Lectures and Presentations

Senator Patrick Dodson speaks in conversation with Professor Andrew Gunstone on a range of critical issues in Indigenous Affairs, including land rights, treaties, the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, reconciliation and constitutional reform.

The experiences that we see, hear, and feel as a child affect us. But just how much? And in what ways is our brain changed by these childhood traumas? The eighth annual Barbara Dicker Oration was presented by Dr Gustavo Turecki (McGill University, Canada). Dr Turecki has devoted his life’s work to understanding how childhood harm can impair brain development and leave adults more vulnerable to psychiatric disorders. Dr Turecki is a Professor of Psychiatry; Chair of the Department of Psychiatry at McGill University; Scientific Director of the Douglas Institute; and Director of the McGill Group for Suicide Studies. His work and contributions to the field have been recognised through numerous awards and he has authored over 450 publications in leading peer-reviewed journals such as Nature Neuroscience, Nature Medicine, and The Lancet.

From industrialisation in the 19th century to the breakthrough of computing in the 20th, we are now seeing the dawn of a new revolution in technology. Emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things, machine learning, and autonomous systems are already offering new ways of doing with profound social, cultural and political implications. Artificial intelligence promises to revolutionise our lives, shape a new future and disrupt the world as we know it. But can we truly imagine all the ways that these emerging technologies will alter the human experience? Professor Genevieve Bell (Director of the 3A Institute, Florence Violet McKenzie Chair, and Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University) explores what the 21st century might bring (it’s not as scary as you think!).

Presented by Dr Daniel C Price on 22nd February 2019. Thanks to new, more powerful technology, astronomers can search the skies faster and with more resolution than ever before. In this public lecture, I will talk about two exciting fields in astronomy: the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI), and Fast Radio Bursts. The SETI field has been reinvigorated by the 10-year, $100M Breakthrough Listen initiative to search for intelligent life beyond Earth. As a project scientist for Breakthrough Listen, I will introduce the program and detail how we are using new technology to run the most comprehensive search for intelligent life beyond Earth ever undertaken. I will also discuss a mysterious phenomenon known as fast radio bursts: incredibly bright but short-lived signals from distant galaxies, which escaped detection until recently. Could these signals be due to intelligent aliens, or is there an astrophysical explanation? I will give an overview of how a telescope upgrade will help us answer this question, and how Swinburne astronomers will play a leading role. Finally, I will discuss what evidence would convince us that there is indeed life beyond Earth, or that the Universe is ours alone to enjoy.

Presented by Assoc. Prof. Tara Murphy on 23 November 2018. On August 17th 2017 the LIGO-Virgo interferometer detected gravitational waves from a neutron star merger in a galaxy 130 million light years away. This was a breakthrough for physics and astronomy. What followed was a frenzy of activity as astronomers around the world worked to detect electromagnetic radiation with conventional telescopes. After this unprecedented effort the event was detected in gamma-rays, x-rays, visible light and radio waves. I will discuss this incredible scientific result and its implications, including: predictions made by Einstein; the production of gold and other heavy elements; and our understanding of black hole formation. I will also give a 'behind the scenes' perspective of how it happened, and discuss the changes in the way we do science in this era of big astronomy.

Presented by Dr Duane Hamacher and Krystal De Napoli on 1st June 2018. The subject of Indigenous astronomy has skyrocketed in recent years all around the globe. A constant stream of emerging research is changing what we think we know about Aboriginal knowledge systems in Australia and the number of Aboriginal students studying astrophysics is rapidly growing. This lecture will introduce you to one of these students, Kamilaroi woman and astrophysics student Krystal De Napoli, and the research she and Dr Duane Hamacher are conducting with other Aboriginal researchers on topics ranging from Moon haloes, Sun Dogs, and supernovae to the antiquity of deep time oral traditions based on astronomical and geological evidence - even the official naming of Aboriginal stars by the IAU. This talk will explore the many ways in which Indigenous Australians encoded scientific information in their knowledge systems and some of the ways in which they pass this knowledge to successive generations.

