Context/background:
The recent availability of generative Artificial Intelligence (gen AI) tools, in particular ChatGPT, has sparked intense discussion about the possible impact of these tools on teaching and learning at university (e.g. Sullivan et al., 2023). One of the main concerns has focussed on how the use of these tools could lead to undetectable plagiarism in assessments and the inability to guarantee that students have achieved learning outcomes (Cotton et al., 2023; Perkins, 2023). In addition to frequent calls for universities to update their academic integrity policies to account for these tools, (Chan, 2023; De Maio, 2024), calls have also been made to academic staff to create assessments taking account of these new tools and to train students on how to use these tools responsibly (Chan, 2023; Cotton et al., 2023; Mollick & Mollick, 2023).

Description:
In our practice, we prioritise equity by ensuring all students are familiar with gen AI tools and aware of potential academic integrity issues. We aim to improve students' ability to effectively use these tools for academic purposes while enhancing their critical thinking skills for responsible utilisation.

Engagement:
1. Welcome and contextualisation of the issue in our context.
2. Talk through a handout describing approaches we have used to develop students’ skills in using gen AI tools.
3. Discussion on approaches we have used.
4. Invitation for audience to share different strategies they have used.

Format: Point of debate / discussion

Context:
Career liminality applies to the lived experience of both academic and professional higher education staff. While we share the common goals for supporting the student learning experience, the role of third space professionals (Whitchurch 2012) / academics face challenges of role ambiguity, invisibility and particularly in the case of blended professionals, a lack of career progression and pathways (Obexer, 2022). This extends to the lack of opportunities to reflect on an individual’s professional aspirations. Thus, third space “emerges in complex individual as well as institutional contexts” (Smith et al., 2021). Usually, structured career-related professional development opportunities are siloed for academic and professional staff, and focus on teaching and learning practices, TEL, and SOTL, rather than on the individual’s career development goals.

Description:
In 2023 the inaugural HERDSA Mentoring and Coaching Support for Career Advancement Program for women (MACS) guided by HERDSA values, included peer/individual coaching and personal goal setting. Participants were supported and empowered in a safe environment with the monthly professional development sessions determined by participant needs. MACS participant achieved their goals and gained unintended benefits, including networking, enhancing scholarship and leadership, and creating opportunities to collaborate on shared interests beyond the program.

Intended outcome and contribution to scholarship/practice:
The roundtable seeks to explore different perceptions and experiences of how we think about third space, how current paradigms can be challenged, how we work together, and align our personal and professional values.

Engagement:
Participants will be invited to share/discuss:
• Challenges encountered and successful strategies for career progression
• Strategies to foster more effective relationships with third space professionals /academics?
• Next steps: Strategies and actions to take in their career development.

Format of roundtable: Point for Debate

Context/background: Australian doctoral students work with two academic supervisors to produce novel research in a three-to-four-year period, are assessed solely on their final thesis and generally undertake no coursework. The success of this system relies heavily on the expertise and support of the research supervisors (Heath, 2002), as well as central university research training and support system (Verdame et al, 2018). With most doctoral graduates finding employment outside of academia, the expected graduate skills go beyond their academic domains and disciplinary knowledge, including an array of ‘employability skills’ such as practical workplace experience, complex problem-solving, sharp critical thinking, complex project management, effective communication, and an unwavering commitment to lifelong learning (Mowbray & Halse, 2010, Mantai & Marrone, 2022). Despite an increasing focus of employability in the modern PhD, doctoral graduates are still pigeonholed as specialists, with concerns about their adaptability to non-academic industry settings (Jaeger and Rudra, 2013).

Point for debate: Employability is a complex and multifaceted term, encompassing specific skills, competencies, behaviours, adaptability and ability to secure and maintain employment (Romgens et al, 2020). In a PhD program, whose job is it to develop these skills? Supervisors or the doctoral training program?

Description: As a central researcher developer, I am responsible for developing students’ research and employability skills as well as developing the research supervisors’ skills and abilities to best support their students. At times, these roles conflict.

