The evaluation services of Australian universities usually reside in central academic development units and, as such, serve a number of masters: the government, the university management, the academic staff, students, parents, employers and members of the community (Isaacs, 1997; Hicks, 1998, cited in Southwell, 2003a). Initially, the development of instruments to evaluate teaching in the early 1980s was a fringe activity engaged in by a few enthusiastic academics interested in self-improvement in their teaching (Sweep, Hughes, Nulty, & Southwell, 2005). Since then, both government and universities have increasingly used evaluations of units and teaching as a way of achieving strategic goals. Today, such instruments are an integral feature of the quality assurance procedures of the university, the subject of university-wide policy, financial targets and public scrutiny (Sweep et al., 2005). This paper aims to contextualise and describe the recent development and implementation of the Evaluation Management System (EMS) as one of the means to support quality improvement, that is the enhancement of learning and teaching at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), as well as a means to support the need for QUT to respond to the increasing demand by government for quality assurance in institutional teaching.
This paper outlines the development of a web-based teaching methodology, the E-Journal, which aimed to assist students in the better integration of theory and technical skill development for the creation of virtual worlds within design and engineering disciplines. The paper outlines the development of the E-Journal, its implementation within a teaching unit and evaluates its benefits from both a student and teacher perspective and recommends future applications of the approach.
This paper outlines the development of a web-based teaching methodology, the E-Journal, which aimed to assist students in the better integration of theory and technical skill development for the creation of virtual worlds within design and engineering disciplines. The paper outlines the development of the E-Journal, its implementation within a teaching unit and evaluates its benefits from both a student and teacher perspective and recommends future applications of the approach.
