AALL (Vic)
Thursday November 27, 2008 (10 am – 3 pm)
ACU (St Patrick’s) Melbourne Campus
Theme: Professional Identity
Seminar Notes
Welcome
• Patricia Hacker, Manager Academic Skills Unit, ACU opened the Seminar by welcoming everyone and introducing the PVC Academic Affairs, ACU, Professor Gabrielle McMullen, PVC Academic Affairs, ACU to officially welcome everyone to the day.
For Professor McMullen’s address, see [attachment=1]PVC's address on Professional Identity to AALL (Vic).doc[/attachment]• Attendees included 67 representatives from 11 institutions from Victoria, ACT and NSW.
Guest Speaker
• Alex Barthel, University of Technology Sydney (UTS) (Alex.Barthel@uts.edu.au) gave a presentation on ‘Good Practice Principles for English Competence in Australian Universities’ and listed the following:
1. Universities are responsible for ensuring that their students are sufficiently competent in the English language to participate effectively in their university studies
2. Resourcing of English language development is adequate to meet students’ needs throughout their studies
3. Students have responsibilities for further developing their English language competence during their study at university and are advised of these responsibilities prior to enrolment
4. Universities ensure that English language entry pathways they approve for the admission of students enable these students to participate effectively in their studies
5. English language competence & communication are important graduate attributes for all students
6. Development of English language competence is integrated with curriculum design, assessment practices and course delivery, through a variety of methods
7. Students’ English language developmental needs are diagnosed early in their studies and addressed, with ongoing opportunities for self-assessment
8. International students are supported from the outset to adapt to their academic, social & linguistic environments
9. International students are encouraged and supported to enhance their English language development through effective social interaction on and off campus
10. Universities use evidence from a variety of sources to monitor and improve their English language development activities.
A more detailed presentation on this was given at the Department of Employment, Education, and Workplace Relations (DEEWR, formerly known as DEET) workshop, 26 November.

Presentation: Where do we fit? (Brief summary of key points; please contact presenters if you’d like more detailed information)
An informal panel discussion with Q & A included managers from the following institutions which have recently undergone a restructure.
• Leanne McCann from Monash University –(Leanne.McCann@lib.monash.edu.au)
made the following comments about the move of Learning Skills to the library:
o aiming to develop a continuum of skills development from transition to graduation.
o promoting unit and increasing profile through involvement on various committees
o making use of library’s existing networks with faculty staff
o working on merging the different cultures of librarians vs learning skills staff
o partnerships with faculty have enables LS to become involved in: curriculum redevelopment so that the LS are integrated; teaching and assessment
For Leanne's presentation, see [attachment=2]Monash Library_Learning Skills_Leanne McCann.ppt[/attachment]

• Laurie Ransom from the University of Melbourne (lransom@unimelb.edu.au ), made the following comments, in relation to how ALL fits in with the new ‘Melbourne Model’:
o name change to Academic Skills Unit
o MSSM (Melbourne Student Services Model) is focused on following principles: coordinated; seamless; equitable; flexible; accessible
o Significant change in way students are supported (ie. Client-driven, rather than provider-driven)
o Faculties given responsibility for student services (eg. ASU waits for faculties to approach them), therefore, the partnership between ASU and faculties is reliant on faculties being responsible but ASU being providers of service.
o Service evaluation and satisfaction is measured via: staff; stakeholders; and student usage
o Challenges include: need for greater academic involvement; lack of booking system to support bookings across 12 centres; inequity of service across faculties; lack of clarity of roles and responsibilities
o Overall, in spite of challenges, ASU has done a great job
• Judy Maxwell from RMIT (judy.maxwell@rmit.edu.au), made the following comments about the relocation of Study and Learning unit from Education to Student Services 2 years ago:
o Academic Skills used to be in the School of Education where they felt supported, enjoyed being with other educators, reciprocal scholarship, on TAFE awards
o Downside to this was lack of equity in terms of service provision to other faculties and isolated outside other Student Services units
o Now have more seamless service, more central location near ‘the Hub’, smaller premises
o Challenges now include: homogenized service delivery; square pegs in round holes (other student services don’t necessarily understand Teaching and Learning principles; caught up in politics of testing; persistent welfare model; no dedicated manager until now
o Need closer ties with Teaching and Learning area which is in process of being rebuilt
o Difficult, in current location, to continue to think of themselves as educators

Follow up questions from the floor:
• How has your unit’s location impacted on your professional identity?
o classification as ‘general staff’ at Monash prevented ALAs from having access to Blackboard and other Learning Management Systems (LMS)
o at Melbourne Uni, it was problematic but if relationships between professional are developed, then there is respect for the work done
o Alex suggested that physical location was less of an influence than structural position
• Does your unit have opportunities to teach in faculties and conduct research?
o At Melbourne Uni, ALAs team teach adjunct tutorials and credit subjects, but having time to do research is an issue for non-academic staff
o At Monash, teaching is embedded but they don’t take the place of academic staff, however, there is no time to do research. Professional development is supported and they are on the look out for systems to do projects/research
o At RMIT, ALAs teach credit-bearing subjects (eg. Health, architecture) but there is no time to do research
Discussion Groups: What do we do & how do we do it?
• Small group discussion on ‘best practice’ which was then reported back to the larger group.
(eg. Good practice principles and examples of how they might be put into practice.)
• 6 groups of about 12 attendees each brainstormed what we should do, how we should do it, and in some cases, what we need in order to do what we do!
For a summary of each group's notes, see [attachment=0]AALL (Vic) Notes from group discussions.doc[/attachment]

Closure
• Updates by institution representatives from:
1. Australian Catholic University (Melbourne & Ballarat Campuses)
2. Australian National University (ANU)
3. Central Queensland University (Melbourne)
4. Deakin University
5. La Trobe University
6. Monash University
7. Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University (RMIT)
8. Swinburne University
9. University of Melbourne
10. University of Technology Sydney (UTS)
11. Victoria University
• Next Meeting: AALL (Vic) meeting in June 2009 to be hosted by Monash University. For more information, please contact Leanne.McCann@lib.monash.edu.au