2025: ASCILITE 2025 Conference Companion Materials

In an era of continuous change in digital education, we need educators who can not only respond to complexity but design for it. This poster reflects on my personal and professional shift from performing arts (stage acting and directing)

In an era of continuous change in digital education, we need educators who can not only respond to complexity but design for it. This poster reflects on my personal and professional shift from performing arts (stage acting and directing), and how that creative foundation has shaped my work as a curriculum and learning designer in higher education. It highlights the value of cross-disciplinary experience, particularly from the creative arts, as a driver of innovation, adaptability, and human-centred learning design. It is increasingly common for educators to transition from other professional fields into education, bringing with them diverse experiences and perspectives. Even when those fields appear unrelated, they can offer rich conceptual and practical tools for designing better learning experiences. These transitions are not detours. They can strengthen our contributions to education and broaden our capacity for innovation (Anyichie, Butler, Perry, & Nashon, 2023). Importantly, leaving the performing arts was never a failure or fallback, as I once thought. The creative skills and understanding of story and narrative that I developed are not lost but continuously repurposed in service of teaching and learning, particularly in digital contexts. For example, I use narrative mapping and visual storyboarding to co-design online learning experiences with academic staff, and apply storytelling principles to structure emotionally engaging, technology-enhanced learning environments. As an actor, I learned early the importance of failure as feedback; opportunities to reflect, adjust, and grow. This embodied experience of iterative, collaborative learning aligns closely with constructivist and social constructivist theories of education, where knowledge is actively co-created through experience, dialogue, and reflection (Powell & Kalina, 2009). However, it was directing that most significantly shaped how I now approach learning design. A director must maintain a holistic vision of the production. This involves ensuring coherence across narrative, staging, character, and tone, while also creating space for actors to explore, improvise, and contribute their own interpretations. Similarly, in curriculum design, I work to maintain a consistent narrative and conceptual structure across a course, while also leaving space for learners to personalise, question, and construct their own meaning. This practice aligns with constructive alignment, which ensures that learning activities and assessments are purposefully linked to intended learning outcomes (Biggs & Tang, 2011). However, my approach extends beyond alignment as a checklist. It involves crafting a throughline: a conceptual and emotional arc that connects outcomes, assessments, and activities into a meaningful and engaging learner journey (Cutting, 2016). This approach is particularly powerful in digital learning environments, where coherence and engagement can be harder to sustain. Tools such as narrative mapping, branching scenarios, and visual storyboarding support this process and foster collaborative dialogue with academic colleagues (Yusoff & Salim, 2014). This future-focused perspective requires adaptability. Just as a live performance adjusts to audience energy and technical constraints, learning environments must remain responsive to learner needs, shifting technologies, and broader social change. Drawing on rehearsal-based practices such as iteration, experimentation, and feedback, I design learning that is structurally coherent, emotionally engaging, and open to ongoing evolution. This poster invites fellow educators to reflect on how their diverse pathways can enrich digital education, promote creativity, and cultivate resilience in a rapidly evolving landscape. The poster will visually map the throughline metaphor, connecting performing arts practices with key learning design principles, supported by examples of narrative mapping and curriculum architecture. It will also include an interactive activity inviting participants to map their own professional journeys and identify how these experiences can inform technology-enhanced learning design. This journey traces a personal and professional trajectory across disciplines, highlighting how diverse experiences can shape innovative and human-centred digital education. At its core, learning design is an act of storytelling, crafting meaningful, coherent, and engaging journeys that help learners make sense of complex ideas and find their place within them.

Belonging is a fundamental human need that motivates individual pursuits (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In higher education, it is closely tied to affective engagement, playing a critical role in sustaining student retention and participation

