Australia Aopting USA STEM Plan

Professor Ian Chubb, Australian Chief Scientist, issued a National Science, Technology, National Engineering and Mathematics Strategy Discussion Paper, 21 June 2013. The wording of the paper sounded familiar to me, but I could find no sources cited in the paper. A web search using words from the paper identified the Federal Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education 5-Year Strategic Plan, from the US National Science and Technology Council, May 2013. Adopting existing plan from the USA is a valid strategy for Australia, but if that is the intention, it would be best this was made clear.

I suggest that the priority should be placed on how to implement such strategies. In 1998 I was part of an Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering exercise to prepare a strategy for the development of research in information technology (IT) in Australia over 10-15 years. That strategy lead, in part, to an investment of around $1B in NICTA. But preparing the strategy was the easy bit. ;-)

Automating Award Applications for Academics

At the Early Career Academic Retreat I am taking part in is the topic of applying for awards. It occurred to me that a web search system could be sued to find suitable awards, then match people to awards and pre-fill the application form.

Finding Research Funded by the ARC

At the Early Career Academic Retreat I am taking part in is the topic of government support for research. Perhaps one problem is that the public is not told what their investment in research produces. As an example the Australian Research Council has a website which details how to apply for a research grant, but does not detail what past research has produced. A member of the public (or a journalist or politician) would therefore conclude the ARC spends money public but does not produce anything. A good start might be for the ARC to provide a list of research publications from ARC funded project (this could be produced automatically with a web search), with a link from their hone page.

Ford Continuing Engagement with Australian University Research

Greetings from the Australian national University in Canberra, where staff from Ford are discussing research collaboration. This is the day after Ford announced it would cease will cease local manufacturing in October 2016. However, research and development will continue in Australia for products manufactured internationally.

Ford has research centers in the USA, Germany, and China. Also there are Ford alliances with MIT, Michigan, Stanford, RWTH Archen. There are also framework alliances with six Chinese universities. ANU has had several research projects with Ford. The issue was how this could be expanded.

Learning and Teaching Grants

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where I am attending a workshop on Learning and Teaching Grants from the Office of Learning and Teaching. A significant development is that these grants are now "Category 1", giving them a higher academic status. One tip for getting a grant is to get together with colleagues in other parts of the university to apply for a more comprehensive project  and reduce the duplication of effort in grant preparation. These grants are for applied research which will make a difference to teaching students at university. Many from the physical science would not see the work funded under the OLT as "research" at all, but practice. One interesting point is that Australian Government owns any intellectual property developed under a grant, but then licenses it open access, usually under a Creative Commons license.

The priority areas for 2013 from the application instructions are:

• Assessment and promotion of student learning
• Curriculum design
• Improving tertiary pathways
• Improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s higher education access and outcomes
• Innovative use of technology in learning and teaching
• Internationalisation Research and development
• Strategic approaches to learning and teaching which enhance student access and progression, and respond to student diversity

It would be interesting to see if a change of government results in revised proposals in 2014. As an example, the federal opposition has proposed a "new Colombo scheme and on-line education" which would see much greater involvement of Australia in regional education and require new skills for Australian educators.

What occurs to me is that some on-line technology could be sued to enhance the process of preparing grant proposals. This would use the same on-line technology I is now routinely used to design complex software and organize projects.

My own area of educational research interest is how to teach professional skills online. Since 2009 I have been teaching postgraduate students online for the ANU and the Australian Computer Society (which is a member of the Open University Australia). A significant proportion of students can cope with the technical content, but have difficulty with literacy.

Measuring the Impact of University Research

Paul Harris, ANU Crawford School of Public Policy, will talk on "Pathways to policy impact" in Canberra, 26 February 2013.

Event Type: Seminar
Title: Pathways to policy impact
Description: Efforts to measure the 'impact' of research will be a major focus of both government and universities in 2013. The government’s National Research Investment Plan(released in late 2012) states that impact assessment will form an important part of efforts to demonstrate the effectiveness, efficiency and appropriateness of national investments in research into the future.

As part of its 2020 Strategic Plan, ANU has a particular focus on public policy, and creating impact through government and policy. But what is policy impact? Is it different from other kinds of impact? Should we be directing effort in particular ways to try and achieve it?