Presented on 19 October 2018 by Dr Michelle Cluver. The more we learn about the universe, the mosre it tends to surprise us. This is one of the most exciting aspects of science - making unexpected discoveries! In this talk I will present some recent scientific discoveries I have been involved with and discuss why these and other discoveries have us so excited about the Square Kilometre Array Pathfinders, MeerKAT and ASKAP.

The Featherston Contour chair is an icon of mid-century modernist nostalgia as copies flood the market and the original chairs fetch exorbitant prices at auction. Yet its designer, Grant Featherston, had little time for nostalgia. As he saw it, the important question facing architects and designers was how to live in a post industrialised, technological and urbanised world. He fought tirelessly to make design for social need as important as design for financial profit. Hosted by the Heide Museum of Modern Art a panel of design experts will explore key social issues in contemporary design practice before taking questions from the audience. Presented on Saturday 8 September 2018.

The 2018 Barbara Dicker Oration was presented by Professor Iris Sommer. Professor Sommer is a best-selling author and Professor of Cognitive Aspects of Neurological and Psychiatric Disorder at the Department of Neuroscience at the University Medical Center Groningen, Netherlands. Entitled The phenomenon of hallucinations, Professor Sommer offered a holistic view into the research and experiences of hallucinations. It’s actually more common than you might think but what happens in our brains when we hallucinate? And what does this mean for new treatments and interventions? This Barbara Dicker Oration was held on 13 September, 2018.

The 2018 Chancellor’s Lecture was presented by Professor Peter Choong on 16 August 2018. Professor Choong (St Vincent’s Hospital and Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre) is a world-leading cancer surgeon and pioneer in limb-sparing surgery. Entitled 'A surgeon’s journey: Innovating cancer care through science, dreams and hope', Professor Choong offered a compassionate perspective into what it means to operate at the forefront of medical innovation that is changing lives. From bedside to breakthrough; how has technology enhanced cancer care? And what does the future look like for those affected by bone and soft tissue cancers?

With the rise of artificial intelligence and automated technologies, it’s easy to feel worried about what the future might hold for work and jobs. So how can we be ready, and can humans ever actually reach their full potential? Presented on 25th July 2018 at the State Library of Victoria.

Presented by Assoc. Prof. Jeff Cooke on 11 May 2018. When you look up a the night sky, it appears static and unchanging. However, a closer look using telescopes finds it to be wildly violent. Objects explode, erupt and burst on all time scales, from millions of years to months to milliseconds. Many of these events have been studies in great detail but the fastest have been the most difficult to catch largely because of the technological limitations. This presentation will discuss these fast bursts and our program to catch them.

Presented by Prof. Mike Hudson on 16th March 2018. Most of the matter in the Universe is dark matter: an elusive particle that is completely invisible. But we can “see” this matter by studying how it distorts the light from galaxies in the distant Universe, a phenomenon called gravitational lensing. I will give a whirlwind tour of gravitational lensing’s “greatest hits” showing how it can be used as a tool to understand some of the most mysterious things in the Universe: from black holes to the “cosmic web” of dark matter that links galaxies together.

A reflection of Swinburne's Indigenous Studies projects and programs, led by Professor Andrew Gunstone.

Presented by Dr Emily Petroff on 9 February 2018.Most things in the universe happen over millions or even billions of years but some things change on the timescales of human life and can be seen to change in a matter of months, days, or even seconds. These sources are called transients and are some of the most extreme events in the Universe, things like the collapse of a dying star, or a collision of two massive objects. Humans have been observing astronomical transients for centuries, from supernovae to gamma ray bursts and, most recently, gravitational waves, but recent advances in telescope power and technology mean we’re observing more and more transients each year and even finding new types. In 2007 we discovered a brand new type of transient called fast radio bursts (FRBs), bright radio pulses that last only a few milliseconds. Their origin is one of the newest unsolved mysteries of astronomy but it is clear they are produced in tremendously energetic processes, possibly even billions of light years away. I will tell the story of their discovery, some of our most exciting new breakthroughs, and how new telescopes in Australia and around the world are poised to answer some of the big questions about FRBs in the next few years.

