The Learning and Teaching Matters newsletter provides just in time resources to support academics and professional staff. Keep up to date with current news and resources through the latest edition below.
The Learning and Teaching Matters newsletter provides just in time resources to support academics and professional staff. Keep up to date with current news and resources through the latest edition below.
A big thank you to all the staff who attended and presented at this week's teaching and learning showcases on the Ballarat and North Sydney campuses, we have had incredibly engaging and innovative discussions about the power of storytelling in teaching at ACU.
I'd like to encourage Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne staff to attend their campus events next week. You'll have an opportunity to share teaching initiatives, hear from the student panel and catch up with campus colleagues.
On behalf of the CEI team and myself, I want to thank all staff for their dedication and persistence in providing excellent learning experiences and environments for our students. Your engagement and collaboration with our team throughout the year has been fantastic.
Professional learning workshops will be advertised at the beginning of 2025, if you require advice or assistance in the meantime, please contact CEI@acu.edu.au.
Register here to attend the Showcase →
Read the presentation and workshop abstracts and access the day's program for your campus by clicking the links below.
Professor Anthony Whitty
Director, CEI
The Graduate Certificate in Higher Education (GCHE) is now open for enrolments to commence on 20 January 2025 for Professional Term 2. The GCHE is designed to help you to develop your career as a tertiary educator and to contribute directly to extending a culture of excellence in learning and teaching at ACU.
The course is work-integrated so that you undertake learning activities that are of direct relevance and benefit to you. It aims to model and illustrate good practice and ensure your learning experience is transparently relevant and strategically beneficial.
Teaching academics, including casual staff and professional staff who have a role leading teaching and learning at either the School or Faculty level are eligible to have their fees waived.
Read more about the GCHE and enrol now.
Students can be anxious and disappointed when they receive their grades and frequently don't understand well how to respond when they get academic progress letters. Relieve their stress, and yours, by referring them to the online information sessions offered by the Student Advocacy Service in December and January.
Receiving results information sessions will cover:
Academic progress information sessions will cover:
For more information, students can contact advocacy.service@acu.edu.au or visit Student Advocacy.
iThenticate is a web-based plagiarism detection software that assists researchers in the detection of plagiarised material in draft manuscripts and in Higher Degree Research (HDR) theses prior to submission.
The Centre for Education and Innovation (CEI) is upgrading iThenticate to version 2.0 to improve the user experience through an enhanced layout, navigation interface and similarity report.
For a short period on 7 January 2025, we will be migrating content to the new iThenticate 2.0 site, during this time iThenticate will not be able available to submit or view similarity reports. iThenticate users will be sent advice and instructions to their ACU email before the outage and following.
If you have questions or concerns, please contact learning.technologies@acu.edu.au.
Have you used the standard comment libraries for marking?
ASU recently developed and released a set of standard comment libraries that academics can use in their marking. Dr Rhonda Siu and Associate Professor Georgia Clarkson are now seeking feedback from academics to improve the libraries. Academics, including academic developers and those involved in Equity and Pathway programs, who have used at least one of the standard feedback comments in their marking are invited to participate in a research study.
To express interest in participating, please contact Dr Rhonda Siu at rhonda.siu@acu.edu.au.
Project title: 'Enhancing feedback literacy in higher education: Refining standard-comment libraries based on teaching staff's perceptions of their effectiveness' (2024-3132E).
The Academic Integrity Team (AIT) would like to highlight key processes to follow when lodging potential academic integrity cases in SAMMS:
Timeframes to lodge cases
Once a Lecturer in Charge (LIC) is aware of a case, they must make a preliminary analysis within 5 working days; they then have an additional working day to lodge the case. Cases should not normally be lodged after results release. Cases lodged outside of the timeframe specified by the Procedures will be dismissed.
LICs determining Poor Academic Practice (PAP)
LICs can make a direct determination of a PAP by entering 'LIC determines PAP' into the 'Details of Alleged Misconduct' field in SAMMS. PAP help guides are available below:
Evidence required
After a preliminary analysis has been conducted, the LIC must provide appropriate evidence when lodging a case in SAMMS. The Turnitin AI indicator alone is not sufficient to support a case of unauthorised use of AI. Cases that are not supported by additional evidence will be dismissed.
Download the Turnitin AI indicator checklist and the best practice evidence guide to learn more.
Prioritised cases
If a potential case of academic misconduct needs to be prioritised for any of the reasons listed below, please email the case details to academic.integrity@acu.edu.au:
| Assoc Professor Jennifer Carpenter | Associate Dean Learning Teaching and Governance, Faculty of Education and Arts |
| Dr Ian Elmer | Acting Associate Dean, Learning and Teaching, Faculty of Theology and Philosophy |
| Assoc Professor Stephen Guinea | Associate Dean, Learning, Teaching and Professional Experience, Faculty of Health Sciences |
| Assoc Professor Bhavani Sridharan | Associate Dean (Learning Teaching and Accreditation), Faculty of Law and Business |
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