Preparing your ascilite submissions; some key considerations from Helen Carter and Matt Bower's ascilite webinar, "How to Prepare a Conference Paper for ascilite 2013"

The ascilite Webinar held on Friday the 31st of May, titled “How to Prepare a Conference Paper for ascilite 2013” presented by Helen Carter and Matt Bower provided a range of advice on preparing submissions for the upcoming ascilite conference, 'Electric Dreams', which will be held at Macquarie University on the 1-4^th of December. The three topics or streams are designed to enable as many submissions as possible whilst celebrating the 30 years the conference has been going and include:
 

1.       Learning from the past (reflecting on development, literature reviews etc.)

2.       Understanding our present (what we are doing now, current research/projects etc.)

3.       Imagining the future (what might be, what is possible etc.)

Some handy hints are found below which you may like to consider when preparing your ascilite submissions, remembering that the full paper submissions are due July 1.

• A good abstract is really important and should always be written after the article to ensure that it reflects the essence of what is being said.
• Make it clear to the reader what your article is contributing to the sector.
• Don’t overwhelm your article with references, there needs to be a balance, and the reviewers are actually interested in what you have to say.
• Have a colleague, even if they are not in the same field, read your article prior to submission. As the author you are often too close to the work and having another set of eyes look over it can help a great deal especially with grammar and readability.
• There needs to be alignment in your research article, it needs to be an integrated piece which clearly states your research question and differentiates between research and simply reporting.
• In a more detailed look at structuring the submission, Matt provided the following advice. The context for the piece should be clearly established and used as a platform for justifying the value of the research project. This should be followed by an exploration of the literature trying to draw upon as much core literature as possible. You may want to use google scholar to see how many times an article has been cited, previous actilite proceedings and editions of AJET are also valuable places to look for relevant literature. Your description of the method should be rigorous enough so that it could be replicated by others. Make sure you select key findings to highlight, don’t overwhelm the audience by providing a huge spread of findings and be sure to link these back to the literature. The conclusion is your chance to provide your take home message and make a personal statement.

Also some key or ‘hot’ topic areas for this year were noted including learning analytics, MOOCs, flipped classrooms, augmented reality, 3D printing, internationalisation, student diversity as well as women, indigenous people and technology (where have we come over the last 30 years?).

Thanks to Helen Carter, Matt Bower and ascilite for putting on the webinar. For more information please visit the conference website.

Innovative Indigenous Teaching and Learning - The latest Good Practice Report published by the OLT

The 'Innovative Indigenous Teaching and Learning' Good Practice Report by Professor Nereda White, Dr Jack Frawley and Ms Dang Thi Kim Anh has recently been published by the OLT and can be found on their website along with the 10 other published Good Practice Reports.

"The review consists of three major sections. First, it provides a summative evaluation of the good practices and key outcomes for teaching and learning from completed ALTC projects and fellowships (as at February 2013) relating to the topic of Innovative Indigenous learning and teaching in higher education. Second, it presents a review of relevant Australian and international scholarly research and publications on the topic. Drawing on the observations from the review of ALTC projects and relevant literature, the final section, Recommendations, identifies areas in which further work or development is needed" (Extract from Innovative Indigenous Teaching and Learning Report - Overview, p.5).

These Good Practice Reports offer great insights through the development of key outcomes for learning and teaching related to specific topic areas, detailed project examples, recommendations for further work as well as drawing upon relevant literature.

NOTE: The OLT is currently seeking applications for commissioned projects including the development of new Good Practice Reports in the areas of Postgraduate research and coursework degrees and Standards (Due Friday 28th June, 2013).

More information about OLT commissioned projects including the Good Practice Reports can be found here on the OLT website.

NATA Project Event Scheduled for the 6th of November, 2013.

NATA will be hosting a project event on Wednesday the 6th of November at the University of Queensland. This event will showcase the work of NATA, including research findings, Good Practice resources developed as well as details of projects by partner associations. This event will also provide a space for discussing the future of the NATA Network and what sustainability may look like.

Adaptability to Online Learning: Differences Across Types of Students and Academic Subject Areas

A recent publication by Di Xu and Shanna Smith Jaggars detailing a study in the United States focused on adaptability to Online Learning. The study examines how well students adapt to the online environment in terms of their ability to persist and earn strong grades in online courses relative to their ability to do so in face-to-face courses.


Access the report here: http://ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/adaptability-to-online-learning.pdf

Technology Outlook for Australian Tertiary Education 2013-2018

The Technology Outlook for Australian Tertiary Education 2013-2018: An NMC Horizon Project Regional Analysis was recently released, aiming to inform Australian educational leaders about significant developments in technologies supporting teaching, learning, and creative inquiry in tertiary education.

The report looks at trends over three different time spans; one year or less, two to three years and lastly four to five years. Some of the trends covered include Learning Analytics, MOOCs, Badges, 3D Printing, Virtual and Remote Laboratories and Wearable Technologies.

The Top Ten Trends Impacting Technology Decisions as well as the Top Ten Most Significant Challenges are also discussed in the report.

The report can be viewed here with additional information about the Report available on the report's wiki.

Report Citation:

Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Freeman, A., Ifenthaler, D., and Vardaxis, N. (2013). Technology Outlook for Australian Tertiary Education 2013-2018: An NMC Horizon Project Regional Analysis. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium.

ascilite live webinar - Increasing awareness of the GPRs

Technology-enhanced Learning and Teaching Report from TashHard

Today Mike, Gordon and I had the opportunity to talk with the ascilite community about the ALTC Good Practice Reports with particular attention on the Technology-enhanced Learning and Teaching Report that we developed together in 2011.

With around 20 ascilite members attending the webinar it provided a good chance to reach a different audience. We discussed the development and value of the report as well as providing an overview of the NATA and its relationship with ascilite.

The report can be downloaded here.

We conducted a few small polls during the webinar with the results listed below. These appear to support the idea that there is still not a great awareness of the GPRs within the sector.

• Have you ever read or engaged with an ALTC Good Practice Report?

To this question we received 6 Yes and 7 No responses.

• Have you read or engaged with the Technology-enhanced Learning and Teaching Report prior to participating in this webinar?

To this question we received 4 Yes and 7 No responses.

There was also a range of different views regarding the number of GP reports developed when asked.

A recording of this webinar will be made available to all ascilite members and the slides can be viewed and downloaded by all through slideshare.

Some points to reflect upon

We met up with Tom (project evaluator) to discuss the development and progress of the NATA. Some of the key points that emerged from that discussion included:

• Turnover of network members/representatives remains a constant challenge in maintaining an effective network.
• There is very little alignment or commonality of interest between what the PENS and NATA are doing; resulting in little motivation to engage with each other.
• The NATA may achieve the project outcomes/deliverables but at the same time fail to deliver a sustainable network. These are two completely different outcomes which we need to consider. Moreover, if we can’t make it sustainable why is that?
• Evaluation approach – Phase 1 completed, Phase 2 is being done through the 6-weekly meetings and Phase 3 will involve a more formal interview-based approach.