This seminar will draw on research into science policy, research utilisation and public policy to address these questions. It will examine what we know about the relationship between research and policy and what this might mean for how impact measurement systems might be designed, at the level of individual researchers, research organisations and national policy. It will also provide an overview of work to date in a collaborative project between the HC Coombs Policy Forum and CSIRO examining pathways to policy impact.

Paul Harris is Deputy Director of the HC Coombs Policy Forum in the Crawford School of Public Policy and leads the Forum’s ‘Science, Technology and Public Policy’ program. He is also an advisor at the CSIRO and was previously General Manager, Government and International Relations at CSIRO. In 2012 he completed a secondment in government as General Manager, Science Policy in the Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE).

Light lunch will be provided. This event is free and open to the public.

REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Nothing is Wrong With Our Universities

Richard Hil, author of Whackademia: An Insider's Account of the Troubled University, argued on ABC Radio  ("What's Wrong With Our Universities", Sunday 20 January 2013) that Australian universities are under-funded and its academics overloaded with administrative work and pressure to pass sub-standard students. He looks back to a golden age when academics where funded without any accountability and could sit around thinking great thoughts. However, I doubt such an age ever existed. Universities cost money and someone has to pay. If academics want to sit around and think great thoughts, then ether they will have to think up something very useful occasionally which justifies they salary, or do something else, such as teach, to subsidize their thinking time.

Hil expresses concern that there is are a countless number of part time university teachers who do not have the pay and conditions of permanent staff. This seems to contradict other parts of his argument where he calls for less administrative burden on academics and more flexibility. As an adjunct lecturer I like the relative freedom of not being included in university administrative processes. I don't have to go to administrative meetings, unless they concern my course. I don't have to fill out leave forms, because I don't get paid for leave, just for the courses I teach.

Hil claims there is pressure from administration, even from VCs, for academics to pass students who are not up to the required standard, particularly international students. I have never been under such pressure. Any academic who is, should report the matter to the appropriate internal review body, or if it appears to be a systemic problem to the independent commission against corruption (or equivalent).  There will always be legitimate debate about marks, but if inappropriate pressure is being applied for financial gain, then that is a crime which needs to be reported and investigated.

Universities have to balance the need to be financially viable with research and teaching. There is also the need to balance the need to turn out "work ready" graduates and to create new knowledge. There is never going to be enough money to do everything every academic wants and everything society expects.

ARC Rejects Open Access Policy

The Australian Research Council's new "ARC Open Access Policy" requires that "... any publications arising from an ARC supported research project must be deposited into an open access institutional repository within a twelve (12) month period from the date of publication.". Unfortunately the policy still allows researchers to publish in closed journals which never allow public access. The researcher just has to make public where their results can be purchased, they do not have to provide the actual research results for free. The ARC policy is not an open access one and misleading for the ARC to name it as one. The ARC seems to wish to continue the system where the Australian public pays for research and then has to pay again to read the results of the research. In contrast the US NIH Public Access Policy requires scientists to submit final peer-reviewed journal manuscripts that arise from NIH funds to a public archive  upon acceptance for publication, with these papers accessible to the public no later than 12 months after publication.

Dr David Prosser, Director of SPARC Europe criticized the ARC for its lack of an open access policy in a talk at National Library of Australia in Canberra, 14 August 2009.

Procedures for a Higher Degree by Research Supervision

The Deakin University Higher Degree by Research Supervision Procedure details how academic staff supervise candidates for higher degree by research (HDR) awards:

1. Qualifications for HDR Supervision
2. Code of Good Practice in HDR
3. Role of HDR Coordinators

These procedures also call up the NHMRC Australian Code for the Responsible Conduct of Research. There are more details of Deakin's website on Higher Degrees by Research for:

• Masters by Research
• Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
• Professional Doctorates

ANU Data Management Interest Group

Greetings from the inaugural meeting of the ANU Data Management Interest Group, at the Australian National University House in Canberra.

ANU Data Commons

ANU is building an ANU Data Commons for research data. Such a repository is useful for maintaining data beyond on research project, while allowing the researcher to retain control of their data. This work comes out of the Australian National Data Service (ANDS).

A data repository is normally thought of as something the researcher manually deposits data into manually. However, scientific instruments commonly now have network connections and can log data automatically, directly into the repository.

