It sounds like a lot to ask of a PhD candidate but that’s what the annual 3 Minute Thesis (3MT) competition is all about. This year, Macquarie has eleven finalists who have won their faculty heats. Their video submissions will be assessed by Professors Sakkie Pretorius (DVC Research), Dominique Parrish (PVC Learning and Teaching) and Dan Johnson (PVC Research Innovation).

Have your say in this year’s 3MT by voting in the People’s Choice ballot. From 5-8 September, you’ll be able to view the finalists’ video submissions here and cast your vote.

Hosted by the Graduate Research Academy (GRA), the 3MT Winner, Runner Up, 3^rd Place, and People’s Choice will be announced online at 10am on 9 September. Please join us.

The MQ Winner, along with finalists from across Australia, New Zealand, Oceania, North-East Asia and South-East Asia, will progress to the 2022 Virtual Asia-Pacific 3MT Finals, with the overall winner announced on 19 October.

Good luck all!

MyLearn pulls together data from iLearn to create a dashboard for students that includes alerts, assessment deadlines, an enrolment summary and knowledge base articles in one handy location. Our students need this in their life, and you should attend the launch so you can also support this innovation.

Register now for the MyLearn launch this Thursday 10 March,  10-11am.

All five awards were in the same category, Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning, which recognises contributions to the quality of student learning in a specific area of responsibility over a sustained period.

The Awards were established in 1997 by the Australian Government to celebrate and reward excellence in university teaching. Since then, these annual Awards have become a valued form of recognition for university educators Australia-wide, and acknowledge the impact educators have on the learning and teaching experiences and outcomes of university students.

Macquarie has been increasingly successful in the Citation category, from one successful application in 2018 to five successful applications in 2021. This growing success is a reflection of the Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Awards program with all five of this year’s winners having been Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Award winners in 2020.

The Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching Awards program underwent significant transformation in 2019 and has been evaluated and revised each year. Workshops, mentoring and alignment of our Macquarie learning and teaching awards to the AAUT awards are just some of the innovations that have been implemented since 2019.

“I am so thrilled that we are able to support our excellent teachers to showcase their contributions to student learning and that they are being recognised for their efforts at an elite national level,” says Professor Dominique Parrish, Pro Vice-Chancellor, Learning & Teaching

Our warmest congratulations to these outstanding educators:

Trish Behan, Macquarie University College

For sustained commitment to leading impactful and collaborative mental health initiatives to support staff and enhance student experience. 

Zara Bending, Macquarie Law School, Faculty of Arts

For inspiring the next generation of legal scholars, advocates, and changemakers through holistic mentorship and transformative learning design. 

Associate Professor Kevin Brooks, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences

For sustained excellence in teaching the psychology of perception through innovative research enhanced learning and teaching approaches that support, engage, and motivate diverse student groups.

Dr Rimante Ronto, Department of Health Systems & Population, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences
Category: Early Career

For excellence in inspiring, motivating and engaging public health students in transformative, innovative, and real-word learning.

Team of: Dr Morwenna Kirwan, Professor Catherine Dean, Associate Professor Verity Pacey, Dr Kelly Gray and Alexandra Bhatti, Department of Health Professions, Faculty of Medicine, Health and Human Sciences

A collaborative and innovative approach to curriculum development that delivers connected, flexible and immersive digitally enhanced earning experiences to support and engage medical and health science students.

Macquarie Business School fully integrates all business and economics education and research at Macquarie into a comprehensive entity. It retains and celebrates the best of the Faculty of Business and Economics, the Macquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM) and the Macquarie Applied Finance Centre (MAFC), ensuring that Macquarie remains a strong global competitor.

“The change positions us to be more impactful, sustainable and innovative on the world stage and will better meet the changing needs of our students, alumni, staff and business partners. As a business school that is part of a world-leading university, we are better positioned to draw upon knowledge from multiple disciplines, and connect with multiple global and local communities as part of our research and teaching,” said Executive Dean of Macquarie Business School, Professor Stephen Brammer.

“At Macquarie Business School we will continue to invest significantly in our programs, facilities, support services and alumni engagement activities and are committed to maintaining excellence in our global rankings.”

