With all the current discussions around climate change,  environmental sustainability and Copenhagen, this UNE Voice focuses  on the agendas and some of the activity which is taking place at UNE. As many of you would be aware UNE is a signatory to the Talloires Declaration http://www.une.edu.au/talloires/ and interested staff have the opportunity to provide comments and feedback as part of the online discussion group. In addition a survey of UNE staff carried out  in early 2009 attracted responses from 162 staff.

UNE staff were surveyed in order to gain greater awareness of staff perceptions of sustainability and practices for sustainability at the university, with the broader aim of building a clearer and more evidence-based picture of UNE’s position and potential in relation to sustainability. Previous studies have shown that ‘Innovator universities’ that take up the challenge of sustainability are rewarded with benefits like cost savings for ‘greener’ practices and purchasing, enrolments in courses with a focus on sustainability, national and international recognition and staff support and satisfaction. 

The analysis of the results indicates that:

• Staff have high levels of awareness and willingness in relation to sustainability practices;
• Staff are performing many environmental practices at work, particularly individual practices, but more at home;
• Barriers to sustainable practice at work fall into five broad categories: Workload/time issues; Lack of Leadership/management support; Lack of information; Insufficient Technology; Inadequate Infrastructure;
• All of the barriers were also identified as areas where support could be provided to improve sustainability;
• Education and communication strategies could effectively address many of the barriers to undertaking environmental practices at UNE Developing institutional practices will enable staff to do more;
• There are opportunities for UNE to become more sustainable, and benefits for doing so

Recommendations arising from the research findings thus far are for UNE to: 

• Harness staff willingness and goodwill , and support existing and new actions for sustainability;
• Develop and promote systemic institutional practices for sustainability;
• Drive improvements in the categories which staff have identified as key for sustainable practice at UNE - Waste management; Procurement and purchasing including food; Use of materials; and Energy consumption, particularly electricity, heating and transport.

There are a variety of everyday practices which can assist with the sustainability such as the following:

• Waste management practices
• Recycle waste paper, metal, glass and plastic
• Use paper saving options on their word processors, printers and photocopiers.
• Use electronic document management systems e.g. online collaboration tools, reviewing drafts online
• Use multimedia to limit handouts
• Research what types of recycled content products and disposal options are available
• Choose to buy products that contain recycled content and with the ability for recycling after use
• Inform suppliers that recycled content products are acceptable
• Energy use practices
• Switch off the lights when leaving the room
• Switch off computer monitors when leaving the room
• Switch the power off at the wall at the end of the day and on weekends
• Commute to work on a bicycle
• Carpool
• Use public transport

While all these practices won’t suit all staff, applying any of them will assist the University in its contribution to sustainability. The UNE Sustainability Strategic Committee which meets quarterly provides further impetus for university wide sustainability.

Colleagues, I’d like to explore the Federal Government new Sustainable Research Excellence (SRE) initiative to be implemented in 2010.  The SRE initiative enacts the Government’s commitment to helping universities cope with the indirect costs of undertaking competitive grant research.  It offers an additional source of funding to universities above and beyond the other three research block funding sources from the Government: the Research Training Scheme (RTS), the Joint Research Engagement Scheme (JRE) and the Research Infrastructure Block Grant (RIBG) scheme.  Two conditions must be met by universities in order to access SRE funding: each must agree to participate in the Excellence in research in Australia scheme (ERA) and each must agree to participate in the Transparent Cost (TC) analysis scheme (to be trialled in 2010).  UNE has formally agreed to both conditions.  UNE will receive a one-off grant (of approx. $300K) to assist with the implementation of TC-related systems.  The projected SRE return to UNE for 2010 (to be confirmed in December) is around $560K (further projected to progressively increase each year to over $2M by 2013) and we will need to be strategic in how we use this additional funding.  The SRE will play a role in shaping the University’s mission-based compact with the Federal Government each year.  For next year, our mission-based compact will be an interim agreement only; our first full compact will be agreed next year for 2011.

