Quality Education
“Ensure inclusive and quality education for all and promote lifelong learning.” [1]
Quality education is a commitment to ensuring inclusive and equitable education in safe and effective learning environments. This means supporting access to education for all.
UniSQ Library contributes to quality higher education by supporting students and staff across learning, teaching, and research. This includes developing collections, services, and resources that are built on open access principles and that acknowledge diverse voices, knowledge, and learning experiences. Collaborations and partnerships, including with students, help to strengthen and continue UniSQ Library’s contributions to quality education.
My University Life
Michelle Fisher (UniSQ Student)
The staff at UniSQ Library (Toowoomba Campus) have been exceptionally helpful with assisting me in my Post Graduate studies. They have provided assistance with inter-library loans and borrowing of books, posted directly to my home address. Studying my TESOL (GCTS) involves a lot of reading and research and having the support of the library staff, means that I am able to focus on my research and not worry about administration issues. It has made a huge impact on my learning journey. I also have a severe physical disability and am legally blind, which comes with its own challenges. Having the support of staff from UniSQ enables me to enjoy my learning journey.
First Nations Resources Collection
Marjorie Jeffers (Liaison Librarian)
In 2021/22, The UniSQ Library, in partnership with the College for First Nations, created a curated collection of First Nations resources. Our aim was to address an identified need for students to locate First Nations authors and First Nations Knowledges in ways that reflected First Nations perspectives. Over a period of 12 months the Liaison Librarian and College staff worked to curate collections which share authors, yarns, community histories, resistance and change.
Built around the cultural framework that informs the teaching of the First Nations Australia major at UniSQ, the First Nations Resources Collection amplifies the First Nations voices, histories and culture that are part of the UniSQ library collection. The First Nations Resource Collection comprises 11 individual collections. These collections are browsable and searchable, and thus enhance the discoverability of First Nations authors and their works.
The First Nations Resources Collection presents an opportunity to build cultural capacity across the university. Developing and maintaining the collection allows the Library to play a role in acknowledging and sharing First Nations voices, culture and histories with the whole university. This achievement was acknowledged by the Pro Vice Chancellor First Nations Education and Research. Professor Dreise chose to launch the Collection during NAIDOC week 2022 and he described the collection as a ‘living document’ that would evolve with continued staff and student feedback and serve all disciplines.
The Library continues to work closely with the College for First Nations to build and maintain a relevant collection of First Nations resources that support teaching and learning. Feedback from First Nations staff and students, and sector wide initiatives, indicate that the Library and the College may even expand the ways in which we work together. The Library is a universally accessed space for staff, students and researchers. With a continuing commitment to First Nations perspectives the Library can contribute to building a community that values First Nations peoples, histories and culture.
View the First Nations Resources Collection.
Library orientation support
Teaki Page (UniSQ Student & Library Officer)
During orientation, the presentations from Liaison librarians and Learning Advisors made a big difference. Realising how much support there was for any roadblock I hit, I found that I could get help from the university. Especially as a mature age student, it feels like so long since you’ve studied.
Knowing that I could reach out for that support really made a huge difference. I realised there were all types of students going to university as well. We were given a lot of skills (everything from researching in the Library to notetaking) but were also shown where we could go to seek out support. I remember feeling like I would be valued as an individual student, not a number. I don’t think I would have stuck it out had I not attended the Library orientation.
Makerspace
Steph Piper (Coordinator, Community Engagement) talks with Emilia Bell (Coordinator, Evidence Based Practice) about how the Makerspace contributes to the student learning experience and contributes to teaching and coursework.
Peer Assisted Study Sessions
Ben Ingram (Coordinator, Peer-Learning)
What is PASS?
Peer Assisted Study Sessions (or PASS) is an academic support program that’s embedded in challenging university courses. The program employs a student PASS leader, who has previously excelled in the course, to facilitate group study sessions for students who are currently undertaking the course. PASS leaders assist others in strengthening their understanding of course concepts, develop effective academic skills and become more familiar with the University Environment.