Macquarie Business School is looking to the future with its integrated and cross-disciplinary research and innovative programs, such as the fully online Global MBA and new appointments of directors of Alumni and Career Services to provide an even greater focus on career-enabling opportunities for students in multidisciplinary areas throughout their careers.

“Business education must shift to a focus on working together to create real world solutions rather than a focus on discrete disciplines operating in a traditional siloed way. In Australia for example, the Banking Royal Commission outcomes have shown what happens when businesses are too inward facing rather than focused on best practice and community engagement.

“Macquarie Business School has a modern approach to business education, to set ourselves up for future challenges and be competitive on the world stage in this globalised environment. We want our researchers, educators and students to be empowered to lead the changes they want to see in the world,” said Professor Brammer.

New online presence

To mark the launch, the Macquarie Business School has a new web presence within the Macquarie University site: mq.edu.au/business. We have also launched a new LinkedIn Showcase page – follow us to stay up to date with all the latest Macquarie Business School news.

Presenting to senior University leaders on 8 May, the Vice-Chancellor said the curriculum transformation program is founded in a changing higher education landscape.

“With Framing of Futures as our start point, we are undertaking a program that will deliver the resilience we need as a University to thrive in the future,” Professor Dowton said.

Citing recent changes in government policy along with international market shifts, Professor Dowton said the University has a once-in-a-generation opportunity to design and develop a curriculum that is fit for purpose for a changing world that is redefining what students need from a university education.

“Our students deserve a coherent, simple, easy to understand curricular structure that offers complete clarity of their study pathway, from start to finish,” the Vice-Chancellor said.

“They also deserve program options that equip them for the careers of tomorrow along with flexibility to be able to engage across disciplines including, in some cases, through programs that involve double degrees.”

A longer-term strategic shift will deliver on continuation of the University’s research-intensive aspiration with an increasing emphasis on STEMM.

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) Professor Kevin Jameson and Chair of the Academic Senate, Professor Mariella Herberstein, are leading the program of work being undertaken through the Academic Senate and in the faculties.

Professor Herberstein said the student experience will be firmly at the centre of the change and decision-making process.

The University will transition to the new system by January 2020.

The Vice-Chancellor said, “Our opportunity is to see this as a re-set point for the University. We will become more agile and more aligned to the needs of students, delivering a richer experience for staff and students alike.”

Further updates will be provided as the project progresses.

We sat down with Associate Professor Shawn Ross to learn more about the future of the field, what researchers can learn, and how he’s taking his experience in the Department of Ancient History to this new role.

The fields of Ancient History and Data Science and eResearch seem like they are worlds apart. Are there any similarities? 

Ancient History and Classics were fairly early adopters of approaches like computer assisted text analysis and agent-based modelling (amongst others). Archaeologists use geographic information systems (GIS) and statistical analyses day in and day out, but struggle to manage the diverse data that fieldwork generates.

What made you interested in this directorship and what experiences will you draw on for the role?

My experience building eResearch infrastructure, and the cooperative work with a range of field researchers in a number of disciplines that arose from it, drove my interest in the directorship. Working with researchers to sort out their data reveals weaknesses in research design pretty quickly, and that led me to confront the problems with transparency and reproducibility that many disciplines are now facing. Every solution to those problems I’ve seen involves adopting digital research methods.

The University has launched a new Data Science and eResearch strategy. What do you see as the pillars of this strategy?

I’d say the ‘pillars’ of the project are:

1. Ensuring staff have the resources they need to accomplish their research to the highest possible standard.
2. Building staff awareness, confidence, and capacity regarding digital scholarship. Reaching beyond ‘innovators’ and ‘early adopters’ to the majority of potential beneficiaries is something I will be focussing on as part of my role.

Where do you see the field of eResearch going in the future?

In the future, I think that eResearch will really focus on making research designs and outcomes more robust, especially with regard to transparency and reproducibility. In order to evaluate, reproduce, or replicate results, all steps of the research project and all ‘research objects’ (not just data but, for example, the code underlying all statistical analyses) have to be available.