Professor Jo Richardson is a Professor of Housing and Social Research and Director of the Centre for Comparative Housing Research at De Montfort University, Leicester, UK. Jo is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Urban Transitions at Swinburne University of Technology. In this lecture Jo will reflect on findings from her CIH Frontline Futures research, combined with lessons from her JRF project on conflict resolution on Traveller site delivery and management. She will consider whether an increasing march towards ‘mainstreaming’ management approaches can improve service delivery whilst still making diverse groups of residents with different cultural, social and economic backgrounds, still feel valued and ‘at home’.

In this biofilm, Aunty Dot Peters discusses her connections to culture, her family, and the Australia she loves. With her son, Dr Andrew Peters, they throw a light on the truths behind being Indigenous Australians past, present and future, and talk about reconnecting with their own ancestry and promoting cultural awareness to the wider community.

Presented by Dr Thomas E. Collett on Tuesday 14 November 2017.Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that light rays are bent when they travel past a massive object. In this talk, we will explore tests of this prediction and view some of the spectacular consequences of light bending: gravitational lenses. These gravitational lenses let us directly measure where the mass is in the Universe, and the results imply that the Universe is mostly made of an exotic substance called dark matter.

In the 2017 Barbara Dicker Oration Professor Sheri L Johnson, a distinguished professor at the University of California, Berkley, gave us a unique insight into exploring the links of rewards with mania and depression and understanding the relationship between reward pursuit and mood disorders. This Barbara Dicker Oration was held on 11 October 2017.

Presented by Dr Tiantian Yuan on Friday 29 September 2017.One of the most prominent features of galaxies today is the manifestation of elegant spiral arms. We live in a beautiful grand-design spiral galaxy called the Milky Way. Our Solar System, including the Earth and the only life that we know, lies within the Orion spiral arm of our Milky Way galaxy. However, as we look back in time to the very early Universe, the frequency of spiral galaxies decreases dramatically. In fact, most galaxies in the distant past are messy and irregular in shape. Why is it so? When was the first appearance of spiral arms? How were they formed? In this talk, I will take us 11 billion years back in time through the distorted space surrounding nature's most massive structures. We will get a glimpse of earliest onset of spiral arms and directly witness the formation of a spiral galaxy that could later be home to billions of stars and planets like our earth.

Presented by Igor Andreoni on Friday 20 October 2017.The ancients considered the Universe unchanging, and had a special name for the planets, which they regarded as “wanderers”. Any changes in the night sky were seen as portents of doom – and a reason to fear the Gods. The advent of modern astronomy means that we no longer fear changes in the night sky, indeed some of us make our living from them! In this lecture I will tell you the story of the modern transient sky, where stars live and die in spectacular explosions and amazing instruments such as the LIGO and Virgo gravitational wave interferometers probe the darkest depths of the Universe. The discovery of gravitational waves was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics this month and has the power to reveal a plethora of new science from the merger of black holes and other exotic stars.

Presented by Adjunct Professor Muriel Bamblett Hon DLittSW AM on Thursday 17 August 2017. Full title: Walking in two worlds: Can Reconciliation lead us together onto a single pathway for a more just and equitable outcomes for all?The Victorian Aboriginal Child Care Agency (VACCA) celebrates forty years since our founding this year. In 1991 when the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody made its recommendation about a Reconciliation process to address the alienation of Aboriginal people in our own land, we were barely fifteen years old yet much of that report focused on failings in child and family welfare. Our struggle to address the disproportionate removal of our kids from our families led us into fields of service and endeavour we did not expect to go down, nevertheless the path we chose – at times found ourselves on – has brought us to a point where we have shaped child welfare in this country. VACCA’s services reflect the beginnings of an Aboriginal model of child and family welfare that is based on the principle of the right of Aboriginal people to self-determination. Forty years on and we are now working in partnership with a state government and a sector that is determined to apply the principle of self-determination to Aboriginal affairs most notably through its discussions with us about a Treaty. What all this means for Swinburne University will be one of the issues that the Oration will tackle.

