Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia
You are here
* HERDSA Connect: The joy of blogging: community coffee break conversations
* HERDSA Community: Work Integrated Learning (WIL): Building Sustainable Collaborative Partnerships
* Poster & Lightning Talks Workshop for HERDSA2026 presenters
* HERDSA SoTL SIG -- Next Friday! -- Exploring co-design and achieving impact
* Roundtables & Showcases Workshop for HERDSA2026 Presenters
* CRADLE Seminar Series: ‘Entangled intelligence? Distributed cognition, AI agents, and assessment validity’
* Uni Student Wellbeing Research Hub Webinar
* Shaping Teaching Quality in Australian Higher Education
* 2026 QILT Symposium - Using Student Feedback to Strengthen Teaching & Curriculum
* CRADLE Seminar Series: ‘Voice-First Written Assessment: Evidence, access, and ecological authenticity’
* 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
======================================================================
HERDSA Connect: The joy of blogging: community coffee break conversations
Aisling Keane, Emma Kennedy & Kerry Dobbins , 6 May 2026
Aisling, Emma, & Kerry Dobbins highlight blogging as a scholarly contribution that can promote community conversation.
Read more: https://herdsa.org.au/herdsa-connect/joy-blogging-community-coffee-break...
------------------------------------------------------------
HERDSA Community: Work Integrated Learning (WIL): Building Sustainable Collaborative Partnerships
Manisha Thakkar, 30 April, 2026
The second session of the AAUT–HERDSA National Webinar Series brought together sector leaders and award-winning educators to explore how to design, sustain, and scale meaningful partnerships that underpin high-quality Work Integrated Learning (WIL). The discussion positioned WIL as a core strategic priority aligned with graduate employability, authentic learning, and industry engagement and concluded with three high-impact recommendations for practitioners and institutions related to design, prioritising the student experience and adopting an iterative mindset.
Read more and view the webinar recording at https://herdsa.org.au/news/work-integrated-learning-wil-building-sustain...
------------------------------------------------------------
Poster & Lightning Talks Workshop for HERDSA2026 presenters
14th May 2026, Time: 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM (AEST)
This practical session supports HERDSA2026 presenters in delivering clear, concise, and visually effective short-format presentations. Particular attention will be given to lightning talks, introduced at HERDSA 2026 for the first time. The workshop will cover:
- Articulating a clear and focused core message
- Designing visually engaging posters using tools such as Canva, Microsoft PowerPoint, and Adobe Express
- Approaches to delivering confident, high-impact lightning talks within tight timeframes
Further information: Register: https://tinyurl.com/ycxxr93m
------------------------------------------------------------
HERDSA SoTL SIG -- Next Friday! -- Exploring co-design and achieving impact
Friday, 15 May 2026 - 12–1pm AEST (NSW/VIC/QLD)
Join us for our May SIG on Exploring co-design and achieving impact: experiences from educational developers and learning designers.
SoTL does not happen in isolation. It relies on collaborative effort across roles, disciplines, and stakeholders. In this session, we will explore how co-design works in the education space, how to recognise and respond to emerging opportunities, and how to navigate tensions while moving projects from ideas to outcomes.
We will hear from a senior educational developer and a learning designer, who will share their co-design journeys and practical strategies for engaging stakeholders, managing multidisciplinary projects, and building impact. The session will also discuss how to take ownership, develop leadership in project work, and identify publishing opportunities in educational development.
This session will be relevant to early-career learning designers who are seeking pathways into co-design work and to more experienced designers and educational developers who want to reflect on how co-design can lead to sustained impact.
Presenters: Dr Carmen Vallis (USyd) and Tianya Chen (USyd)
Facilitator: Dr Jennifer Sun (SIG Co-Leader)
Register here: https://unisq.zoom.us/meeting/register/LCd16NSwTD2N9ecfXKWzOg
*Register for one or all our SIGs this year!*
To stay connected, join our LinkedIn group:
https://www.linkedin.com/groups/14343410/
Further information: Contact the HERDSA SoTL SIG at herdsa.sotl.sig@gmail.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Roundtables & Showcases Workshop for HERDSA2026 Presenters
2 June 2026 Time: 12:30 PM – 2:00 PM (AEST)
This session focuses on designing and facilitating interactive conference formats that promote meaningful engagement and discussion.
We’ll cover:
- Structuring roundtable and showcase sessions for clarity and flow
- Techniques to encourage active participation and dialogue
- Managing time, group dynamics, and session outcomes effectively
Further information: Register: https://tinyurl.com/4m8r74bb
------------------------------------------------------------
CRADLE Seminar Series: ‘Entangled intelligence? Distributed cognition, AI agents, and assessment validity’
Wednesday 13 May - 2.00 pm - 3.30 pm (AEST)
Is generative AI fundamentally restructuring how students think? And what might this mean for assessment? Register now for CRADLE’s seminar on 13 May to hear more from UQ’s Professor Jason Lodge on distributed cognition, AI agents, and assessment validity.
The proliferation of generative AI has sparked a crisis of inference in higher education. However, current responses often rely on an outdated ‘internalist’ model of learning that views cognition as occurring strictly within the individual mind. This seminar argues that the emergence of sophisticated AI agents necessitates a shift toward a distributed cognition framework and explores how students’ thinking infrastructure is being fundamentally restructured. Moving beyond the ‘AI as Oracle’ paradigm to consider ‘AI as Agentic Partner’, the session will examine the implications for assessment and challenge participants to consider the hard question of assessment: how do we generate valid evidence of learning when the process of learning has itself been transformed?
