HERDSA Notices 19 November 2025

* HERDSA Blog Post: Enhancing Reflective Practice with AI-Facilitated Dialogue
* HERDSA Community: Reimagining Assessment in Uncertain Times: Dialogues from the UK and Australia
* Happening THIS WEEK – Final Call! HERDSA Online Engagement in HE (SiG Event)
* Education Focused Academics: Navigating the tension between SoTL and the discipline
* HERDSA 2025 Members Survey: We’d Love Your Feedback
* CALL FOR EOI - Editors of TESOL in Context 2026-2028 (DEADLINE EXTENDED)
* 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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HERDSA Blog Post: Enhancing Reflective Practice with AI-Facilitated Dialogue
Tim Davies and Ruby-Ngoc Nhu Nguye, 19 November 2025

Tim and Ruby-Ngoc explore how Cogniti AI (a custom chatbot) could be used to assist student in engaging in deep reflections, acting as a "reflective coach".

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HERDSA Community: Reimagining Assessment in Uncertain Times: Dialogues from the UK and Australia
HERDSA Assessment Quality SIG, 5 November 2025

Priya Khanna outlines the main themes discussed at a webinar jointly hosted by HERDSA Assessment Quality Special Interest Group and ASCILITE’s Transforming Assessment community. The session brought together two leading voices on assessment to explore how higher education can evolve assessment practices amid rapid technological changes and persistent institutional inertia towards meaningful assessment systems. Professor David Tree from Brunel University London, opened the webinar with a compelling case for integrated and synoptic assessment. Professor Peter Bryant from the University of Sydney shifted the lens to the generative AI storm now sweeping through higher education. Together, the two presentations built powerfully on earlier HERDSA–ASCILITE conversations about programmatic and program-level assessment, weaving together long-standing concerns about modular fragmentation with the urgent new realities of Gen AI.

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Happening THIS WEEK – Final Call! HERDSA Online Engagement in HE (SiG Event)
This Thursday, November 20 11:00am AEST (QLD) | 12:00pm NSW (Daylight Saving)

Widening the Doors in HE: Implications for Engaging Underrepresented Students Online

Globally, a key priority in higher education is to increase equity of access for students and successful degree completion. These outcomes are not only transformative for students but also directly benefit the institution, positively impact national productivity, the economy, and contribute to a more diverse and skilled workforce. There is a notable trend for underrepresented students to gravitate towards online study, drawn by its flexible learning format. Yet, while widening the doors to underrepresented students is commendable, it comes with significant responsibility for all stakeholders. Online teachers are evidencing significant effort, innovative practice, and focused attention on strategies to enhance engagement and learning online. However, limited attention has focused on exploring how online environments and practices may require nuancing to respond to the diversity of learning styles and considerations to afford success and enable equity in students to flourish. This HERDSA Online SiG event starts by sharing key insights from an innovative project that explored this issue. The study employed think tank methods and methodology and invited two groups of experts - those with online learning expertise and research background and those with equity expertise - to contribute insights to the question What would an increase in online enrolments of underrepresented students mean for the online teaching and engagement strategies we currently employ? Participants are then invited to share their considerations and discuss future implications and recommendations for key stakeholders who are committed to supporting equity of opportunity and success for underrepresented students who choose to study online.

Further information: Register: https://lnkd.in/dBmFxirA

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Education Focused Academics: Navigating the tension between SoTL and the discipline
Friday 21st November

HERDSA SoTL SIG November online session - This week!
Education Focused Academics: Navigating the tension between SoTL and the discipline
Friday 21st November
12–1pm AEDT (NSW/VIC); 11am–12pm AEST (QLD time)

This panel explores how institutions frame and support EFA roles differently, and what that means for career progression, research expectations, and identity. Drawing on both local and sector-wide research and professional experiences, our panellists will unpack the realities of transitioning into SoTL, balancing disciplinary commitments, and building sustainable academic pathways.
Join us for a conversation about the evolving landscape of educational scholarship and the role of academic development in shaping it.

