ASCILITE News

Call for Proposals for a Special Issue of AJET in 2021/22

The editors of the Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) welcome expressions of interest from individuals or teams interested in guest editing a special issue of the journal in late 2021 or early 2022.

Expressions of interest of up to 500 words should include the following information:

Names and affiliations of guest editor(s), including experience and brief biographical details
Proposed special issue theme, including possible topics
The relevance of the theme to the scope and coverage of the journal
The significance of the theme in advancing the field of educational technology in higher education

The proposals will be reviewed by the AJET Lead Editors and members of the Editorial Board. Full proposals will then be requested from shortlisted EOIs.

Please email your expression of interest to the AJET Editors. The deadline for EOIs is 5 October 2020.

Call for Nominations to the Executive Committee

Current ASCILITE financial members are now invited to stand for election to the ASCILITE Executive Committee.

ASCILITE members who value the services and professional community engagement offered through our not-for-profit Society, and who believe they have the time, commitment and dedication to work in a voluntary capacity to contribute toward a variety of ASCILITE activities, are invited to nominate for election to the Executive Committee.

You will find details of current Executive Members here. A summary of Executive roles and the work of the Executive is outlined in the document Prospective Executive Committee Member Information.

For further information on the work of the Society or the Executive Committee please contact the President, Vice-President or any Executive Committee member. You may access committee member email addresses from the Executive Committee listings on the ASCILITE website. Committee members will be happy to answer your questions by phone or email.

The Call for Nominations is open to all financial members from 7 September to 29 September 2020 and voting will be open to members from 30 September to 21 October 2020. Members will be sent candidate information with an online voting link on 30 September and the results of this ballot will be announced at the ASCILITE Annual General Meeting at ASCILITE 2020.

You will find further details of the election schedule, positions available and nomination forms on the ASCILITE website here.

ASCILITE 2020 Virtual Conference Keynote Speaker

Registration is open for the ASCILITE virtual conference (30 Nov – 1 Dec 2020). The registration fee for ASCILITE members is $100 and $250 for non-members (the non-member rate includes one year ASCILITE membership). Don’t miss this great Technology Enhanced Learning event.

2020 keynote speaker – Prof Shane Dawson

Professor Shane Dawson is the Executive Dean of Education Futures and Co-Director of the Centre for Change and Complexity in Learning (C3L) at the University of South Australia. Shane’s research focuses on the application of learning analytics to inform learning design, educational technologies and overall teaching and learning quality. He has published widely on topics from creative capacity to social network analysis and more recently, on the application of complexity models in learning analytics.

His current research interests relate to complex systems and academic leadership to aid adoption and application of learning analytics at scale. With the support of many talented colleagues, Shane has been involved in the development of numerous open source software including the Online Video Annotations for Learning (OVAL) tool, OnTask (a personalised learner feedback tool), and SNAPP, a social network visualization tool designed for teaching staff to better understand, identify and evaluate student learning, engagement, academic performance and creative capacity.

Final reminder: Learning Analytics SIG Webinar on Design principles for human-centered actionable learning analytics

Date & Time: 8 September 2020 @ 4:30pm AEST (Australia). You will find the start times for the session in other time zones here. This is a free event open to members and non-members.

Abstract: Designing for effective and efficient pedagogical interventions and orchestration in complex Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) ecosystems is an increasingly challenging issue. In spite of the significant potential of Learning Analytics (LA) research, it is still unclear how can LA be designed to position teachers as designers of effective interventions and orchestration actions.

This talk argues for Human-Centered Design (HCD) and orchestration of actionable learning analytics. It provides a review of needs and existing approaches for HCD in LA is provided, and it proposes three HCD principles for LA solutions, i.e., agentic positioning of teachers and other stakeholders; integration of the learning design cycle and the LA design process; and reliance on educational theories to guide the LA solution design and implementation.

Full details, including a presenter bio and registration are available here.

