ASCILITE NEWS

ASCILITE23 Conference

Registrations are open!

Haven’t booked your flights yet? Just as well as you may want to think about coming a bit earlier or staying a little longer!

There are 7 pre-conference workshops planned for Sunday 3^rd which promises to be an engaging and interactive experience. We are also looking forward to you joining us for the early evening welcome function too”.

You also need to leave a bit of time to discover Christchurch and beyond. Even if you only have an extra day we have hot pools on the beach at New Brighton, epic views of city and the harbour , award winning wine within an hour’s drive, quaint eateries in the centre city, and adventure with the longest and highest zip line.

Register NOW

2023 ASCILITE Awards Open for Nominations

Nominations close 2 October 2023 

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 award categories available to members in 2023 are as follows:

• Innovation Award 
  • Celebrates work undertaken by an individual or team of people in support of the exemplary and research informed use of technologies for teaching and learning in tertiary education. Innovation is defined as a new idea, device or process. It is something original that “breaks into” teaching and learning in the tertiary sector.
    • The most outstanding Innovation Award: “The Allan Christie ASCILITE Innovation Award” (judged from Innovation Award nominations). Allan Christie was involved with ASCILITE since its conception in 1985. He was recognised with a Life Member award in 2003 (only the fourth person to receive this honour at the time). Allan continued to serve the Society for over 36 years and was on the ASCILITE Executive for 27 years when he retired from the Executive in December 2019. Allan was well known in higher education and sadly passed away suddenly last year. He is missed greatly in the ASCILITE circles.
• Anthology Instructional Designer of the Year Award, in memory of Allan Christie
  • In recognition of Allan Christie’s lifelong contribution to the sector, this award is professional staff member who has made significant contributions to learning and teaching. The award is sponsored by Anthology, to the value of $1,000
• Emerging Scholar Award 
  • Has made a noteworthy contribution in the exemplary use of ore research into technologies for learning and teaching in tertiary education
• Community Fellow Award 
  • Recognise the outstanding contributions of individual ASCILITE members in the exemplary building of connections in the wider community and into the ASCILITE community.
• ASCILITE/CAULLT Award for Outstanding Leadership in Digital Learning in Higher Education
  • Recognises evidence of an individual’s innovative and effective leadership in the broad use of digital technologies to enhance teaching, learning, and overall performance in higher education.
• Student Bursary Award 
  • Available to full-time PhD/EdD or equivalent students
• Life Member Award 
  • A prestigious award that recognizes the significant service and/or sustained contribution of an ASCILITE member to the Society

For further information on each award, refer to the specific award criteria and nomination form on the ASCILITE website.

AJET Update: New Issue Published and Final Reminder for AI-themed Issue

The AJET Editorial team are pleased to announce that a new issue of AJET has been published. This issue begins with an editorial on “The importance of a good review(er) for educational technology research” which explores the peer review process and what makes a good review. Other articles in the issue explore topics such as open educational practices, self-regulated learning in asynchronous online courses, flipped language classrooms, blended learning, and prior learning experiences in MOOCs. You can access the issue here.

The deadline for submissions for the AJET themed issues on “AI in Tertiary Education: impacts for research and practice” is Tuesday 15^th August 2023. We are inviting evidence-informed papers that address this theme, including but not limited to: conceptual papers about the roles of generative AI in tertiary education; effective and efficient use of generative AI in tertiary education; support for practitioners in the use of generative AI in tertiary education; and innovative pedagogical approaches to the use of generative AI in tertiary education. We consider manuscripts that present qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods studies, critical reviews or analyses, and theoretical positions.

For more information about how to submit to this themed issue please visit the AJET website.

Recording ASCILITE Live! with Turnitin Webinar – July 2023

A recording of the July 2023 ASCILITE Live! Webinar (our second for 2023 in collaboration with TurnItIn) talking about Contract Cheating, facilitated by Professor Michael Cowling from ASCILITE and Chukwudi Ogoh from TurnItIn, and with contributions from presenters Ling Mei Cong (RMIT), Kevin Argus (RMIT), Danielle Logan-Fleming (Griffith Uni), & Jessica Leung (Monash Uni).

Watch the recording of this very popular webinar here.

ASCILITE TELedvisors August webinar – What standard is that?

Three presenters will take us on a journey ranging from a course evaluation checklist to institutional TELAS.

