As we come to the end of Trimester 1, I’d like to thank everyone teaching in T1 for their efforts and say good luck to those preparing for teaching in Trimester 2. As our continuing load is down for both the forthcoming trimester 2 and 3, please take the opportunity with your final communications to students for the term to flag enrolment for these terms, and – where appropriate – any units within discipline etc continuing students may wish to take (please flag the need for students to check their own course requirements too!).

If teaching in T2, please ensure you have a clear statement of permitted (or otherwise) use of generative ‘AI’ in assessment for your units – this can assist with academic integrity investigations.

We are also nearing the end of the business-as-usual academic governance cycle for 2025. Please note that the new Course and Unit Policy and accompanying Procedures and Workflows do not currently provide any specific ‘urgent’ pathways as have existed in the past.

A number of ‘AI’ Bot ‘Assistants’ are now available or in development through Madgwick; intended to assist with, inter alia, governance and teaching and learning design. Please be aware that these possess many of the capabilities, and limitations, of the large language models that underlie them. Thus, while potentially aiding with navigation of our policy suite, they also produce hallucinations and errors of varying degrees of significance – so do check the original source material.

Teaching and Learning Communities of Practice and Symposia

Upcoming Communities of Practice in T2 for teaching and learning at UNE include the following:

• Tech and GenAI –  Friday, 10:00, Week 3 of T2, 11 July, 2025.  For academics interested in exploring how to use AI and technology in teaching, or address the challenges AI presents within their units.
• Student Retention & Engagement – Friday, 10:00, Week 4 of T2, 18 July 2025. Focused on strategies to improve student retention and engagement, especially in large first-year units.
• Unit and Course Design – Friday, 10:00, Week 5 of T2, 25 July 2025. For those wanting to understand and implement best practices in pedagogy and governance when developing or redeveloping assessment or entire units and courses.
• Course Coordinators CoP – Friday, 09:00, Week 5 of T2, 25 July 2025. Designed to support course coordinators in building skills, knowledge, and tackling shared challenges.

There are also forthcoming Symposia:

• All Innovative Practices 17 July, 9am – 5pm
• Technology and Gen AI, 16 October 9:30am – 12pm.

Information can be found here.