How is Australia supporting open education?

Lucy Walton on
OER Advocacy video

Over the past couple of years, the FAIR and Advancing Open Scholarship programs have increased the visibility of the role of libraries in open research and advanced the open research agenda more generally. In Australia, ‘OER [Open Educational Resources] initiatives are nascent and fragmented and there are limited projects across the higher education landscape. Government policy and support for OERs is needed to foster real change’ (Ponte, Lennox & Hurley, 2021, p. 7). The US and Canada invest steadily and provide legislative backing for openness, so how do we compare? The short answer is ‘not so well’, however there is a way forward.

Drawing on learnings from CAUL’s open research advocacy, the Enabling a Modern Curriculum: OER Advocacy project will develop and enact a plan for advocacy related to OERs, with a view to raising the visibility of the OER agenda and related issues. The project will focus on both local and national advocacy and deliver an advocacy toolkit for member institutions to use for local advocacy, and plan and undertake advocacy at a national level, which will target the DVCsA and government.

This Project aims to:

  • raise the visibility of the OER agenda for key stakeholder groups (DVCsA and government).
  • develop and enact a plan for advocacy related to OERs, which targets the key stakeholder groups.
  • curate and/or create resources which support advocacy work.

Watch the video below about the OER Advocacy project and how it aims to activate higher education advocates nationally:

The project brief (PDF) provides further details on the deliverables and timeline.

Our team

The project team is led by Adrian Stagg (University of Southern Queensland). The team members are Justine Cawley (The University of Queensland), Steven Chang (La Trobe University), Jennifer Hurley (RMIT University), Alice Luetchford (James Cook University), Carlie Nekrasov (Southern Cross University), Lucy Walton (Western Sydney University), and Angie Williamson (Deakin University).

Interested in being involved? 

Subscribe to the blog to receive project updates and keep an eye out for the call for members coming in November 2021!

Introducing the Open Educational Resources Collective Pilot project

ChloeUWA on

Open educational resources (OER) are expanding rapidly as a more equitable, flexible and adaptable medium to provide content for teaching and learning, but creating OER texts can feel daunting. The good news is that you don’t need to do it alone!

The CAUL OER Collective Pilot project offers the opportunity to have a go at creating open textbooks in a supportive, collaborative environment.

Sounds good – tell me more!

CAUL is now leading a major initiative to develop, licence and promote a range of OER that leverages the expertise of librarians, copyright experts, academics and authors. The project will oversee the entire open textbook lifecycle, including:

  • Establishing models for governance, management and membership
  • Leading administration and publishing processes
  • Guiding the selection and production of open textbook titles 

The project brief (PDF) provides more detail on the deliverables and timeline. 

This video introduces the CAUL OER Collective Pilot project and highlights the benefits for students, academics and libraries, as well as a summary of recent Australian research into OER. Keep an eye out for guest appearances by members of the project team.

Our team

The project team, led by Tahnee Pearse (University of Southern Queensland), includes Chloe Czerwiec (University of Western Australia), Anna Du Chesne (University of New England), Samantha Elkington-Dent (University of the Sunshine Coast), Richard Levy (University of South Australia), Jane Norton (Charles Sturt University), Craig Patterson (Deakin University), Frank Ponte (RMIT University), Jaime Royals (University of Adelaide), Ashley Sutherland (University of Melbourne) and Fiona Tyson (University of Canterbury).

Interested in being involved?

Subscribe to the blog to receive project updates and keep an eye out for the call for members coming in November 2021!

Four reasons to participate in our Students as Partners National Survey!

Karen Miller on

[Update 5 October 2021: Deadline extended to 18 October]

Are you involved or interested in Students as Partners programs in academic libraries? If so, then please participate in our survey!

The aim of the study is to understand what practices around student partnership have been embedded with Australian university libraries, and how student partnership can continue to be supported to encourage co-design in university libraries.

The research is part of the Enabling a Modern Curriculum with Students as Partners project.

Data collected from the survey will help the project team review and understand Student as Partner practices within university libraries. 

In turn, the review will inform the development of an online toolkit designed to support CAUL member institutions to engage students as partners.

Why you should complete the survey (and pass it on to others to complete):

  1. You’ll be contributing to building knowledge around how we can best support student partnership in academic libraries.
  2. You may alert us to some great examples of Students as Partners projects that can contribute to the Toolkit.
  3. You’ll be supporting your colleagues in the CAUL Enabling a Modern Curriculum project. It may seem like a small thing, but it can make a big difference! 
  4. It only takes 15 minutes to complete.