Belonging is a fundamental human need that motivates individual pursuits (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). In higher education, it is closely tied to affective engagement, playing a critical role in sustaining student retention and participation (Strayhorn, 2019). Compared to undergraduate students’ belonging, graduate students’ experiences remain underexplored (Matheson & Sutcliffe, 2018). This gap is particularly relevant for MBA students, who often invest financially, juggle multiple commitments, and adapt to new academic environments. While belonging is increasingly recognised as multifaceted (Gravett, Ajjawi, & O’Shea, 2023), research indicates that graduate students experience this primarily in the academic domain (Briant Spratling & Valdovinos, 2022). A low sense of belonging can lead to disengagement and reduced satisfaction with the course (Lee & Anantharaman, 2015). While induction programs may foster early belonging (e.g., Matheson & Sutcliffe, 2018), its dynamic nature (Allen et al., 2024) presents challenges for supporting personalised beyond initial stages. In this poster, we describe a tailored email intervention to support MBA students’ belonging by providing a schedule of timely and personalised communications, tailored to students’ goals for the program. Students in the program can tailor their curricular and extra-curricular experience based on their unique career and personal goals. Given the diversity of student pathways to the program and associated aspirations, there is substantial scope to tailor the MBA experience. Accordingly, students require support to understand the scope of choices available and make appropriate choices accordingly. This intervention was carried out over two semesters of an MBA program at the University of Technology Sydney. An initial survey was disseminated near the start of the academic year to all students in the program, to solicit their goals for enrolling in the MBA program. The survey was framed against students’ general career aspirations, disciplinary specialisation interests, profession networking interests, communication development aspirations, employment goals, mentoring interests, views on contributing to positive societal outcomes, entrepreneurial interests and international exposure interests. Following this, three personalised emails were sent over each semester via the automated feedback tool, OnTask (Pardo et al., 2018), tailored to students’ responses to the initial survey. 70% of the Autumn cohort (total enrolled = 449 students) and 27% of the new Spring cohort (total enrolled = 56) responded to the initial survey and therefore received the personalised emails. Students were invited to complete a short survey to provide feedback about the personalised emails, and to participate in an interview about their experience. Students reported positive perceptions of their personalised support, which provided timely academic guidance and enhanced the feeling of being valued. An important finding was that prior educational experiences influenced students’ engagement with their personalized advice: newcomers desired more structured mentorship, while returning students more effectively navigated opportunities to enhance integration and belonging. These findings highlight the nuances of belonging faced by graduate students, especially those from international backgrounds. In this poster, we present the challenges and key learnings from this pilot implementation of personalising support for belonging at the program level.

ePortfolios are increasingly recognised as a high-impact practice for both assessment and learning. They can enhance students’ critical thinking and reflective abilities, while also contributing to improved success outcomes in higher

ePortfolios are increasingly recognised as a high-impact practice for both assessment and learning. They can enhance students’ critical thinking and reflective abilities, while also contributing to improved success outcomes in higher education. (Eynon et al., 2017). This is due to their ability to be a useful framework for organising learning, their varied and complex pedagogical uses, and promoting high learner engagement (Hallam & Creagh, 2010; Watson et al., 2016). Yet there is scant high quality empirical research on ePortfolio implementation. In particular, there is little research on how higher education learners experience ePortfolio tasks and how these experiences intersect with student motivation, a key element of self-regulated learning (SRL). Effective self-regulation depends on learners' motivation to actively control their learning through goal setting, progress monitoring, and strategy adjustment (Zimmerman, 2002). Motivational elements, including self-efficacy and perceived value of learning and assessment tasks are key factors in fostering academically successful independent self-regulated learners in higher education (Pintrich, 1999; Lim & Yeo, 2021). However, students are expected to view ePortfolios as both an assessment by the institution of their work and a space for authentic learning agency, often creating a tension between the two (Van der Gulden et al., 2023). This tension may undermine student motivation by reducing perceived value of the learning process while increasing the perceived burden, particularly given that ePortfolios are frequently reported as time-intensive and demanding tasks (Jansenns et al., 2022). Additionally, the dual assessment-learning function may create challenges for how students construct their academic and professional identities while managing the significant labour involved in portfolio creation and maintenance. As such, a deeper understanding of students' experiences of ePortfolio may shed more light on how ePortfolios can function as effective assessment and learning tools. This poster showcases current findings from an ongoing PhD thesis project. Results from 40 semi-structured interviews with undergraduate speech pathology students at an Australian and a UK university were analysed using expectancy-value theory (Eccles & Wigfield, 2020) as a framework to uncover motivational influences towards engaging with ePortfolio tasks. The analysis explores how ePortfolio experiences intersect with assessment, learning, identity development, and academic labour to help create a motivation-informed framework for ePortfolio design, providing practical design principles for educators seeking to enhance student engagement with ePortfolio tasks.