In the 2017 Chancellor's Lecture, the Hon. Jeffrey Bleich discussed five great technology driven challenges confronting Western democracies - automation, education, cyber, climate and self-governance. Presented 2 August 2017.

Presented by Prof. Patricia Vickers-Rich on Friday 7 July 2017.We have been plotting the history of life around the world and climate over more than 1 billion years. Tonight we will zero in on a time when the Earth's first animals came into the picture - at a time when the planet was in the grips of a massive glaciation, Snowball Earth - which is likely better named Slushball Earth.

This session was held by HERDSA Victoria Branch with presentations from Dr Jaclyn Broadbent (Deakin University): 'Am I just another number? Student success in large classes'. Dr Georgia Clarkson (Australian Catholic University): 'Facilitating successful transition'. Mr John Schwartz (Swinburne University): 'Student Success at Swinburne: The Role of Academic Development Advisors'.

Presented by Professor John Maynard on Thursday 8 June 2017.In 2017 Australians stand at a crossroads. Are we heading to a truly egalitarian and shared future of prosperity, or to the bleak future portrayed in the movie Back to the Future II? Global political instability and bizarre electoral outcomes have created a climate of world uncertainty. In recent times the Australian nation has faced extreme and conflicting views over refugees, boat people, Australia Day, constitutional change and Aboriginal issues. It is timely to look back at the past now on some of these very same issues, to gain an insight on how we can take steps towards making positive change today.

Presented by Dr Rebecca Allen on Friday 12 May 2017. Galaxies are the largest structures of matter in our Universe. Our own Milky Way has been studied in glorious detail. We know it has billions of stars, around most of which planets are likely to be found. There is a super massive black hole at its center where anything that gets too close will be consumed. There are intricate dust lanes that obscure the main disk of the galaxy. There is the life-force of stars, hydrogen gas. Finally, there is the mysterious dark matter that acts as a gravitational glue holding the ordinary matter together. But our galaxy is just one of many, and since their discovery, understanding how these complex objects form and evolve has been a focus of astronomers. There are many pathways to reveal more about the nature and evolution of galaxies. In this talk, Dr Rebecca Allen from the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, will share how she uses the sizes of galaxies to understand more about their growth.

Presented by Dr. Themiya Nanayakkara on 21st April 2017.Over the last century, our understanding of the Universe has grown by leaps and bounds whilst posing new questions and testing our very fundamental knowledge and understanding of things around us. To answer these profound questions, scientists are planning ever more ambitious projects driven by human curiosity, to explore the unknown and comprehend our place in the vast senseless space. The Australian federal government in 2016-17 provided AUD 10 billion in support of science research and experiment development while NASA and ESA combined, plans to invest USD 25+ billion in 2017. Why is it important for governments to spend substantial amounts of money in fundamental science research? What are the benefits for the average tax payer, from governments investing billions of dollars into space science? How has our everyday lives been influenced by such investments? Together we shall discuss and explore how our investments in science has improved our way of living, and what the future may hold in store for us.

Presented by Professor Andrew Gunston on Thursday 23 February 2017.Over many decades, the Australian Higher Education sector has struggled to genuinely address the educational needs of Indigenous Australians. ‘Indigenous Australians and the Australian Higher Education Sector’, will discuss a number of interrelated factors – leadership, governance, culture, employment, student support, engagement, teaching and learning, research – that are essential in enabling the sector to address this critical area.