To learn more about the entangled nature of distributed cognition, generative AI and assessment, join us at 2.00 pm (AEST) in person at Deakin Downtown or online.
Further information: https://cradle-seminar-entangled-intelligence-cognition-ai-assessment.ev...
------------------------------------------------------------
Uni Student Wellbeing Research Hub Webinar
Wednesday 13 May, 4.00-5.15pm AEST
Join us for two presentations focused on the mental health and wellbeing of international students:
• Hybrid learning, acculturation, and mental health among Chinese international students: Implications for practice | Peixin Zuo - PhD Candidate, Global and Cultural Mental Health Unit, Centre for Mental Health and Community Wellbeing, Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, The University of Melbourne
• International student wellbeing and everyday community encounters | Associate Professor Hannah Soong - Associate Professor in Education, School of Education, College of Education, Behavioural and Social Sciences, Adelaide University
Register now!
Further information: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/uni-student-wellbeing-research-hub-webin...
------------------------------------------------------------
Shaping Teaching Quality in Australian Higher Education
15 May 2026 12-1.30pm AEST
Please join us for a timely and important national conversation with Professor Liz Johnson, whose current work is shaping sector thinking on teaching quality in Australian higher education. This interactive session will bring together the HERDSA community, TEFA Network members, and colleagues from across the sector to engage with emerging ideas and contribute perspectives at a critical moment of development. Liz will offer a short provocation to frame the discussion, followed by a facilitated conversation designed to surface insights, questions, and priorities from the community.
This is a valuable opportunity to ensure that the voices and expertise of educators inform the direction of teaching quality initiatives nationally. We particularly welcome those interested in academic practice, policy, and the future of teaching-focused careers.
We encourage you to bring your perspective and help inform how teaching quality is framed and progressed nationally.
Further information: register here: https://events.humanitix.com/highered
------------------------------------------------------------
2026 QILT Symposium - Using Student Feedback to Strengthen Teaching & Curriculum
19 May 12.00-6.30pm
Student feedback offers powerful insight into learning and teaching - when interpreted and used well. The 2026 QILT Symposium explores how national student survey data can inform curriculum design, teaching enhancement, and program‑level improvement. Academic leaders and educators will share case studies demonstrating how QILT insights are being translated into tangible changes in teaching practice and learning design. The symposium is designed for those engaged in learning and teaching leadership, educational development, and evidence‑informed enhancement across the university.
Further information: https://www.education.unsw.edu.au/2026-qilt-symposium
------------------------------------------------------------
CRADLE Seminar Series: ‘Voice-First Written Assessment: Evidence, access, and ecological authenticity’
Tuesday 26 May - 10.30 am to 12.00 pm (AEST)
If AI allows students to generate fluent prose independently of ideational labour, how can educators assess their students' disciplinary reasoning? Register now for CRADLE's seminar on 26 May to hear the University of Oxford's Kelly Webb-Davies outline Voice-First Written Assessment, a two-stage model developed as a response to this evidentiary crisis.
Even before generative AI, requiring performance in prestige academic prose risked distorting or suppressing students’ best thinking and, as a result, undermining valid inference about disciplinary reasoning. Now that fluent prose can be generated using AI, the already unstable link between polished prose and the thinking it was assumed to represent has been entirely severed. Detector-led and disclosure-based responses cannot repair this evidentiary chain. Voice-First Written Assessment is a two-stage assessment model that reconfigures where and how evidence of students’ reasoning is secured and interpreted. The seminar will present the evidentiary logic and operational design of the model alongside implementation examples and an overview of planned pilot applications.
To learn more about Voice-First Written Assessment and its potential applications, join us at the special time of 10.30 am (AEST) in person at Deakin Downtown or online.
Further information: https://cradle-seminar-voice-first-written-assessment.eventbrite.com.au/...
------------------------------------------------------------
New articles in Higher Education Research and Development
Merit, metrics, and morality: a qualitative study of academic recruitment discourses in top-tier Chinese universities, Xing Xu & Ly Thi Tran, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2658822
Burnout and institutional support among Ukrainian academic staff during wartime, Natalia Tsybuliak, Uliana Kolomiiets, Hanna Mytsyk, Anastasiia Popova, Hanna Lopatina, Artem Polulyakhov & Yana Suchikova, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2657950
Student self-initiated self-assessment in higher education: a cross-disciplinary perspective, Ke Jiang, Gavin T. L. Brown & Lawrence May, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2660998
‘The harder you work, the luckier you get?’: cruel optimism in rural students’ affective transitions into an elite Chinese university, Tongyu Wu & Niancai Liu, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2654605
Understanding the journey to higher education: decision-making insights from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students, Melissa Fong-Emmerson, Claire Lambert, Braden Hill & Maria M. Ryan, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2660994
University-industry knowledge collaborations’ intangible outcomes for students and their perceived employability: the mediating role of student engagement, Quyen Thao Dang, Nghia Thi Minh Luu, Hang Thanh Pham, Son Ngoc Ho & Robert McClelland, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2660995
From classroom to career: identity transformation as a key to graduate employability, Peter Cebon, Julia L. Hill, Veysel Akcakin, Sally Male, Rowan Doyle & Jillian Kenny, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2655395
Collaborative curriculum work as bricolage – insights from a collective autoethnography, Sarah Barradell, Andisheh Bastani, Beatriz IR De Oliveira & Leo Ng, https://doi.org/10.1080/07294360.2026.2655397
https://www.linkedin.com/company/herdjournal
https://bsky.app/profile/herdjournal.bsky.social
------------------------------------------------------------
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.
