Opportunities to engage:

• Book to attend a workshop with the Vice-Chancellor this month, to consider new futures for the University and our strategies for those futures
• Provide input to the Macquarie University response to the interim report of the Australian Universities Accord by email to vc@mq.edu.au by 18 August

OUR UNIVERSITY: A FRAMING OF FUTURES

Professor Dowton said Our University: A Framing of Futures had provided a broad strategic frame for the University over the last 10 years.

“The external environment has changed significantly over that time, due most recently to the COVID-19 epidemic and the rapid evolution of many aspects of how organisations work in a post-pandemic environment.”

Professor Dowton said the changes expected through the Australian Universities Accord also made it timely to begin a process over the next few months to define a starting place for some key elements that might frame the University’s future and, from that, derive a new operating plan for the University.

He will be engaging widely across the University in meetings and workshops, on campus and digitally, to draw ideas to guide a framing of ‘new futures’ for the University.  Once that consultation is completed, the process will be paused pending the outcome of the Universities Accord and finalised in early 2024.

Register to attend a workshop >

Professor Dowton said Macquarie’s submission to the Universities Accord process is in development following the mid-July release of the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report. Colleagues are encouraged to contribute to the submission via email to vc@mq.edu.au before 18 August. The Accord panel also welcomes submissions from individuals and groups within universities and the wider community.

EDUCATION STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT

The Vice-Chancellor was joined in the Town Hall by Professor Rorden Wilkinson, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic), to introduce a consultation program on the next stage of the University’s education strategy – the Macquarie Advantage.

Professor Wilkinson reflected that, almost a year after joining Macquarie, he had learned a great deal about the institution and he had been humbled by the welcome he had received.  “The collegial and collaborative culture at Macquarie is very special and I have been impressed by the engagement of students and staff alike.”

In setting out the development of the education strategy, Professor Wilkinson said that much of the work would centre on the benefit that students take from their university education through the rest of their lives and how we might articulate and ensure we continue to deliver on the benefits of a Macquarie University education.

Exploring the concept of Macquarie as a ‘university for everyone’, particularly in the context of the Australian Universities Accord Interim Report, he said “the sector is now challenged to ensure not only equity of access to higher education across a diverse student population, but also equity of success. This would require new thinking on teaching, assessment, feedback and student support services”.

The work on Macquarie Advantage strategy is gathering momentum in five key areas:

• Wellbeing and belonging
• Employability
• Academic excellence
• Digital technology
• Assessment and feedback

A series of consultation and engagement opportunities for staff and students will inform the next phase of strategy development. Opportunities to participate and contribute will be shared with the University community in the coming weeks.

Vice-Chancellor Professor S. Bruce Dowton explains, “during the last two years the Student Journey and Experience Taskforce (SJET) has focused on gaining insights directly from students about difficulties they experience. It’s been encouraging and rewarding to see these insights translated into achievable solutions that improve student success.”

The next evolution is to increase coordination, resourcing and effort to accelerate progress for students by establishing a Student Experience Program. A Student Experience Program will build on the success of SJET, the Macquarie Way led by the Education Strategy Committee and the PiVOT group, the new Student Service Delivery Model, including the service uplift activity currently occurring in Shared Services and Faculty Educational Services teams and our digital transformation agenda.

While still in design phase, the Student Experience Program will seek to align activity, effort and focus in four key areas: the Service Experience of our students, their Learning Experience, their Community Experience as members of our community and beneficiaries of our thriving campus life, and their Digital Experience.

The Student Experience Program will bring together work already happening in the Dean of Students’ portfolio, a new portfolio led by Professor Mariella Herberstein, focused squarely on student experience, as well as the initiatives of SJET, work in Student Shared Services, as well as in the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) portfolio, and in the digital transformation space.  A small program team will be established to provide additional support to fast track these initiatives.

To recognise the expertise and leadership of our own people, we will be drawing on the talent from within the University for this program team, supplemented by external subject matter experts where required. This team under the joint executive sponsorship of Professor Rorden Wilkinson, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) and Nicole Gower, Vice-President, Professional Services, will be responsible for delivering the program of work over the next 2-3 years. Expressions of interest will be sought soon for a Director of the Student Experience Program to lead this team.

As this program takes shape in coming months, consultation will occur with relevant areas but in the meantime if you have ideas on how to improve the student focus in your work area, please send your ideas through to your manager or leader, discuss it with your colleagues and contacts at Macquarie and in other institutions and put it on the agenda of your team meetings.