On September 14, 2015, gravitational waves from the merger of two black holes rippled through the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO). The measurement of these ripples would ultimately lead to the first direct detection of gravitational waves, the first observation of a binary black hole, and the birth of an entirely new field of astronomy. In this talk, Dr Eric Thrane from Monash University, will trace the history of gravitational waves from Einstein to the LIGO detection. Dr Thrane will describe how LIGO works and how we are using it to learn about black holes and other interesting objects. He'll also discuss the future of gravitational-wave astronomy in Australia and around the world. Presented on 16 December 2016.

In February 2015, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the prohibition against physician-assisted dying violated the constitutional right to "life, liberty, and security of the person". The government then established a panel to examine options for a legislative response to the ruling. The panel's final report, helped shape Canada’s legislation, legalising Medical Assistance in Dying. Swinburne University is pleased to welcome Professor Harvey Max Chochinov - Chair of the panel - to deliver this year's Chancellor's Lecture. He is an internationally renowned researcher in palliative care and issues related to dignity towards end-of-life. Professor Chochinov will share his unique personal experiences and perspectives regarding Canada’s entry into Medical Assistance in Dying and pose key questions related to dignity in end of life care. Recorded 23 November 2016

Presented by Prof. Darren Croton on 21 October 2016.Black holes are among the most bizarre objects predicted by Einstein's theory of General Relativity. Many people may not realise that our own galaxy hosts a supermassive black hole at its centre that is three million times more massive than our own Sun! In this talk Professor Darren Croton from the Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing will discuss the physics of black holes and their formation, how they can grow to become so massive, active black hole "quasars" in the distant universe, and the unexpected impact that a supermassive black hole can have on the evolution of an entire galaxy. Professor Croton will finish by side stepping into the exotic world of wormholes, the black hole's tormented cousin

Presented by Prof. Matthew Bailes on 30 September 2016. Almost 50 years ago Jocelyn Bell built a new telescope with her supervisor Antony Hewish that had an unusual property: it had high time resolution. The radio sky was thought to only change on long timescales but this new telescope's ability to explore a different regime of phase space meant that it made one of the greatest discoveries in astronomy, that of pulsars. Pulsars are neutron stars, the collapsed cores of once-massive stars. They have been used to perform some of the most accurate experiments in physics, and were the motivation for the construction of the LIGO telescope that recently discovered gravitational waves. In this talk Professor Matthew Bailes will explain how whilst trying to find new pulsars astronomers stumbled across a brand new phenomenon, the Fast Radio Bursts. These millisecond-duration radio flashes appear to be coming from half way across the Universe but nobody knows what they are.

The fifth annual Barbara Dicker Oration presented by the Barbara Dicker Brain Sciences Foundation features a presentation by Dr Michael Rugg from the University of Texas on Memory and Dementia. Memory is one of our most important mental abilities. It allows us to learn from the past, to plan for the future, and to maintain our sense of selfhood. It is also fragile. Memory ability declines in later life even in people free from age-related disease, and it is catastrophically impaired in Alzheimer's Disease, the most common cause of dementia. What we have learned about the brain regions and networks that support memory? How do these differ in their function across the lifespan? How can this knowledge be leveraged to improve the early detection of Alzheimer's Disease and other age-related disorders? This Barbara Dicker Oration was held on 15 September 2016.

Anthony Osborne gives a student's perspective of Swinburne University's Transforming Learning Conference - 2016.

Delegate, presenter and keynote 'impressions' of Swinburne University's Learning Transformations Conference - 2016.

The purpose of this work was to assess the affordances of a real-time supervised augmented reality experimental learning (AuREL) proposal for off-campus engineering student experimentation. The data collection involved recordings of first-year electronics laboratory classes where students carried out their experiments, under face-to-face and online real-time supervision, using real components and test instruments. The identification of kikan-shido events in the collected data confirmed statistically insignificant differences between the face-to-face and remotely supervised sessions.