Panellists:
Prof Barbie Panther, Director, Teaching Capability, Deakin University
Dr Collins Fleischner, Lecturer, National School of Education, Australian Catholic University
Dr Melissa Saligari, Deputy Director of Teaching and Learning, School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne
Facilitated by Sue Sharpe

Register here: https://lnkd.in/g5_sXPcT
Join our LinkedIn group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14343410/
Further information: Contact the SIG at herdsa.sotl.sig@gmail.com

Further information: https://lnkd.in/g5_sXPcT

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HERDSA 2025 Members Survey: We’d Love Your Feedback
Wednesday 3rd December 2025 (COB)

HERDSA is committed to supporting its members as well as the broader higher education community. Your insights play an important role in helping us refine and enhance the value we provide across Australasia. Each year, we invite HERDSA members to share their feedback so we can ensure HERDSA’s offerings remain contemporary, relevant and responsive to the evolving needs of our diverse higher education sector.

We would appreciate HERDSA members taking approximately 10 minutes to complete the 2025 HERDSA Member Survey. The survey explores member experiences with HERDSA benefits, including events and conferences, branch activities, networking opportunities, publications such as HERD, ASRHE, the HERDSA Connect Blog and HERDSA Notices, professional learning programs including the HERDSA Fellowship, SoTL Modules and TATAL, Special Interest Groups, awards, grants and prizes, as well as HERDSA’s communication and promotional activities.

Your feedback will help us to:
• strengthen professional learning and development opportunities
• enhance networking and community engagement
• improve publications and communication channels
• shape future HERDSA initiatives that align with member priorities

The survey is anonymous, confidential, and takes about 10 minutes to complete. Data collected will be used to inform improvements to HERDSA’s offerings, and de-identified data may also be used in research, external publications, presentations, or activities promoting HERDSA membership; no individual respondent will ever be identifiable.

Please click here to complete the survey:
https://forms.office.com/r/fjRJ4N4Z08

If you have any questions about the survey, please contact the HERDSA Executive through the HERDSA Office at office@herdsa.org.au.

Please complete the survey by Wednesday 3rd December 2025 (COB).

Thank you in advance for your participation and for contributing to the future direction of HERDSA.

Warm regards,
The HERDSA Executive

Further information: Please click here to complete the survey: https://forms.office.com/r/fjRJ4N4Z08

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CALL FOR EOI - Editors of TESOL in Context 2026-2028 (DEADLINE EXTENDED)
Sunday 14 December 2025

Australian Council of TESOL Associations (ACTA) is inviting Expressions of Interest for the honorary role of Associate Editor for its official peer-reviewed publication, TESOL in Context, for the term 2026–2028.

Associate Editors co-lead one of the journal’s two general issues each year, working collaboratively with the Managing Editor to ensure rigorous peer review and high-quality publication.

This is an exciting opportunity to contribute to a leading national, internationally refereed, Scopus-indexed open-access journal and to shape dialogue between research, practice, and policy in TESOL and/or EAL/D.

Applications from teams (2-3 people as a team) are warmly welcomed.

EOI Deadline: Sunday 14 December 2025 (Updated)

Submit to: Managing Editor, Dr Fiona Tang, at tic@tesol.org.au

Further information: https://ojs.deakin.edu.au/index.php/tesol/announcement/view/65

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New articles in Higher Education Research and Development

Narratives of a postgraduate student with disabilities and his journey to higher education, Shruti Taneja-Johansson & Henri Valtteri Pesonen, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2025.2580620

What are the emotional burdens of precarious educators working in the higher education sector? A scoping review, L. McKendrick-Calder, S. Smith, J. Choate & J. Nelson, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2025.2559649

Sexisms and gender-washing in Australian academia: public front, private realities, Jacqueline Ullman, Emily Gray, Mindy Blaise & Lucy Hobby, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2025.2580619

Repairing epistemic harms through wellbeing in South African universities, Nuraan Davids, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2025.2580617

April 31 [sic]: a fugia hacia ‘the presence of absence’ in Chinese higher education, Lauren Ila Misiaszek, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2025.2564971

https://www.linkedin.com/company/herdjournal
https://bsky.app/profile/herdjournal.bsky.social

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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.

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