The Our People Program Board would like to review the different types of flexible working.  This would incorporate the different ways people work to complete tasks, and how to balance the needs of staff, their teams, our students and the University, with the aim of positioning Macquarie University as a future-focused leader and preferred employer within the higher education sector.

We know the approach to working flexibly is something that you are keen to explore.  Both the May 2020 and October 2021 University-wide staff survey indicated that hybrid approaches to flexible working arrangements are inevitable and essential for the success of Macquarie University post the pandemic.

When it comes to work, there is not one size that fits all, given our diversity of work. Each person will have their own ways of working, what works best for them and their teams, as well as for the University in general.

With that in mind, as part of the University’s Operating Plan under the Our People program, we have commenced a three-phase Flexible Work Project to help develop and implement a University-wide framework for working flexibly.

The three phases of the Flexible Work Project are:

Phase 1:  Develop and consult on a draft flexible work framework

Phase 2:  Develop training and support tools to enable flexible work

Phase 3:  Support and embed flexible working in University-wide culture

We are now in Phase 1 of the Flexible Work Project.  Under Phase 1, the draft flexible work framework sets out proposed guiding principles for working flexibly and examines different types of flexibility from location, time, different work modes and platforms.

But to understand how this could work for you and your teams, we require your input on the draft flexible work framework.

In the next few weeks, you will receive a request to take part in Phase 1 of the Flexible Work Project.  We encourage you to take part in this project and help co-design a Macquarie University flexible work framework.  Your feedback is important to us, and more importantly gives you the opportunity to help shape the way you work with your colleagues, and the broader University community including students, in 2022 and beyond.

This will be rolled out in October 2022 in time for the 2023 commencing student cohort.

What improvements are being delivered?

The new eStudent will simplify the way a student moves through their enrolment tasks providing a modern interface that is easier to navigate.

Staff will have real-time access to student enrolment information within the new eStudent, aiding ‘first-contact resolution’ endeavours for student enquiries.

What has been the progress so far?

• Project governance is in place and working group meetings are underway.
• Requirements gathering continues.
• Exploration of the new system is taking place.
• Baseline configuration and unit testing is in train.

What are the next steps?

As we near the end of 2021, our focus will be on preparing the new eStudent test environment for extensive configuration and testing in 2022.

We will also explore the capabilities of new functionality such as; mandatory tasks, class waitlisting, multi-class allocation, a new payment platform and form workflows.

Student representation will be included in the working group from February 2022 and student communications will occur from June 2022. Forums and training videos will form part of the overall project Communications strategy approaching Go Live and beyond.

Staff familiarisation and preliminary training will commence from June 2022.

Further communications about the progress of the project will be issued at regular intervals throughout next year.

When will I see the new system?

We have already begun to show the working group some of the functionality of the new system.

Staff will see more of the product from Q2-2022 for training and testing of the new system.

When will the new eStudent be delivered?

Go Live will be in October 2022,

New terminology

Terminology to become familiar with:

• Ci Anywhere – the technology platform that the new eStudent is built on. Currently we use Ci.

If you would like any further information on this project, visit the ETS project webpage.

In order to address this transformation, a key outcome of the ‘Students First’ priority area of the University’s Operating Plan 2020-2024, was to establish an Employability Strategy. Developed by the Employability work stream, under the Students First Program Board, the draft Employability Strategy 2021-2025 is now available to download and view via the Bulletin Board.

An Employability Framework has also been conceptualised to support implementation of the Employability Strategy. This Framework is intended to guide curriculum design and align extra-curricular activities and services to enhance students’ employability outcomes and equip them with skills for the future world of work, and career success.

Consultation across the University and subsequent refinement of both the strategy and framework is planned throughout November. All interested staff are encouraged to provide feedback on the draft strategy and framework by Monday 22 November 2021 via the Bulletin Board.

“The University’s focus on employability and the alignment of this focus through an Employability Strategy, I believe, will have positive outcomes for students and contribute to the University enhancing its performance in relevant university rankings,” says Professor Dominique Parrish, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Learning and Teaching).

Faculty of Arts General Manager and Chair of the Employability work stream, Neil Durrant, believes the framework provides an exciting opportunity for Macquarie, as it develops a distinctive approach to employability that is both pedagogically sound and unique within the higher education marketplace.