QR (quick response) codes are ubiquitous. Most people have a QR code reader on their phone. It's a great Web 2.0 tool for use in a learning context too. No longer do you have to fight for access to a computer lab or even for a classroom! Why not have your next lesson in a park or on a train? The possibilities are myriad as long as your learners have access to a phone. You can encode a range of text types - visuals, written and spoken - using pre-existing resources or creating your own. Students too can create their own codes. The codes can be used for a range of activities and interactions both in and outside class, and make it much easier to target the specific needs and learning preferences of your learners by facilitating both remediation and extension, and offering varied activities, simultaneously. QR codes are also useful for providing feedback to students, who in turn could give their feedback to your feedback! QR code readers and QR code creators are free and easy to use. Currently l am using them for assessment feedback and classroom lessons. In the pipeline for this term is students producing coded content for use in the classroom (produsage model of learning); project work - both teacher and student developed; and excursions (structuring an excursion e.g. exploring the NGV or Melbourne Laneways).

Swinburne's IT for Social Impact India Project students 'imagineer' technologies such as drones as a way of creating a passion for IT in remote schools and villages in India. The term 'imagineering' was coined by Alcoa; the giant US lightweight metals and advanced manufacturing company. Time Magazine in 1942 described Alcoa’s view of what the term entailed: Imagineering is letting your imagination soar, and then engineering it down to earth. In more recent times, the term was re-conceptualised by Disney's R&D and theme park designers. The Swinburne IT for Social Impact India Project has adopted the term as it perfectly describes what our students do with technology. This presentation will explore the use of a drone as an applied teaching tool for IT for social impact study tour student participants.

Online learning, also known as e-learning and distributed learning, has become wide-spread as a corollary to the introduction of the World Wide Web; although both distance and networked learning, variants of distributed learning, have their antecedents. In the Australian milieu, for many students living in outback settings, the use of radio communications was the means for facilitating distance education; and, the use of campus networks for disseminating course materials, ongoing since the 1980s, represent some of the salient iterations distributed learning has taken. Full integration of the Internet platform in households and workplaces has allowed distributed learning to evolve in reach, interactivity, openness, capacity, and, with the availability of entirely online degrees, expanded opportunities for students now exist.

Swinburne's Learning and Academic Skills (LAS) Centre recognises that in the 21st Century student learning spaces extend beyond classrooms and that there is a greater distribution of both physical and virtual spaces students learn through (Keppell, Souter and Riddell, 2012). LAS provides services for all Swinburne University of Technology students to improve literacy, numeracy and academic skills, through workshops and individual consultations. In 2015, a need was identified for a physical drop-in service which could address modern students' expectations for instant, 'right now' LAS assistance which could respond to 'just-in-time' study issues. Location of this service was a key issue if its potential to enhance and add to existing affordances for learning (Steel and Andrews 2012, p. 252) was to be maximised. Consequently, the library was identified as a high profile location with easy access in which students already utilised various resources and spaces, including virtual.

This presentation follows the roadblocks experienced by a sessional lecturer in implementing authentic assessment developed as a part of Swinburne’s Curriculum Design and Assessment unit. It discusses the differing approach and concerns of research-orientated academics and the roadblocks encountered in instigating new Teaching and Learning Activities (TLA) and assessment, which had achieved a perfect score in the Swinburne unit.

This presentation seeks input into the development of a national online teaching induction program for the Australian sector. The work is part of an Office for Learning and Teaching Fellowship and is a collaboration between 11 institutions, led by Swinburne University. If you have responsibility for teaching staff who are new to teaching, are new to teaching yourself, or are a professional staff member with teaching responsibilities, I would welcome your input into what you believe the program might usefully provide for staff who are ongoing/sessional/contract, staff based on international campuses, professional staff who teach students and research students.

