Fostering Graduate Research at University

Greetings from the Australian National University, where Professor Margaret Harding, the new ANU Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) is talking about the synergies between research and teaching. Professor Harding pointed out that ANU has a unit for research into university education which also links to education of staff on teaching techniques.

It happens ABC Radio National Life Matters had a discussion of Open University today and I posed a comment about on-line learning. It strikes me that some of the major issues in universality education today are internationalization and on-line delivery and these are areas deserving of research. The ANU has a focus on research and so it would make sense for it to focus on research into how research is structured and supervised and leave conventional course based teaching to other universities which have education schools looking into that area.

Professor Harding mentioned how she established the UNSW Graduate Research School, with central support unit for graduate students. She speculated about how central support, particularly for administrative matters could be improved at ANU. It happens I am looking at this topic and how to apply techniques from vocational and on-line pedagogy to research supervision.