The project is based on Fedora Commons Repository Software, which is widely used by academia and public institutions (not to be confused with the Fedora implementation of Linux). ANU is adding a web interface for Fedora Commons. The system uses Dublin Core type metadata descriptions.

It occurs to me that research projects are typically not confined to one institution and cooperation is useful. My suggestion would be to rename the project the International Data Commons, providing services to the research community, in the same way the ANU hosts supercomputer facilities and archives for the research community.

ANU Archives

The ANU Archives holds University Archives and of business, trade unions, professional associations and industry bodies, in Australia and the region of interest to researchers. Notable collections are the Noel Butlin Archives Centre, Pacific Research Archives, Map Collection, Photographs and Publications. The archive is computerizing its metadata and providing this to the National Library of Australia Trove Service. One of the quirky but useful collections the ANU Archive has is the records of hotel bars in NSW.

Making Ocean Data More Usable

Various local, national and international research bodies have oceanographic data repositories. The International Council for Science (ICSU) formed the Scientific Committee on Oceanic Research (SCOR) to help link up this data. Dublin Core standards were expanded to accommodate oceanographic needs. Details are in "Workshop on Data Publication" (SCOR/IODE/MBLWHOI Library, Workshop Report No. 230), which includes a MBLWHOI repository workflow and a Micro Life Cycle of Data.

Australian National Data Service

The Australian National Data Service (ANDS), is an Australian Government funded project, to help make research data available for long term use. As well as the Research Data Australia Discovery Service to find data, ANDS works on policy development and education, in particular on Ethics, consent and data sharing.

Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing Framework

The Australian Governments Open Access and Licensing Framework (AusGoal), provides guidance on use f open access licenses by Australian Governments. AusGoal is managed by the Cross Jurisdictional Chief Information Officers' Committee (CJCIOC), supported by the federal Department of Finance. AusGoal's approach provides a model for researchers to license data.

ANU Data Management Courses

The ANU offers research students a Data Management Workshop (ILDM01). There is also a fifty page ANU Data Management Manual (Managing Digital Research Data at the Australian National University, 2012).

Australian Data Archive

The Australian Data Archive (ADA) grew out of the Social Sciences Data Archive, using the national data faculties hosted at the ANU. The New OAIS architecture, is shown in "The Australian Data Archive: preserving the past for access in the future" by Dr. Steve McEachern
(Slide 9, COMPASS seminar series, March 2012). The ADA home page gets a W3C mobileOK Checker 80% score (which is very good) but the metadata does not appear to be exported to Trove.

ANU Research Data Management Policy

ANU's research data management policy is set out in sections 2.1 to 2.4 of the "Responsible Practice of Research Policy" (ANU, 22 November 2010).

Digital Humanities Hub Data Management

The ANU Digital Humanities Hub has an Online Cultural Collections Analysis and Management System (OCCAMS), as described in "The Data Management Journey". The The AUSTLANG system combines data on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander languages.

Data Citation

Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs) are used for identifying scholarly papers and in the citation of the papers in others. DOIs and similar identifiers can be used for identifying research datasets and used to cite data. Datasets need not be open to be cited, the metadata acts as a proxy for data which can not be publicly navigable due to privacy, commercial or national security reasons. ANDS provides an easy visual overview with "Building a Culture of Data Citation".

Adopting the Internet Process for Data Repositories

At present the process of integration of data is ad-hoc and lacking in a strategic approach. It occurs to me that researchers could look to the Internet for some techniques for accelerating standardization and use. While the technical details underlying the Internet are well know, what is not appreciated is the international political process used to create and promote the standards. This process cut trough much of the red tape which held up the development of data network standards and as great a contribution to the Internet success as the technology itself.

The creators of the Internet and the web founded a number of organizations to foster its development, promotion and standards development. On 28 August 2012, several of the ordinations announced an agreement with the IEEE on standards development, in "Leading Global Standards Organizations Endorse ‘OpenStand’ Principles that Drive Innovation and Borderless Commerce" (IEEE, IAB, IETF, Internet Society and W3C, 28 August 2012).

I suggest that those interested in data repositories for research should adopt the political processes used successfully for the Internet, to develop standards and promote access to data. The pre-Internet processes currently being used will not be sufficient. It should be noted that Australia was closely involved in the development and implementation of the Internet and much of that actively took place in Australian universities, particularly the ANU. That expertise is available for advising on data repository promotion.