Open Educational Practice
Adrian Stagg , Manager (Open Educational Practice); Nikki Andersen (Open Education Content Librarian)
The focus of open educational practice (OEP) is to increase access, affordability, and participation in higher education (Barker et al., 2018),[3] whilst supporting open-informed pedagogies and authentic assessment practices (Wiley & Hilton III, 2018)[4] that position the university as a contributor to societal knowledge. Two approaches have been used at UniSQ to enhance the quality of education by using OEP.
Firstly, positioning students as active contributors to knowledge creation, and as emerging professionals respects the experiences and learning students bring to their university education. Connecting a students’ discipline and profession through authentic assessment not only builds relevance, but engagement and achievement. Open assessment is a student-centred design enabling student co-creation of openly licenced resources subsequently used at the institution or within the profession (Werth & Williams, 2022).[5]
In Multicultural Education, the lecturer linked students with early childhood educators, for whom they designed professional learning resources. This resulted in two open textbooks of professional learning resources co-authored by the student cohort, and the assessment has run successfully for two consecutive years. Within the first semester, student failure rates dropped from 15% to 3%, and engagement with learning resources increased from 67% to 90% (Tualaulelei, 2020).[6] Student online discussion shifted from administrative inquiries to deeper discipline-specific inquiry. Students also recognised the authenticity of the task; one student highlighted a specific experience of the assessment as: “I remember reflecting on the draft [resource] and deciding it just wasn’t an effective, supportive resource for myself which meant it wouldn’t be helpful for others. I [supported] families in my area and used this resource for families in my class.” This student’s desire to create an “effective, supportive resource” that would be “helpful for others” led her to consider her artefact more deeply and practically.
The lecturer also reflected that one of the major outcomes were “more intentional conversations with students about how university assessments are created, their purpose and assessment expectations. The OEP project has also helped me improve course assessment practices.” (Eseta Tualaulelei, Senior Lecturer). The books published were Gems & Nuggets, and Hidden Treasures, with other volumes of student work schedule for late 2022.
Secondly, university courseware and enacted pedagogies tend to be closed. Unlike research – that is shared through publication and built upon to advance knowledge – learning and teaching practices are often viewed as internal to the institution. Through the publication of open texts (and the implementation of open assessment), educators make their teaching and resources visible; this can lead to peer review feedback and iterative quality enhancement. UniSQ open texts have currently received seventeen openly-accessible reviews through the Open Textbook Library. Reviews are left by other university and college lecturers, and structured around Comprehensiveness, Content Accuracy, Relevance/Longevity, Clarity, Consistency, Modularity, Organisation/Structure/Flow, Interface, Grammatical Errors, and Cultural Relevance. The structured reviews support authors to consider alternate approaches, inclusions, and methods should they engage with iterative development of future editions. This has already been used by the team authoring Fundamentals of Anatomy & Physiology who are preparing revisions for publication in late 2022.
A combination of respect and transparency underpins OEP’s contribution to quality education and examples of institutional practice are leveraged to encourage more lecturers to consider open education as an approach when redeveloping educational experiences.
- United Nations. (n.d). Quality education: Why it matters. https://web.archive.org/web/20220818132358/https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/4_Why-It-Matters-2020.pdf ↵
- Redmond, P., Heffernan, A., Abawi, L., Brown, A., & Henderson, R. (2018). An online engagement framework for higher education. Online Learning, 22(1), 183-204. https://doi.org/10.24059/olj.v22i1.1175 ↵
- Barker, J., Jeffrey, K., Jhangiani, R., & Veletsianos, G. (2018). Eight patterns of open textbook adoption in British Columbia. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(3), 320–334. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i3.3723 ↵
- Wiley, D., & Hilton III, J. L. (2018). Defining OER-enabled pedagogy. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3601 ↵
- Werth, E., & Williams, K. (2022). The why of open pedagogy: A value-first conceptualization for enhancing instructor praxis. Smart Learning Environments, 9, https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-022-00191-0. ↵
- Tualaulelei, E. (2020). The benefits of creating open educational resources as assessment in an online education course. In S. Gregory, S. Warburton, & M. Parkes (Eds.), Proceedings ASCILITE 2020 in Armidale (pp. 282–288). https://doi.org/10.14742/ascilite2020.0109 ↵
