Global mapping case studies
Case 13: UNSW
FEATURE HIGHLIGHTED: Building educational communities
The launch of the education-focused (EF) career pathway at UNSW Sydney in 2017 (see Case 3) prompted a major focus on fostering connectivity and professional identity amongst this new academic community. While the EF community now represents almost a quarter of the university’s academic population, its members are scattered across disciplines and lack the easy access to established internal networks and external resources available to their research-focused colleagues. At the same time, the Office for Learning and Teaching – the national agency that had played a pivotal role in building the quality of Australian university education – ceased operations in 2016, leaving a major void in educational grant funding and network-building opportunities across the country.
Establishing a collegial community across the EF community – building the culture, visibility and connectivity of this cohort – was therefore a particular priority. Such community-building enabled identity formation and collaboration across of the EF cohort. It also opened up avenues to expand their sphere of educational impact and advance their career progression. Since 2017, UNSW has worked to build the EF community at three progressive levels:
connectivity within the EF community. In the early years after the pathway’s launch, attention focused on building connectivity within the new cross-disciplinary EF community, as supported by regular networking events and activities including an annual residential retreat for all EF academics. Communities of Practice (COPs) were also established to build EF networks and enhance the UNSW learning experience in topic areas such as Student Wellbeing and Artificial Intelligence.
connectivity with the wider UNSW academic community. As the EF cohort grew, so did efforts to integrate it in the wider UNSW community. Non-EF academics were encouraged to join COPs, and now comprise 44% of their membership. Programmes such as NEXUS were also launched to help EF and non-EF academics share good educational practices and advance UNSW’s strategic priorities in their departments.
connectivity with external educational communities. Building networks with, and advancing impact on, the global EF community was seen as a key mechanism to build the reputational capital of UNSW’s EF academics and identify new educational ideas, funding sources, and partnerships. With major constraints on institutional budgets, UNSW’s approach has been highly focused; this global network-building principally targeted the SoTL community, as noted below.
UNSW prioritises two key SoTL conferences – the global International Society for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (ISSOTL) and the regional Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia (HERDSA)– to enhance the external impact, profile, and connectivity of its EF community. EF academics are offered structured training and mentorship to support abstract submissions to these conferences, along with post-conference support to maximise their contribution to career development. Grants are provided to all first-time conference attendees and all those with accepted abstracts. UNSW’s EF cohort was noted to be a visible and cohesive community at these events, with a strong emphasis placed on peer support and brokering new partnerships outside the university. UNSW has also started to evaluate the impact of conference grants provided to EF academics, tracking the opportunities each grant creates for the individual in the years following their attendance; metrics include educational research partnerships, external grants success, leadership opportunities enabled, and the external referees secured.