Date: 31 August 2023
Time: 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm AEST

Please watch the ASCILITE event calendar for registration detailsScott Casley, Education Advisor, Eastern Institute of Technology, Tairawhiti, NZ
Te Papa Ako or the Educational Development Centre team lead the application of technology in learning and teaching at EIT. A big part of our role is to support and develop staff capability in the online space, and to advise faculty on how they can incorporate technology with effective teaching approaches to enable great learning experiences. This presentation will talk about two tools we use in our work with academic staff – the Learning Design Quality Standards and the Course Evaluation Checklist.

Dom McGrath, Teaching and Learning Manager, Institute for Teaching and Learning Innovation, UQ, Australia
UQ’s Digital Threshold Teaching Standards (DTTS) were developed in response to concerns about the quality of online teaching in the rapid response to COVID. This initiative threatened to become a punitive-quality-assurance-focused-audit but was maneuverer into a process built on appreciative-collegial-conversation, identifying enhancements to individual courses, enhancing staff networks, and providing evidence for institutional support. This presentation will explore these processes and possibly briefly display the standards.

Sarah Thorneycroft, Director, Digital Education, Education Futures, UNE, Australia
Institutional TELAS represents the first credential of its kind in the sector, allowing institutions to gain sector-recognised assurance as a provider of quality online learning. The program is a longitudinal engagement with three components that can be undertaken independently, or integrated with institutional initiatives such as LMS transition or digital uplift: Intitiaion phase, Asessment phase and Capability building. The pilot at UNE will run for approximately 18 months and align with UNE’s Project Uplift initiative. ASCILITE and UNE will be sharing the progress of the pilot with the community at the ASCILITE 2023 Conference.

OTHER NEWS

New CSU micro-credential: Data Driven Storytelling

Begins: 21/08/2023

Charles Sturt University is offering a new micro-credential ‘Data driven story telling’ that will enable you to develop and present a piece of original data-driven storytelling, incorporate the principles of data-driven storytelling into artefacts of relevance to professional practice and demonstrate user experience principles in data-driven storytelling artefacts. Enhancing these skills can help grow innovation and productivity.

Build your data analysis and business analytic skills today with these courses co-designed by IBM. There are some government funded places for those eligible and enrolments are open.

More information is here.

CRADLE Seminar Series: Developing learners’ feedback literacy in and for the workplace

Date:Tuesday 12 September 2023
Time: 2.00pm-3.30pm (AEST)
Where: Deakin Downtown, 727 Collins Street, Docklands and online!
Cost: This is a free event

Register Now

This seminar is presented by visiting academic Dr Christy Noble who is the Clinical Learning and Assessment Lead in the Academy for Medical Education in the Medical School at The University of Queensland. Her research interests include workplace learning, feedback literacy and assessment literacy.

The value of purposefully developing learners’ feedback literacy to enhance feedback processes is well recognised. As a result, much research has been directed towards conceptual advancement and improving students’ feedback literacy in higher education. Yet, learners in workplaces, such as healthcare, remain dissatisfied with their feedback experiences. Developing learners’ feedback literacy in and for workplace settings holds promise but remains under-explored. To address this gap, we need to understand the contexts where feedback occurs as well as learners’ perspectives, experiences and understanding of feedback and being feedback literate in the workplace. This in turn can inform strategies for developing feedback literacy of learners in the workplace.

In this session, participants will be challenged to consider the relationship between learners’ feedback agency and feedback opportunities in workplace contexts. We also challenge the extent to which contextual feedback know-how can be ‘developed’ purposefully outside of everyday work.

ALASI 2023 – Call for Proposals

Synergies in Education – Empowering Minds through Learning Analytics and AI

Deadline for submissions: 24th September 2023 – 11:59pm (AEDT)

The 2023 Australian Learning Analytics Summer Institute (ALASI) will take place on the 1^st and 2^nd November, 2023 at the University of South Australia. This interactive, networking event is supported by ASCILITE and the Society for Learning Analytics Research (SoLAR). The landscape of education is undergoing a remarkable transformation and the intersection of Learning Analytics and AI offers an opportunity to create dynamic, personalised learning experiences that cater to the needs of learners.

At ALASI 2023, we seek to explore the multifaceted potential of these technologies and their impact on the educational ecosystem. We invite educators, researchers, and practitioners to contribute their expertise and insights to this transformative discourse. In addition to ALASI there will be a half-day HDR-only workshop which will include panel presentations and networking sessions.

More details about the event and how to submit an interactive session or poster/demo proposal can be found here.