The WIL@ACU team has been recognised with a Vice-Chancellor’s Staff Excellence award for Innovation Excellence, for their work to establish a University-wide online presence for work integrated learning.

The team includes Associate Professor Jillian Fox, Faculty of Education and Arts, Dr Annie Venville, Faculty of Health Sciences, and Mr Peter Bruhn, Learning and Teaching Centre.

The project leads acknowledged the valuable contributions made by Ms Nadia Thompson, Senior Project Manager, for the expertise she provided the team in managing large scale digital projects and Ms Taryn Elder, Content Producer, for her work in creating the website videos.

The Innovation Excellence award celebrates and recognizes individuals and teams who have developed better solutions to meet new or existing needs of the University.

The WIL@ACU website was launched in February by the Vice-Chancellor and President, Professor Greg Craven. It provides a central point of information and support relating to work integrated learning for Faculty of Education and Arts and Faculty of Health Sciences students, University partners, and prospective students and partners.

The project was implemented under the banner of ACU Learning for Life.

The website has already proven itself to be effective, with more than 8000 visitors to the site between March and July and more than 28,000 website page views.

Associate Professor Jillian Fox, Mr Peter Bruhn and Dr Annie Venville

The collaborative project drew upon the resources of the Faculties of Health Science and Education and Arts, the Learning and Teaching Centre, Digital Strategy, external partner W3, and the IT directorate, to build a website that enhances communication between staff, students and industry partners.

“It has truly been a collaborative effort from the word go,” Annie said. “We saw a real opportunity to position ACU within the sector because we’re really proud that we’re the largest educator of nurses and teachers in Australia.”
Jill agreed, adding “This is a real example of what we can do when we pool resources and work together across different faculties and areas of the University.”

The team says it was very focused on ensuring the website design provided access to personalised, geo-located information for students and industry partners.

The WIL@ACU website is industry-leading and provides an integrated and tailored experience for our students undertaking invaluable industry-based learning experiences.

"Work integrated learning is core to our courses and integrates theory with the practice of work within a purposefully designed curriculum,” Jill said.