Director Needed for Australian Digital Futures Institute

The Australian Digital Futures Institute requires an Executive Director. The ADFI is based at University of Southern Queensland and the director would be appointed a Professor for five years. The Institute is funded by the federal government to research the future of learning, teaching, research, knowledge construction and creative expression. There is a detailed Position Description.

ADFI is a research institute for the future of learning, teaching, research, knowledge construction and creative expression. It aims to create and influence USQ’s future through a variety of drivers and achievements, including building ways, platforms and processes by which the staff and students of USQ can engage. The missions and themes of mobility, openness and digital community underpin the Institute’s future directions. ADFI provides a highly creative and collaborative environment, and will play a significant role in two of USQ’s key projects for which significant external funding has recently been obtained –the Digital Futures Collaborative Research Network (CRN) and the USQconnected Project.

The fundamental objective of the CRN scheme is to help build research capacity in Australia’s regional, newer and implicitly less research intensive universities, in an area nominated by the University. USQ chose Digital Futures as its theme, firstly to complement the University’s broader digital first strategy which encompasses all its learning and teaching, and secondly to build an institutional research capacity in digital futures.

USQ was recently successful in securing approximately $50M in funding from the federal government as part of its Strategic Adjustment Fund (SAF). USQ’s SAF project has four main elements which, when combined, create a ‘package’ of expanded learning via online, on-campus and blended mode. Each element expands and enriches USQ’s existing participation reach through stronger and more engaging pathways, collaborations, programs and platforms. The USQconnected project will facilitate a step change for USQ’s move towards best practice blended delivery of student support and services as well as teaching and learning. It will put in place a framework that will enable the on-going enhancement as well as value-adding innovation of that practice. ADFI, via the Executive Director, will have significant input into and impact on the USQconnected project, as the University continues to focus on the enhanced delivery of the student learning journey experience with the capacity for continuous improvement and innovation. ...

From: Position Description: Executive Director and Professor, Australian Digital Futures Institute, USQ, 2012