ASCILITE NEWS

ASCILITE Spring into Excellence Research School: Register Now!

The Inaugural Spring into Excellence Research School is scheduled for 26 – 28 September 2017 at the University of Wollongong and as there limited places, be sure to register soon. A significant number of EOIs have been received already.

Expressions of interest to attend the school are due by 14 July 2017 and EOI outcome notifications will be sent by 28 July 2017. Successful applicants will be provided with registration payment details at that time.

You may register your interest here.

The registration fee, which includes lunches, morning and afternoon teas and 2 nights accommodation (26 & 27 September 2017), is $750 for ASCILITE members and $950 for non-members.

Featured guest speakers and presenters include Professor Barney Dalgarno, Associate Professor Rob Phillips and Emeritus Professor Margaret Lloyd.

The aim of the ASCILITE Spring into Excellence Research School is to:

Provide support and guidance to participants in developing and progressing Technology Enhanced Learning research initiatives including but not limited to:
– Formulating a relevant and effective TEL research project.
– Collecting appropriate TEL research data.
– Identifying what data is most appropriate for TEL research.
Assist participants to identify and plan a contemporary TEL research project.
Enable opportunities for participants to link with like-minded collaborators from other universities and potentially to establish viable cross-institutional research collaborations.
Guide participants in developing a grant application or research plan for a TEL research project. This would include both projects that have already been conceptualized as well as new projects that have not yet been conceived.

You will find further details on the school here.

New Student Bursary Award 2017

ASCILITE is excited to announce a new award in the form of two Student Bursaries in the amount of $1,000 each. To qualify, you must be a full-time PhD/EdD or equivalent student. Sponsorship of one or both bursaries is also available.

Benefits of the Award

Each of the two winners receives a $1,000 bursary to attend the ASCILITE conference and a one year student membership in ASCILITE along with the remaining funds to be put towards accommodation or travel assistance to attend the conference.
Winning submissions will be made available on the ASCILITE and/or conference website.
Winners will be included in the ASCILITE conference awards ceremony and if there is a sponsor for the award, they will be invited to present the award.
Winners may wish to participant in the ASCILITE community mentoring program.
In addition to the bursaries, one PhD/EdD or equivalent student Best Paper award will be announced and awarded at the 2017 ASCILITE conference (this may or may not be a Student Bursary applicant).

Use of Funds

Awardees will receive a $1,000 bursary in the form of a complimentary ASCILITE conference registration (student rate) and reimbursement of a one year ASCILITE membership. The remaining funds may be used for up to 3 nights accommodation at the conference or to assist with conference travel. Conference registration and accommodation arrangements will be made by ASCILITE on behalf of the award winners. If you are already a member of ASCILITE, your membership will be extended by 12 months.

How to apply

To apply for a bursary, PhD/EdD or equivalent students must complete the online Nomination Form which requires applicants to:

Attach proof of full-time student status, i.e. letter of offer into candidature.
Submit a link to a 3 – 5 minute video that demonstrates how well the applicant makes use of educational technologies, is able to communicate effectively through this technology and explains why the applicant should receive the bursary. Applicants may use any acceptable approach and format to create the video, e.g. talking head, animation, story, etc. Applicants must upload their video submission to an accessible video server for adjudication.
Winning submissions will be made available on the ASCILITE website and you will need to provide permission for this.
Applicants must become a member of ASCILITE to qualify for a bursary ($75 per annum) and this fee will be reimbursed to the winning applicant. If you are already a member, your membership will be extended by 12 months.

Associate Professor Sue Gregory is available for applicants who would like to ask questions about their application by way of a phone call or email beforehand. Sue can be emailed at sue.gregory@une.edu.au or contacted by phone on +61 2 6773 5054.

Please submit your applications to the ASCILITE Secretariat by 15 August 2017.

Further details and registration forms are available here.

New TELall Blog Post: “What do Academics really want out of Learning Analytics?”

In the latest TELall blog, Dr Danny Liu from the Student Relationship Engagement System (SRES) team at the University of Sydney talks about their highly successful learning analytics platform. It was in 2012 that two academics in the Faculty of Science started tinkering at an alternative, practical approach to learning analytics. Now in 2017, the university’s SRES platform is used by over 300 academics and professional staff across 17 departments in over 100 units of study, reaching over 20,000 students, and is being piloted at four other Australian universities. Its spread has been mainly due to academics seeing and hearing colleagues talk about its impact on their students and their teaching. What kind of learning analytics are academics so passionate about?

Read about SRES and watch a two minute video here on the TELall blog and don’t forget to subscribe to the TELall blog to receive new posts the moment they are published.

Danny and the SRES team will also be presenting a webinar on SRES Wednesday 28 June at 12pm AEST and you will find full details on the session below.

ASCILITE Live! Webinar: SRES: Empowering teachers to collect, analyse and act on meaningful data to engage students at scale

Date and Time: Wednesday 28 June 2017, 12:00pm (AEST). You will find your local time zone for the session here.

Abstract: The Student Relationship Engagement System (SRES) was developed at the University of Sydney to help academics personalise engagement with large student cohorts. Academics consistently report that positive feedback from students “shows how helpful the SRES is in allowing us to give the kind of personalised attention to students that time wouldn’t otherwise allow”. From marking attendance, analysing grades, collecting live feedback, and providing easy ways to personalise bulk feedback to students via emails and web portals, the SRES gives academics access to data that are meaningful in their contexts and helps them to create personalised learning environments with targeted feedback and support.