One way to promote data reuse is to consider the motivations of those involved. Researchers are motivated by funding and publication considerations. If data reuse is a criterion used by finding bodies to decide if research gets funded and if data repositories can be counted as publications and use of the data counted as a publication citation, then this will be a powerful motivation to do the extra work to make data available.

Academics tend to take a roundabout way to approach a topic. I suggest that if data repositories are to take hold a much more brief, direct and results orientated approach needs to be taken. Those promoting data repositories need to succinctly explain how to make a dataset cite-able and how to cite it, give successful example and explain the benefits in terms of better research metrics and grants. It is not necessary, nor desirable, to preference this with a long scholarly history of data management.

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.

Yahoo Web Researcher Speaking in Canberra

Professor Ricardo Baeza-Yates, Yahoo! Research, will speak on "The web: Wisdom of crowds and a long tail", 2pm, 5 September 2012, in the famous Room N101, CSIT Building, Australian National University, Canberra.

The web: Wisdom of crowds and a long tail

The Web continues to grow and evolve very fast, changing our daily lives.

This activity represents the collaborative work of the millions of institutions and people that contribute content to the Web as well as more than one billion people that use it. In this ocean of hyperlinked data there is explicit and implicit information and knowledge. But how is the Web? Web data mining is the main task to answer this question.

Web data comes in three main flavors: content (text, images, etc.), structure (hyperlinks) and usage (navigation, queries, etc.), implying different techniques such as text, grap other publications or log mining. Each case reflects the wisdom of some group of people that can be used to make the Web better. For example, user generated tags in Web 2.0 sites. One important phenomenon of this wisdom is the long tail of the special interests of people.

In this talk we cover all these concepts and give specific examples.

Ricardo Baeza-Yates is VP of Yahoo! Research for Europe, Middle East and Latin America, leading the labs at Barcelona, Spain and Santiago, Chile, as well as supervising the newer lab in Haifa, Israel. Until 2005 he was the director of the Center for Web Research at the Department of Computer Science of the Engineering School of the University of Chile; and ICREA Professor at the Department of Technology of the University Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona, Spain.

He is co-author of the best-seller book Modern Information Retrieval, published in 1999 by Addison-Wesley with a second edition in 2011, as well as co-author of the 2nd edition of the Handbook of Algorithms and Data Structures in Pascal and C, Addison-Wesley, 1991; and co-editor of Information Retrieval: Data Structures and Algorithms, Prentice-Hall, 1992, among more than 200 other publications.

He has received the Organization of American States award for young researchers in exact sciences (1993) and several national awards in Chile. In 2003 he was the first computer scientist to be elected to the Chilean Academy of Sciences. During 2007 he was awarded the Graham Medal for innovation in computing, given by the University of Waterloo to distinguished ex-alumni. In 2009 he was awarded the Latin American distinction for contributions to CS in the region and became an ACM Fellow, followed in 2011 by an IEEE Fellowship.

Awards for Excellence in Research Supervision

Having completed courses in Assessment and Online Pedagogy, the next topic in my "Postgraduate Certificate in Tertiary Teaching" is graduate "research supervision". The question I am exploring is if the tools and techniques which have been developed for on-line coursework can be applied to research supervision. The trend I noticed in my studies of coursework pedagogy is to have students take more responsibility for their own learning. This is emphasized through the use of terms such as andragogy (adult learning) and heutagogy (self directed learning). One of the hot topics in research supervision seems to be how to provide students with more guidance and support. This suggests that the two approaches could meet somewhere in the middle, with coursework students having more autonomy than they do now and research students having more oversight. We could then use the same approach and tools for coursework and research students and allow a mix of coursework and research for each student. The hidden agenda in this would be also using the same system for monitoring the performance of the supervisors.

However, I suspect that research supervisors will oppose any overt requirement for more structure in how they teach than coursework university teachers. Many will even oppose the idea that they are "teachers" at all, or that "pedagogy" applies to them. Universities provide a high level of autonomy to their researchers, so you can't simply tell them something will be done a certain way, they must be persuaded. One way used appears to be through awards for excellence in research supervision.