In order for us to meet these conditions attached to SRE funding as well as to maximise our funding returns to UNE for strategic investment in further research support and development, we must make a number of things happen:

• We have to improve the integration of our various management information systems so that we can draw the required information together accurately, reliably, efficiently and in a manner that is fully auditable. This means that a number of Directorates (e.g., Research Services, Library, Finance, ITD, Human Resources) have to work closely together to ensure the right data in the right format at the right time are available A steering committee will be assembled of relevant stakeholders in the SRE process to oversee SRE implementation as a project. Faculties, Schools and Research Institutes/Centres will have their roles to play in this process as well.
• As ERA outcomes will be used to inform the calculation of certain aspects of the SRE, all academic staff will need to contribute by ensuring that all of their publications and other research outcomes are appropriately captured in the e-Publications@UNE repository (https://e-publications.une.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Index or go to the main UNE webpage, click on the Library link on the left-side menu, then click on the ‘e-publications@UNE link under the ‘Find resources’ column). This is critical, not optional - our research funding from the Government depends on the completeness and accuracy of such information.
• The TC analysis scheme will track costs associated with non-academic salaries/on-costs, costs of maintaining university infrastructure, finance and insurances costs and other costs indirectly associated with research.
• In addition, the SRE requires two ‘time use’ surveys of academic (including contract and casual) and technical staff to be undertaken by June next year as part of the TC exercise. These will involve each staff member keeping a diary of types of activities engaged in over a period of at least a week so that the proportion of activity devoted to research-related activities, including HDR supervision, can be accurately estimated. The Government requires a 67% response rate on each survey. Staff commitment to assisting us here will also be critical in achieving this response rate.
• Both our SRE and ERA submissions to the Government fall due in June 2010 - time is of the essence if we are to get this right and maximise benefits to UNE.

I’ve had an exciting last few weeks in some respects.

I’m sure we can all relate.  As always, there’s the drudgery of the routine requirements of work, albeit from time to time mixed with the sheer exhilaration and excitement of a new finding, or discovery.  One of these experiences for me, and I have to admit (gloat?) I’m fortunate enough to have the opportunity to have several exciting developments cooking so to speak and in part, this is our new marketing, brand and communications developments.

For me, I have the opportunity to be ‘leading’ and also discovering at the same time. I say lead in apostrophes as there are several people doing some very heavy lifting around me and it’s not all about me, but I digress, so let me elaborate on the content - the reason for the blog.

I have mentioned in a previous formal communication that we selected www.loud.com.au as our new creative agency. 

What I may not have mentioned there is that one of the reasons we selected them was for their work on the ING ad campaign since inception, recommending and using Billy Connolly - love him or hate him but imagine:  a Dutch owner, a bank formerly known as Mercantile Mutual, rebadged as “ING”, with a Scottish personality to support a new Brand to be launched, in Australia.  I’d like to be the Executive in the room when they were pitching this one.  I’ll leave you to your imagination as to why it was - and is - successful 9 years later.  ING as a brand is a leading financial services firm in Australia, coming from ‘nowhere’.  LOUD continues to support this client in its success.

LOUD has also provided provocation to us in the form of ideas in the creative sphere for UNE’s own digital marketing initiatives.  Check out www.votemypet.com.au.  Thinking people will realize the power of this social networking campaign which bridged the divide between virtual and physical environments, and resulted in hundreds of thousands of customers lodging their details with the client, Bayer, willingly.   Some of you may have attended the launch celebration of our Future Students Team, a dedicated group of 3 personnel capitalizing on our RightNow Customer Relationship Management (CRM) d-base capabilities where I explained more about this facility for lead-capture of prospective students’ / customers’ details.  Anyway, to keep it simple, at the end of the day it’s all about ‘lead-generation’ and the ability to design sufficient awareness to capture a prospective student’s contact information so we can remain in touch with the ‘customer’ throughout their lifecycle of purchasing what promises to be, frankly, an expensive and intensive service: higher education.

You may recall my earlier blog centred around Web2.0 and this is where we need to differ: we can’t aimlessly capture 100 million students’ contact details to spam them with UNE information.  The talent is in the nexus of providing what’s meaningful to the student with what we need - and that’s what we’re doing in the Future Student’s Team and in the design of the forthcoming Student Recruitment Campaign commencing 9 November, 2009.
Now all this said, what’s exciting recently is to see previews of the new creative messaging that is being proposed for UNE.  This will be profiled and launched 9 November at the all-staff forum involving the Chancellor and myself.  While I can’t reveal the details just yet as in part it’s just not ready, what I can share with you is this: there are elements which we have had to grapple with such as:

• How do you ensure you have the prospective students’ attention year-round, not just prior to Open Day or start of semester enrolments…not dissimilar to a rush to the “Closing Down Sale” equivalent?
• How do you avoid sounding just like every other university spruiking their proverbial carpets to compel the unwitting consumer into purchasing their higher education experience at the last minute? One local University’s ads are so horrible, but so predominant, I have commenced referring to them as the ABC Chaser’s Surprise Spruiker-equivalent - (see also http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=abc+chaser+the+spruiker&rls=com.microsoft:en-au&oe=UTF-8&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=le7eSsrTAYLQsQP0y4HdDw&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CBkQqwQwAw#) . I suggest to you that volume does not equate to quality, but we do need to respond. And, I’ll leave you to determine which university this refers to….
• How do we ensure there’s sufficient emotional engagement with the prospective buyer (consider: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e50YBu14j3U) as this is a major purchase, not a one-off transaction; it’s an emotional and rationale purchase.