Understanding and enhancing student engagement is crucial for online learning as it reflects student satisfaction and academic achievement. Cognitive engagement (CE) refers to students’ investment in learning through strategic, reflective

Understanding and enhancing student engagement is crucial for online learning as it reflects student satisfaction and academic achievement. Cognitive engagement (CE) refers to students’ investment in learning through strategic, reflective and self-regulatory behaviours that foster problem-solving (Chi and Wylie, 2014). It involves critical thinking, conceptual understanding and cognitive skill development. Online discussion forums serve as a key tool that facilitates CE by enabling critical thinking and collaborative knowledge-building (Ahmad et al., 2022). Analysing students’ CE in discussion forums can enhance learning systems and inform course and assessment design (Prince et al., 2020). Although CE is difficult to detect, tools like the ICAP framework offer a structured approach by categorising engagement into four observable dimensions: Passive, Active, Constructive, and Interactive (Wiggins et al., 2017). ICAP hypothesis suggests that CE increases progressively from passive to interactive (Chi & Wylie, 2014). While widely applied in synchronous settings (Barlow & Brown, 2020), ICAP has seen limited use in asynchronous online environments. While prior studies have applied the ICAP framework as a complementary tool to analyse CE in online learning, they often combine it with other models such as Community of Inquiry (CoI) or Bloom’s taxonomy and focus primarily on synchronous or manually coded environments, highlighting the need to solely apply the ICAP and automate prediction of cognitive behaviours (Farrow et al., 2022, Gorgun et al., 2022; Ahmad et al.,2022). Building on ICAP hypothesis, this research modifies ICAP framework, tailored to capture CE in discussion forums in asynchronous and fully online learning environments. The study employed a mixed-method approach, combining manual content analysis and descriptive analysis using visualisation to examine student interactions in discussion forums within STEM courses in an Australian University. Courses from IT programs across four consecutive study periods (2023-2024), each with over 80 students were selected to manually annotate and map against the modified ICAP framework (with passive excluded, and dimensions categorised into three levels low, medium, high) using keywords and phrases of the discussion forums. Inter-rater reliability was 100%, as project team members collaboratively resolved conflicts. The mapped data was then evaluated descriptively through visual and text analysis to uncover deeper patterns of CE. Students demonstrated higher active and constructive engagement, but gains from constructive to interactive were limited. To better support CE, forums should be designed to encourage more student interactions. To better support cognitive engagement, online discussion forums should be designed to encourage more interactions among students. These preliminary findings pave the way for empirical validation of the modified ICAP framework in future controlled studies, though generalisation is yet to be established due to domain specificity. The research highlights the importance of educators understanding students CE in fully online and asynchronous learning and adopting the modified ICAP framework. This can be further utilised to better design the online courses to encourage deeper student participation, help students move from passive-active-constructive-interactive engagement. As universities continue to expand online education, understanding how to structure discussion activities to improve student CE is essential for better learning outcomes and shaping online teaching practices.

Decades of research have advised that visually engaging slides with minimal text can enhance learning (Klemm 2007; Mayer 2008; Kustritz 2014, Lenz et al. 2015; Naegle 2021). Yet, text-heavy lectures and presentations are still delivered in