Awards for Excellence in Research Supervision

A search for "research supervision" awards returned 65,600 results on the web. Limiting the search to Australian educational institutions (edu.au) returned 13,800 web pages. The same search on US institutions (EDU) returned only 7,810 results, but 22,900 for the UK (AC.UK). This may be the result of the different use of the term "award" in the US, rather than a difference in emphasis on awards.

Expectations of Research Students

Do the expectations of research students match those of their supervisors and of their institution? The "Student Perceptions of Research Supervision" (SPORS) asks both the students and their supervisors what is expected and then compares the results.

1. Participation
2. Questionnaire design
3. Supervisors
4. Students
5. Treatment of questionnaire information

It would seem obvious that the institution should set a set of standard conditions for students and supervisors, but this seems not to be the case. The tradition seems to be that each student is expected to negotiate with their supervisor. This seems an unrealistic and inequitable practice. There are limits on the resources which the institution can provide (essentially eight minutes of their supervisor's time per week). If the student expects more, then the cost of the extra resources will have to come from elsewhere. The supervisor may have a funded research project, with the student working as a research assistant.

It strikes me that mature students who have come from a workplace would benefit from being part of a familiar structure. It may be useful to have the students working as part of a team. This could be encouraged by funding agencies in provision of research funding.

Supervision of University Research Students

The role of supervisors for research students at university is becoming more regulated. Universities have their own policies, such as ANU's "Guideline: Candidature and Supervision of Higher Degree by Research Students" (10 May 2011). One issue is how much formal training in supervision the supervisors require. There is also the issue of if teacher training and experience is relevant to supervision.

Less amenable to standardizing is the selection of a good research topic. Perhaps some of the techniques used for selecting inventions for commercial development might be applied. The Innovation ACT program ran budding inventors through a program where they examined their idea and had it reviewed.

One aspect which I suggest has been overlooked in research supervision is teamwork. The research by CAPA shows that students collaborating are happier. Most research is now done not by individuals but be teams. In some fields the teams might be two to six people, and in other fields thousands of people. Having one supervisor working with one student does not seem a good way to foster this group working. Also there is a high risk for the student if they have only one supervision closely involved in their work and that person is no longer available. It seems to me that this idea of a close one-on-one relationship is an academic fantasy which will cause frustration.

One issue universities appear to be failing to address is remuneration for supervisors. The custom in Australia has been that supervisors are not paid. The University of Canberra's "Higher Degrees by Research: Policy and Procedures" (The Gold Book) has provision for payment of the chair a supervisory panel. However, the payment is only $2,000 per year, which would provide about 8 minutes of supervision a week. An international student pays $18,920 per year. If universities really believe that research supervision is important, then them might want to spend more than just 11% of the fees they get from the students on it. The student may have difficulty seeing what they are paying for.

Research Education

The Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA), delivered a report on "The Research Education Experience: Investigating Higher Degree by Research Candidates’ Experiences in Australian Universities" for the Department of Industry, 7 May 2012. Universities are under pressure to produce more work relevant higher degrees. Alongside the traditional PHD and Masters by research there are more programs with coursework and publication.

The expected career paths for postgraduate students is changing. Previously universities assumed that postgraduate education was for an academic career, teaching and researching in a tenured position. Most postgraduates now work in government and industry. There are relatively few secure positions in universities, with teaching being undertaken by part time staff, having no research role.

The same pressures which are changing the way undergraduate courses are provided at universities are now impacting postgraduate education. Online courses are changing the way education is provided. There is no reason not to expect postgraduate research education will move online. I will be examining this issue for the rest of the year.

Table of Contents

• Acknowledgements 3
• List of Figures and Tables 5
• Executive Summary 8
• Best Practice Key Findings 9
• Introduction 10
• The Research Training Experience 12
• Methodology 13
• Survey and Focus Group Findings 16
• Supervision 16
• Minimum Resources Policies and Practices 20
• Collegiality 30
• Focus Group Discussion: Education and Mature-Age Candidates 35
• Education Focus Group 35
• Mature-Age Multi-Disciplinary Focus Group 40
• Case Studies 42
• James, Early 20s, Full-Time ICT Masters, Regional University 42
• Billy, Mid 20s, Full-Time Sociology PhD, Regional University 44
• Nina, Early 30s, Part-Time Physiotherapy PhD, Metropolitan University 48
• Peter, Mid 30s, Full-Time Tourism MPhil, Regional University 53
• Nancy, Early 40s, Full-Time Geography PhD, Research Intensive University 57
• Gina, Late 40s, Part-Time Health Sciences PhD, Regional University 60
• Dennis, Early 60s, Full-Time Social Sciences PhD, Regional University 64
• Mary, Mid 60s, Part-Time Creative Writing PhD, Metropolitan University 68
• Conclusion 72
• Appendix A: Demographics of Participants 73
• Survey Demographics 73
• Focus Group Demographics 75
• Case Study Demographics 76
• Appendix B: Survey Questions and Tabulated Responses 77
• References 80

...