In all, despite the challenge (for new enrolments in 2010 no less 2012 when we move to, in effect, a voucher system = payment on demand), these are exciting times.  What LOUD have encouraged us to remember is that it’s important to ensure that the customer’s recollection of UNE “reverberates” long after the Surprise Spruiker (the advertising) has left the building.  Therein lies our challenge.  See what you think 9 November at the launch of our new Student Recruitment Campaign which encapsulates all our 2008 and 2009 research on Branding, only partly personified by our new logo.

This edition of the UNE Voice will be my last as Vice-Chancellor and CEO of UNE with my retirement effective from the end of October.

As you are aware, Professor Graham Webb will be Acting Vice-Chancellor until my successor is in place.   Although the end of the academic year is fast approaching there are many issues requiring on-going attention both at UNE and in the Higher Education sector.  For example, vital legislation such as the Higher Education Legislation Amendment (Student Services and Amenities) Bill 2009 and the Education Services for Overseas Student Amendment (RE-REGISTRATION OF PROVIDERS AND OTHER MEASURES) Bill 2009 will be debated in the next sitting of Parliament.  Both have potential resource implications for UNE. 

In other areas, UNE’s Governance Discussion Paper has recently been endorsed by Sir Laurence Street and its implementation is underway.  UNE will also host a meeting with the Australian Government in late November to begin negotiations in respect to UNE’s Mission Based-Compact and possible structural adjustment funding.  All of this is on top of the day-to-day running of the University.  The professionalism and dedication of Professor Webb, and all members of the Senior Executive will undoubtedly guide UNE through these and a myriad of other issued during the transition period and provide a firm base on which the new Vice-Chancellor will be able to build. 

It has been an honour to serve as the 11th Vice-Chancellor of UNE.  From my initial arrival at UNE in February 2006, throughout significant internal change in 2007, and during the hardships of last year I received great kindness and support from the University as well as the wider New England community. Both Ann and I are enormously appreciative of this on both a personal and professional basis and I offer my heartfelt thanks for your support. I also wish to acknowledge the great support and encouragement I have received from the Chancellor, Richard Torbay, whose energy and enthusiasm for UNE is unbounded.

I wish the University all the best for a prosperous and harmonious future and am looking forward to saying my personal farewell to you all at drinks on the 29 October.

As we draw toward the last quarter of 2009, I would like to take this opportunity to reflect on some of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) highlights of 2009.  I will concentrate on our research achievements in my final communication for the year in November.  This one will concentrate on teaching and learning.

2009 has been a year of intense activity in Teaching and Learning development.  We are delighted that our recently introduced courses including Criminology and Psychology continue to attract good student numbers, and are very optimistic that 2010 will be a bumper year for FAS.  UNE Council has approved a suite of new courses for 2010 - including Bachelors of Pharmacy, Exercise Physiology, Exercise Science, Sports Science, Zoology, Master of Arts in Applied Linguistics with Honours and Master of Urban and Regional Planning.

Trevor Brown assumed the position of Acting Academic Director in April, following the departure of Kerry Dunne.  Trevor has been very active in his role, culminating in the Teaching and Learning Seminar held on 19 August.  For the first time this was part of a broader T&L focus across UNE. The School Awards for Excellence in Learning and Teaching were presented at the T&L Showcase.  This is the first year of these awards that are initiated and funded by the Academic Board Teaching and Learning Committee.  The awards recognise UNE members of staff who have shown ‘exemplary commitment to excellence in learning and teaching and/or who have developed, promoted and/or implemented strategies to achieve excellence in learning and teaching at UNE.’  Another motivation for these awards is to identify staff for nomination for the Vice-Chancellor’s Learning and Teaching awards and ultimately for Australian Learning and Teaching Council citations.

School of Arts.  There were three nominations from the School of Arts that addressed different aspects of learning and teaching - each providing clear evidence of excellence.  