What is your advice to researchers who are curious about exploring data science and eResearch but have yet to do so?

I’d say the best way to start is to bring a research problem, or an early-stage research project, to someone who has done data science or eResearch work in the past, and see what improvements to your usual research approaches digital techniques can offer. It’s always easier to work with someone else, at least at first, if you want to explore digital scholarship. We’ve had students in our Digital Methods MRES unit marvel at how much time they can save, or how much more they can do, through the judicious application of technology to their research. The other thing I would say is that introducing digital methods to a project usually involves an up-front time investment for a later pay-off in efficiency or quality.

To learn more about the strategy and priorities, visit the Data Science and eResearch page.

Fifteen units were part of a successful live streaming lecture pilot in Session 1. When surveyed, students expressed enthusiasm for the Q&A tool, where they could discuss the subject matter content amongst peers.

The interactions continued after the live lectures, with lecturers or PAL leaders clarifying points of confusion in the lecture content. For more information on the pilot, visit the Teche blog.

“As we are now in this new information age, we have to think about how we adapt and how we evolve,” says Professor Sherman Young, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching). “For teaching, it means we have to think about more than just content. We have to make sure we understand the range of different engagements, not just the authoritative ‘sage on the stage.’ We have to ensure collaboration is built into what we do, and we have to think more broadly than just words.”

Look for more information in future editions.

Two students were recently put through their paces with Fuji Xerox Australia as part of the PACE FOSC300 Unit – Participation and Community Engagement in Science and Engineering.

“Working with Fuji Xerox Australia through the CitySwitch program was definitely a rewarding experience for me personally. Not only did I have access to work experience that made an impact on a real organisation, but I was able to contribute towards a program that promotes sustainability, which is a personal passion that will shape my future career. Hearing the positive feedback and reception of our solutions from the executive members has given me confidence in the changes I can make in my chosen career path in environmental management,” said Ju-Deh (Jude) Tan, third-year B. Environment student.

Jude and Alice Temblett, a third-year B.Sc. student, undertook a waste audit of Fuji Xerox Australia’s headquarters in March this year after being trained in sustainability auditing by Macquarie’s Sustainability team in partnership with CitySwitch. They analysed the audit data, presented a compelling business case, and produced communication materials for kitchens and printing areas.

The students developed an office-wide waste management strategy to reduce waste going to landfill and presented their findings to staff, who were impressed with the results and have been implementing recommendations. Data collected will be used as a baseline for future waste auditing when they move to their new premises soon.

“Jude and Alice delivered a professional presentation that met all of our desired outcomes from the waste audit. Their recommendations highlighted some areas for improvement and have already been adopted at our new office,” said Michael Wicks from Fuji Xerox Australia.

As Professor Sherman Young, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching) said while offering his heartfelt congratulations to the 2016 Professor Judyth Sachs PACE Prize recipients: “These experiences demonstrate some of the fantastic stories we see every year of students engaging in real-world learning with real-world impact.”

The benefits of PACE’s work-integrated learning and its impact on student employability were demonstrated at a recent, well-attended forum delivered by the PACE team.

Check out these highlights videos:

• Associate Professor Denise Jackson from Edith Cowan University highlights work-integrated learning research that demonstrates how important it is to the student experience.
• PACE Director Lindie Clarke delivers the latest Macquarie research on the difference that PACE makes.
• Dr Tanya Evans speaks on the impact PACE has on students’ lives.
• A panel of students and our long-time PACE partner, Wesley Mission, provide some heartfelt insights into the lasting impact of PACE on graduates and employability.

Want to know more about the forum? Read Lauren Bacigalupo’s write-up of the event on the Teche blog.

International engagement touches almost every aspect of the University, from international research collaboration, through coursework and research, student recruitment, staff and student mobility, to the internationalisation of the curriculum and the general guiding rule that the University adopts global best-practice across all areas of activity.

“Earlier this year I asked Nicole Brigg, Pro Vice-Chancellor (International) to begin work on a project to develop a strategic approach to the University’s international engagement,” said Vice-Chancellor Professor S Bruce Dowton. “Over the past few months, she and her team in Macquarie International have planned this project thoroughly and will shortly begin the process of consultation with the senior leaders of the University.”