Decades of research have advised that visually engaging slides with minimal text can enhance learning (Klemm 2007; Mayer 2008; Kustritz 2014, Lenz et al. 2015; Naegle 2021). Yet, text-heavy lectures and presentations are still delivered in tertiary education contexts today. This paradox offers a valuable opportunity to reflect and grow as educators in an era of continuous change, where the way we deliver content matters. This poster explores this tension through the experiences of an early career academic developer at a South Australian university currently undergoing a merger. The experience has required collaboration with academics across disciplines during a period of rapid course development at scale. A synchronous online workshop was introduced to complement other course development supports like individual consultations. The workshop unpacks new curriculum guidelines and key concepts like constructive alignment with academics (de Grave et al. 2014). A PowerPoint slideshow guides the workshop, and two breakout room activities allow academics to apply their learning and provide feedback to each other (Bertholini 2024). While the breakout rooms were engaging, the didactic segments guided by the slides often fell victim to the “death by PowerPoint” (Harden 2008) effect. The irony is that this phenomenon is something that we academic developers teach academics to avoid in other faculty development programs. Even so, we succumbed to the default bullet point communication mode and included excess text on the slides. The main reasons for this were to have consistency across different academic developers delivering the workshop and because the slides were later provided as handouts (Issa et al. 2011; Harden 2008). The solutions for improving the slides were not new or groundbreaking. They included replacing written explanations with diagrams and images, implementing Mayer’s (2008) multimedia design principles, creating more thoughtful presenter notes and providing separate handout materials (Kustritz 2014; Issa et al. 2011). However, the key learning from this experience was not about effective slide or workshop design. The key learning, which will be the focus of this poster, was the necessity of pausing to examine our default practices and make improvements that lead to better teaching and learning, even when the advice is already familiar. In academic development, our learners are academics; but best practices for designing learning experiences for tertiary students should also inform the design of things like our workshops (de Grave et al. 2014). Tensions between pedagogical ideals (e.g. effective workshop and slide design); and practical constraints (e.g. time pressures and the need to cover content); will always be present. Therefore, it is essential that we actively create moments of reflection to review our practices (McAlpine et al. 2009). Embracing the idea that changes are iterative, not instantaneous, this poster calls for educators to pause, revisit default habits and digital tools with fresh eyes, and consider how small shifts in practice can contribute to more engaging and learner-focused teaching. This poster includes interactive elements that encourage participants to contribute their own reflections to the conversation.

This presentation will outline the implementation and dissemination of a Teaching Squares approach with a focus on enhancing academic learning (sessional staff and continuing), collegiality, and networking across all seven academic units

This presentation will outline the implementation and dissemination of a Teaching Squares approach with a focus on enhancing academic learning (sessional staff and continuing), collegiality, and networking across all seven academic units within the University of South Australia (UniSA). We identified that the Teaching Squares approach was a safe and valuable approach for continuing staff to view, meet, reflect, and ideate on their teaching while observing their colleagues from the same academic unit. Based on these positive findings garnered through questionnaires and focus group interviews, we now wish to extend this study to include sessional staff, a cohort of teaching staff that are under-represented in the literature concerning Teaching Squares support. We will outline how we developed a community of practice to include staff across all academic units. We then purposely connected a maximum of four staff from different units so that we can further determine the benefits of staff learning and networking while viewing and interacting with colleagues from distinct and unique disciplines. Through a combination of pre-and post-questionnaires, we collected data on staff perceptions, experiences, and learnings through the Teaching Squares approach. More detailed data was then obtained through focus group interviews. The outcomes of these findings and this project has the potential to greatly enhance sessional and continuing staff belonging, reflective practice and networking, which will result in enhanced teaching practice and student learning.

The aim of this project is to explore how Fink’s Taxonomy (Fink, 2013) can be integrated into Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom et al., 1956; Biggs, 1996) to support both academic and professional development. In higher education, constructive

The aim of this project is to explore how Fink’s Taxonomy (Fink, 2013) can be integrated into Bloom’s Taxonomy (Bloom et al., 1956; Biggs, 1996) to support both academic and professional development. In higher education, constructive alignment has been widely used for curriculum design and validation, as well as quality assurance (Biggs, 1996; Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001; Jaiswal, 2019). The important role of Bloom’s Taxonomy in guiding constructive alignment in teaching practice has been studied and recognized (Anderson and Krathwohl, 2001; Momen et al., 2022; Sudirtha et al., 2022). While its focus on cognitive domain facilitates the design of learning outcomes and assessments with expected cognitive skills, Bloom’s Taxonomy neglects affective factors in learning (Soozandehfar and Adeli, 2016; Wu et al., 2019; Momen et al., 2022). In contrast to Bloom’s hierarchical taxonomy, Fink’s non-hierarchical taxonomy considers personal, social and emotional aspects of learning, promoting a more comprehensive learner-centred learning experience (Levine et al., 2008; Fink, 2013; Gravett and Bach, 2024). Based on the nature of Fink’s Taxonomy, we investigate how Fink’s Taxonomy dimensions can be integrated into Bloom’s Taxonomy to enhance constructive alignment in curriculum design to support learner’s development of life-long learning skills for success in both academic and professional life. To translate educational theory into practice, we integrate inquiry-based and collaborative learning and adopt a flipped classroom model to enhance student engagement and cognitive development (Koretsky et al., 2015; Dellatola et al., 2020). To support diverse learner needs and foster active learning, we leverage technology-enhanced communication platforms and employ multimodal channels. Furthermore, we implement self-assessment and peer-assessment mechanisms to promote metacognitive awareness and deep learning through structured reflection and peer feedback (Topping, 2009). The implementation of these strategies across two postgraduate units has demonstrated the feasibility and pedagogical value of our framework. However, the rapid emergence of AI technologies has prompted a question: how can we integrate AI technologies into the framework while fostering the development of fundamental life-long learning skills? This challenge defines the next phase of our project.

