Enhancing courses for employability: Reimagining assessment at the digital frontier

Abstract

Course enhancement at Deakin University is designed to ensure that courses enable graduates to be highly employable through unit and course experiences that are personal, relevant and engaging wherever learning takes place – on campus, in the cloud, in industry settings. This ambitious and complex curriculum renewal initiative is well advanced. In her keynote address, Professor Oliver will discuss how course enhancement is driving a cultural shift in the university, making student engagement in learning and achievement of Deakin’s Graduate Learning Outcomes the starting point for course – as distinct from unit – design and assessment. The enhancement process provides for intensive development of new learning models, experiences, resources and particularly assessment as a direct link to employability. Professor Oliver will show how Deakin is at the digital frontier—testing emerging digital tools that potentially address learning and employability challenges. These include digital credentialing of capabilities and portfolio approaches to the creation and curation of evidence of learning.