Across continents: A comparison of African and Australian academics' online preparedness

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted higher education across the globe, in particular the shift from face-to-face teaching and assessment, as well as interaction with students. In 2020, an online survey was distributed to African and Australian higher education academics to gather insights into academics’ transformation of educational practices during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. In particular it focused on the effects on the quality of teaching, learning and assessment. The survey questions investigated the comparison of the use of teaching and assessment technologies prior to, and during the COVID-19 pandemic; academics’ experiences with the sudden shift to work from home (WFH) arrangements and quality assurance measures for digital technologies. The sample included 71 academics across 12 Australian universities/tertiary institutions and 278 academics across 21 African higher education institutions. This study identified that while many Australian academics had prior experience and training in online/blended delivery, African academics, despite not having formal training in digital pedagogy, rated themselves as more than average in their ability to adopt technology for the online environment, just as the Australian cohort had. The most effective online tools adopted during the crisis in the African region were Zoom and WhatsApp while in the Australian region the learning management system (LMS) was the most popular. The major factors that affected African and Australian students’ ability to engage online included lack of access to connectivity and devices, technological competency and emotional and social factors. The results suggest that the predominant challenges faced by students as reported by academics across both continents in the “forced” remote work environment other than general anxiety about COVID-19 were social isolation (Aguilera-Hermida, 2020), connectivity for their students and the lack of a balanced work life (Kotteeswari & Sharief, 2014; Oliveira et al., 2021). This study has implications on institutions’ readiness in terms of capacity building for academic staff, infrastructure and support during digital delivery of courses

Experiences of female academics in Australia during COVID-19: Opportunities and challenges

An online survey collected data on a range of female academic experiences globally gaining 260 responses with 144 Australian specific academics’ responses (55% of total responses). The pandemic has highlighted positive opportunities such as online teaching and skill development, flexibility, time efficiency, increased collaboration, and time for research. In terms of challenges identified responses indicate an increased workload, less motivation for career progression, and perceptions of greater and obvious gender disparity and bias against female academics. Australia is often referred to as a ‘lucky country’ which can further be enriched though fostering its rich and diverse female academic community into the future. Rapid measures to support women immediately and with longer-term solutions that address gender equity is critical for female academics to ensure future engagement of female academics for positive economic and social growth as a nation

Case studies to enhance online student evaluation: Central Queensland University – The big red button

Student feedback is imperative to the improvement of courses and teaching. As stated by Harvey, “to make an effective contribution to internal improvement processes, views of students need to be integrated into a regular and continuous cycle of analysis, reporting, action and feedback”(2003, p. 4). Thus students are critical stakeholders in course evaluations, and can act as a mechanism to providing meaningful feedback about their experience, leading to improvements in learning and teaching

Case studies to enhance online student evaluation: University of Western Australia – A journey towards greater engagement through closing-the-loop

Feedback from students has shown time and again to be useful indicators of what is happening in the teaching and learning environments. Such feedback from students, pivot around the actions that are taken. This implementation of actions expresses to students that their voice is being heard in higher education institutions. To achive such utility of feedback provided by student, it is essential to ‘close the loop’ and constitutes; the collection of qualitative and quantitative feedback from all cohorts of students; triangulating the data from various sources to identify areas of good practice and areasneeding improvement; communicating the results and actions of the feedback with students and staff; implementing improvements in consultation with stakeholders; and monitoring the impact of actions in future student survey results. Such a framework would constitute effective quality assurances of the student feedback systems in higher education institutions

Can standards drop? social inclusion agenda and academic standards.

The social inclusion policies are implemented in the higher education sector to provide access and opportunity for all groups of people irrespective of their social class to participate in higher education. Such policies ensure that every citizen has access to elite education which enables them to succeed and improve their life chances. The renewal of quality assurance in Australian higher education with focus on academic standards and government’s aspiration to increase the proportion of disadvantaged students by 2020 in tertiary education raises the question on the extent to which social inclusion policies could lower academic standards. This paper argues that contemporary trends such as increased student diversity; changing pattern of student participation in higher education; preparedness of many students for tertiary education; and new modes of learning will continue to grow and it is not necessary that such changes will lower academic standards. The authors provide a case of an Australian university with success in the social inclusion agenda with positive outcomes with access and participation and comparable academic outcomes

Industry vs universities : re-engineering graduate skills - a case study

Students' learning outcomes show that graduates from university courses are lacking in important skills, such as communication, decision-making, problem solving, leadership, emotional intelligence, social ethics as well the ability to work with people from different backgrounds. Engineering graduates today need to work within multicultural and multinational workplace environments with adequate professional attributes or competencies. The missing links between engineering graduate attributes and employers' expectations are elaborated in the paper. This paper describes if engineering graduates of Monash meet industry expectations in terms of the attributes that bring along after graduations. The paper also proposes a model to address shortfalls of expectations

Preface : International Engineering and Technology Education Conference (IETEC’11)

The inaugural International Engineering and Technology Education Conference (IETEC'11) held at Taylor’s University, (Selangor), Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia between 16 and 19 January 2011. The IETEC'11 was organised to foster cooperation between a wide range of stakeholders of engineering and technology education to facilitate educational policy developments, learning, teaching and research that will help enhancing 21st century skills for global engineers and technologists. The IETEC’11 was jointly organised by an enthusiastic consortium of universities composing of Taylor's University Malaysia, CQUniversity Australia, the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) and the Universiti Tun Hussein Onn Malaysia (Malaysia (UTHM). The IETEC'11 was structurally organised in order to promote active participation of all attendees and presenters via plenary presentation sessions, key note addresses, interactive workshops and panel discussions. In addition, facilities were provided for group meetings and one-on-one interaction of the participants to discuss issues of engineering and technology education and to network with conference participants and organisations. With ever growing importance of quality of higher education to improve learning and teaching, the conference set out to create a meeting place not only to foster cooperation between a wide range of stakeholders of engineering and technology education but to initiate an international discourse to enhance educational policy, learning, teaching and research that will help shape and enhance skills for global engineers and technologists. Approximately 100 participants from countries covering the Asia Pacific, North and South America, Europe, the Indian sub continent and the Middle East regions had the opportunity to interact and discuss concepts, ideas and practices at the conference. The conference stimulated highly productive discussion and reflection. This publication is but one outcome of the conference. All papers contained in the Proceedings were presented at the conference. The proceedings are structured around four sections; keynote addresses, the refereed papers, the non-refereed papers and posters. All papers included in the “Refereed papers” section of this proceeding were refereed (double blind) by independent peer referees. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to all contributors for submitting quality papers and posters. Special thanks are to our reviewers, sponsors, supporters, exhibitors, conference speakers and special guests to make this event a great success! We look forward to assembling again in 2012. Arun Patil & Chenicheri Sid Nair, Editors, January 2011