Academic integrity is a cornerstone of ethical scholarship and fair and credible higher education. However, many students – particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds (Bretag et al., 2019; Devlin et al., 2018; Dockery et al

Academic integrity is a cornerstone of ethical scholarship and fair and credible higher education. However, many students – particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds (Bretag et al., 2019; Devlin et al., 2018; Dockery et al., 2016; Webb et al., 2024) such as international, low socio-economic, and regional, rural and remote cohorts - struggle to understand its principles and institutional expectations (Birks et al., 2020; Locquiao & Ives, 2020, 2024; McCabe et al., 2012; Waltzer & Dahl, 2023). These challenges are often shaped by systemic barriers, which can lead to disproportionate rates of unintentional misconduct, disadvantage (Dockery et al., 2016; Webb et al., 2024), and poorer learning experiences. Existing academic integrity education often fails to address these inequities (Bretag et al., 2019; McCabe et al., 2012) relying on generic, compliance-focused, one-size-fits-all approaches that do not fully meet the needs of these diverse learners. This project addresses these gaps by creating interactive digital resources that promote ethical decision-making and academic resilience for all students. Unlike traditional technology enhanced learning models, it embeds inclusive design and student co-creation at its core. Students were engaged as active partners in the design of these resources, ensuring their voices shape both pedagogical and practical decisions. Grounded in constructivist learning theory, this project drew on inclusive education design, and students-as-partners frameworks (Cresswell, 2011; Gravett et al., 2020; Tennyson, 2010). Constructivist principles informed the use of authentic, scenario-based learning to support ethical reasoning, while iterative co-design cycles, guided by the students-as-partners approach, ensured the materials reflected diverse perspectives and needs. The project was implemented across multiple phases, using both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate students’ knowledge and understanding of academic integrity. Results from an online questionnaire showed that while most students could correctly identify plagiarism, fewer understood subtler concepts such as paraphrasing and correct referencing. Focus group discussions further highlighted varied experiences with academic integrity education. Students described current online modules as outdated or unengaging and expressed a need for more practical resources as well as ongoing support to navigate academic integrity expectations. The previously outlined theoretical foundations, together with the collected data, guided the development of scenario-based resources, including case-studies, interactive digital tools such as an AI chatbot, and staff guides and training material. Student co-creators from diverse backgrounds collaborated with academic staff to design, refine and test these materials for accessibility and relevance. Preliminary findings highlight that student co-created materials improved students’ understanding of academic integrity and increased their confidence in ethical academic practices. Staff also report greater ease in integrating practical academic integrity concepts into their teaching. This work demonstrates how academic integrity education can move beyond a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach, offering a scalable, equity-driven model – supported by innovations such as interactive AI - that better serves the realities of today’s diverse higher education landscape.

Educators often rely on textual data from student evaluation comments and feedback survey responses to gain insights into students’ learning, understand their perceptions of educational innovations, as well as to evaluate curricula for