The first step of this strategic development will commence with an extended period of research and consultation involving a staff survey, extensive consideration by Executive Group and input from a group of global thought leaders, before drafting of a strategy begins in October.

“This is an incredibly exciting process as we consider a wide range of factors that impact on a future strategy. We need to consider factors such as the growing economic impact of the Asian region, the rapidly changing world of work, and growing impact of technology on our lives.  Our research will also include an analysis of what makes the world’s top universities ‘global institutions’, and what benefits do they derive from pursuing a more active approach to international engagement,” said Nicole Brigg, Pro Vice-Chancellor (International Operations).

Macquarie International is coordinating the project, supported by a Secretariat drawn from a range of portfolios. Staff interested in the project are encouraged to speak with their line manager, or to contact pvc.international@mq.edu.au.

Who are you?

We’re made up of two teams – Strategy and Learning Technology Services.

Our Strategy team includes Tanya Rose, Cathy Rytmeister, Geraldine Timmins, Lilia Mantai, Michael Rampe, Nathan Sollars, Michael Catabay, Kevin Paterson and Lauren Bacigalupo.

Learning Technology Services includes Terrence Collins, Amanda Parker, Fidel Fernando, Alper Yuceozsoy, Alison Schloss, Fiona Hird, Marco Reyes, Shirley Li, Alana Mailey, David Morgan, Eric Shum, Michael Mendoza, Jaymie Parker, Shamim Joarder, Mahbub Hassan, Fransiska Bunadi, Weidong Pan, Arun Neelakandan, Michael Marston, Samantha Zhou and Sandra Wu.

What do you do?

The Learning Innovation Hub is a central expert unit serving the Learning and Teaching community at Macquarie. We inspire, promote and lead transformations in Learning and Teaching and collaborate on university-wide projects to create sustainable processes and products, driven by the Learning for the Future Strategic Framework. We also manage and enhance the learning technologies and systems that support an integrated digital experience for all Macquarie students.

Why do you do it?

Our aim is to work with and support the faculties, offices and units across the University to innovate and strengthen excellence in learning and teaching, improve graduate outcomes and the student experience, and to realise the aims of Learning and Teaching strategic initiatives.

Who do you most frequently work with?

• Faculty L&T teams
• Faculty Academics
• Students
• The Office of the Pro Vice-Chancellor, Learning and Teaching
• Committees: ASQC, SLTC, LTaSCo, Senate
• Executive Group
• Macquarie University International College (MUIC)
• Higher Degree Research Office (HDRO)
• Professional and Community Engagement (PACE)
• Library, including Learning Skills
• Human Resources

What’s a recent achievement you’re proud of?

Productive collaboration across the University community in the development of the Learning Technologies and Spaces Roadmap, an initiative of the Learning for the Future Strategic Framework.

What’s planned for the future?

The Learning Innovation Hub runs a suite of events throughout the year to promote innovation and excellence in learning and teaching including Professional Development Programs, Learning and Teaching Exchanges, Digital Literacies and skills workshops and information sessions on new technologies. Current events are listed on the Events page of the Teche Blog.

The Learning Technologies and Spaces Roadmap is due to launch around March/April 2017, and we will be principally involved in its implementation over the next four years.

In 2017, related to the The Learning Technologies and Spaces Roadmap, we will be investigating some new technologies through a number of Proof of Concept trials.

Where can you learn more?

Please get in touch!

• Location: L3 & 4, C3B and L2, W6B
• Email: learninginnovation@mq.edu.au
• Website: www.mq.edu.au/about/about-the-university/offices-and-units/learning-innovation-hub
• Learning and Teaching Blog: http://teche.ltc.mq.edu.au/
• Events: teche.ltc.mq.edu.au/events/
• Community and Engagement Lead:  Geraldine Timmins, 9850 1018, http://geraldine.timmins@mq.edu.au

Do you have an awesome team? Tell us so we can feature you in an upcoming Spotlight on feature!