• The Music Team: Andrew Alter, Hugh de Ferranti, Jason Stoessel and Stephen Thorneycroft.
• Paul Adams
• Jane Southwood

School of Behavioural, Cognitive and Social Sciences

• Anthony Marks.

School of Environmental and Rural Sciences

• Rex Glencross-Grant.

The Faculty also continues to offer strategic T&L Funds on a competitive basis for the development of new courses, upgrade of existing courses and advancement of online teaching.

We pride ourselves on our excellence in Teaching and Learning - including recognition of excellence in 2008 at the domestic undergraduate level in the discipline group of Science, Computing, Engineering, Architecture and Agriculture.  An event to recognise the 2008 Australian Learning and Teaching Council Awards was held in Booloominbah on 12 February.  FAS winners were Kerry Dunne and the German team, and Isobel Tasker.  Kerry provided the vote of thanks on behalf of all of the winners.  Significant numbers of FAS unit coordinators and contributors regularly have units rated as excellent by students, and we received the following Inaugural Vice-Chancellor’s Staff Awards.   Excellence in Learning and Teaching: Ms Therese Burton; Dr Nigel Andrew, Outstanding Interdisciplinary Innovation: Associate Professor John Scott; Dr Robyn Bartel, Dr Darren Ryder, Outstanding Performance and Service:  Associate Professor John Scott.  The website http://lectureroftheyear.com.au lists ten UNE academics of whom six are in FAS - Adam Harris, Gerd Schmaltz, Mark Evered, Suzie Gibson, Janelle Wilkes, and Anne Pender, and congratulations to Jackie Reid who received the VC Award for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at the Sciences, Medicine and Health Graduation on 27 March and to John Malouff on his Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation for outstanding contributions to student learning.  UNE’s Bachelor of Engineering Technology degree, under the leadership of Rex Glencross-Grant received a number of accolades at the Newcastle Division of the Engineers Australia Engineering Excellence Awards on 8th May, and last but certainly not least, congratulations to Associate Professor Wendy Beck who received UNE’s first ALTC National Fellowship for teaching valued at $100,000.  

Many of the FAS courses are accredited and the visit by Engineers Australia for the Bachelor of Engineering Technology degrees took place on 21 and 22 April.  The degrees are a collaborative venture with USQ and are coordinated for UNE by Rex Glencross-Grant.  In relation to this the Institute of Public Works Engineering Australia met at UNE on 6 May. The group was instrumental in supporting the establishment of the new degrees.  The School of Science and Technology has received accreditation from the Australian Computer Society from 2010 for a range of courses.  These include those on offer from Armidale via both internal and external mode and via our partner the International School of Business and Technology (ISBT) in Sydney.

Activities related to teaching and learning include the Primary Industries Centre for Science Education (PICSE).  The fifteen students who participated in the 2008 - 09 UNE PICSE program gave excellent presentations on the outcomes of their experience at a gathering in Booloominbah on 9 February.  UNE academic staff, parents, school teachers and industry collaborators associated with the project attended the event, that was introduced by the Chancellor and wrapped up the Vice-Chancellor.  The event was organised by the UNE PICSE Coordinator Susanna Greig. John Stanley represented UNE and FAS at the AgriFoods Jobs Summit held in Narrabri on 3 July.  The meeting included growers, agricultural support industries, training providers, skills accreditation and job network providers.  It was useful in opening discussion on the expectations of the various groups in relation to the opportunities available and in understanding and exploring attitudes and constraints.

The Hon Richard Torbay launched the UNE-NSW Parliament Rural and Regional Parliament Internship Program on 9 April.  The program allows students to gain first hand experience of working with Parliamentarians via the unit WORK 300/500, and is managed by Belinda Beattie. A workshop for Arts and Education Indigenous students was held on 8 and 9 May at Austin College.  Organised and facilitated by Ms Junette Bell, an Aboriginal research student based in Armidale, the workshop presented academic skills information and related student based learning activities to UNE’s Indigenous students.  A small group of Gumbangarrie Aboriginal Elders attended providing a community presence to support UNE’s Indigenous students.

The launch of the UNE Charles Tesoriero Lectureship in Classics took place on Friday 24 April.  The lectureship is funded via a bequest from the late Charles Tesoriero, a UNE academic in Classics.  Cuncun Wu organised a Chinese Calligraphy exhibition  - Flying Brush, Dancing Ink - that commenced on 30 June.  The exhibition showcases the work of students enrolled in the unit CHIN 211, and also that of Cuncun herself - an accomplished Calligrapher.