Executive Summary

This report is the product of a project carried out for the Australian Government Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (DIISRTE) by the Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA). The primary findings of this report are based on the outcomes of a national survey, 12 focus groups and 8 case studies of higher degree by research (HDR) candidates at 31 of Australia’s 39 universities. In total 1,166 students responded to the survey, and 125 were involved in the subsequent focus groups and case studies.

The Australian Government’s Research Workforce Strategy (RWS) and earlier reviews, including the Senate Inquiry into Research and Research Training, the Review of the National Innovation System, and the Bradley Review of Australian Higher Education, all identified a number of issues around research training in Australia. While there was a great deal of data gathered by DIISRTE during the development of the RWS, much of it focused on employers and early career academics, with less information collected directly from research students.

A workshop conducted by the CAPA during the development of the RWS on behalf of the then Department of Industry, Innovation, Science and Research (DIISR), highlighted some of the broad themes of concern to research students, including but not limited to: quality of supervision, quality and availability of minimum resources and funding for the production and dissemination of research, collegiality, and academic independence.

For the in-depth interviews in our focus groups and case studies, we sought to highlight the experiences of HDR candidates at regional universities. If a general claim can be made, it is simply that those in smaller departments were more likely to have quite positive experiences of collegiality with their cohort and with academics, and though this happened in both metropolitan and regional universities, it came through more strongly from regional candidates. The only counter to this was that when things went wrong in very small disciplinary groupings, there was often nowhere to turn for support.

This report identifies how institutional, faculty and departmental policies and practices impact on all aspects of the research education experience, or what can be described as early-career academic life. HDR candidates experience tensions between what is encoded in policy statements and how this plays out in practice, which in turn can impact on progress, timely completions and career pathways. Where policy and practice are more closely aligned, we found HDR candidates having a much more positive research education experience, and more positive attitudes towards a research career.

According to our findings, candidates working within their disciplines, being mentored on research grants or as research assistants, or collaborating in applied research projects within universities or industry, are more likely to express satisfaction with their research education experience. Where there is synergy between the HDR candidate’s research and their employment during candidature, candidates are more likely to say they have felt valued and engaged with the process of emerging as an expert in their field.

What emerges strongly from this research is the need expressed by HDR candidates to feel that their research is valued, and that they personally are valued partners in their educational experience. Often this involves the opportunity to work and research alongside colleagues from other disciplines where they can learn more and broaden their own disciplinary knowledge.

Our findings demonstrate how dependent success and positive engagement are on quality of supervision, the provision of adequate funding for research, physical resourcing such as work spaces, technology, equipment, and access to relevant coursework, and opportunities for publication and presentation of research at academic conferences. HDR candidates expressed a desire for academic support to be mentored into autonomous researchers valued by their supervisors and academic colleagues as professionals with strong disciplinary knowledge and expertise.

Those whose primary enrolment status has been part time reported experiences of some frustration at lack of access to the same level of resources as their full-time colleagues, but for many this is outweighed by the benefits of working to a longer time frame and being able to balance family and work commitments more easily. Taxation of the part-time scholarship was widely criticised.

HDR candidates across our sample claimed to be having positive experiences of academic independence. Whereas the 2009 CAPA workshop cohort raised academic independence as an area of concern, this research investigation did not find it to be an issue affecting many candidates.

Of critical interest to policy makers will be the finding that the risk of attrition seems to be most strongly linked to quality and continuity of supervision, and secondarily to collegiality more broadly. It seems that even in the face of many other institutional barriers to the production and dissemination of quality research, such as lack of resources and facilities and funding issues, the majority of HDR candidates are motivated to persevere. But when candidates have negative experiences of supervision, or to a lesser extent, collegiality with their cohort or within the department or faculty, they are more likely to express considerations of withdrawal. ...