This unique and inherently practical application of learning analytics is currently used across 20 departments in over 100 units and reaches over 22,000 students at the University of Sydney. It has been credited with increasing student engagement, improving retention rates, and enhancing students’ learning outcomes. The SRES is also being piloted at the University of Melbourne and University of New South Wales. The project won the ASCILITE Innovation Award 2016.

In this webinar, find out more about how real academics have used the SRES to personalise learning and support for their students, get some hands-on time with the SRES, and hear about how you could pilot it at your institution.

Check out a 2-minute video introduction to the SRES: https://youtu.be/5kz1fa0S-AA

Presenters: The SRES team at the University of Sydney includes a mix of academics and professional staff, all with an interest in using data to improve the student experience.

Dr Danny Liu is a molecular biologist by training, programmer by night, researcher and academic developer by day, and educator at heart. A national teaching award winner, he focuses on wrangling technology to improve learning and teaching by working at the confluence of educational technology, student engagement, learning analytics, and professional development and leadership.

Professor Adam Bridgeman is Director of Educational Innovation at the University of Sydney and has received institutional and national awards for teaching and is an Australian National Teaching Fellow. He aims to invigorate and change learning and teaching culture through a focus on blended, collaborative, and interactive learning designs.

Kevin Samnick is an Educational Designer with a background in secondary STEM teaching, pharmaceutical research, and biology. He is an advocate for education, learning, technology, and ensuring students and teachers are our first priority in higher education.

Ruth Weeks is an Educational Design Manager with a background in teaching English as a foreign language and academic writing. She is passionate about teaching with technology and the future of digital education.

Registration: You can register for this webinar here. Login details for the session will be emailed to you.

LA SIG Webinar: Responsible Learning Analytics: A Tentative Proposal

Date and Time: Wednesday 21 June, 4pm AEST. You will find your local time zone for the session here.

Abstract: Implied in learning analytics as research focus and field of praxis, is the notion of “responsible learning analytics” – though it is certainly not a dominant theme. An overview of the social imaginary pertaining to learning analytics points to a range of topics, such as the huge potential in the collection, analysis and use of student data and emerging evidence of its use in a range of higher education contexts.

In the noisy scholarly, public and increasingly commercial spheres of claims and counter claims pertaining to a range of applications for learning analytics, there are also voices emphasising that we should not forget that learning analytics is about students and their learning. Often to the frustration of venture capitalist/commercial vendors of learning analytics software and systems, there are also scholars who ask uncomfortable questions such as the scope of student privacy and the need to move towards student-centred learning analytics. The range of ethical considerations in the collection, analysis and use of student data and increasingly, the moral fiduciary obligation arising from our collection and analysis of student data – are often uncomfortable reminders of unchartered fields of scholarly reflection and empirical research.

An etymology of the word ‘responsible’ points not only to the need to be answerable and accountable, but also to being response-able and the obligation to act. In this presentation, I propose that an answerable but also a response-able approach to learning analytics cut across the whole spectrum of the collection, analysis and use of student data. The fiduciary duty of higher education and the asymmetrical power relationships between higher education and students serve as basis for my exploration of accountability and response-ability in learning analytics. I will engage with a selection of issues in the collection, analysis and use of student data such as our beliefs regarding data and evidence; data quality, scope, and governance; student participation and the ethics of (not) knowing before concluding with a tentative proposal.

Presenter: Paul Prinsloo is a Research Professor in Open and Distance Learning (ODL) in the College of Economic and Management Sciences, University of South Africa (Unisa). His academic background includes fields as diverse as theology, art history, business management, online learning, and religious studies. Paul is an established researcher and has published numerous articles in the fields of teaching and learning, student success in distance education contexts, learning analytics, and curriculum development. His current research focuses on the collection, analysis and use of student data in learning analytics, graduate supervision and digital identity.

Paul was born curious and in trouble. Nothing has changed since then. His blog is here and his Twitter alias is @14prinsp

Registration: You may register for this session here. LA-SIG sessions are open to members and non-members.

OTHER NEWS

New Position: Deputy Director of Learning Design, Charles Sturt University

Full Time, Fixed term (up to 2 years)
Level C/D – $112,840 to $149,686 p.a. (Plus 17% Superannuation)
Albury-Wodonga, Bathurst, Orange or Wagga Wagga

The Deputy Director is an innovative leadership position with responsibility for assisting with the Director’s strategic work on course design and overseeing the Learning Design Unit’s (LDU) three teams: Subject/Module Design, Subject Delivery and Course/Program Design. The Deputy Director will ensure that Course Directors, Subject Convenors and academic staff in Faculties are supported and developed with regard to assessment design, professional learning, quality assurance, alignment to standards, the CSU Curriculum Learning and Teaching Framework and CSU policies.

A number of course teams, led in Faculties by Course Directors, are engaged in a systems approach to course design using CSU’s bespoke software, CourseSpace, as well as design and development of individual subjects. The Learning Design Unit also supports CSU initiatives such as the Online Learning Model and Assessment Quality.

Learning Design is one of five units in the Division of Student Learning. DSL comprises teams of academic and professional staff who work with Schools and Faculties to design curricula, develop effective online resources, monitor quality through a suite of evaluation and reporting services, offer professional learning programs for academics, as well as create and maintain central technology-supported learning and teaching environments.

Applicants are expected to apply online and address the selection criteria listed in the position description here.

Applications close 18 June 2017.