Educators often rely on textual data from student evaluation comments and feedback survey responses to gain insights into students’ learning, understand their perceptions of educational innovations, as well as to evaluate curricula for improving educational practices. Such nuanced data from individual students capture subjective perceptions and experiences, and are analysed through interpretive lenses in qualitative research (Denzin & Lincoln, 2011). However, large corpora of data present significant challenges in being able to scale qualitative analysis. In this poster submission, we present a novel multi-agent architecture using large language models (LLMs) for analysing open-text responses as a possible solution to this problem. Building on our previous LLM-based workflow (Bakharia et. al., 2025), our agentic workflow involves multiple steps for responsibly automating the inductive thematic analysis process (Lochmiller, 2021) including validation with a multi-stage process designed to ensure analytical rigour and reliability. Our workflow first finds stable themes within each document by making multiple parallel calls to a LLM, generating a wide range of possible themes. We then use semantic clustering to identify themes that appear across many runs, going beyond just keywords. A verification step checks that all quoted evidence actually exists in the original text, preventing hallucinations and grounding themes in real student voices. Next, all themes go through a refine-and-review loop. A critic agent gives feedback on the quality of each theme, and a refiner agent improves the name, rationale, and keywords. Once all documents are complete, the system groups similar themes using hierarchical clustering to find broader categories. To support human interpretation, we built a user interface that includes a Sankey diagram to show how themes connect back to the original documents. Researchers can interact with the diagram to see the actual quotes behind each theme, providing clarity and context. Our approach emphasises trustworthiness through built-in verification and ensuring transparency at every level of abstraction. Our workflow also incorporates human-in-the-loop processes to ensure rigour.

This exploratory project addresses the ASCILITE 2025 conference theme—Future-Focused: Educating in an Era of Continuous Change—by introducing an innovative virtual reality (VR) experience designed for over 300 first-year business students

This exploratory project addresses the ASCILITE 2025 conference theme—Future-Focused: Educating in an Era of Continuous Change—by introducing an innovative virtual reality (VR) experience designed for over 300 first-year business students per term. Aligned with the sub-themes of AI and Human Synergy, Inclusive Futures, and Adaptable Learners, students engage deeply with a real-world airline case to explore the SERVQUAL framework (a widely used model and research instrument for assessing service quality): reliability, assurance, tangibles, empathy, and responsiveness. Advancing TEL Research and Practice: Responding proactively to continuous educational change, this initiative combines immersive technology with AI-led oral assessments. Grounded in contemporary Technology-Enhanced Learning (TEL) literature, it promotes embodied and accessible learning as an alternative to anxiety-inducing traditional oral assessments (Alcorn & Cheesman, 2022; El Shazly, 2021). Innovative Practice: Students initially explore the airline case study through traditional classroom activities before transitioning to an interactive VR environment. Here, they assume the role of airline customer service staff, interacting with AI-powered avatars portraying airline passengers. This enables students to apply SERVQUAL principles through authentic conversational scenarios. AI-led oral assessments offer immediate, personalised feedback, significantly reducing assessment anxiety, logistical complexity, and associated costs (Alcorn & Cheesman, 2022; Gardner, O’Leary, & Yuan, 2021; Yong, 2020). Theoretical Foundations: The project integrates experiential learning theory (Kolb, 2015) and cognitive apprenticeship (Matsuo & Tsukube, 2020), providing authentic professional experiences supported by structured opportunities for reflection. Drawing from social constructivist principles (O’Connor, 2022; Richardson, 2003), students collaboratively analyse their VR interactions, fostering critical thinking and resilience. The design highlights AI’s capacity to enhance motivation, reduce anxiety, and support fair, inclusive assessments (Luckin, Holmes, Griffiths, & Forcier, 2016; Rane, Choudhary, & Rane, 2023). Enhancing Accessibility and Learner Experience: A core aim of this pilot is exploring student acceptance of AI-driven oral assessments, given their novelty compared to traditional methods. Qualitative data collection included surveys, student reflections, and assessor feedback designed to capture key student perspectives on fairness, adaptability, and overall learning experience. Guided by social constructivism, this learner-centred approach is essential for evaluating the effectiveness and scalability of this innovation (Richardson, 2003; O’Connor, 2022). Cross-disciplinary Relevance: Originally piloted within business education, the flexibility of the VR and AI framework supports adaptation across disciplines including hospitality, healthcare, and law. Flexible access options—from VR headsets to browser-based simulations—ensure inclusivity across diverse learning contexts (Asad, Naz, Churi, Tahanzadeh, & Jermsittiparsert, 2021). Collaborative Futures and Scholarly Impact: Developed collaboratively with educational technologists and interdisciplinary academics, this project exemplifies innovative digital education. Integrating AI-led assessments aligns with Education 4.0 and 5.0 trends, emphasising personalised and adaptive learning (Rane, Choudhary, & Rane, 2023), and opening avenues for future research into learning analytics, student engagement, and comparative assessments (Gardner et al., 2021; Luckin et al., 2016). This abstract presents scalable innovation, showcasing the transformative potential of immersive technology and AI-driven assessment in higher education.

