Featured Speakers for AAEEBL World Conference 2011

Plenary Keynote 1 -- Eportfolios in Australian Higher Education: Graduate Attributes, Standards and Employability.  Beverley Oliver, Curtin University, Perth, Australia. 

The Australian higher education sector is facing extensive change: policy focuses increasingly on assuring standards for graduate ‘fitness for purpose’ whether that be employability, further study, or civic engagement. National indicators, usually quantitative, drive funding: in relation to teaching and learning these are currently around student intake, progress and completion; and course experience and graduate destination as reported by recent graduates. New measures will be introduced in coming years, including the Collegiate Learning Assessment. Standards are a particular emphasis in these policies, and various projects are underway nationally to determine the ways in which universities will be able to assure graduate standards. Undergraduate education in Australia is predominantly professionally-oriented: that is, school graduatess enroll in degrees which provide them with professional outcomes such as engineering, pharmacy, law and nursing. These programs are guided by professional accreditation competencies and universities’ graduate attributes. In this context, eportfolios have the capacity to enable undergraduate students to build evidence for employability or future enrollment.  This presentation will be a snapshot of some of the initiatives currently underway that focus on student and teaching staff eportfolio initiatives for communicating and assuring graduate standards.

Plenary Keynote 2 -- Technology for Emerging Humans. Phil Long, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

It is easy to notice the change in our technologies from era to era and now from decade to decade.  What is not so easy to notice is our own human changes in response to changes in our technologies.  Yet, over the long run, we can notice our changes: our evolution has been possible only because of our technologies; we have changed over the ages in parallel with changes in technology.  What changes in humans are underway at this moment?  And, what technologies are most influencing those changes?  What technologies most extend the reach and capabilities of humans now?