
Senate election for academic staff
News 19 FebruaryNominations are now open to appoint two members of our academic staff to the university Senate for a term ending in 2028.
18 November 2020
Share
The Examination Team Plus has been awarded the Vice-Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award for Service Excellence for moving from centrally scheduling on-campus, paper-based exams to scheduling all online and take-home examinations for Semester 1, 2020 due to COVID-19.
This hastily formed team includes Associate Director Student Administrative Services, Helen Murnane, Coordinator Katie Cooper, Patricia Yamasaki and Catherine Thompson from the Examinations and Results (ER) Team, Student Administration’s Amanda Wang from Course Information Management, Ashleigh Brown and Annette Rigby from Graduations, and Kym Fizzell from Student Systems.
In March, when the COVID-19 pandemic started spreading across the world, the ER team was in the process of scheduling the print run for examination papers and recruiting examination supervisors as usual. After ACU decided to suspend in-person exams in response to the pandemic, the ER team acted swiftly to transition scheduling online and take-home examinations for all students.
To achieve the rapid response required, the team called on additional support from Student Administration colleagues whose own roles had been disrupted by the pandemic.
“We had to leave behind all of the skills we had in exam planning and learn new ones,” says Helen. “We just had to step in.”
On top of scheduling all online and take-home examinations, the team assessed every student’s assessment schedule for conflicting due dates or clashes to prevent any undue stress, ensured no academic staff were overburdened by changing platforms and processes, and adhered to ACU Examination Policy and Procedure in the process.
Katie says, “We had to learn how to schedule the longer four-day take-home exams without crossover, look at the timetabling for each and every student, reach out to any lecturers and let them know which specific students may come to them and request assistance due to tight timetabling, and advise the lecturer of what assistance they should offer that student.”
The team was committed to ensuring a stress-free process for students and knew that it was important to provide a personalised timetable for each student as they normally would.
“Examinations are the hardest part of their year at the best of times,” says Helen. “As such, timetabling was the only skill which we carried over to make it as consistent and normal as possible for the students to not add to their stress.”
The ER team undertook an intense training session from ACU’s e-learning advisors to enable them to schedule and set up all 131 LEO online exams for the Semester 1 main round.
This intense learning curve gave academic staff the freedom to concentrate on the task of adapting content and format from their established exams.
Helen says that lecturers generously allowed the team to access their units and create tiles to house assessments [on LEO], adding, “I can’t thank the faculties enough for their collaboration.”
She particularly acknowledges the work of Anthony Whitty, Director Learning and Teaching Centre, and Professor Meg Stuart, Deputy Provost, who helped with uploading all of the examination papers.
“Anthony and Meg gave us the power to do whatever we needed to do. They gave us their time, their expertise, their training and their help.”
The team anticipated all the potential challenges that may come from academics, students and technology – none of which eventuated. In fact, scheduling ACU’s assessment in a single timetable for school and centrally managed assessment has seen the lowest rate of exam-related queries and complaints in the past seven years.
“It was about us keeping our students informed so they knew what was going to happen,” says Helen.
“The most important thing about the change was the lack of feedback we got compared to a regular exam period, where we usually get a lot of complaints or feedback or requests for deferred exams. Our students were comfortable and happy and didn’t feel the need to reach out.
“We even had one student who went out of her way to thank us and express that she appreciated the lengths we went to, because she knew from her friends that other universities hadn’t gone to these lengths.”
The team say they have learnt a lot about how they can use technology to help reduce students’ anxiety around exams, including how to assist students with different needs so they don’t feel different to their peers.
For example, the creation of an online reader-scribe service decreased anxiety around assessments for some of ACU’s most vulnerable students. This innovation reimagines how we utilise the services of our existing exam supervisor.
Students whose Educational Inclusion Plan requires either assistance with reading or responding to exam questions were supported to sit their exams in a one-on-one Zoom session with a dedicated reader-scribe who logged into the exams with them. This allowed the student to complete each exam in a comfortable space at a designated time.
“For the most part, the stress, stigma and anxiety was removed for students,” says Katie. “Students could control their own environments to suit their own individual requirements.”
Examinations Plus Team, from left to right: Patricia Yamasaki, Catherine Thompson, Katie Cooper, Amanda Wang and Helen Murnane.
Nominations are now open to appoint two members of our academic staff to the university Senate for a term ending in 2028.
You’re invited to celebrate the accomplishments of our graduates and participate in the upcoming graduation ceremonies held in Ballarat, Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney.
A message from Vice President Fr Anthony Casamento csma: I encourage you to attend the Welcome Ceremony on your campus in the first week of March. Join us as we mark the beginning of the academic year...
Meet Associate Professor Niusha Shafiabady - one of ACU's remarkable female scientists
ACU Library’s Research Engagement team are running their Research Essentials skills sessions again in 2025. Reserve your place to learn more about research data management.
We're streamlining access to library resources based on student feedback.
Get ready to embark on an exhilarating journey into the mysterious world of enrolments. Register now for upcoming Semester 1, 2025 enrolment information sessions.
The Stakeholder Engaged Scholarship Unit (SESU) is now accepting expressions of interest for research projects from organisations supporting people experiencing disadvantage.
ACU Library’s Research Engagement team are running their Research Essentials skills sessions again in 2025. Register now.
Service Central phone support will be extended and available from 8am to 5:30pm from Monday 17 February to Friday 14 March, to support ACU staff as they begin Semester 1.
Yesterday was International Day of Women and Girls in Science. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be hearing from some of ACU’s remarkable female scientists to learn about their paths into science. This ...
ACU Library was due to transition to the new EBSCOhost user interface on 4 February. Based on feedback, EBSCO has delayed the migration until July 2025.
A message from Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise), Professor Abid Khan: A warm welcome back to all our ACU colleagues with best wishes for the new year.
The library provides access to most of the resources you will come across in your teaching and research, including newspaper articles, images and videos. Make it your first stop for all your informati...
The library has expanded its support for affordable learning.
Congratulations to ACU Honorary Professor David Runia who was named a Member of the Order of Australia in this year’s Australia Day honours.
During the first week of February every year we celebrate World Interfaith Harmony Week.
The Centre for Education and Innovation (CEI) is offering six one-hour professional development sessions to prepare academics for the start of Semester 1. Register for the webinars here.
A message from the Executive Dean of Theology and Philosophy, Professor Richard Colledge: A new year provides opportunities to nurture what has been planted, and bring buds to bloom.
The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Council has been established to guide ACU’s adoption of AI in its teaching, research and engagement, and to influence good practice with university partners and stakeh...
Visit Service Central to access Corporate Services.