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Management educators have developed a wide variety of approaches to ensure students develop job-ready skills, resilience, and other forms of career capital to gain and retain employment in an ever-changing, competitive job market. Yet, concerns about the employability agenda's consequences for students' self-concept and wellbeing have gained urgency amid a crisis of confidence in capitalism. Humanistic approaches to management education map an alternative path, starting from students' unique values, voices, and experiences, and leading to the pursuit of a personal purpose. In this essay, we explore the tensions and potential synergies of the career capital and personal purpose approaches to career preparation and support. Building on our experiences at the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Business and Economics, we discuss how integrative learning experiences can combine these two approaches to (1) encourage students to recognize the mutual influence of career capital and personal purpose; and (2) provide rich opportunities for external stakeholder involvement to contribute to students' career capital and personal purpose development efforts. We believe that our proposals for embracing both career capital and personal purpose considerations can help management educators recalibrate their efforts to help students develop personally meaningful and sustainable careers.

Cooperative education and principles associated with learning ecosystems appear throughout the literature. However, the application of cooperative education and learning ecosystems to work-integrated learning has not been fully examined. Furthermore, the applicability of learning ecosystems within work-integrated learning to specific professional practice domains has similarly not previously been examined. The development of domain-specific work-integrated learning ecosystems and an explanation of how they might apply to cooperative education in higher education, the purpose of this paper, are explored from three sequentially related conceptual levels: Level 1), a proto-theoretical model of cooperative education > Level 2), a functional model of a work-integrated learning ecosystem > Level 3), an example of an applied model of a work-integrated learning ecosystem. Specifically, the paper explores how policing, presented here as a working example of a socially important practice domain, has been developed into a work-integrated learning ecosystem within the Australian higher education context.

Universities around the world face a common challenge -- producing graduates with the necessary practical skills for employment. Cooperative education and work-integrated learning (WIL) make a valuable contribution to increasing graduate employability, however, there are differences in the level of cooperation from industry and government commitment. A comparative study of WIL in Germany, Australia, and South Korea, focusing predominantly on three universities, showed differences in the approaches to achieving practical experience and increasing graduate employability. The data underlying the research was derived from questionnaires, a focus group session, and the development of a descriptive, multi-case study. This allowed comparisons and contrasts between the three universities to be identified. The results and conclusions outlined in this paper aim to highlight best practice in cooperative education and WIL and provide recommendations for the future development of cooperative education, in order to improve graduate employability.

Focussing on a specific higher education online learning environment (OLE), this study aims to investigate and analyse instructional designs that employ Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Teaching Presence, Authenticity and Group Skills Development as educational strategies to mitigate group work issues and subsequently encourage collaborative group work. Group work is a challenging learning space for both participants and facilitators in the higher education sector. Known issues such as free riding, unfair marking and a lack of existing group work skills in the student cohort, create a catalyst for conflict which can lead to negative perceptions and avoidance of group work. Isolation and the resulting independent learning culture typifying online study contexts further challenge collaborative and active learning pedagogies required in contemporary online adult learning and assessment contexts.

Postsecondary cooperative (PSE co-op) education is a structured method of combining classroom-based education with practical work experience, for which Ontario is termed a "hot bed." Adopting a mixed-methods design, this study explores the status and characteristics of Ontario's PSE co-op in the national and the global contexts through the knowledge map analyses. Then, with three case studies at University of Waterloo, Brock University, and University of Victoria, it examines particular aspects of Ontario's PSE co-op concerning some significant questions such as what exactly distinguishes PSE co-op in Ontario, what can be done--especially with new "work-integrated learning" ideas and approaches--to continuously improve this type of experiential education, and how co-op education can be steered to better meet the changing needs in the 21st century.

Work-integrated learning (WIL) experiences rely heavily on the development of relationships between the university, industry and often community organizations. As participation in WIL is increasing, the issue of sustainability becomes paramount, requiring processes and practices for effective collaborations and partnerships. This paper reports on an action research project to develop a framework to represent the critical success factors for sustainable WIL relationships. Drawing on reflections from WIL practitioners on what they considered were the critical success factors and a review of literature, a framework was developed, prioritizing three key themes: communication, commitment and compatibility. Within these themes, nine key factors were identified and then evaluated by academic and industry stakeholders in New Zealand, Canada and Australia. Trust, expectations, reciprocity, coordination, vision, learning, resources, reputation, and recognition were confirmed as important factors for sustainable WIL relationships. The framework provides good practice guidelines for all WIL stakeholders.