As university libraries confront rising costs, shrinking budgets, unstable subscription models and expanding digital learning demands (CAUL, 2023), Open Educational Resources (OER) provide more than just student affordability: they offer a

As university libraries confront rising costs, shrinking budgets, unstable subscription models and expanding digital learning demands (CAUL, 2023), Open Educational Resources (OER) provide more than just student affordability: they offer a sustainable strategy for smarter spending. This presentation recasts OER not as an optional extra, but as essential infrastructure for modern teaching and learning, enabling libraries to deliver greater impact with fewer resources. University libraries are often forced into an impossible balancing act, attempting to deliver on their mission in a fiscally strained environment while becoming increasingly dependent on the volatile and expensive commercial textbook market for materials the institution neither owns nor controls. One institution reports paying an average of A$1,800 per commercial textbook licence (University of Adelaide, 2022). These are often recurring costs, not one-offs. Moreover, ProQuest’s announcement earlier this year (2025a, 2025b) of its plans to remove perpetual (one-off) purchase options for its widely used suite of print and ebooks is a cold discovery of just how ephemeral these “purchases” are and the lack of consultation with libraries prior to the decision, underscores the tenuous and imbalanced nature of the library-publisher relationship (CAUL, 2025). So, how can libraries continue supporting equity, access, and excellence in academia when budgets tighten and learning resources are tangled in ever-constricting commercial knots? By being strategic. OER, by design, are free, openly-licensed, forever-owned, flexible and adaptable resources which empower libraries to shift from reactive purchasing to proactive co-creation – building the system we need, rather than remaining beholden to the broken system we’ve unwittingly enabled. But OER, while free for the user, are not free for the creator, publisher, or distributor, all of whom must front-load the endeavour with their time, knowledge and technology for the future pay-off of a high-quality, free and open resource – and it’s typically the university library’s budget that covers this upfront cost which is larger than an individual commercial textbook subscription. So, we arrive at the problem. Without considering the long-term implications, when faced with a choice between the status quo of expensive, but familiar, commercial options versus also expensive, but unfamiliar, open options, university libraries can easily mistake OER as the “nice to have”. The flaw in this logic is clarified when analogised: cutting out grocery staples, such as flour, eggs, pasta, and meat, because they cost $100 a week, and replacing them with a seemingly cheap $15 takeaway meal is not a savings when factoring in three meals per day, seven days a week. That’s what cutting an OER program in favour of commercial textbook purchasing looks like. Continuing the analogy, home cooking requires effort and knowledge, but it’s cheaper per meal, adaptable, and the quality and details can be controlled. The same goes for OER: it might require upfront investment, but it saves money long-term, gives back control, and builds institutional capability. Unlike takeaway (and commercial textbooks), home cooking (and an OER) is not at the mercy of price hikes or sudden menu changes. With theoretical underpinnings in open and ecological systems (Cronin & MacLaren, 2018; Stagg, 2017) and drawing from practitioner experiences (CAUL, 2023; Desrochers, 2019; Hofer, 2017; Tlili et al., 2023), this presentation highlights how commercial textbook models represent a growing impost on public funds and how, by contrast, libraries can invest in OER to create long-term value and system resilience.

This study is providing the findings and lessons of research on Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs), a variation of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in China. Since 2013, more than 1,700 universities in China have launched SPOCs and