“While many universities around the world work with the various components of the framework, very few universities seem to have implemented all of these elements in a comprehensive, integrated and distinctive way,” says Neil.

“There is real opportunity here – for Macquarie graduates to accelerate their careers and make a contribution both as employees and future leaders – and also for Macquarie to cement its position as a leading university in teaching and learning.”

View the draft Employability Strategy 2021-2025 on the Policy Bulletin Board  (scroll to the heading ‘Draft Documents for Comment’). 

Questions related to the Employability Strategy and Framework can be directed to Professor Dominique Parrish: dominique.parrish@mq.edu.au

These changes are informed by our new Curriculum Lifecycle Framework and the policy suite that was recently approved by Academic Senate.

This project is being led by the chair of ASQC, Associate Professor Taryn Jones and the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Programs and Pathways), Professor Sean Brawley.

The University has produced a short animation to summarise and explain our new approach to this important stage in our new quality system.

Professor Brawley has also provided some more detail about our new approach in his latest contribution to a series of posts in Teche.

Changes include the addition of further functionality to the institutional dashboard which was created last year to assist the monitoring and ratification process, and, in a major change, the introduction of ‘Action Plans’ which will drive enhancement in the unit-of-study space.

A range of supporting materials and professional development opportunities will be available to colleagues during November in preparation for our usual S2 meetings.

For any questions related to the project, please contact maria.kettle@mq.edu.au.

Full list of new policies

The new policy suite to support our Curriculum Lifecycle Framework is now live on  Policy Central:

Course of Study Accreditation Policy
Course of Study Monitoring Policy
Unit of Study Monitoring and Grade Ratification Policy
Course of Study Revision Policy
Unit of Study Periodic Review Policy
Course of Study Reaccreditation Policy
Course of Study Discontinuation Policy

As such, we’ll be implementing a reinvigorated performance and development review process, underpinned by the ‘Talent and Performance’ functionality in Workday. Here, Nicole Gower, Vice-President People and Services, takes you through the changes.

Following broad consultation across the Macquarie University community, including academic and professional staff, hospital and clinical staff, and staff in Campus Life, we have now developed an improved PDR process to facilitate this for all our staff.

Our current Performance and Development Review (PDR) will be re-named the Development and Performance Review (DPR). We wanted to place the emphasis on having conversations not only about performance but also about what development is required to help our staff achieve their goals and support career aspirations. The Academic DPR has been designed to align with the new academic promotion criteria. Professor Lesley Hughes (member of the Our People board and lead on the Academic DPR Workday Project) says “the new system has been designed around the concept that if the university prioritises and supports staff development, excellent performance will follow”.

We’ll be underpinning the new DPR process with new capabilities in Workday such as the employee ‘Talent Profile’. This is essentially an online resume – listing your skills, education and career experience – similar to an internal ‘LinkedIn’ profile.

Workday will also enable leaders and managers to cascade goals to staff, eliminating the need to develop custom DPR templates for different parts of the organisation as priorities change over time.

Training will be conducted during October in preparation for the launch of the new DPR and Talent Profile capabilities in November, with dedicated sessions to be run for academic and professional employees and MQ Health staff. Please look out for communications and information in coming weeks as we prepare for the launch.

For more information about these changes, please refer to the Workday FAQs page or email workday@mq.edu.au.

As a public university with self-accrediting authority over our coursework suite, a crucial dimension of our activities relates to the assurance of the quality of our courses through robust processes of accreditation, monitoring and reaccreditation.

This work was the culmination of many months of collegial effort including engagement by almost 400 academic and professional staff from across the University. The policy suite, as approved by Academic Senate, can be found in Policy Central, and a full list with links is outlined below.

The University has produced a short animation to summarise and explain the new approach outlined in the new policies.

This project is being led by the chair of ASQC, Associate Professor Taryn Jones and the Pro Vice-Chancellor (Programs and Pathways), Professor Sean Brawley.

Professor Brawley has been communicating in a continuing Teche series with an overview on the current program of renewal of our course and unit quality assurance processes. Staff who might have missed these articles, are encouraged to review the series for more context and detail on the process so far:

Part 1 – Introduction to the new MQ Curriculum Lifecycle Framework
Part 2 – Building our Quality System
Part 3 – Introduction to the policy suite driving the innovation
Part 4 – Next steps post Policy Suite approval and the ‘journey’ of reaccreditation

Part 5 – to be published on the Teche blog in early October – will provide more detail on the Unit Monitoring and Grade Ratification process, which will be the first major operationalisation of our new approach.