Assessment is said to drive student learning, though the value of a 'grade' within work-integrated learning (WIL) is still not clear and most field placement students do not want their learning to be assessed beyond a pass/fail grade. Is then, the 'learning' in WIL as important as 'learning' in non-WIL courses? The focus of this paper is on the 'value' stakeholders place on the academic standards and grading practices in WIL. Data from a small qualitative constructivists grounded theory study undertaken in the Human Services sector will be used and how to grade 'reflection' will link learning, assessment and grading practices, identifying the difficulties and challenges to mainstreaming WIL. The importance of employability from a WIL experience will be the focus of a future paper.

This study was conducted to identify challenges and potential strategies to streamline work-integrated learning placements for multidisciplinary teams of students undertaking degrees in sustainability. Face-to-face interviews using a semi-structured questionnaire were conducted with 15 academics and senior university staff, from four universities in Australia, who had extensive experience conducting WIL programs for undergraduate students. Key findings were that placing small teams of students was uncommon but partnerships with established specific professional vocational degrees are feasible. Management of multidisciplinary teams require four components: a central portal with a designated person(s) to coordinate and oversee all WIL programs; a university committee with representatives from each school and a chair that rotates between schools to vet WIL projects; a generic work-ready skills program that commences in the first year; and a project-based WIL placement with students self-mentoring and host supervisors providing generic supervision.

This paper examines higher education quality policy developments internationally (U.K., U.S.) and in Australia with respect to the role of learning standards and assessment in work-integrated learning. Whilst remaining located primarily within the Australian higher education context, the paper briefly identifies some of the more influential global drivers and identifies how they play a significant role in shaping national agendas. The second part of this paper traces the development of quality policy in Australian higher education with respect to learning standards, and in particular it focuses on the policy intention to develop 'direct measures' of learning, which, it is argued, is potentially detrimental to work-integrated learning (WIL). The third part of this paper analyses key tensions associated with learning standards in terms of the assessment practices used to warrant them, identifying specific challenges in the context of WIL. The final section of the paper draws together these issues, identifying a number of implications and opportunities for the assessment of WIL in the current Australian quality policy environment.

Work integrated learning (WIL) units can be discipline specific and constructed for majors or degrees with a strong vocational orientation. This paper describes an undergraduate unit with its genesis in a public relations internship. The original unit enjoyed strong support from industry partners and was instrumental in many graduates securing employment. The school owning the public relations major also offers other majors and degrees and sought to capture the eagerness of students to engage in workplace participation, but against an institutional imperative to consolidate teaching activities The challenge was to create sufficient universality without diluting the success enjoyed by the PR internship program or detracting from the need for effective WIL outcomes. The result was a set of processes, assessments and management practices that could be efficiently and readily adopted by any participating discipline. The unit could run every semester and separate disciplines could opt in or out. Efficiencies were to be optimized while still delivering the outcomes desired by students, industry partners, and the academics involved.

This paper aims to demonstrate the benefits of introducing the typical course grading process to a work-integrated learning course in exercise science in order to motivate students to produce their best efforts in assessment tasks relevant to their future employability. The course had incorporated a non-graded pass/fail system of assessment since it was first offered but changed to a typical university grading process in 2011. At the completion of the course a two-page questionnaire was administered to all students to determine their opinions of changing from a non-graded to a graded form of assessment. Additionally, seven students volunteered for a 20 minute individual interview to examine how the grading of the course affected a number of factors related to their learning in the course. The results of the study indicated that students supported the change from a non-graded to a graded system of assessment. Minimal negative concerns were reported by students The findings suggest that students prefer the use of a graded system of assessment in a work-integrated learning course in exercise science They perceived that grading of the course increased their motivation to submit high quality responses for all assessment items and provided them with an opportunity to improve their grade point average (GPA), for entry into post-graduate programs, as well as rewarding them for their efforts towards academic excellence and preparing them for their future careers.

This paper compares four work-integrated learning (WIL) streams embedded in a professional Development course for tourism, hospitality and event management students. Leximancer was used to analyze key themes emerging from reflective portfolios completed by the 137 students in the course. Results highlight that student learning outcomes and experiences differed depending on the WIL stream chosen. Aristotle's notions of episteme, techne and phronesis are used as a broad framework for situating the key themes that emerge from students' reflections.

