ARO Weekly Newsletter #48 – 5 December 2016
Careers and Employment:
- We have added three new “Careers In” resource documents on our website, namely:
Careers in Business Information Systems
Careers in Finance
Careers in Mathematics and Statistics
Careers in Molecular Biology
Curriculum and Academic Policy:
- Just a few highlights from the recent Learning and Teaching Committee(LTC) meeting (24 November 2016):
- Work Integrated Learning (WIL)
- A revised policy, procedures and guidelines were approved at the meeting
- Revisions to the Coursework Regulations were proposed to include the revisions to WIL
- LTC noted the approval by Academic Council to the Assessment Policy which extends the range for a Supplementary Assessment to be granted from 45-49% to 40-49%. This change comes into effect from Semester 2, 2016.
- Highlights from the Academic Courses and Admissions Committee (ACAC) meeting (2 December 2016):
- Changes to the Bachelor of Science Research skills requirements were approved
- A revised University wide list of Breadth units was approved to incorporate WIL units in the choices available to students (we will be working on making this clear in the Handbook for students and staff).
- Also in important news - the My Curriculum functionality is now live and accessible to all staff from the Handbook – [you must log in to the Handbook and look for the link to the left in the Search Handbook Home page]. This will be particularly useful for Academics when they are reviewing existing curriculum or proposing new offerings. We are happy to run some information sessions for any ARO Teams who would like additional information about this functionality and how it will be useful in their work. Either contact Anne Allen or Alison Cameron to set up a time.
- And finally, the tree is up and decorated and we are all looking forward to a bit of a break before starting all over again in 2017!
(sorry for not including your xmas tree pic Anne – it was 2mb and for those interested, it was a pic of a Christmas tree with baubles on it. Sort of like this one below which I’ve had to use due to budget constraints - it’s only 224kb. frank.)
CUTL:
(Learning Innovations)
- LMS system maintenance, including a minor upgrade to Moodle 3.1, is scheduled for December 19 (6 – 9am). Members of the team are deep in testing this week.
- Echo360 Active Learning Platform (ALP) Briefing sessions for staff commenced last week, with additional sessions being run this week. These will be repeated prior to semester 1 2017.
- Mike Fardon will be attending the Disability Action and Inclusion Plan Committee on Wednesday afternoon to discuss the solution implemented to provide closed captioning of videos.
Engagement:
(International)
New in country staff member
- Arjun Singh has commenced as Business Development Manager for South Asia and has started assisting admissions with GTE checking and has visited agents in Delhi. Arjun will be travelling from 5-17th December and will be visiting key agents in Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai to promote Murdoch and convert students who have been issued offers to Murdoch.
South East Asia
- Fozzil is currently on a recruitment trip promoting the IWS scholarship throughout South-East Asia.
Enrolments & Fees:
Enrolments
- The major exercise this week will be checking the academic progression outcomes, and applying them late in the week ready for release of results over the weekend.
- After release of results, the Team will be fully occupied responding to requests for changes in enrolment forced by results, and processing Course and major transfers. Remember to ask students if they have ‘pop-ups enabled’ for Murdoch websites, as the pop-up messages will advise what a problem is and how to proceed.
Fees
- This is the last week for adjusting fee encumbrances for outstanding fees prior to the release of results and graduation.
- The set-up of 2017 fees, incorporating changes that affect most Commonwealth Supported and HDR students, continues. We have started to see some effects of these changes with small groups of students having difficulties completing Commonwealth Assistance Forms (for example New Zealand citizens born in Australia). If you get an enquiry in this area it is important to ascertain what the students was trying to do, and their citizenship; so that we can assess the problem and how to address it with the least amount of delay and inconvenience. Remember that the fee conditions have changed, and student expectations may be outdated.
Equity and Social Inclusion:
- Please note we will be short staffed between 19 December through to Monday 16 January
Graduations and Results:
Graduations:
- The dates for the 2017 Perth graduation ceremonies have been updated
MU Health Services:
- MU Health Service is offering a, “Students as Change Agents Project” following on from the CUTL program. The focus is on student resilience, wellbeing and mental health and the EOI’s have been circulated this week.
- The Medical Centre has started the process of Accreditation against National Standards set by Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, this will take up to a year to complete but will enhance the medical centre’s ability to offer more services to Students and Staff as we will be eligible for some of the Medicare Incentive programs.
- The Counselling Team are refining their workshops and developing some new ones for roll out next year.
Xmas Closure
- Medical Centre will close on the 21st December and re-open on 9th January. At this time, the last available Doctor’s appointment will be 16th December.
- Counselling Service will have limited access on 22nd-23rd December and 5th-6th January
OSQA:
Student recruitment update
- While it is still early in the recruitment process, applicants and offers have increased at this stage for domestic direct and international onshore. Acceptances not so much though: domestic offer-to-acceptance conversion rates still lag behind last year’s at this stage, despite the number of acceptances also being ahead of last year in all segments.
- Murdoch is losing some TISC market share compared with last year: minor for high school leavers, but more significantly for mature age. This puts greater emphasis on conversion activities to make up for lost numbers, as the number of TISC acceptances in January is likely to be lower than last year.
- To address this, a robust conversion schedule is in place and being actioned by External Engagement, MeetMurdoch and Schools. As a result, both the number of acceptances as well as the conversion rate has been improving markedly over the past few weeks. These teams will continue to follow up on applicants with offers outstanding, supplemented by targeted conversion activities through social media.
Student Support:
Transition and Retention
- Working on/planning for Semester 1, 2017 orientation is ongoing
Scholarships
- UniBank scholarship has been awarded and the Donor advised that there was an extremely high standard of applicants
- We have 2 new scholarships available to students:
- The Todtiana Scholarship
- WKSN Tertiary Scholarship
Special Programs
- Jason attended DFAT 2016 End of year Australia Awards Welcome/Farewell Celebration, which 12/14 Murdoch University Australia Award students due to complete at the end of 2016, also attended
- Booking completion travel for graduating Australia Awards students
- Planning for S1, 2017 Australia Awards scholars arrivals (organising temporary accommodation etc.)
TNE:
Week 14 September Trimester
- Final assessment week - commences for the September trimester
- Affiliate Training – Each school is conducting training for affiliates teaching our programs in January. The training should conclude over the next week.
- LMS Access for TNE Students – Students will be given access to LMS 2 weeks prior to commencement of teaching Singapore 27th Dec, Dubai 3rd January.
- SMF Teach Out – After the assessment period, Murdoch will not be delivering any further programs at SMF. Students will transfer to Kaplan or possibly do external studies to complete.
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