These are just some of the recent FAS teaching and learning highlights.  Our intent is to build on this success as we move toward the e-university in 2010.

The Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) at UNE consists of a range of interoperable systems which provide the functionality that underpins the on-line delivery of courses at UNE. The current systems have ‘grown like topsy’ since the implementation of WebCT in the late 1990’s as functionality requirements have evolved and been added to the suite of products available to staff and students.

Following on from recommendations in the Rebbechi report, in 2008 it was agreed that a more structured approach would be desirable as the University increased its commitment to the on-line environment. As a consequence a project to review the environment was established by the Academic Board Teaching and Learning Committee with initially Damon Ferris and consequently Vicki Tan at Project Manager. The project to date has included:

• The establishment of a high level Steering Committee
• A desk audit of learning management systems in Australia and overseas
• Surveys of staff and students to obtain feedback on issues associated with the current environment and suggestions for improvement
• Consultation with each School to identify their functionality requirements
• The development of essential and desirable requirements for functionality
• The establishment of a Working Party with representation from across the University to provide feedback, assessment and analysis of information
• Demonstrations to the Working Party against the selection criteria of the identified learning management systems
• Collection of financial information on all systems for installation, implementation and continuing maintenance

There is still considerable work to be done including:

• Demonstrations to all available staff and students of all systems
• Assessment of the systems against the ICT architecture of the University
• Further consultation and analysis of information collected as part of the above processes.

Recommendations regarding the systems which are the best fit for UNE based on the functionality, technical infrastructure, organisational capacity (both vendor and university), cost (implementation and life cycle) are due to be provided to the Steering Committee before the end of 2009. Following receipt of the recommendations planning and implementation projects will then be necessary.

 I would encourage all staff to engage and contribute to the process as it progresses to ensure your requirements are taken into consideration as it is essential that any decision meets the majority of the needs of staff and students into the future.

Feedback can be provided through the VLE Review blog at http://blog.une.edu.au/vlereview/ or contact Vicki Tan x3280 or vicki.tan@une.edu.au

Colleagues, I’d like to explore the current language of research funding and performance, as employed by the Commonwealth Government.  It is a language populated by acronyms that mask some rather complicated underlying processes for deciding how universities will be funded for research in 2010 and beyond by the government,.  I thought it might be useful to unpack some of these acronyms and indicate what they might mean for UNE.

ACG refers to Australian Competitive Grants for research.  It refers to any research grant income obtained by competitive means in accordance with rules set by the Commonwealth Government.  Each year, DIISR (Department of Industry, Innovation, Science and Research) publishes an updated list of all research grant schemes that qualify as ACGs, including ARC (Australian Research Council) grants and many other types of grants.  Such grants are also called ‘Category 1″ grants.  In 2008, about 34% of our total research grant income was from qualifying ACGs.  The remaining 66% was from other research grant funding sources, including other public sector research income (Category 2), industry and other research income(Category 3) and CRC research income (Category 4) [collectively known as non-ACG].

RTS refers to the Research Training Scheme.  This is the pool of research funding to be used to support research training for domestic students undertaking Masters and Doctoral degrees by research.  This funding amount is calculated using a combination of research income, publications and HDR (Higher Degree Research) completions.  There are no planned changes to this scheme.

JRE refers to the Joint Research Engagement scheme.  It is the new version of the old IGS (Institutional Grants Scheme).  When calculating IGS income for a university, funding from all four research grant categories was counted, as were publications and HDR student load.  The JRE is intended to reward seeking of funding from sources that enhance collaborative research engagement with industries and end-users of research.  Accordingly, the plan is that JRE research income will be calculated from category 2, 3 and 4 sources; ACG income will not be counted.  We already do fairly well in these non-ACG categories of research income and our rural and regional and applied focus in a number of areas should enhance our outcomes here.

ERA refers to the Excellence in Research in Australia initiative.  We have already had two practice encounters with the ERA this year with respect to the PCE (Physics, Chemistry and Earth Sciences) and HCA (Humanities and Creative Arts) discipline clusters.  It is the scheme the Commonwealth Government will use to assess research quality in the university sector.  Volume of research activity, publications against ranked outlets, citation analyses, peer review and research income figure prominently in ERA as do a limited set of applied measures.  Next year, the full set of 8 discipline clusters will be assessed and it is likely that some esteem measures will also be included (this last is currently out to universities for consultation).  ERA outcomes will help inform the research funding decisions to be made by the Commonwealth Government.  Unfortunately, the weak point of the ERA scheme, insensitivity to a range of non-publication related research outcomes, will not do UNE any favours.

