September 2009 — Volume 3, Issue 5

ALTC Discipline Scholars drive development of standards

Head of Learning Networks, Professor Christine Ewan has spearheaded a new direction for this core area of the ALTC placing academic standards at the centre of activity.

Standards have been an ALTC focus since it was established constituting three of the seven organisational responsibilities designated by the Commonwealth. Over the last four years the ALTC has injected in excess of $11 million into more than 70 standards-related projects with the majority completed recently or now coming to fruition.

Soon after her appointment in late June, Professor Ewan refined the focus of Learning Networks in light of government imperatives to introduce new quality assurance arrangements, key to which are the development of meaningful academic standards.

Professor Ewan said this development was extremely timely as it coincided with the recruitment of discipline scholars as part of Learning Networks move to support the disciplines and was taking place just as the ALTC was accumulating a growing body of knowledge on standards.

She said the Learning Networks strategy was formed as a capstone to draw together completed and future work, through a sustainable intra and inter- disciplinary collaborative effort, to achieve continuous improvement in academic programs.

“Discipline scholars are key to driving the strategy’s outcomes providing a bridge to the many academic discipline communities and developing ways of working together to meet key deliverables related to the
development of standards in learning and teaching,” Professor Ewan said.

Already the first discipline scholars appointed earlier this year are working with councils of deans and other relevant networks. The scholars are Professor Iain Hay (Flinders University), discipline scholar for arts, humanities and social sciences; Associate Professor Mark Freeman (University of Sydney), business,
management and economics; and Professor Ian Cameron (University of Queensland) and Associate Professor Roger Hadgraft (University of Melbourne) who are sharing the role for engineering and technology.

Recruitment of a further three discipline scholars in creative and performing arts; health, medicine and
veterinary science; and law was occurring as Communiqué went to press.

Professor Ewan said the ALTC was the ideal organisation to be a conduit between the various academic groups within the sector and to provide the necessary support for discipline communities to define academic standards in learning and teaching.

This aspect is crucial to the success of the new quality assurance measures as the government has stated that discipline communities will “own and take responsibility for implementing academic standards (working with professional bodies and other stakeholders where appropriate) within the academic traditions of collegiality, peer review and preeminence of disciplines”.

Professor Ewan said this ALTC work would support the government in its development of the new regulatory body, the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, and ideally provide a foundation for its work.

“The ALTC has a reputation for working collaboratively across the sector and will bring together councils of deans, the scholarly academies, professional accreditation groups as well as senior academic leaders through Universities Australia Deputy Vice-Chancellors/Pro Vice-Chancellors (Academic) Committee.”

A significant aspect of the standards work will be the creation of an evidence-based repository of good learning and teaching practice.

“Discipline scholars will oversee the peer review of work commissioned by the ALTC and its predecessors against standards of evidence to create a repository of evidencebased advice on curriculum and academic standards. This validated repository of evidence is intended to serve as a set of benchmarks for institutional curriculum design and review practices,” Professor Ewan said.

She said that project officers would be employed to support discipline scholars with this and other work and also to ensure the deadline is met for providing advice about a possible framework for the development of academic standards by late 2010.

The ALTC has also funded the councils of deans in the discipline areas represented by the inaugural discipline scholars to work on priority areas designed to create greater collaboration within and across disciplines.

Professor Ewan, the ALTC representative on the Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) standards project steering committee, believes this work will complement other activities planned as part of preparing for the new regulatory environment.

The ALTC has also held preliminary discussions with Australian Government representatives concerned with the European Tuning project. Further, discipline scholars, Professor Ian Cameron and Associate Professor Roger Hadgraft are involved in the OECD Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) project.

All discipline scholars are also closely monitoring related work in the UK and how all these projects link to the outcomes of the Bologna Process.

An invitation-only forum in February 2010 in Melbourne is planned to reach consensus on what academic standards mean as well as develop a project plan for each discipline. Professor Ewan said the detail of these plans would vary according to the discipline with some groupings more advanced in their thinking than others and not necessarily those involved in professional fields.

Head of Learning Networks
A leading senior academic, Professor Christine Ewan the Head of Learning Networks brings a wealth of experience to this important new role.

With degrees in medicine, anthropology and education as well as extensive experience in higher education teaching and learning policy and practice, Professor Ewan is an Emeritus Professor of the University of Wollongong where she was the pro vice-chancellor responsible for academic programs, learning support, academic quality assurance and teaching and learning. She has also been a deputy vice-chancellor
(academic) at the University of Western Sydney.

Recognised with an AM for her contributions to education, Professor Ewan has also worked in
the NSW Government senior executive service as general manager, planning and innovation in the NSW Department of Education. The author of numerous texts and articles on higher education, especially in the health professions, Professor Ewan has also served on numerous national committees including the National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Universities Teaching Committee and CUTSD, ALTC predecessors. She is also an AUQA auditor.