Changes to the Macquarie Curriculum Management System (MQCMS) are also currently underway and will provide an integrated quality system for our curriculum QAE&I. A range of supporting materials to assist colleagues who engage with the quality system are now being finalised and will be made available shortly.

After consultation with faculties, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) has informed Academic Senate of the first courses which will commence the reaccreditation process in 2022. To assist course authorities who will be engaged in this work over the next 12 months, a community of practice approach has been adopted with the first meeting slated for this month.

For any questions related to the project, please contact maria.kettle@mq.edu.au.

Full list of new policies

The new policy suite to support our Curriculum Lifecycle Framework is now live on  Policy Central:

Course of Study Accreditation Policy
Course of Study Monitoring Policy
Unit of Study Monitoring and Grade Ratification Policy
Course of Study Revision Policy
Unit of Study Periodic Review Policy
Course of Study Reaccreditation Policy
Course of Study Discontinuation Policy

The Future of Work project was initiated in response to the impacts of COVID on our working arrangements and the need to understand how the University can learn from this period, and embed positive flexible work practices and virtual capabilities in our working modes.

The Centre for Workforce Futures from the Macquarie Business School was commissioned to run the project. The project was completed by a research team from October 2020 to May 2021 and included a comprehensive literature review, as well as a survey and focus groups with Macquarie staff.

The research project explored the following themes:

• Working arrangements (including flexibility, productivity and working conditions)
• Locations of work (including blended/hybrid modes, working from home or working from anywhere)
• Modes of collaboration, communication and consultation
• Technology
• WHS considerations (including physical safety and mental health support).

Following receipt of the report by the Our People Program Board, we have considered the findings and next steps, which we share with you today.

Key findings

The report concludes that remote working and blended modes of work are inevitable in the Australian workforce and are attractive to Macquarie staff. While there are many benefits associated with greater flexibility and remote or blended working, there are factors that need to be considered to maximise the benefits of flexible working for both the University and staff. Some of these factors are summarised below:

• Consistency of implementation and equitable access to remote working across different areas of the University.
• Trust and reciprocity between managers and staff to enable productive and constructive remote working arrangements.
• Manager capability in managing remote/hybrid teams (including managers valuing WFH and understanding its benefits, which may require a culture shift in some teams).
• Resourcing and training (including access to technology, IT support for remote working, technological literacy of our staff, cyber security and data protection).
• Health and safety considerations when working from home (including physical safety and mental health support).
• Increased productivity vs work intensification and decreased boundaries between home and work.
• Shift from ‘managing attendance’ to outcomes-based model of work.
• Understanding different needs and diversity and inclusion considerations (not a one- size-fits-all approach).

Next steps

The findings reinforce what we all know – that we have a profound opportunity to reshape the way we might work in the future, based on our experiences over the past 18 months. While there are many challenges associated with COVID it has, in a very short time, propelled us forward in challenging traditional work modalities. The report also confirms the complex nature of this reshaping, and that there is no simple answer or single way forward.

We see engagement and involvement of our staff in this work as essential. As the level of staff participation in this initial study was relatively modest, we would now like to provide an opportunity for all staff to have input and will be inviting further engagement on the issue. But we also recognise that in the current lockdown context, staff are grappling with many competing priorities and that now is not ideal timing for this consultation. In collaboration with the Our People Program Board, we will be developing a mode of engagement with staff. We look forward to hearing your views and suggestions at that time.

Our goal is to develop a framework and resources, with relevant policies, training, capabilities and supporting tools – going beyond the topic of remote working, to cover broader aspects of flexibility and work modalities to fully realise the opportunity before us.

For those who are interested in reading the full report, it is available here. Our thanks and appreciation to the Centre for Workplace Futures for their partnership with the University on this project.

Professor Patrick McNeil and Nicole Gower
Co-Chairs, Our People Program Board

All six streams of the Operating Plan are now well underway with delivery and This Week caught up with the six Program Leads to hear what they are focusing on for the rest of the year.

Dominique Parrish – Students First

“Work has been moving at pace across a number of our key projects. We’ve developed a Student Employability Framework and are now working to finalise our Institutional Employability Strategy. These resources are essential components in our endeavour to enable more graduates to leave us with heightened employment prospects.