TC refers to the Transparent Costing scheme.  It is the system (not yet finalised) through which universities will track and the Commonwealth Government will assess the allowable indirect costs that a university claims it incurs in carrying out ACG activities and in meeting other research performance targets. This assessment will then feed into the calculation of the “Excellence” portion of SRE funding (see below).  This process should help to remove some impediments to seeking ACG research funding because indirect costs could not be recovered.  Universities will receive some funding in 2010 to help in designing their TC systems to support this reporting scheme.  The more ACG funded research we undertake, the better our return on TC should be. 

SRE refers to the Sustainable Research Excellence initiative.  It is the planned evolution of the government’s system for calculating and allocating research infrastructure block funding to universities and is intended to help universities to better meet the indirect costs of research.  The plan embodies three suggested (not yet finalised) components: (1) 20% of funding would be calculated using the current RIBG (Research Infrastructure Block Grant) calculation formula; (2) 13% of funding would be identified as “Incentive”, linked to how much ACG income a university generates up to a cutoff point of $2.5 million dollars; and (3) 67% of funding would be identified as “Excellence”, linked to how much ACG income a university generates beyond the cutoff point of $2.5 million dollars, a university’s report on its TC for research and on targets identified by the ERA scheme.  Access to the Incentive and Excellence funding pathways is conditional on the university agreeing to participate in both the TC and ERA schemes - UNE will certainly agree to these conditions.  The SRE initiative will form an essential component of mission-based compacts, which each university will negotiate with the Commonwealth Government each year from 2010. 

One important implication hidden in amongst these acronyms is the increasing tension that will result from pursuing ACG funding to enhance outcomes in the TC and the SRE schemes on the one hand and pursuing non-ACG funding to enhance outcomes in the new JRE scheme on the other.  We certainly live in ‘interesting’ times!

I recently had the good fortune to be able to attend the Council for the Advancement of Standards in Education (CASE) conference in the Excited States of America. 

University of Stanford President John Hennessy said “Being President is like being a cemetery caretaker.  There are a lot of people below me, but no one’s listening”.  It’s good to know that the trials and tribulations, the caricature of universities everywhere remains common.

Speaking of trials and tribulations, on a personal level I was also struck with the scale of issues in California alone as a result of the GFC.  The 5^th largest economy in the world was issuing “IOUs” (they were assuringly relabelled as ‘Warrants’) as a result of the Legislature not having agreed on how to balance the budget.  The California State University (CSU) system alone is essentially the size of Australia’s entire higher education enrolments at 480,000 students.  23 campuses, just under 4% of the State budget at around $3b and a need to reduce operations by $600m due to budget cuts from a State that has literally run out of Uncle Sam’s greenback.  You think we in Australia have problems? - we are indeed the Lucky Country by comparison.

I was more intrigued by the comparatively rapacious use of web 2.0 (”two-oh”) by US universities including for purposes such as levelling stakeholders toward State politicians to lobby for the university’s desired outcomes, or for harnessing online communities towards the universities’ interests.  Interesting examples of tweaking what might otherwise seem obvious included:

• i) Stanford President Hennessy spoke of the 1 million downloads when Stanford loaded its Apple iphone programming course online http://news.stanford.edu/news/2009/april1/free-iphone-software-development-course-apple-040109.html
• ii) Utilizing social networking sites such as LinkedIn, Facebook, etc as the centre for harnessing activity (e.g. alumni) as opposed to using Facebook as the referral source. 250 million people can’t be wrong…(can they? Worth noting that FB had 100m users just last year)

Also speaking at the opening plenary was Tim O’Reilly, the technology, media analyst and personality thought to have coined the phrase “web 2.0″; Tim has 750,000 followers he says on Twitter.  That was in July, and I checked today and it’s now 964,195 followers.

To me, his interesting points were to observe that the current web 2.0 environment is all about content.  If web 2.0 has facilitated networking then networking is still about user-generated content.  However, whereas some perceptions are that social networking sites are banal places where asinine social commentary is made, successful social networking sites are about information and people care about what others are saying.  Information that builds on knowledge, content linking to content is ‘where it’s at’ and the more relevant the content is to the user, the more powerful the site harnessing the facilitation of that content - witness, at one level, evidence of this in the dominance of Facebook and Google bringing or linking content sufficient to generate a buck or two….  If you were in any doubt, worth noting that Google revenues were $5.7b in f/year ‘08 alone.

