Business Deans Project Receives Standards Grant

2 September 2011

The Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) has been awarded an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) grant to support the expansion of a collaborative project relating to academic standards.

ABDC President Professor Tim Brailsford said the award was consistent with the Council gaining momentum on the subject of academic standards.

“The ABDC took a leading role in the 2010 ALTC academic standards project with threshold learning outcomes for bachelor and coursework master degrees in accounting,” Professor Brailsford said.

“After extensive consultation with the accounting higher education community sector and the three professional bodies (CPA Australia, the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Australia and the Institute of Public Accountants), a pilot project was established to benchmark against those thresholds.

“We’re delighted that CPA Australia and the ICAA have supported the project with funding, and that the ALTC grant will allow us to expand who will be involved.”

The pilot project will be led by Professor Phil Hancock and Associate Professor Mark Freeman.

Professor Phil Hancock from the University of Western Australia was Chair of the working party that synthesised stakeholder feedback and set the academic standards in 2010.

Professor Hancock said the ALTC grant would enable the expansion of the project beyond universities to private and TAFE providers.

“It is one thing to reach consensus on some words about what the standards should be; assessing them is a scale bigger, especially when our aim is to make it a sustainable process,” Professor Hancock said.

Professor Hancock said the pilot project would comprise external peer review of a small sample of student work as well as validity of the assessment task.

“Calibration is essential to the success of the project - we have to all sing from the same song sheet,” Professor Hancock said.

“In June 2011 each academic on the review panel independently reviewed three pieces of student work, followed by a collaborative review in July to discuss the differences.

“Robust discussion enabled us to clarify what really matters to make a piece of written work meet the required level.”

The panel will meet again in September 2011 before reviewing of the work form the pilot universities commences.

Joint project leader Associate Professor Mark Freeman of the University of Sydney is the ABDC Scholar and formerly the ALTC Discipline Scholar in 2010 for the academic standards project.

Professor Freeman said he was looking forward to the challenge of being involved as it was the first national collaborative initiative to benchmark against the standards developed in 2010.

"This is a fantastic opportunity to work with some really capable people from a range of organisations who are committed to quality,” Associate Professor Freeman said.

“Using external peer review and a focus on learning outcomes adds a richness to quality beyond the traditional focus on student feedback.”

Established in 2002, the ABDC was formed to undertake the challenge of contributing to the national education agenda.

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For further information:
Professor Hancock: 08 6488 1835
Associate Professor Mark Freeman: 02 9036 5030
Professor Tim Brailsford, President ABDC: 07 3365 6204