Institute:	University of South Australia
Discipline:	Business
Title:	Mainstreaming graduate qualities in a Business and Management faculty core
Year addressed:	1st Year
Phase:	Learning Experiences (with links to phase 4)
Generic Attributes:	From a list of seven Generic Attributes identified by the University of South Australia, two were developed in this project: -Collaborative Learning - Internationalisation

Issues Revealed:

- Due to falling pass rates in core subjects, relatively high attrition rates, and the recognition that the university was accepting students from diverse backgrounds it became paramount to mainstream support services and transition across the university using graduate qualities as a framework to facilitate this process.
- A strong need for staff training developed as a result of a need to explain the graduate attributes- the Flexible Learning Centre began a series of training sessions for each faculty.
- In the pre-development stage there was a need for well developed and explicit guidelines at Senior Management; for translation and interpretation of those guidelines to faculty staff, and ownership of the graduate qualities.

Actions Taken:

- Two generic attributes were identified for inclusion in Business subjects from the group of 7 attributes identified by the university
- Learning Experiences: A work group was formed and began with brainstorming of all teaching and learning issues with the exception of major content aspects of the curriculum. The structure of the classes was decided on first and then the details of teaching and learning arrangements followed
- Re-development of the core subject "Economic Environment" with an emphasis on "collaborative learning" began, although all of the 7 graduate qualities were described and reflected in the subject objectives and assessment.
- The subject was delivered in Semester 1 1998 with all of the new developments.
- The subject was reviewed before semester 2 1998 using the experiences of teaching, student evaluations and focus groups
- A process was developed to allow the Graduate Qualities Framework to be applied across 7 other subjects in Business
- An induction program for new sessional staff was developed with information on Graduate Qualities
- Graduate Qualities leaflets were developed by study advisers.
- Development of a Graduate Qualities Proforma occurred based on the "Economic Environment" subject but which could be adopted for students to use in applications for employment and curriculum vitae.
- Development of a self assessment questionnaire for students to evaluate their work place performance in the Bachelor of Business.
- A Move towards ownership of the problem in "Introduction to Law", and in 5 other Faculty Core Subjects.

Lessons Learned/Reflections:

- It is important to have a team of like minded lecturing and study adviser staff to work on the initial curriculum redesign
- Adequate resourcing of the development process is important, as is a well developed and explicit framework to guide the work
- In extending the framework to other subjects it is important to recognise the "gate keeper"; to work cordially with other teams; to link the design of assessment to any teaching and learning innovations; for academic staff to "own" any teaching and learning problems in their subject
- A team approach to the integration of these attributes is a pre-requisite to the success of the program