Intended outcome and contribution to scholarship/practice: In this roundtable discussion, delegates will be engaged in discussion about specific responsibilities of research supervisors and central training units in developing PhD students’ employability skills. This discussion will be valuable in designing future training programs and support.

Engagement: Delegates will be engaged through examples and presentation of current practice, as well as a series of discussion points.

Format: Birds of a Feather
Topic for discussion: How to utilise a Community of Practice (CoP) and special interest group (SIG) model to develop leadership and capacity in scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL).
Context/background: According to Wenger-Trayner, et al. (2023), Communities of Practice (CoPs) endure by consistently embracing new topics, discussions, and challenges, fostering capacity development among members (Bailey et al., 2022; Wilson-Mah et al., 2022). However, CoPs can also be used to provide emotionally safe spaces to members as they collaborate, extending their capacity and leadership together.
Description: For two years, SoTL CoP members have received mentorship and supported each other to participate in scholarly activity. While the CoP continues its journey collaboratively pursuing SoTL research, members have initiated a SoTL SIG, co-facilitating with a distributed leadership model. The formation and sustainability of the SIG are collective efforts, necessitating teamwork. The CoP contributes to the SIG’s stability, acting as a safe space, fostering mutual trust and shared leadership.
Through SIG activities, CoP members not only develop their own expertise, but also gain experience supporting capacity-building and connection in the SIG. This dual process allows for expansion of their impact to a broader audience, showcasing the developed capacity within CoP members from SoTL novices to emerging leaders.
Intended outcome and contribution to scholarship/practice: This roundtable aims to interrogate the impact of the CoP and/or SIG model regarding its ability to provide a safe professional learning space and its applicability to other contexts.
Engagement: CoP members will share a brief overview of their journey, then using a critical reflective lens, invite questions and insights from participants about their experiences of SoTL CoPs and SIGS. This will develop knowledge and strengthen skills of both participants and facilitators.

Format: Birds of a Feather

Topic for discussion: This discussion provides thought leadership on social innovation (SI), exploring whether SI education is a core responsibility of higher education.

Context: One goal of CQUniversity is to "Uphold the principles of social innovation within all aspects of our operations to support our students, staff, research, and the communities we serve to achieve positive social outcomes" (CQUniversity Strategic Plan, 2023, p. 14). Recognising this responsibility to drive social change, CQUniversity is an accredited social enterprise university with Social Traders, and an Ashoka U designated university – part of a global network that supports the transition towards SI. From a scholarship perspective, we have embedded SI into the curriculum as a graduate attribute, ensuring that all CQUniversity students develop an SI mindset. As SI is core to our values and activities, we would like to examine its role at other institutions across the sector.

Description: This roundtable discussion aims to promote thought leadership on SI and identify the role of higher education in contributing to positive societal change (DOE, 2024). Specifically, how other institutions embed SI principles across the curriculum, to better understand and develop SI scholarship.

Intended outcome and contribution to scholarship/practice: This roundtable will identify how universities can contribute to SI through scholarship activities (curriculum and research-based). In addition, it promotes thought leadership about SI, and seeks to understand its role in the changing nature and purpose of higher education.

Engagement: The audience will be encouraged to share their perspectives and experiences about SI education. For example, what is SI? How is it embedded within university frameworks (curriculum, research and scholarship)? How are staff supported in their teaching? Is SI an important graduate attribute? Is SI a core responsibility of the sector, now and in the future?