Big business continues to request universities to produce graduates who possess both technical and generic skills. Although work-integrated learning (WIL) programs can be used to develop these skills, WIL placements in Australia are undertaken by a minority of students. Perceiving a gap, one Australian university undertook a major WIL revamp to expand WIL offerings embedded within its courses. This required major organizational change that impacted significantly on curriculum design. From a quality assurance perspective, this paper provides an overview of a revised WIL program in the accounting discipline, and discusses the issues and challenges associated with the revised WIL program four years after its implementation. The findings demonstrate that the discipline area has not yet fully met the revamped WIL program as defined by university policy. Recommendations are provided that form a valuable learning tool for educational institutions considering embedding broadly defined WIL within their courses.

Work-integrated learning has become an integral part of many undergraduate and postgraduate degrees, both in Australia and internationally. Such programs vary in structure, timeframe and discipline type, with concomitant amounts of support, assessment and evaluation. Their value to students, industry partners and higher education institutions, while of considerable potential, depends on a range of factors including the level of resourcing (i.e. level of funding, involvement of a project coordinator, strength of communication among participants), how optimally matched students are to projects, and the use of evaluation and reflection tools to refine and improve them. This paper reports on the development, implementation and evaluation of an inaugural research-oriented WIL program for high-achieving science students at Monash University. The research-related nature of this WIL program has been of considerable value to students and industry partners. Further, it has established ongoing links between the University and industry partners, and provides a strong foundation for establishing a faculty coordinated WIL program.

Universities are being placed under increasing pressure to produce employable work ready graduates who are able to cope in a rapidly changing work environment. This has resulted in universities offering their undergraduate students the opportunity to gain business acumen and real world experience by undertaking work-integrated learning (WIL) as part of their learning. This paper proposes a three stage framework to effectively embed WIL into an undergraduate accounting program. Through careful planning and implementation in three accounting courses, students are encouraged to build essential discipline knowledge and transferable generic skills like communication, teamwork and problem-solving. The WIL framework developed seeks to narrow the expectations gap between industry, academia and students. It supports the development of graduates who can respond to rapidly changing economic circumstances, making them more employable and adaptable at the workplace.

WIL has attracted considerable attention as an instrument for enhancing professional practice and developing work-readiness in new graduates. It is widely considered as a point of difference in developing graduate employability by enhancing skill outcomes, such as team-work, communication, self-management and problem solving, employment prospects and student understanding of the world-of-work. This paper investigates the role of WIL in improving undergraduate employability skills; gauging its impact on a range of skills; and identifying variations in outcomes for certain demographic, study background and placement characteristics using survey data from 131 WIL students in an Australian university. Results indicate a significant improvement in undergraduates' perceived ability to perform all ten employability skills following placement. Study background and demographic characteristics produced minor variations in skill outcomes, both in general and specific to the completed placement. The number of hours completed in the workplace was of particular importance. Implications for placement design are discussed.

Preparing medical students to be agentic learners is held to be increasingly important. This is because beyond sequencing, enhancing and varying of experiences across university and health care settings, medical students require epistemological agency to optimize their learning. The positioning of students in these settings, and their engagement with these is central to effective medical education. Consequently, when considering both the processes and outcomes of individuals' learning to become a doctor, it is helpful to account for the interrelated pedagogical factors of affordance, guidance, and engagement. This paper focuses on the last set of concerns--the student's engagement--with particular consideration to how they shape the relations between what experiences are afforded through the medical program and how they elect to engage with them. Evidence from a qualitative study is used to present five salient factors that are central to assist medical students prepare as agentic learners.

This article presents the author's response to "An Experiment in Method" by J.L.J. Wilson. In 1960-61 Wilson was invited to give lectures on "modern techniques in adult education" as part of a training school for those involved in the work of developing "Co-operatives for Aborigines" which were sponsored by the Australian Board of Missions--the national mission agency of the Anglican Church in Australia, and an organisation that is still active. In Wilson's own words, the school "consisted of two courses for two groups--one for aborigines, the other for European teachers, administrators and missionaries working in aboriginal settlements." To his credit, Wilson decided that lecturing either of the groups on modern techniques in adult education was inappropriate, and instead conducted what he considered at the time to be "an experiment in method"--a problem-solving approach based on group discussion using the knowledge and experience brought by the participants to an issue that was meaningful and relevant to them. The article therefore consists of a report of these sessions, with Wilson's reflections and questions on the relevance of this method more generally to adult education, compared with that of the "ordinary lecture-discussion session." The author points out that the article: (1) presents a historical snapshot of a moment in adult education in Australia when an argument was being presented for the importance of introducing group methods in teaching adults--"Americans have been doing it for years"; and (2) gives a fascinating account of a non-Indigenous Australian grappling with ways to describe his experiences of working with a group of Indigenous Australians from different urban and rural areas and language groups.

