June 20, 2014

UOW awarded special national fellowship to investigate Higher Education standards

UOW has been awarded the only Higher Education Standards Panel Research Fellowship from the Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) in 2014.

University Fellow, Emeritus Professor Christine Ewan, AM, was awarded the Research Fellowship, which carries a grant of $310,000.

Professor Ewan’s fellowship is entitled: “National Consensus on Higher Education Standards in a Disaggregated Learning Environment”.

The project aims to develop a national consensus, informed by existing national and international practice, on the ways in which institutions can demonstrate to themselves and TEQSA that their engagement in alternative and distributed delivery methods for award courses is compliant with the Higher Education Standards Framework. The project will provide a focus for sharing the considerable expertise that already exists in Australia and in established international networks and will incorporate the views of private and non-self-accrediting higher education providers as well as universities, students, teachers and employers. An issues and possibilities paper will be considered at a national forum, resulting in a report that will inform the TEQSA standards, particularly relating to course accreditation and qualification standards.

Professor Ewan was the Pro Vice Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Wollongong between 1993 and 2000. Since leaving UOW Christine has been DVC (Education) at UWS, CEO of the National Breast Cancer Centre, General Manager, Planning and Innovation in the NSW Department of Education and Principal Academic Adviser at the Australian Learning & Teaching Council where she led the successful Learning & Teaching Academic Standards project. She has also been acting as a consultant in higher education as a Key Associate with PhillipsKPA.

Other OLT successes for UOW were:

Innovation and Development Grants
·  Sally Rogan for $225,000  - project led by the University of Tasmania
·  Professor Frank Deane, Professor John Bushnell and Mr Mark Donovan for $220,000 – project led by University of Western Sydney
·  Dr Glennys O’Brien for $217,000  - project led by The University of Sydney

Seed Grants
·  Dr Lotte Latukefu for a Seed Grant for $48,000 led by The University of Sydney

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education), Professor Eeva Leinonen, said the awards were an excellent result in what is a very competitive arena.