• Format: Point for Debate
• Point for Debate: Can research-based case study assessments reduce the misuse of Generative Artificial Intelligence in undergraduate accounting studies?
• Context: With the emergence of Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI’s) ChatGPT, academic misconduct has increased and maintaining academic integrity has delved into deeper complexities. Students can use ChatGPT to write assessments and it is undetected by text-matching software. This can lead to the submission of plagiarised work. Moreover, relying on content created by GenAI hinders students’ development of a thorough understanding of accounting concepts, discourages students from developing analytical skills, and reduces their engagement in class discussions.
• Description: ChatGPT challenges the current educational systems in three ways such as difficulty in measuring the level of knowledge, accuracy of information and devaluation of skills. Cam and Ballantine (2023) affirmed the need to redefine accounting assessment approaches post-pandemic. Boyce et al. (2001) highlighted the role of using case studies to develop generic soft skills in accounting graduates. Research-based case study assessments in accounting involve an in-depth examination of accounting scenarios, practices or issues. Students are expected to analyse the given scenario and propose solutions based on their understanding of accounting topics covered in the unit. Students also need sound technical skills and accounting skills for the current situation (Ballantine et al., 2024). It is important that accounting teachers responsibly incorporate GenAI into the academic environment prioritising the learning outcomes of students and industry needs.
• Intended outcome: Encourage the use of research-based case study assessments in the accounting education landscape.
• Engagement: First, introduction of participants. Start the discussion with a brief introduction of the topic, and its significance in the current context. Encouraging participants to share their views and experiences. Facilitating a healthy debate by posing thought-provoking questions. Open for comments and feedback.

Focus
We explore the value of team mentoring in the HERDSA fellowship. Here, through the lens of researcher-authors, we share our lived experiences as team mentors as we mentor Associate Fellows on their fellowship journey. The fellowship seeks to improve the quality of educational practice in higher education through critical reflection. The scheme also seeks to recognise and reward good educational practice. The Fellowship also offers an avenue for peer collaboration among the community of Fellows.
Background/context
Mentoring relationships are characterised by opportunities for new ways of interactions and collaborations to address the learning and teaching challenges of the diverse and multi-faced higher education landscape. There are myriad understandings of mentoring; however, it is often viewed as a singular relationship between a less experienced individual (the mentee) and a more experienced individual (the mentor) (Kram, 1985). This understanding has since been expanded to be viewed as relationship of many (Higgins & Kram, 2001; Christou, et al. 2017).
Description
This study employs the use of the term ‘Third Space’ as a metaphor to analyse and reimagine the relationships and learning of the mentors as a co-developmental opportunity (Qi, Press & Sankey, 2022).
Method(s)
This study adopted a descriptive phenomenological approach to help the researcher-authors understand their lived experiences and learnings derived from team mentoring.
Evidence
The researchers-authors both felt that they were able to provide more robust feedback and better support to the Associate Fellows than if they were undertaking the mentoring as a solo mentor.
Contribution
This research study adds to the small body of research on team mentoring in professional contexts. It is hoped that this approach may be used to reconceptualize the HERDSA Fellowship journey.
Engagement
This will be presented as a roundtable discussion. The audience will be engaged through the use of stimulus questions and peer discussions.

Format: Birds of a Feather
Point for discussion: Developing strategy and roadmaps to lead teams and projects.

The contemporary landscape of higher education is undergoing dynamic shifts influenced by technological advancements, pedagogical shifts, and evolving student expectations. University leaders face the dual task of responding to these challenges, while supporting individuals at various levels of the organisation, and with diverse skills and experience to lead education projects aligned to institutional strategic goals.

The imperative for leadership in a climate of change is to strategically co-develop strategies and roadmaps necessary for change, with stakeholders. This enables adapting to innovation, meeting stakeholder expectations, optimising limited resources, and fostering collaboration with agility. Such a model, assures accountability, alignment with institutional goals and contributes measurably to student success.

Description
The roundtable discussion is aimed at academic and professional people at various organisational levels. The session will introduce participants to specifically designed tools and workflows that simplify development of strategic plans and roadmaps for significant projects and to lead change. These tools have been developed based on best practices and successful application in educational and industry settings. Participants will be provided with these tools, case studies and practical insights that they can immediately implement. Tools include methodologies to:
• rapidly evaluate a process/capability and identify enhancement opportunities
• co-develop a mission statement
• co-develop a vision statement
• visualise transformation

Outcome
Participants will be equipped with a toolkit of simplified, best practice resources tailored to facilitate effective change management and support professional development. These tools are designed to empower leaders to navigate and proactively lead change in their respective contexts.