FAQs about the survey

You may have some questions about the survey, which I hope are answered below.

 Who can participate in the survey?

The survey is open to anyone with interest, knowledge or experience of Students as Partners programs in academic libraries. 

What if my colleagues also participate and discuss the same Students as Partners program?

It’s fine if more than one person refers to the same program in their responses – the more information we get, the happier we are!

Will my personal information be identified in the results?

No. Individual staff will not be identified in the survey results or any resulting publication and nor will the organisations where they work.

Is the survey part of a larger research project?

Yes. The title of the project is National Review of ‘Students as Partners’ in Australian Academic Libraries (La Trobe University ethics reference number HEC21220).  The researchers are Fiona Salisbury, Mollie Dollinger and Kate Davis.  

How do we access the survey?

The survey can be accessed at this link  

When does it need to be done by?

The survey closes on 18 October 2021.  Although there’s plenty of time, why wait?  You could do it today!

Can I share the survey link and information with others?

Yes, please do. We hope you will share the survey with staff in your library and encourage any colleagues who may be interested to participate.

How we’re Enabling a Modern Curriculum

fionasalisbury on

1 CAUL program, 5 projects, 28 institutions, 40 team members and 1 new blog!

As the Program Director for CAUL’s Enabling a Modern Curriculum program, I am excited and delighted to launch the program blog. The purpose of this blog is to keep the library and higher education communities up to date on the program’s progress. With the five projects in the program well underway there is lots to share, and you can expect a regular parade of posts in this space. Project team members are looking forward to providing highlights, sharing work-in-progress, giving news updates, and putting out calls to action.

The CAUL Enabling a Modern Curriculum program is designed to bring together the expertise of library staff and academics in two critical and emerging aspects of the modern curriculum – open educational resources (OER) and students as partners. While our definition of a modern curriculum is broad, focussing on these two areas has the most potential to enable and transform future library practice. Enabling a modern curriculum is a shared endeavour, and the program’s aim is to influence a national agenda in these key areas. In leading a reimagining of how libraries enable the curriculum, CAUL is also supporting library staff to make a difference to the student learning experience and student success at a local level.

Where we started

The program kicked off with a Zoom workshop in September 2020, and we started how we intend to continue – with librarians and academics in dialogue in a collaborative and thought-provoking environment. When reflecting on how academic libraries might enable a modern curriculum the things that jumped out at me as needing more attention were OER, student wellbeing, and students as partners. I invited three academics to the workshop to speak to these issues and the associated current challenges facing the HE sector: Professor Helen Partridge on open education, Professor Sally Kift on student wellbeing, and Dr Mollie Dollinger on students as partners. Their presentations were provocative and the conversation that flowed into the breakout rooms was energised and creative. Collectively the 93 workshop participants wrestled with and debated the issues and affirmed key priorities for the program. On closer analysis of the workshop deliberations, it was clear that in OER space we would need to tackle national OER advocacy, OER professional development, and collaborative open textbook creation for the Australian and New Zealand environment. Additionally, I also thought we needed a forum to showcase insights from the projects and make visible a range of good practice initiatives related to all the ways libraries enable the curriculum.

Five projects emerged

So, all things considered, the program started 2021 with five projects:

How we’re working together

Our ways of working within and across projects encourages experimentation, collective thinking, and sector-wide collaboration. The program is ambitious, but all the projects are in good hands and have an enthusiastic and talented team. Each week I meet with Dr Kate Davis from the CAUL National Office and the Project Team leads – Tahnee Pearse (OER Collective Pilot), Marion Slawson (OER PD Program), Adrian Stagg (OER Advocacy), Dr Mollie Dollinger (Students as partners), Dr Nicole Johnson (CAUL Conference). It’s a great team, and together, our careful stewardship of the projects is ensuring that this impressive program has every chance of realising its objective to transform national and local practice, and will position libraries as key partners in enabling a modern curriculum through OER, and with students as partners.

I’d like to thank the 40 library practitioners from 28 institutions who are collaborating on these five projects. This is important work that has not yet been attempted in this way on a national scale. And, more importantly, I hope everyone involved is having fun and forging new professional friendships (the unwritten objectives of involvement in the program!).

Watch this space

To library and academic colleagues who are interested, or curious, or feel inspired by the program, there will be plenty of opportunities to be involved over the coming two years. Watch this space, and when opportunities arise your contribution will be warmly welcomed.