Welcome, Organising Committee and Editorial
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[Refereed papers]
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| Creating an inclusive learning environment: Engagement, equity, and retention
Welcome, Organising Committee and Editorial |
[Home Page] [Timetable] [All Abstracts] [All presentations] [Refereed papers] |
Welcome
On behalf of the Teaching and Learning Forum Committee I welcome you to the 21st Teaching and Learning Forum. It is a tribute to the various organising committees over the years, starting at Curtin University in 1992, that the Forum has continued to prosper as a joint venture between the five Western Australian universities. It is also a tribute to the regular forum-goers among you, who continue to contribute to the vibrancy of the Forum.
2012 marks a change in the management in the Teaching and Learning Forum, with the formal establishment of the WA Network for Dissemination (WAND), which is supported for two years with legacy funding from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council. WAND is an overarching body overseeing three annual activities, of which the Teaching and Learning Forum is one. The others are the existing one-day WAND Sharing Day in November, and a mid-year workshop about skills required for learning and teaching grants and awards. The WAND steering committee sets general directions for the Teaching and Learning Forum Conference Committee, which oversees and manages the Forum.
In 2012, we want to return the Forum to its original roots by encouraging more discussion and interactivity in the sessions. We have a great range of presentations, workshops and plenary sessions which we hope will be thought-provoking and energising as the new academic year approaches.
I'd like to thank the committee for their efforts in what has been a rather short preparation period for this year's Forum. We especially appreciate the contributions of our sponsors, which help to keep the registration costs low. Finally, I'd like to record a special vote of thanks to Clare McBeath and Roger Atkinson, who have for many years done a sterling job of managing the paper submission and proceedings publication process. Well done, you two!
Rob Phillips
Chair
Teaching and Learning Forum Committee
Organising Committee
| Rob Phillips (Chair) | Murdoch University |
| Roger Atkinson | Consultant |
| Michelle Bye | Institute for Public Administration Australia, WA |
| Anne Coffey | University of Notre Dame Australia |
| Sarah Etherington | Murdoch University |
| Veronica Goerke | Curtin University |
| Bethanie Gouldthorp | Murdoch University |
| Dani Boase-Jelinek | Murdoch University |
| Pamela Martin-Lynch | Murdoch University |
| Clare McBeath | Consultant |
| Cathy Moore | Edith Cowan University |
| Angus Morrison-Saunders | Murdoch University |
| Sid Nair | The University of Western Australia |
| Freyja van Oyen | Institute for Public Administration Australia, WA |
| Megan Paull | Murdoch University |
| Diana Purse | Murdoch University |
| Audra Young | Institute for Public Administration Australia, WA |
Editorial
Table 1 presents our standard summary of numbers of submissions and outcomes for TL Forum 2012. Table 2 provides an eight year overview, which suggests upon initial perusal that "steady state" and "sustainable" (a phrase used in the 2010 Editorial [1]) remain the most apt descriptors for the series, now numbering 21 Forums (1992-2012) [3].
| Category (a) | Submitted (b) | Accepted | Rejected | Offered | Withdrawn(b) | Net outcome(b) |
| Ref research | 13 | 10 | 3(c) | 10 | 1 | 9 |
| Ref prof prac | 7 | 7 | 0 | 7 | 0 | 7 |
| Abstract only | 53 | 53 | 0 | 57(d) | 4 | 53 |
| Workshop | 14 | 13 | 1(e) | 13 | 0 | 13 |
Compiler: Roger Atkinson. | ||||||
| Year | Research | Professional practice | Abs only submitted | Total all subs(c) | Total offers | W(d) | ||||
| Submitted | Accepted | Offer PP | Submitted | Accepted | Total(b) | |||||
| 2012 | 13 | 10 | 0 | 7 | 7 | 7 | 53 | 87 | 87 | 5 |
| 2011 | 15 | 7 | 3 | 10 | 7 | 10 | 72 | 107 | 106 | 4 |
| 2010 | 24 | 12 | 4 | 11 | 5 | 9 | 55 | 94 | 92 | 14 |
| 2009 | 26 | 7 | 3 | 13 | 4 | 7 | 67 | 110 | 107 | 12 |
| 2008 | 20 | 10 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 8 | 59 | 92 | 90 | 7 |
| 2007 | 18 | 10 | 4 | 12 | 8 | 12 | 37 | 73 | 68 | 2 |
| 2006 | 31 | 12 | 7 | 13 | 6 | 13 | 62 | 112 | 103 | 11 |
| 2005 | 18 | 12 | 1 | 17 | 15 | 16 | 54 | 89 | 86 | 10 |
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a. Data sources: http://otl.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf2012/editorial.html, and similar files for 2005-2011 Forums. b. Total for PP includes submissions in the Research category that were offered publication in PP. c. Includes all categories: Research, Professional practice, Abstract only publication and Workshops. d. W is the number of post-acceptance withdrawals (or cancellations), all categories. Compiler: Roger Atkinson | ||||||||||
With the descriptors "steady state" and "sustainable" in mind, we looked back at the editorial advice offered in the TL Forum 2011 Proceedings [1]. Can we perceive an optimistic update that we can give to authors of full papers, and to the authors of abstract only presentations who are 'working up' their research and professional practice activities towards a full paper? Not readily! Perhaps the best that can be done is a repetition of last year's advice, in particular Richard Winter's perspective on writing as an act of learning:
"...writing up a report is an act of learning and in this sense, we write for ourselves so that, when we read what we have written, we find out what, in the end, we have learned". [2]This sense of a continuing degree of pessimism about conference publication is based on a perusal of the publicly available documentation that the Australian Research Council has provided to date on its ERA 2012 process [3]. The 2012 Submission Guidelines relating to "Conference Publications - Full Paper Refereed" are almost identical to the 2010 version, though of course the 2012 documentation has deleted all references to "Tiers". The key sentence in both 2010 and 2012 is:
Institutions are required to submit information on all eligible peer reviewed conference publications for each year of the research outputs reference period. [4]The question that may arise in the minds of at least some authors could be, "What recognition do I (and my university) receive for a conference publication of research?", or in a manner more colloquial, "Why bother?" The ARC's FAQs on ERA 2012 conference publications [5], contains the question, "How do I know if my conference publication should be submitted for ERA 2012?", but the reader has to sift much further to obtain information on "What recognition ...". However, rather than digging deeper in that direction, let's turn instead to a reiteration of one of the positive perspectives in the 2011 Editorial [1]:
A number of perspectives may be entertained. One perspective is the view that TL Forum's core strength is the interchange of ideas that will benefit teaching and learning, and research is secondary, though of course research underlies all endeavours to improve teaching and learning ... [1]Continuing the positive perspective theme, we hope that your participation, as presenters and as members of the audiences in presentations, will be as Rob Phillips has stated above, "... thought-provoking and energising as the new academic year approaches."
Roger Atkinson and Clare McBeath
TL Forum Proceedings Editors
| Please cite as: TL Forum (2012). Creating an inclusive learning environment: Engagement, equity, and retention. Proceedings of the 21st Annual Teaching Learning Forum, 2-3 February 2012. Perth: Murdoch University. http://otl.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf2012/contents-all.html |
© 2012 Murdoch University. Copyrights in the individual articles in the Proceedings reside with the authors as noted in each article's footer lines.