A one week's school for training in the work of Co-operatives for Aborigines was held at "Tranby" by the Australian Board of Missions in February this year, organized by the Rev. Alfred Clint. It was the third successive year in which such a school was held. As in former years it consisted of two courses for two groups--one for aborigines, the other for European teachers, administrators and missionaries working in aboriginal settlements. The main part of the course dealt with the principles and practices of native Co-ops and experiences with them in the Pacific, Australia and elsewhere. The author had been asked to give one lecture to the European group in 1960, on "modern techniques in adult education", and feeling this was quite inappropriate, had applied the method described in this article to an aspect of their work. This had resulted in her being asked to take three sessions and try the same method with the aborigine group at the school, as well as one session with the Europeans. This article consists of a report on these sessions, together with some reflections and questions on the relevance of the method to other aspects of educators' work, in particular to that of the ordinary lecture-discussion session. The method used in the sessions reported on is not new. Americans have been using it for years. Its application in this instance arose from experience in a "tutors' workshop" in 1959-60, and subsequent experiments by other tutors in two short courses and with some groups.

A fundamental aspect of work integrated learning (WIL) is the development of professional competence, the ability of students to perform in the workplace. Alignment theory therefore suggests that the assessment of WIL should include an assessment of students' demonstration of professional competence in the workplace. The assessment of professional competence in WIL is, however, problematic. It may be impractical for the academic supervisor to directly assess professional competence if there are a large number of students in external placements. If evidence of professional competence is provided by the student, the student's ability to articulate his or her own capabilities will interfere with the validity of the assessment. If evidence of professional competency is provided by the supervisor then the assessment is heavily dependent on the individual supervisor and may be unreliable. This paper will examine the literature relating to the assessment of professional competence in WIL. The paper will be informed by the author's experience in coordinating a WIL subject in an undergraduate law course. It will recommend that a mix of evidence provided by the student, the workplace supervisor and the academic supervisor should be used to assess professional competence in WIL.

Placement providers can be successfully involved in assessing students. This is demonstrated in the Monash University Faculty of Information Technology Cooperative Education Program. Students are thoroughly prepared for their placements and industry supervisors receive written assessment guidelines. Not one student has been awarded a pass grade by the programme director, when the host supervisor thought the student would not make it in the profession and should not pass the placement.

In today's Web 2.0 world, teachers are perpetually struggling with how to incorporate technology into the classroom effectively in order to meet the diverse literacy needs of 21st-century learners. Utilizing the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE, 2008) Position Statement addressing these needs, the theoretical framework of Lankshear and Knobel (2006), and work by Cummins, Brown, and Sayers (2007) emphasizing the possibilities of technology in achieving literacy goals, a framework by which to assess the incorporation of technologies in classrooms as a means to build students' new literacies was created. Finally, as a specific example, the framework was applied to the use of wikis to illustrate the literacy learning potential of both wikis and other new technologies. (Contains 12 online resources and 9 figures.)

Community engagement is growing across higher education. Cooperative education and other internships are well established in the literature as pedagogies with links to experiential and connected learning. Cooperative programs combine business, industry, educational providers and students paid on-the-job. Most studies of work-based learning focus on individual or small group-based models. This paper reports on a large and complex work-integrated project involving 35 students from seven disciplines in an Australian higher education context. The students took 10 weeks to research, design and implement an online financial skills training program for small business owners. Students worked in teams to create an online content management system, design the website, develop and edit content and produce audio visual material. Feedback from industry partners and students identified that greater attention to planning, student selection and overall project management could have increased the overall benefits. Findings suggest specific ways to improve large group work-based programs. (Contains 1 table.)

Teaching in universities can be a solitary pursuit, with academics designing and delivering learning and teaching experiences, and even units, in relative isolation. Even course design can involve only a small, discipline-specific team that rarely extends to colleagues outside their specialisation. The challenges and possibilities provided by introduction of work integrated learning (WIL) to universities offer an unprecedented opportunity for staff to share knowledge and experience across disciplines to enhance student learning. This paper focuses on an opportunity for such cross-discipline collaboration on the issues of WIL through a roundtable event at the University of Tasmania. The roundtable allowed staff from across the institution to share successes, challenges and resources and then to make recommendations to address identified issues. (Contains 1 table.)