Engagement
The session will be interactive, with participants engaged in dialogue, sharing experience, and collaborative problem-solving.
Experienced facilitators will lead intermittent discussions ensuring inclusivity and active participation from diverse voices.

Enriching and Expansive Undergraduate Curriculum Choices in Higher Education: A case of ‘Clusters’.

Roundtable format:

Work-in-Progress

Focus:

Curriculum initiatives in higher education increasingly seek to enrich and expand undergraduate students’ learning, engage them in learning across disciplines and contexts, while optimising the student experience. Curricula must enable success on highly aspirational graduate attributes/graduate profiles (Hill et al, 2016), supporting diverse pathways, while balancing academic aspirations with operational constraints.

Context/background:

We will share progress in designing a ‘Clusters’ initiative at our University explicitly designed to meet such curriculum aspirations; the design is in final stages in preparation for 2025 implementation.

Description of the initiative:

The proposed Clusters are a suite of three or more courses curated around a theme, academic literacies, research, huarahi mātauranga focus, or modern languages. Except modern languages, Clusters will bring together a diverse but related set of knowledge, skills, and/or perspectives.

Clusters provide options for enrichment and expansion in areas of learners’ interest/relevance (either unrelated or adjacent to their principal study focus) and support diverse pathways including to employment, civic contribution, further study, and lifelong learning.

Their curation (through attention to sequencing and similarities and differences in content, and approaches to pedagogy and assessment across courses) is critical for coherence.

Intended outcome/contribution to scholarship/practice:

We will seek feedback from participants on the criteria that have been developed for the composition of Clusters. We are also interested to gain insights on potential quality indicators for Clusters. This engagement will contribute insights relevant to scholarship and practice in higher education curricula generally and to Clusters in particular.

Audience engagement:

Session participants will join us in considering challenges and affordance of clusters using an approach that facilitates sharing and engaging (Sinnema et al, 2023).

Format: Roundtable Discussion; Birds of a Feather – Topic Business Sustainability Education Context/ background Sustainability challenges the evolution of business education beyond traditional conceptions of business purpose to profit (Friedman in Zimmerli, Holzinger, & Richter, 2007), or ‘create a customer’ (Bratianu, Hadad & Bejinaru, 2020). Despite the introduction of stakeholders and shared value (Ibid, p64), business curriculum frequently treats sustainability as an addendum. Our research of business schools’ practice internationally, examined a common struggle to progress beyond compliance and awareness, including ESG reporting green-washing (Moss, 2022). Description Taking a programmatic, life-long learning perspective, at UNSW Business education we developed a sustainability curriculum framework which guides the integration of sustainability learning outcomes into existing courses and has informed the design of a new inter-disciplinary synthesis capstone. The framework outlines 5 key topic areas of business sustainability education and incorporates 5-stages of business responsibility for student learning (adapted from Landrum & Ohsowski, 2017). The guiding principle is that students progress through increasingly stronger understanding of sustainability; from compliance, through collaboration to regenerative and co-evolutionary. Intended Contribution Through our application in course design we demonstrate how the framework prepares business graduates with the knowledge and skills to co-create ‘integrated partnerships with natural systems’ (Landrum & Ohsowski 2017) and ‘encourage changes in behaviour that will create a more sustainable future.’ (UNESCO, 2005, p343). We provide examples of sustainability projects authentically integrating sustainability (Smeal College of Business, 2023; Rasche and Gilbert 2015; Maloni et al 2021), co-created with multi-disciplinary approaches to stakeholder engagement, risk assessment and materiality. Engagement An invitation to shared practise, our discussion will focus on the detail and complexity of working in interdisciplinary sustainability education, drawing on the diverse experience of participants. How is Business Sustainability Education integrated with course learning? What do integration, regeneration and co-evolution mean in your disciplinary context?

Format

Work-in-progress

Focus
This presentation unpacks the use of machine learning for the analysis of student generated qualitative data in evaluating the impact of Work Integrated Learning (WIL) on participant self-efficacy.