And so is all this social networking bumff just about non-academic matters?

Academia on Facebook?
Not quite.  Sober minds are turning to alternative models of aiding The Scientific Discourse in the world’s third oldest profession.  A 2008 Economist article explained how Web 2.0 influences were shaping scientific debate [1].  Acknowledging the time-proven ability of peer-reviewed journals to build knowledge by “filtering out dross”, the article argued that this process was not exactly alacritous, thus limiting fast-moving debate on new discoveries, scientific progress and so on. 

There are obviously downsides however to a pervasiveness of content thanks to technology, and another Economist article referred to University of Chicago sociologist James Evans’ work, published in Science, showing how the powers of search (e.g. through current technologies of online databases), while ensuring more journals were accessible online, was actually resulting in fewer articles being cited in the reference lists of the research papers published within them.   In short, like web search results, the most recent publications were getting the most attention and the most citations, resulting in a tightening noose around a set core of recently published articles. 

In the “old days” such as my own not-so-long-ago-but-clearly-a-different-world of post-graduate study, one would have had to read a passive, physical, encyclopaedic index of works with titles and authors alone, and as such “as happened with printed journals, [this] forced readers to cast at least a cursory glance at work not immediately related to their own-or even that the mere act of flicking through a paper volume may have thrown up unexpected gems. This may have led people to make broader comparisons and to integrate more past results into their research.”[2].

We have here at UNE been speaking of “e-” things including “e-research” and without comment here on the debate on the suitability of “e-” as suitable nomenclature, the Economist article [1] points out that blogging for research is already well underway: http://researchblogging.org/

In sum, it’s interesting and important developments (and times) for academia in the web 2.0 world and beyond.

[1] http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=12253189

[2] http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displayStory.cfm?story_id=11745514

Most nights I watch my daughter (just doing HSC and hoping to go to University next year) working on her laptop in the kitchen, searching for the daily high point on UTube while updating Facebook, playing iTunes, emailing, video Skyping, sending texts on her mobile, playing guitar, eating, watching TV and having a conversation with Sue and I.  It is called homework.

You may recently have seen advertising for the eLearning Commons at TLC.  I booked in today for a couple of hours to have a look and be taken through some of the things that are available.  Ray Cooksey, Jennie Shaw and Don Hine came along too.

We started by watching a short TLC video:

http://tlc.une.edu.au/video/?commons-trailer.mp4

and then saw an interactive Flash module (delivered via Blackboard), created by Nigel Andrew from Zoology, Catherine Clarke and Iain Mackay from TLC, that engages students in initial thinking using scenario-based learning:

http://tlc.une.edu.au/entomology/module1/

I was knocked backwards by a promotional unit trailer produced by Dr Frances Gray from Philosophy in conjunction with TLC, introducing the concept of metaphysics to new students - I was about to ask where you could get such a great voice-over before realising it was actually Frances herself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrH-zMBmCsg

We saw an interactive Flash module, created by Kip Werren from Law and Helen Fraser and Ingrid Wijeyewardene from TLC, that supports NESB students with language difficulties via scenario-based learning:

http://tlc.une.edu.au/law/LS391.swf

and an enhanced podcast, created by Linguistics lecturers, syncing lecture audio with PowerPoint slides and delivered to external students:

http://tlc.une.edu.au/video/?ling101.mp4

After that we had a go ourselves to select some powerpoint slides and put music and speech audio onto them - working in both PC and Mac environments.  So, Interactive Flash video, enhanced podcasts, video trailers and screen flow capture which integrate into Blackboard - are a short walk away.  Like us you can book into the Open2Learning dedicated lab and be doing this kind of thing within a few minutes - although of course major unit revamps take longer.  Thanks to Robyn Muldoon and everyone who helped us at Open2Learning for the experience.

All the best . . . Graham.

On reflection I seem to start each blog for the UNE Voice with what is becoming a trademark comment about how eventful the last few months have been both at UNE and across the higher education sector.  So as not to disappoint, I am pleased to provide the following updates and comments about emerging issues.