This paper examines the use of online information resources by Economics, Finance, and Marketing 3rd year students in a cooperative education program and explores some possible factors and issues that influence how students use these resources. The nature of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) programs, the business information environment, and the information seeking behaviour of students are discussed. Barriers to using online information resources and workplace information literacy are also reviewed. From this better understanding of the online information resources used by students on work placement will emerge and assist the Library in assessing its acquisition of resources and designing of information literacy training. (Contains 1 table.)

Higher education programs need to prepare their graduates for the practical challenges they can expect to face upon entering the workforce. Students can be better prepared if their academic learning is reinforced through authentic workplace experience, where the link between theory and professional practice can be realized. Increasingly, such learning in the workplace is being seen as an integral part of the university curricula as evidenced through the implementation of the Learning the Workplace & Community (LiWC) Policy at Victoria University, Australia. This policy mandates a minimum of 25% content and assessment of all academic programs be related to work-integrated learning. Recognizing the need for authentic workplace experience in the IT undergraduate program, a review found that the existing work-related learning component accounted for only half the required 25% LiWC commitment. Currently, the LiWC component is an industry-based capstone project that spans two semesters in the final year of study. These projects allow students to work on real-life software development tasks where they experience the practical challenges of building software systems whilst appreciating the needs of a business client. In a search of the literature, campus-located industry projects were identified as one of the two most common work-related learning experiences in IT programs, the other being internships sited in the workplace. By retaining the current project-based component, it was decided to add an internship to the program to further bolster the student learning experience and graduate outcomes. This paper details the existing program structure and explores two possible implementations for the achievement of the LiWC policy. The first approach necessitates the addition of one academic year of cooperative education internship to be placed strategically between the current second and third years. Alternatively, the second proposal sacrifices several elective units to accommodate a final semester internship experience. The paper discusses both alternatives against various issues under consideration: staffing and administration, assessment, industry partnerships, professional accreditation and its impact upon differing cohorts of students. (Contains 3 figures.)

Tertiary educators are being directed by government policy: to develop a learning environment where participants become more than passive receivers of knowledge and to skill the workforce through technical skills and competency-based education. Professional development is needed for compliance, and to develop and maintain generic, productivity, and technical attributes relevant to the profession. Profession and career development, for continued employability and professional recognition, involves "skilling for the workforce" through enriched self-directed and lifelong learning. The article examines what could be a tertiary education response on the part of universities. This is through developing a learning environment which addresses the various motivating policies and common educational drivers in professional practice. It further examines the suitability of Work-Integrated Learning (WIL), as a recognised integrative learning environment, to provide a foundation for effecting self-directed professional development. (Contains 5 tables.)

While numerous publications signal the merits of collaborative research, few studies provide interpretive analyses of collaborative-research practices or collaborative relationships. Through this multiple case study design of collaborative-research teams, the authors attempt to provide such an analysis by focusing on the collaborative-research experiences of seven qualitative researchers from two contrasting research teams in Australia and North America. They highlight how solidarity emerged from successful interactions between interdependent members, and how these were both professionally and personally rewarding for individuals and the teams. As well, they identify the opportunities for solidarity afforded to researchers from vertical collaborations (i.e. collaborations involving differential status between team members) that featured evolving and transforming mentoring relationships through the history of the research projects. They propose that solidarity can be stratified within large research teams through sub-units like dyads. Finally, they suggest that collaborating researchers might benefit from reviewing case studies of collaborative relationships, and engaging in mutual interrogation and subsequent individual reflections of their articulated collaborative practices and relationships. (Contains 4 notes.)

Illustrates ethical conflicts in the relationship of cooperative education program administrators, instructor coordinators, industry sponsors, and students regarding the following issues: fair and equal access in application, influence of scholarship funds on student choices, balance of academic and work experiences, clash between research objectives and sponsors' hiring needs, and recruitment. (SK)

Cooperative-education experiences of 80 Australian, 107 Dutch, 50 English, and 50 Scottish students were compared. Australian students expected higher workplace involvement, greater control, and more work pressure than did Dutch students. The Dutch had lower expectations of the social climate. Scottish students expected more autonomy on the job. (SK)

Development and implementation of a Victoria College (Australia) bachelor's degree course in technological management is described. The program has innovative features, including flexible entry and exit points, three levels of award, and delivery in the workplace through computers and self-paced materials. Implementation in two motor vehicle manufacturing plants is analyzed. (MSE)