Context/Background
Many teachers lack confidence to teach highly practical and embodied subjects like music (Morris et al., 2017). In response, the University of South Australia and the South Australian Department for Education have created an additional set of WIL opportunities for pre-service teachers designed to improve self-efficacy in music teaching.

Description
Data on student beliefs and attitudes such as those relevant to self-efficacy is typically collected through self-report surveys. Such data can be powerful, but can be limited through informant biases such as social desirability bias — the wish to appear successful to lecturers and peers, even in de-identified surveys (Copur-Gencturk & Thacker, 2021).

This presentation explores an alternative approach to evaluating changes in self-efficacy through the semi-automated analysis of student learning journals. Building on research in the Phenomenographic and Variation Theory tradition, the methodology uses machine learning to rapidly conduct a content analysis of the learning journals produced by an entire cohort (Penn-Edwards, 2010). The analysis is visually represented as an epistemic network ‘graph’ showing how students link key concepts and understandings in their journaling, and how the way they position themselves within this network changes over time.

Intended outcome and contribution to scholarship/practice
The methodology presented makes use of advances in machine learning (AI) to provide a more robust evaluation of the impact of WIL experiences on self-efficacy than is available through traditional self-report. It supports a developmental rather than summative approach to evaluation, and seeks to optimise the learning design (Leonard et al., 2016).

Engagement
Through a structured ‘consultancy’ protocol, participants will actively assist in the improvement or ‘tuning’ of the evaluation method.

Format: Birds of a Feather

Topic for discussion:
This topic explores the role of student personas in higher education as an approach to building socio-cultural capital and fostering a sense of belongingness among diverse student cohorts.

Context/background
The roundtable will discuss Dollinger, D'Angelo, Hurst, and Jensen (2021) paper, and examine their co-created personas. The use of empathy mapping, shaped by student narratives will assist in cultivating authentic fictional personas. Thereby leading to stronger learning relationships, inclusivity, and engagement (Ali Amer Jid Almahri, Bell, & Arzoky, 2019; Stentiford & Koutsouris, 2021).

Description
The discussion will explore the concept of student personas as an essential tool for understanding of student cohorts. These personas, reflect diverse backgrounds and student challenges. The personas tell a story and enable educators to step into the student’s frame of reference (Brien & Chawke, 2022). By utilizing such personas, educators gain insights that extend beyond demographic information, enabling them to tailor their educational practice, and pedagogical approach to support students.

Intended outcome and contribution to scholarship/practice.
Drawing on critical theory to illustrate the structural disadvantages impacting equity groups in higher education (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). Therefore, understanding our student cohorts is integral to educational practice.
The intended outcome is to create a student persona framework using design thinking strategies. Participants will reflect on their learning experiences and apply this lens to the challenges impacting students today. The roundtable will examine what is important to capture in a student persona to promote engagement and inclusivity.

Engagement
Lego serious play will encourage the audience to reflect on their own learning experience. Design thinking strategies will then guide the audience to create an empathy map, identifying pain points to develop a persona that brings to life a narrative of challenges confronting diverse cohorts. The session will be fun, fast-paced, and creative.

• Format:
Birds of a Feather

• Topic for discussion
Engaging with the history within units such as human services can be a transformational learning experience and an opportunity for innovative practitioner research.

• Context/background
The student cohort studying Introduction to Human Services is diverse. Understanding welfare history is a learning objective for this unit at our university. Previously, people studying have requested more opportunities to engage with this objective authentically. Additionally, a retired practitioner and teaching colleague requested space to narrate inspirational stories from the field, highlighting how human service practice has changed over the last few decades.

• Description
In response, four practitioners and a sociologist developed teaching resources about Australian welfare from the 1960s to the 1990s. An autobiographical-autoethnography research project was conducted, and an authentic learning space was created. The data generated was analysed using retroductive thematic analysis, with the narratives (data) positioned within Australian history.

