Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia
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* HERDSA Connect: Riding the grey wolf: Reflections in ink inspired by the HERDSA 2026 keynote
* HERDSA SoTL SIG -- This Friday! -- Building impact over time: Lessons from an educational leadership career
* CORRECTION: HERDSA Pedagogy of Student Belonging and Wellbeing SIG – August Meeting
* Teaching Reimagined: Digital Innovation, Technology and Impact
* Call for contributions to Voices from the Field section of IJSaP — When student experience becomes expertise in partnership
* Webinar invitation: Human (de)Centred AI
* Beyond Recognition: Learning and Teaching Academies as Engines of Educational Leadership and Change webinar
* AAIN Academic Integrity Forum
* CRADLE Seminar Series: 'Designing self-assessment students can actually use'
* Call for submissions to a study looking at curriculum design processes in the contemporary Australian higher education context
* New articles in Higher Education Research and Development
To submit an announcement for this list complete the online form at http://herdsa.org.au/herdsa-notices
A full list of HERDSA Notices is online at http://www.herdsa.org.au/latest-news
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Riding the grey wolf: Reflections in ink inspired by the HERDSA 2026 keynote
Diana Turnip & Amanda White, 19 August 2026
Diana & Amanda discuss key insights from a HERDSA 2026 keynote using comic strips to encourage us to "ride the grey wolf".
Read more: https://herdsa.org.au/herdsa-connect/riding-grey-wolf-reflections-ink-in...
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HERDSA SoTL SIG -- This Friday! -- Building impact over time: Lessons from an educational leadership career
Friday, 21 August 2026 - 12–1pm AEST (NSW/VIC/QLD)
The HERDSA SoTL SIG warmly invites you to our August session! This month, Professor Melissa Russell will present "Building Impact Over Time: Lessons from an Educational Leadership Career".
There is no single pathway to becoming an education-focused academic, and Melissa's career illustrates the diverse opportunities and directions such a journey can take. Join us as Melissa reflects on her career trajectory, from physiotherapist to Education-Focused Professor at the University of Melbourne, and shares how she navigated a shift from health research to education-focused scholarship. She will discuss how she has combined teaching, leadership, and research throughout her career, highlighting the opportunities, decisions, and experiences that have shaped her path.
Presenter: Professor Melissa Russell (University of Melbourne)
Date: Friday, 21 August 2026 @ 12.00 pm (AEST)
Facilitator: Trisha Poole (UniSQ)
Register here: https://unisq.zoom.us/meeting/register/LCd16NSwTD2N9ecfXKWzOg
Register for one or all of our SIG sessions this year!
To stay connected, join our LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14343410/
About the presenter
Professor Melissa Russell is an Education-Focused Professor at the University of Melbourne with leadership roles spanning population health and higher education. Her scholarship focuses on student experience, mental health, and wellbeing in higher education. Through extensive research, publications, and funded projects, she has helped shape university approaches to supporting student wellbeing both locally and nationally.
Further information: Contact the HERDSA SoTL SIG at herdsa.sotl.sig@gmail.com
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CORRECTION: HERDSA Pedagogy of Student Belonging and Wellbeing SIG – August Meeting
27th August, 2026. 1.30-2.30pm (AEST)
Please note a correction to the meeting details advertised in our previous notice.
Our next SIG meeting will be held on Thursday 27 August at 1.30 pm (AEST).
We apologise for the confusion and hope you can still join us as we reconnect after the HERDSA Conference, welcome new members, and continue building our community.
We look forward to seeing you there!
Thursday 27 August | 1.30 pm (AEST) | Online via Zoom. Please register at the below link:
https://adelaide.zoom.us/meeting/register/SiX7yLf5Sge9zKa1LcsIEg
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Teaching Reimagined: Digital Innovation, Technology and Impact
27th August 2026 1.00pm -2.00 pm AEST
AAUT & HERDSA National Webinar Series 2026 – Session 4
How can digital innovation and emerging technologies transform teaching and learning in meaningful ways?
Join HERDSA and the Australian Awards for University Teaching (AAUT) for a panel discussion exploring how educators are using digital innovation and technology to enhance student learning, engagement, inclusion and success.
Our distinguished panellists will share their experiences of developing and implementing innovative approaches to teaching, reflecting on the challenges they encountered, the evidence of impact, and the role of students in shaping their innovations.
Panel Chair
Dr Pranit Anand, Senior Lecturer in Cyber Security Management and Education
HERDSA Executive
Panellists
A/Prof Jahan Hassan, CQUniversity – ICT Virtual Learning Program
2024 AAUT Citation – Team Nomination
Dr Bill Platz, Griffith University
2024 AAUT Citation
Mr Paul Van Opdenbosch, Queensland University of Technology (QUT)
2024 AAUT Citation
We look forward to having you attend the event!
Further information: Register: https://bit.ly/3U5lbW2
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Call for contributions to Voices from the Field section of IJSaP — When student experience becomes expertise in partnership
31 August
We invite you to contribute to the upcoming iteration of the International Journal of Student as Partner’s section called “Voices from the Field.” The goal of this section is to create a venue for a wide range of voices to address important questions around students-as-partners work without going through the intensive time commitment required by the submission, review, and revision processes. We want to hear your voices and put them into dialogue with one another!
We are posting this open call for thoughts on the question below, and we will organize excerpts from the responses we receive into what we hope will be a creative, engaging, accessible format to share with readers. Here is the prompt we invite you to address:
Which practices within pedagogical partnerships contribute to the perception and construction of student partners’ contributions as forms of expertise?