This study is providing the findings and lessons of research on Small Private Online Courses (SPOCs), a variation of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) in China. Since 2013, more than 1,700 universities in China have launched SPOCs and millions of students have registered for credit courses. The growing use of SPOCs in Chinese higher education has reshaped how universities deliver personalised and flexible learning. Despite widespread adoption, limited research has explored how flexibility of student learning has been integrated into SPOCs. By extending the Advance HE Flexible Learning Framework (Loon, 2021), this study proposes the Flexibility for SPOC-based Online Learning (FSOL) model, a tool designed to assess the multifaceted factors of student flexibility in online learning. This model categories the complexity of flexibility in online learning with five critical factors: institutional support, teacher support, information quality, system quality and perceived employability. A survey of 294 university students in China was conducted. Exploratory factor analysis and Confirmatory factor analysis confirmed a five-factor model with high internal consistency and strong construct validity. The results, analysed with FSOL, demonstrated that the proposed factors explained 60.3% of the variance in flexibility. Findings revealed that strong institutional and teacher support enhance students’ overall learning flexibility. This is an important finding especially in a collectivist cultural context in China, where hierarchical student-institution structures affected educational experiences (Hofstede, 2001). Quality of the SPOCs, reflected in the content, layout and available support, influenced student’s use and further affected their flexibility. Embedding content for employability development also increased students’ flexibility in SPOCs-based online learning by enabling them to customise their learning paths to align with career goals. The FSOL model offers an innovative and practical contribution for evaluating flexible learning strategies in technology-enhanced learning settings. The focus on employability in the model highlights the importance of aligning course design with students' future career goals. The FSOL model can further inform future technology-enhanced learning and research to support more inclusive and effective learning in diverse global settings. This study will be beneficial to teachers who use blended and online learning. It will provide strategies on how to effectively integrate the FSOL flexibility framework, which can be adapted to non-Chinese online learning contexts.

Artificial Intelligence creates challenges for assessment integrity and validity (Lodge et al., 2023). Interactive Oral Assessments (IOA) are emerging as an academically sound and pedagogically robust assessment option to address these

Artificial Intelligence creates challenges for assessment integrity and validity (Lodge et al., 2023). Interactive Oral Assessments (IOA) are emerging as an academically sound and pedagogically robust assessment option to address these challenges (Lodge, 2024) while also supporting student employability and communication skills (Ward et al., 2023). Further, studies show that students are less likely to engage in academic misconduct when undertaking IOA that are relevant to real-world situations (Sotiriadou et al., 2020). Considering the above and recognising the power of collaboration, in 2024 a business school academic and educational designer commenced an iterative process to introduce IOA into a Postgraduate Management subject that is focused on career planning. The subject serves multiple Masters degree programs, and students come with varying levels of professional experience. IOA are uniquely suited to this subject as part of building student employability via enhancing the ability of students to articulate their knowledge, attributes, skills and experience (Daubney, 2022). IOA also support the development of students’ communication capabilities, identified as a criticalskill in graduate recruitment, with 88% of employers rating it as important and routinely assessed (Australian Association of Graduate Employers, 2020). IOA align with the Subject Learning Objectives (SLO’s), which require students to persuasively communicate their skills, knowledge, and attributes to demonstrate their employability to a professional audience. Previous assessments required students to reflect on their skills, knowledge, and experiences, develop a career plan, and submit a generic recorded career pitch. As IOA rely on authentic and genuine scenarios (Sotiriadou et al. 2025), an important first step was setting up a scenario that would resonate with the diverse cohort in the subject. In 2024, the recorded pitch assessment was adjusted to include a choice of scenarios tailored to the student personas typically enrolled in the subject. Students could choose to pitch for their first professional role; a lateral move; a promotion; or a career change. Student feedback was positive, particularly relating to the applicability of the assessment in supporting their career goals, which validated the authenticity and relevance of the scenarios. In 2025 the pitch will be replaced with an IOA where students will participate in a conversation based on one of the four authentic scenarios enabling them to articulate their communication and employability skills (Logan et al. 2017; Sotiriadou et al. 2020), demonstrate understanding of key subject content (Ward et al., 2023), and fulfil the SLOs. To replicate the real-world scenario, educators will be prepared with a set of prompts, for example, to clarify content or probe on specific topics (Pearce & Chiavaroli, 2020). Indicative results from 2025 implementation will be available for sharing at the conference. IOA effectiveness will be assessed via comparative student surveys, benchmarked year-on-year. Learnings will be applicable for academics and learning designers interested in exploring IOA, including how an iterative and collaborative design process can improve outcomes for all stakeholders, and how to manage diverse student groups. Findings may also contribute to the body of knowledge regarding IOA and their role in supporting student employability.