Since my last blog in mid-June UNE has (and this is just the tip of the ice-berg):

• completed the AUQA audit visits, involving staff, students and other stakeholders;
• released the Mid-Term Review of the Strategic Plan 2007-2010;
• provided the the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Education, Julia Gillard, with preliminary details of UNE proposals for structural change in line with the Australian Government’s announcements in the May 2009 Budget;
• been actively involved in discussion with Commonwealth Government in respect to Sustainable Research Excellence initiatives and the development of mission-based compacts;
• held one-one meeting with State Government Ministers in respect to the current higher education environment and UNE linkages with State Departments;
• completed the 2009 UNE Strategic Initiative Funding round;
• made a submission to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee Inquiry Rural and regional access to secondary and tertiary education opportunities;
• continued with Enterprise Bargaining;
• hosted a Consuls- General Roundtable and Regional Mayor’s Roundtable; and
• had our English Language Centre audited and re-accredited by NEAS (the National ELT Accreditation Scheme) with the Centre receiving outstanding praise for all aspects of its operation.

This level of activity (and more), especially in regard to strategic direction and Government policy is indicative of the momentum surrounding higher education, both in Canberra and Macquarie Street.  We continue to provide input into the Universities Australia 10 Point Plan for Student Safety and will contribute to Commonwealth’s review into on-going funding arrangements for regional universities, the International Student Review and the establishment of The Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency (TEQSA).  This is on top of developing UNE’s mission-based Compact in consultation with the Government.

The momentum for change on the whole is encouraging for UNE.  As John F Kennedy once said “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”

Five-star rating

This week The Good Universities Guide for 2010 was released and UNE was again awarded a five-star rating for “graduate satisfaction”.  UNE has achieved this rating for 10 out of the past 11 years - an amazing accomplishment for which we must thank all staff and be justifiably proud. 

I congratulate all staff for your dedication in providing a student focused learning environment for both on-campus and distance education students.  I firmly believe that our high academic standards and communication with all students is the foundation of our consistently high rating.  There is no doubt that for our on-campus students, our unique residential system, excellent sporting facilities, and opportunities for involvement in the life of the wider Armidale community also contribute to this result.

UNE also received five-stars for “teaching quality” , “access by equity groups” and “Indigenous participation”.  UNE was the only regional university in NSW to be awarded five stars for teaching quality. We are also following up with the publishers of the Guide some other aspects of our ratings that seem a little out of step with previous levels. Of particular interest is the current rating we achieve with respect to graduate employment. We believe there are many factors in this area that may not be adequately incorporated into the Guide’s analysis and we will discuss these issues with the publishers.

Overall our outcomes in the Guide place UNE at the forefront of Australian universities in addressing the higher education needs of all students and in particular, disadvantaged people - in line with the Australian Government’s priorities for education generally.

In a recent email to all staff I advised that two of the CRCs with which we are associated (CRCs for Poultry and Spatial Information) have received a new round of funding. These are very important outcomes for UNE and again emphasise the high standing that we have in research.

Congratulations to all once again on these outstanding achievements.

Financial Outlook for UNE

The Australian ran an article on 3 August 2009 Unis facing ‘perfect storm’ before Rudd funds arrive warning that universities will be placed in a precarious financial position as revenue from investment income, declining international student fee revenue and the axing of full-fee programs for domestic students, coupled with increased costs and an 18-month wait for extra funding from the Commonwealth Government, hit hard.

While UNE does face the need for continuing financial constraint our position is not exposed to the extent of the majority of other Australian Universities.

There are a number of reasons for this:

• 1. UNE has not lost any investment revenue. In fact our investment revenue has increased in 2008 - 2009. The majority of UNE investments remain in cash accounts gaining interest.
• 2. UNE has only a relatively small, but growing, number of international students, thus UNE’s financial exposure is small.
• 3. UNE expects that a number of new courses will boost enrolment numbers in 2010 to 2012. A planned increase in the overall marketing budget is also expected to increase student enrolment generally.

In spite of the more positive outlook at UNE, the University will maintain budgetary restraint and ensure funds are allocated in strategically focused areas to maximise longer term growth.

As most of you will be aware, the major factor (by far) that determines the financial position of the University is our student enrolments (measured as load in Equivalent Full Time Students - EFTSL). I look forward to reporting to you our final student load position for 2009 as soon as possible after the census date of 31 August. In the interim, I urge all staff who have a direct responsibility for interaction with our students to ensure that their interests are cared for and that we retain our improved achievement in student load this year.

Finally, as I have mentioned in the recent flurry of une-officials I would welcome input from staff on the discussion paper on Compacts and the mid-term Review of our Strategic Plan.  Your input can be forwarded to Sue Campbell (scampb20@une.edu.au) or John Kleeman (jkleeman@une.edu.au) in my office.

Regards

Alan Pettigrew