“We’re also making good progress towards mapping activities and services that we provide for students while they are studying with us. This work is the foundation for developing better experiences for students both in how we engage and communicate with them and how we simplify their access to services.

“A key highlight for me would be the development of a Student Learning Analytics Resource which we’ve co-created with students. Exploration of how this resource can be delivered to students is underway and a delivery solution can be expected to be completed shortly.”

Sean Brawley – Curriculum Suite and Transformation

“Our multi-focal program board has been working on a number of workstreams with three major concentrations of effort — product suite futures, microcredentials and quality assurance, enhancement and improvement (QAE&I). Landing the policies and procedures across these three areas has been where most effort has been completed to date. For the rest of the year the focus will be on finalising the systems that deliver these new policy settings.

“The single largest body of work has been around QAE&I. With Academic Senate’s approval of our new approach to course accreditation, monitoring and reaccreditation, this will be where colleagues will most likely engage with the results of this program board on a regular basis.

“Finalising the system and educating colleagues about our new approach to unit monitoring and grade ratification, which commences this session, is a major focus of activity at present.  We also will commence work with the 50 courses that will move through the new reaccreditation process in 2022.”

Dan Johnson – Focused Investment in Research

“A key deliverable has been the refresh of our research strategy, completed in July. Following extensive consultation, we have reaffirmed our roadmap for continued research success and impact while recognising the many challenges we face.

“We are delighted to be working towards the establishment of the Graduate Research Academy, as part of our strategy to deliver an exceptional research training experience for our graduate research students.

“We’re developing an enhanced framework, policy and structure to support researchers to grow and diversify our research income. Elements are already in place, and we are aiming to have it fully operational by the end of the year.

“Our research renown stream has co-created a media and communications strategy focused on our research strengths with colleagues across DVC portfolios and the faculties. This includes a new tool to help individual academics, Departments, Centres and other collectives understand their media footprint. More on that before the end of the year.”

Fiona Reyerink – Ways of Working

“The PST program continues to move forward with momentum with IT, Finance, DVC-E and Research Innovation changes all well progressed and the establishment of the Graduate Research Academy underway.

“We’re also well-advanced working together with Faculty General Managers, Executive and Operational leads from across the University on the design of a consistent faculty professional services model and student services and support model. The faculty model is being developed to align with the academic leadership model and design work on student services and support has received guidance from the Students First program board.

“The detailed design and a roadmap for our shared services centre is progressing and this will bring operational and transactional services into a coherent structure.  This will achieve a far greater level of service consistency for students and staff and it will help us to develop improved processes and take better advantage of technology in the long-term.

In July, we established a virtual interactive project room and had more than 400 staff visit the room. The feedback and insights from everyone have proven to be really valuable and we look forward to engaging more on this as the year goes on.”

Nick Crowley – Our People

“We’ve been making steady progress across much of our project work. We’re on track with the next rollout of Workday functionality which will cover PDRs with a lot of work behind the scenes on getting templates ready.

“We’ve also made significant strides on establishing new academic leadership models across the faculties with recruitment commenced for Deputy Dean and other positions.

“We’ve also realigned projects from the Ways of Working Board including the future of work program, which will inform refreshed flexible working arrangements for staff in light of the lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic. We’re also underway with a program for a new staff intranet to enhance internal communications and simplify our transactional processes.”

Digital Transformation – Tim Hume

“Our work to establish a digital vision, strategy and roadmap for the University is now very well progressed. We are currently working through what the next three years of investment in digital services across the University looks like with an aim to submit this to the University’s Finance and Facilities Committee before the end of the year.

“The outcome of that will be a series of strategic investments that the University will make in technology enhancement, which underpins many of the deliverables throughout the other five streams of the Operating Plan.

“There has been a huge amount of work and consultation with colleagues for us to make sure we are recommending where we should invest our precious resources in IT in years to come aligned to our priorities. It’s been very important that we have taken the time to get this right.”

Jonathan Wylie, Vice-President of Strategy Planning and Performance, expressed appreciation for the progress being made on the Operating Plan in the face of significant disruption for staff and students caused by COVID-19.

“The next few months will see work across the Operating Plan continuing to deliver outcomes for staff and students, with planning for 2022 and beyond to ensure progress towards our shared ambition and commitment for the future.”