Preface

This book owes its origins to the open textbook College Success, written by Amy Baldwin. Baldwin’s text aims to assist students’ transition into tertiary study. Our team of learning advisors and librarians at the University of Southern Queensland have a similar desire to help new students flourish at university. Thus, the integration College Success with the wealth of knowledge and experience of our team made a natural union for our book. Now entering its third iteration, Academic Success has expanded in exciting ways that we never predicted.

In Academic Success, you will find an Australian perspective on the university experience, with content especially re-worked for Australian students. Our team has also contributed new discussions in areas such as English language and Maths foundations, working with information, writing assignments, being a successful First Nations’ student, failing assessment, preparing for employment, life after graduation and many more. Our sincere thanks to each team member for their tireless efforts, enthusiastic support of the project and their valued work on this book. Please see About the Authors for the list of our contributors. We would also like to thank Samara Hoffmann for designing the cover and Dr Linda Clark for creating several of the figures appearing in the book. This third iteration of Academic Success includes the beautiful artwork of Aboriginal artist Kc Rae (Kacie Fahey). Thank you, Kc Rae, for enriching our perspectives with your valued contributions.

This book would not have been possible without the outstanding contribution of our Open Education Content Librarian Nikki Andersen. We offer our sincere thanks to Nikki for her expertise, insightful guidance and dedicated approach in stepping us through this new process.  Nikki, you made the journey enjoyable, exciting and achievable. Thank you. We also extend our appreciation to Dr Adrian Stagg, Manager (Open Educational Practice) for his support, advice and expertise in open textbooks. Your vision and enthusiasm is inspiring and contagious. You have expanded our world. Our thanks also goes to our amazing leader, Debi Howarth (Student Learning and Development Manager). No project is possible without  a dynamic person at the helm who not only sees the potential from the beginning but who also knows how to manage a project all the way through to the finish line. Debi, this entire book exists because you thought, “we can do this” and then you made it happen.  Thank you for your outstanding leadership and for the opportunities you gave us to contribute to such an exciting venture.

Finally, Dr Wendy Hargreaves committed her substantial skill and enthusiasm to create a seamless project which harnessed the writing talents of our team. Her writing and editing expertise supported us in producing our first open textbook.  Wendy’s boundless energy and plentiful smiles provided the best possible environment for this creation. Thank you, Wendy.