australia, shifts towards Indigenisation in higher education teaching and research have been slow, but now--partly due to new national and institutional policies--are re-forming the disciplinary landscapes where our students learn and grow. Vital to achieving these new agendas are the Indigenous Australian scholars whose work experiences are reported in this paper. Findings from a nation-wide survey of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander academics (mainly in professional disciplines like law, education and health) support a more optimistic scenario than that portrayed in some existing literature. No longer peripheral to institutional missions, this newly confident cohort of Indigenous academics is forging unprecedented partnerships with non-Indigenous colleagues and transforming the very essence of a university degree. The implications for Australia, and for other societies with Indigenous communities, are profound.

The Australian Government provides basic operating grants to universities, which are used to teach domestic undergraduate students. It imposes a productivity offset on the grants to encourage improvements in university productivity. But it is not transparent and does not vary across universities. Thus, universities have little incentive to improve performance. This paper develops an alternative framework that uses incentive regulation to allocate these grants to universities, which provides stronger incentives for universities to improve productivity. Regulators often use a similar framework to set prices for natural monopoly services such as utilities and public transport. Under incentive regulation, the basic operating grants could be reduced, on average, by 1.76% per annum over 5 years, which is about $100 million per annum. This finding is contrary to several recent Australian Government inquires that suggest the basic operating grant is inadequate and that this compromises the quality of undergraduate teaching.

Higher education students are increasingly engaging in work experiences, often directed towards enriching their study and promoting employability. Considerable institutional and personal resources are directed towards these experiences. It is important, therefore, to identify how to utilise them in achieving particular educational purposes. An earlier study found the optimum time for educational interventions is after students had completed work experiences, as they can share, compare and engage critically with those experiences. As these interventions are premised on student engagement, it is important to understand: (i) the reasons why and (ii) means by which they prefer particular interventions. This paper discusses the findings of a survey of higher education students from healthcare disciplines that sought to address those two issues. Students reported a preference for processes assisting them gauge and further develop their occupational capacities and readiness to secure employment and practice effectively once employed. Those interventions led, facilitated or guided by teachers or experts (i.e. clinicians), were preferred over student-organised and led ones. These students place lower value on peer assistance and feedback. This finding contradicts recent literature indicating being assessed by peers is greatly valued. It is these findings and discussions that are elaborated here.

Time control plays a critical role within the online mastery learning (OML) approach. This paper examines the two commonly implemented mastery learning strategies--personalised system of instructions and learning for mastery (LFM)--by focusing on what occurs when there is an instructional time constraint. Using a large data set from a postgraduate finance course offered at an Australian university, we explore students' online quiz-completion patterns, then empirically investigate whether the imposition of an instructional time constraint in the OML approach has an impact on their final-examination performance. Our results suggest that the LFM strategy with an instructional time constraint has a positive impact on students' learning behaviour and contributes to better overall academic performance. Further, our findings suggest that facilitators should be encouraged to implement an instructional time constraint when adopting an OML approach.

The field of research (FoR) that an academic participates in is both a manifestation of, and a contributor to the development of their identity. When an academic changes that FoR the question then arises as to how they reconcile this change with their identity. This paper uses the identity-trajectory framework to analyse the discourse of 19 engineering academics in relation to their educational research. The findings reveal insights into the identity changes experienced in the transition from typical engineering academic to engineering education researcher. Participants' responses illustrate how various aspects of their research activities contribute to the development of the networking and intellectual strands of their academic identity as engineering education researchers, and the effect of their university environment on this development. Conference participation was found to be an important contributor to progression of the intellectual and networking strands of identity-trajectory for researchers at all stages of development, although for different reasons.

The aim of this paper is to discuss the value of service-learning to students. There currently exists a gap in this understanding. We apply mixed-methods research using a sample of higher education students to develop this discussion. We found that students valued service-learning for the opportunity that it provides to increase their personal citizenship skills. We suggest this reflects Habermas' framework of knowledge/interests, namely instrumental, hermeneutic and emancipatory. Our findings further highlight a significant difference between males and females in the value that students attached to service-learning. We suggest that these findings can inform us about the aspects we should consider when developing learning and teaching approaches in service-learning.

Despite the well-documented challenges that artists face in developing and sustaining a viable career, there is ongoing interest and enrolment in higher education programmes in the creative and performing arts. At the same time, extant research demonstrates that a higher education degree does not necessarily lead to enhanced career success for graduates of these programmes. Hence, this paper explores survey data from 120 creative and performing arts students at a regional Australian higher education institution, in terms of their motivation to study at this level and to pursue a career as an artist. The findings reveal various insights into the factors that motivate this group of students, as well as issues of wider relevance to providers of higher education programmes in the creative and performing arts.

The scholarly literature in higher education has not dealt extensively with the responsibilities of institutions for servicing the rights of international students. This paper is a comparative analysis of legal frameworks which guide institutions in their handling of international student rights. Two national approaches, those of Australia and New Zealand, are used as a comparative analysis from which implications are drawn for institutions in other countries. The comparison indicates increasing legalism in higher education, though more law does not necessarily coincide with better rights for students. Also indicated is the importance of institutions providing more and better information to students on rights. More generally the analysis implores institutions to form, and work with, a critical understanding of the law and policy agendas of governments.

Despite compelling qualitative arguments for scale and scope economies in university-level distance education, as distinct from traditional class-based face-to-face instruction, there is little rigorous quantitative evidence in support. In this paper, we explore the scale and scope economies of distance education using a multiplicatively separable cost function and a sample of 37 Australian public universities over the 10-year period from 2003 to 2012. The results suggest strong overall scale and scope economies and product-specific scale economies for distance education. Further, the economies of scope for distance education are increasing with mean output, suggesting an increasing cost benefit of producing distance education in conjunction with traditional class-based face-to-face teaching. This provides an important implication: when allocating places for different modes of attendance or considering further expansion of student numbers, there should be a priority on distance education as a means of achieving significant cost savings.

The promise of higher education remains elusive for many Indigenous students in Australia. To date, institutional efforts to improve the persistence and retention of Indigenous students have been largely piecemeal, poorly integrated and designed to remediate skill deficits. Yet, market-led expansion of Australian higher education is driving curricular reform and demands for accountability and quality. Despite this, very little is known about how teaching and pedagogy can be used to support the learning and persistence of Indigenous students. In this context, the paper provides a reconceptualization of current debates and positions that are currently bound up within the limitations of questionable binary divides and oppositions, for example, educational psychology/sociology, transmission/critical or decolonial pedagogies and Indigenous/Western Knowledge. Nakata's concept of the Cultural Interface is mobilized to acknowledge some of the nuances and complexities that emerge when Indigenous and Western knowledge systems come into convergence within the higher education classroom.