Reminder: 2020 ASCILITE Awards Open for Nominations

Each year, ASCILITE members are invited to apply or nominate for the ASCILITE awards and to consider nominations that they believe meet the criteria set for each award. The four award categories available to members in 2020 are as follows:

Innovation Award
Emerging Scholar Award
Community Fellow Award
Life Member Award

Full details of each award along with the criteria and nomination forms for each award are available on the ASCILITE website here.

Reminder: 2020 CMALT (ePortfolio Development) cMOOC starts 14 September

Are you interested in gaining international accreditation for your experience and expertise in integrating technology in teaching and learning? The Certified Member of the Association for Learning Technology (CMALT) provides peer reviewed recognition aligned with the UK higher education professional standards framework. ASCILITE has an agreement with ALT (UK) that provides for accreditation under CMALT Australasia.

The Melbourne Centre for the Study of Higher education at the University of Melbourne are hosting a cMOOC (connectivist Massive Open Online Course) to support academics and allied staff in the development of portfolios for CMALT accreditation, and to provide an opportunity participate in a global network of higher education professionals.

The cMOOC is completely free and is aimed at participants sharing experiences as they explore developing CMALT eportfolios, and building their professional academic online profiles.

The 2020 iteration of the #CMALTcMOOC launches with an introductory webinar on 14 September 9:30am AEST (Australia time), 14 September 11:30am (NZ time) and 13 September 10:30pm (UK time). Join us over 7 weeks as we explore the elements of a CMALT ePortfolio within an international support network.

You will be emailed a weekly webinar link after you sign-up.

A blog post on CMALT cMOOC is featured on ASCILITE’s TELall blog this week. You will find the post here.

Notification of the 2020 Annual General Meeting

As per the ASCILITE constitution, this is a notification and invitation to attend the 2020 ASCILITE Annual General Meeting (AGM) to be held virtually on Tuesday 1 December 2020, 12:30pm – 1:15pm in conjunction with the ASCILITE 2020 virtual conference, hosted by the University of New England. (The meeting time is tentative and the final time will be published in the conference schedule). The AGM agenda and supporting documents will be distributed via email to all members prior to the meeting.

All financial members of ASCILITE are invited to attend the meeting to vote on important issues, hear about plans for 2020 and welcome new Executive Committee members. We hope you can make it.

OTHER NEWS

JUTLP Special Issue on non-placement WIL now published!

The open access Journal of University of Teaching and Learning Practice (JUTLP) has released a Special Issue on new research and emerging forms of non-placement work-integrated learning (WIL).

While there is much evidence in the higher education teaching and learning scholarship that attests to the benefits of placement-based WIL for all stakeholders, innovation in WIL that integrates work practices with learning, facilitated by virtual platforms, is also occurring without time on placement or within a workplace. The uptake of non-placement learning activities presents as opportunity to investigate the benefits, utility and innovation of this growing pedagogy to contribute meaningful insights to higher education scholarship and practice. This Special Issue presents 13 papers of empirical research, practice papers or position perspectives of WIL programs around the globe.

JUTLP is open access and available for all to download, read and share: https://ro.uow.edu.au/jutlp/vol17/iss4/1/

CfP: Visualizations and Dashboards for Learning Analytics

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to invite you to submit your proposal for an edited volume on “Visualizations and Dashboards for Learning Analytics” to be published by Springer, Cham.

If you are interested to contribute to the book project, we are asking you to submit a 1-page proposal to Dirk Ifenthaler by 15 October 2020, including author’s name (co-authors are welcome), affiliations, tentative title, chapter outline (max. 300 words), five keywords, key references. Early submissions are encouraged. All submissions will undergo a rigorous double-blind peer review who will recommend full submissions from among the proposals. You may refer to the below detailed information or visit the website here.

Professor David Gibson
UNESCO Chair of Data Science in Higher Education Learning & Teaching
Curtin University