Graduate Attributes

The implementation of graduate attributes is a contentious addition to the agenda of Australian universities as they face issues related to quality assurance and funding. In this case study, we describe a way that we as teachers can work ‘through’ rather than uncritically with the graduate attributes. We suggest that the graduate attributes potentially allow the university community to focus on the processes of pedagogy. The paper also demonstrates how the graduate attributes can be used to initiate the development of a community of practice through collaboration and sharing of teaching strategies. The project allows a bottom-up approach for interpretation of a top-down policy initiative.

The School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at Queen’s University Belfast is committed to enhancing the quality of student learning. A plan to implement curriculum change around this goal has been formulated and is already several years underway. A specific part of the plan involved instigating a first year introductory module to engage the students in the practice of their engineering discipline. The complicated nature of devising this type of module with regard to objectives, resources, timeframe and the number of students involved meant that a very systematic approach had to be adopted.
This paper presents the simple but definitive change management process that facilitated the creation of a first year Introduction to Engineering module. The generic nature of this process is described and its application to other facets of curriculum change is discussed. Within this process the importance of collaboration to establish a forward momentum is emphasised. This enables academic staff to progress as a group and build curriculum development based on their own experiences, expertise and established practice.

Curriculum mapping has become a topic of interest in recent years in Australian higher education, and is associated with Graduate Attributes and curriculum renewal. Views of its usefulness differ. This paper reports on the curriculum mapping tool and process developed and refined at Curtin University in recent years. This tool started as a useful, yet time-consuming Word template, and has evolved into a more refined Excel-based tool which can provide visual representations of various aspects of the curriculum. While it is hoped that version three of the curriculum map will be a dynamic tool that updates automatically from the course database and other curriculum maps, the current version (version two) is being used by multiple universities across Australia to interrogate learning outcomes and curriculum themes. This paper is a case study which provides an overview of the level and depth of the analysis through the curriculum mapping tool, and how curriculum mapping has been carried out at Curtin University. Samples of the visuals produced by the curriculum map are provided, showing the spread of graduate attributes, thinking levels, assessment tasks, learning experiences and engagement with curriculum themes across a course. The curriculum mapping process undertaken at Curtin University is described and the benefits to staff and institutions discussed.
The curriculum mapping tool described here is available for use in other institutions through the ALTC Fellowship, Benchmarking Partnerships for Graduate Employability (see http://tiny.cc/boliver).

With an increasing focus on academic standards, quality and graduate employability outcomes,Australian Higher Education institutions have a greater need to develop and utilise feedback mechanisms to assess and improve graduate employability outcomes. This paper reports on the development of the Graduate Employability Indicators (GEI), a suite of surveys for graduates,employers and members of the course teaching team on the importance of 14 employment capabilities for graduate workplace success and their demonstration by new graduates up to five years out. These surveys have been developed through an ALTC grant, Building course team capacity for graduate employability, a collaborative project between Curtin University, RMIT University, University of Southern Queensland and Victoria University. The paper outlines the similarities and differences between the GEI and other indicators, such as the Australian Graduate Pathways Survey (GPS), the Australasian Survey of Student Engagement (AUSSE) and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), demonstrating its potential use in national and international benchmarking activities. Summary visual data on the perspectives of graduates from one of the pilot surveys is also provided to demonstrate the type of information that can be gleaned from the surveys.