From: The Research Education Experience: Investigating Higher Degree by Research Candidates’ Experiences in Australian Universities, Council of Australian Postgraduate Associations (CAPA) for the Department of Industry, 7 May 2012.

The Future of University Research

Greetings from the Australian National University, where ANU Research-Fest is underway. Professor Margaret Harding, the new ANU Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) at ANU is talking about "Measuring High Quality Research Training". Professor Harding pointed out the definition of "quality" for research will differ depending on the stakeholder. The Graduate Research supervisor, the government, the student and their parents will have different goals from research. She suggested that an important skill is for researchers to be able to explain what their research is about and why it is important in terms a layperson can understand. She joked that a topic like Byzantine History may be hard to explain (it turns out ANU does run courses in Byzantine art, cultural institutions and patronage from AD 330 to AD 1204).

Professor Harding defined a PHD as a significant and original contribution to knowledge. She suggested that students should look to how the work in their field is disseminated. This could be respected journals or publishers. Some commercially valuable material might need to be protected before publication.

Professor Harding discussed the difficulties of communally used measures of quality: "Forcing students to go to courses does not make a good supervisor". She suggested it was not a good idea to use a lack of criticisms from reviewers of a thesis as a measure of quality, as this is part of the academic process.

The Group of Eight Universities (which includes ANU) has issued papers on Research Performance in Australia and Maintaining an effective research environment in Australia. Professor Harding suggested that students should have access to support to training courses on how to do research but one rigid program is not suitable for all students. Next semester I am looking at how to do research supervision online. My previous efforts at using Moodle for supervising short student projects, suggests that something more flexible will be needed.

Professor Harding looked at what PHD students themselves thought was important, citing the work "PhD Graduates 5 to 7 Years Out: Employment Outcomes, Job Attributes and the Quality of Research Training" (Matthias Kubler, 2007). She pointed out that one benefit of the ANU's reputation for research was the large number of world class visitors and urged students to take advantage of this. She urged all students to have a 60 second pitch and 3 minute talk on their work ready at all times, should the opportunity to talk to a decision maker arises (this is something I get my students to practice).

This was an inspiring and also down to earth talk. About the only lack I saw was it only addressed PHDs and research. This is a very high level of study which few people can aspire to. It would be worth looking at other forms of postgraduate education, which enables more social inclusion. The ANU offers a Master of Philosophy (Mphil) as well as a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) by Graduate Research.

Building University Research Capacity

Greetings from the University of Canberra, where Professor George Walker, is talking on "Tactics for Research Capacity Building", based on his experience at Cleveland State University and Florida International University. Yesterday he talked on "Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate-inspired strategies for program evaluation and improvement: focus on student learning outcomes". Today's is his last talk in Canberra, before returning to the USA.

Professor Walker discussed his experience in improving the quality and productivity of research programs at US universities. The use of the term "productivity" got my attention , as I am looking at applying on-line pedagogy to research supervision. Also the use of the word "tactical" was interesting.

Professor Walker advocated universities having a strategic plan for research. He suggested that building capably involved selecting good staff, concentrating on interdisciplinary projects crossing the usual boundaries and involved internationally. Existing staff may resist such initiatives and feel left behind, unless there are explicit strategies to have them involved.

Professor Walker advocated explicit performance measures for research and teaching negotiated with each faculty member. He acknowledged also involving unions and suggested that many assumed impediments to such metrics do not exist. He also discussed how to reallocate university building space by charging academics rent. These are very topical issues in Australia, with universities setting metrics in response to new national standards.

Professor Walker pointed out that there is a subsidy from undergraduate fees to research and graduate education at most US universities. He argued that this will result in more specialized staff at university, with some doing more teaching of undergraduates. I asked the professor why a specialist teaching organization which does not subsidize research would not undercut university, offering cheaper courses. The professor replied that universities promote themselves based on research reputation. So students are prepared to pay more for a prestigious research university, even though the actual teaching is not done by those researchers and is of a lower quality than a specialist teaching organization. This is an effective strategy, but it may not survive increased competition and consumer law.

Professor Walker pointed out that many staff hired by US universities are from other countries, particularly in the technical fields. Nation states still want to have their own universities, but this will become more "complicated" with internationalization.