• Intended outcome and contribution to scholarship/practice
The associated module now includes practitioner voice, research project outcomes and a journal article. Further, the outcomes regarding student engagement are very positive.

Contextualising human service developments through the lens of practitioners’ memories and using them to generate practice epistemologies contributes corporate memory to the learning experience. It ensures practice wisdom is passed onto the next generation of professionals, with the aim of reducing the risk of unsuccessful or inappropriate practices that create trauma.

• Engagement
This roundtable shares how we combined teaching and research to generate practical teaching epistemologies and historical narratives that meet student learning needs and make innovative industry connections. It contains engaging and interactive stories about the teaching and learning approach and practitioners’ narratives. Roundtable participants will be invited to share stories and gain ideas on teaching strategies regarding history that they can embed into their own units.

Format:
Birds-of-a-Feather roundtable

Topic for discussion:
Three interdisciplinary academics will lead a roundtable where participants share institutional practice in Work Integrated Learning (WIL), specifically the design, development and implementation of educational activities that assist student transition from classroom to workplace. Further, we share how a variety of digital applications can be leveraged to capture and evaluate students’ performance on placement.

Context:
WIL is integral to many educational programs. Peculiarities due to disciplinary norms/accreditation requirements should not obscure important unifying features across disciplines, primarily the need to procure robust, meaningful data on students’ performance on placement.

Description:
We will facilitate knowledge-exchange on how educational activities in WIL placements are integrated and scaffolded, including reference to various traditional and digital tools used. Such activities allow capture of performance during placements in competency-based education, foster feedback, and contribute to portfolio assessment. Our experience in different disciplines will facilitate sharing of realistic perspectives on the diverse ways and contexts in which WIL is interpreted/implemented.

Intended outcome and contribution to practice:
Educators from vocationally oriented disciplines will benefit from a group-share of WIL modalities and data-gathering applications used in the workplace which exhibit a variety of educational functionality, complexity to implement/use, and other pros-and-cons, including AI-enablement.

Engagement:
1. Group participants according to discipline.
2. Group-share on specified aspects of WIL in their discipline.
3. Exploration of diverse perspectives on WIL e.g. influence of program type and approach, transdisciplinary WIL, challenge of paid placement and increasing competition for appropriate placements.
4. Group reflect on challenges they faced which may include
• Framework
• Student preparation
• Expectations
• Cost to students
• Intended vs achieved outcomes
• Evaluation
Further, participants will share various in-class and online applications and activities using educational digital tools, and explore use of speech-to-text and generative pre-trained tools for custom application development.

Format: Point for Debate
Point for debate: Nudge power: should we alter students enrolment choice defaults based on risk to improve student outcomes?
Context: Higher education access is expected to grow (O'Kane et al., 2023). However, some students come to university and fail with little to no benefit, receiving ‘zero-fail’ grades (Stephenson et al., 2021; van der Ploeg et al., 2024). These students do not submit any assessments and receive a cumulative mark of zero. We claim that the sector should seek to understand and reduce the incidence of zero-fails. Evidence exists for nudging to influence behaviour in other contexts (Mertens et al., 2022).
Description: Using an action research design in 2022 and 2023, 596 students were identified as at risk of zero-fail grades by learning analytics and had their enrolment choice architecture changed; they were required to opt-back-in if they wanted to continue. Differences in outcomes between course level and commencing status were compared using z-scores.
35 percent of students did not reply and were unenrolled due to the changed choice default. 37 percent of students replied and chose to unenroll. 27 percent opted-in to continue studying. Of the students who chose to continue, most failed more than half of their units with 82 students receiving at least one zero-fail. There was no statistical difference between response rates or decisions made by students split by commencing status or course level. Postgraduate students were more likely to pass all units when they chose to continue compared to undergraduate students.
Contribution: Selective alteration of the choice architecture based on learning analytics can improve outcomes for high-risk students by reducing unnecessary debt and zero-fail.
Engagement: This topic lends itself to debate. Delegates will be divided into teams and a debate will be facilitated. Teams will take turns to argue their position.