Open University Australia (OUA)'s Community of Practice at Swinburne University of Technology has formed a discussion panel to present 'Engaging and supporting online students'. Chaired by Associate Professor Elizabeth Branigan this session meets the specific needs of the OUA teaching staff as well as showcasing how OUA teachers engage and support online students. Insights from teachers, a librarian and a student on how to engage online students and support them will be shared.

This presentation reflects on the noted promise of fields such as learning analytics and big data in terms of their capacity to deliver new forms of educational practice. That is, the rise and enculturation of data-informed learning and teaching, the provision of early alert systems, flexible and personalised learning opportunities enacted through recommender systems and the development of individualised learner profiles. The complexities of educational systems will be explored to better understand why learning analytics remains largely in the developmental phases and how these challenges can be addressed at a systemic sector-wide level.

Learning Analytics is touted as being a powerful force for good in education, but asking the right questions of the data and interpreting it with a critical eye are important factors in using it to successfully help teachers to help their students. This panel brings together five people to discuss some ideas in this field and to share some of their hands-on experiences.

In the education and training of STEM graduates, one broadly recognised shortfall is the development of professional or 'soft' skills competencies, often blamed on a relatively content-heavy curriculum. Indeed, while the mathematical, analytical, computational, and technological abilities of our STEM graduates are generally commended, they often tend to demonstrate deficiencies in other areas key to employability. Employers now are looking for professional skills as well as technical skills ... In FSET, we have been developing an approach that encompasses all these skill sets under one banner: a contextual international immersion program. The core of the program is to bring together a group of students from various disciplines to engage in an international education trip that will require them to tackle critical issues in a completely different socio-economical context. The Australian students are paired with overseas peers and work as teams for two weeks to generate genuine project proposals with measurable outcomes. These authentic experiences help to motivate and develop crucial employability skills in our STEM graduates.

The Swinburne Student Union is the peak student representative body at Swinburne which covers the three Melbourne campuses as well as online students. Recently the Student Union ran an end-of-semester survey of students on the topics of lecture recording, marking rubrics, and exams. The presentation will focus on the results of the survey and a discussion around the results with academics and students.

As the convenor for TOU20003 Special Interest Tourism, I had been looking for a way to incorporate technology-based innovative assessment that provided students with practical knowledge and skills. I felt strongly that the assessment could be improved, in particular, I wanted an alternative to the traditional PowerPoint presentation. This is where my idea to create a walking tour assessment using Google Maps was first formed. The Walking Tour assessment was designed to enable students to harness their inner creativity, whilst providing a more active learning experience, which is both engaging and entertaining. Incorporating videos and images to produce more authentic learning opportunities for students helped to facilitate deeper learning of the subject, enhance team work and communication skills, and promote learner autonomy.

Many of our students completing their course at PAVE are unclear as to what their next best steps are in their careers. The student off boarding online resource offers students an opportunity to reflect on their journey and consider their goals and aspirations. Based on a student’s goals and aspirations, they explore possible study pathways which will help them achieve their goals, or direct them to services which will help support them embark on their career. As part of this project, students will have access to online resources to support their decision making, access to a careers counsellor for either a class-based counselling session or one-on-one interview, and phone support for three months after their exit from their formal qualification. This resource is designed from a student perspective and aims to promote and direct students to services within a specific context. An outcome for Swinburne PAVE with the opportunity to improve student’s retention, improve student graduate employment outcomes and increase students pathwaying to higher education.

The built environment is made up of spatial prompts that provide overt and subtle messages to the occupants of the environment about its usage and appropriation. Design Factories which are both working and learning environments situated in universities and research institutions utilize spatial prompts both overtly and subtle to communicate, facilitate and enhance the culture of Design Factories - a culture of co-creation, experimentation and innovation. These spatial prompts are analogue and digital and they are both permanent and temporary. We will discuss the purposes behind the spatial prompts of Design Factories and how they have been specifically implemented to assist in the creation and continual development of a culture of co-creation, experimentation and innovation.