Professor Walker pointed out the different roles for fully online teaching only universities and traditional institutions. He suggested that they need to be separate and distinct. I am not sure if this is the case and we can have a blend. While traditional universities emphasize their full formal degree choruses. But universites also offer all sorts of other forms of education, including short and vocational courses. There is no reason why a traditional university cannot also offer online courses, without sacrificing reputation or quality.

Professor Walker has co-authored a number of publications on how to reform postgraduate education, including "The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century" (with Chris M. Golde, Laura Jones, Andrea Conklin Bueschel, Pat Hutchings. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008). There is also the Carnegie Foundation Professional Graduate Education website.

Pedagogy of Research

Professor George Walker, talked in Canberra today on "Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate-inspired strategies for program evaluation and improvement: focus on student learning outcomes". Professor Walker got my attention by mentioning the "Pedagogy of Research", as I am looking at applying on-line pedagogy to research supervision. There is also the Carnegie Foundation Professional Graduate Education website.

Professor Walker has co-authored a number of publications on how to reform postgraduate education, including "The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century" (with Chris M. Golde, Laura Jones, Andrea Conklin Bueschel, Pat Hutchings. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008).

The "Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate" did not fund the university departments, but instead sponsored essays on the topic in selected fields. This included science teaching and writing. A search for papers found about 300 mentioning "Carnegie Initiative on the Doctorate".

Professor Walker described a process where staff of universities were taken through a process where they were asked to describe the attributes of those how completed a doctoral program in a demonstrable way. I commented to Professor Walker that this sounded remarkably like what teachers do when designing a course and researchers would see this level of detail as not applicable to research supervision. He responded that teaching and research were both having the student learn and universities need to "get over" the distinction between teaching and research staff categories.

Professor Walker emphasized life long learning, as what doctoral students learn in their actual course will be quickly obsolete. He nominated: Scholarly Integration, Intellectual Community, Apprenticeship. This sounds much like the "Community of Interest" discussed by educators. The "Big Bang Theory" TV show, also got a mention as an example of a collaborating group of nerds (the point being that even nerds with poor social skills need colleagues).

Professor Walker argued that staff can learn how to have a robust intellectual community and then pass this on to the students. He described "Pea" and "Snake-pit" exercises. The pea exercise has the participants study a new topic together and be supportive. After the group has learned to be supportive they can then have a snake-pit, where a presentation from on member is subjected to constructive criticism by the others.

Professor Walker will be speaking tomorrow on "Tactics for Research Capacity Building", Friday 27 April 2012 at 10:30am, at the University of Canberra. This will be his last talk in Canberra, before returning to the USA.

Supervising Postgraduate Research at University in the 21st Century

Greetings from the Australian National University where I am attending a workshop on how to supervise postgraduate research. Staff from other universities are also attending. Charles Sturt University are providing a Online Research Student Supervisor Workshop which will be conducted via the Internet.

The ANU has detailed Guidelines for "Candidature and Supervision of Higher Degree by Research Students". Other universities have similar guidelines. One issue is how the funding for the supervision is allocated. Different universalities have different approaches, which can cause problems with cross institutional panels.

ANU requires a panel of three people for research supervision:

1. Chair: The Primary Supervisor
2. Supervisor: A Secondary Supervisor who works closely with the student and the Chair.
3. Advisor: Assists with the supervision of the student

Traditionally universities do not pay supervisors, apart from the normal salary which staff receive. However, the increasing focus on financial viability of universities may see this change.

There are issues with the social prescence of the members of the panel. That is the student may never meet, or ever see the members of their panel, other than their supervisor.

The "Vancouver Protocol" provides guidelines as to who should be listed on student papers as authors. Authorder.com provides tables to help work this out in practice. A related issue is how supervisors make their contributions: should drafts be sent to everyone at once? A modern option is to put the document on a distributed auhtoring system, such as Google Docs, which allows multiple contributions, which are all tracked.

One issue is a suitable environment for meetings and mutual support between students.

An issue is completion rates and length of time required. There is also a distinction made between withdraws early in the program (first year) and later.

My current university studies are about how to use some of the techniques from e-learning in research supervision. This could be applied to small undergraduate projects up to a PHD.

The area of supervision is subject to intense analysis, with changes to the way universities are funded. Just as all universities are looking at how to make courses higher quality and more effective, this applies to research as well.