To keep in mind: Pedagogical partnerships involve collaboration and co-creation across students, faculty members, staff, and/or administrators. Because of the different roles and experiences these people bring to the partnership work, there are also differences of approach to both partnership and educational practice. We invite students, staff/faculty, program facilitators, and others to write from your role in response to the prompt above about specific practices you have engaged in or observed that contributed to the perception and construction of student partners’ contributions as valuable knowledge and forms of expertise, not simply as opinions or perspectives with limited value or worth. What were the specific relationships and contextual factors that contributed to an understanding of the contributions? How did participants come to recognize, question, or redefine what counted as expertise in the partnership?
Submissions should include:
• 75 to 150 words that define the frame in terms non-specialists can understand and explain how your partnership work is informed by or unfolds within that frame. The 75-150 word submissions should:
o be informal but substantive reflections;
o be clearly articulated from your own position and perspective (so very briefly tell readers who you are—context, identities/background, position); and
o have an explicit focus on partnership/students-as-partners
We are looking for up to 30 contributions by the end August 2026. Please use this link to submit your response to the question. If we reach this number before the deadline you will no longer be able to make a submission, so please check the link before you start writing (https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSe6ItfxS3iAJUUtd7QBqw-EmszdxAVw...).
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Webinar invitation: Human (de)Centred AI
Wednesday, 2 September 2026, 1:00–2:00 pm AEST
We are having endless conversations about what AI can and can’t do. But far fewer about what AI is doing to us. Human (de)Centred AI invites us to challenge the assumption that technological capability automatically equals educational progress. You are invited to join the HERDSA Victoria Branch for an important conversation with Associate Professor Janine Arantes exploring the human dimensions of AI in education. The discussion will go beyond the familiar conversations about assessment, academic integrity and prompt engineering to consider questions such as:
+ What happens to educator wellbeing in an AI-enabled education environment?
+ How do false AI accusations affect students?
+ What are the implications of AI-enabled deepfakes, gendered harms and surveillance technologies?
+ What happens to human agency alongside increasing automation?
+ Who benefits from AI—and who bears its harms?
Registration link: https://bit.ly/4cp2R0j
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Beyond Recognition: Learning and Teaching Academies as Engines of Educational Leadership and Change webinar
10 September 2026, 11:30 - 12:30 AEST
Join us on 10 September 2026 when Assoc. Sherry Bawa (Curtin University), Dr. Ben Milbourn (Curtin University) and Prof. Rachel Sheffield (Edith Cowan University) share their findings from a CAULLT-funded study drawing on document analysis and interviews with academy leaders.
Participants will leave with a practical starting kit.
Visit our website (https://tinyurl.com/bddh8xew) to find out more about this webinar and its presenters.
Further information: secretariat@caullt.edu.au
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AAIN Academic Integrity Forum
Friday, 11 September
The Australasian Academic Integrity Network's annual academic integrity forum is coming soon. The program has international keynote speakers, panels of experts, 25 Roundtable presentations and 30 digital posters; it is the largest academic integrity conference in Australia. This fully online event is open to academic and professional staff working in higher education providers in Australia and New Zealand. Further information and registration is available on the AAIN website.
Further information: https://academicintegrity.edu.au/2026-australasian-academic-integrity-ne...
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CRADLE Seminar Series: 'Designing self-assessment students can actually use'
Wednesday 16 September – 2.00 pm to 3.30 pm (AEST)
Self-assessment becomes formative when it is designed into what students do next. Register now for CRADLE's seminar on 16 September to hear A/Prof. Juan Fraile (Universidad Francisco de Vitoria) explore how formative self-assessment can be designed as a practical route into students’ self-regulated learning.
Formative self-assessment can be understood as a set of carefully designed learning situations in which students are helped to monitor their understanding, compare their responses against criteria or examples, interpret feedback, identify gaps, and make better decisions about what to do next. In this sense, self-assessment is closely connected to feedback, evaluative judgement and self-regulated learning. Arguing that effective feedback is not simply information transmitted by the teacher, but a process that depends on what learners do with that information, this seminar will shift attention from the amount of feedback teachers provide to the quality of the learning actions that feedback makes possible. The session will present practical examples of classroom activities that can be implemented with or without digital tools, with an emphasis on practical designs that teachers can adapt to their own contexts.
To learn more about how self-assessment, feedback and retrieval practices can be designed to help students become better judges of their own learning, join us at 2.00 pm (AEST) in person at Deakin Downtown or online.
Further information: https://cradle-seminar-self-assessment-students-can-use.eventbrite.com.a...
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Call for submissions to a study looking at curriculum design processes in the contemporary Australian higher education context
A study looking at curriculum design processes in the contemporary Australian higher education context is underway. Our goal is to better understand (and eventually improve) the process of designing curriculum. We’d be grateful for your participation and support in sharing the invitation to participate with colleagues and peers in your institution or broader networks.
We’re keen to hear from people in all kinds of roles, at both university and non-university providers: learning designers, librarians, alumni engagement officers, folks in marketing and student recruitment, program admins, technical staff, leaders and (of course) teaching academics.
You can access the survey online at https://griffithuw.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bq0tjMEHK3xzAmG or feel free to reach out directly for opportunities to contribute via group or individual interviews.
Further information: Julie Robert, j.robert@griffith.edu.au or Peter Kandlbinder, Peter.Kandlbinder@uts.edu.au
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New articles in Higher Education Research and Development
Self-directed learning in silence: graduate students’ navigation of AI use in academic contexts, Merih Ugurel-Kamisli, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2714976
Debunking inclusivity in higher education: a systematic review of inclusivity approaches in the student journey, Lil Rodriguez Serna, Helen Black & Judy Gane, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2713501
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In the spirit of reconciliation HERDSA acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australasia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past, present and emerging.