Evening all,
No I'm not packing it in, the title is just click bait for sharing one of the best, but most ridiculous, punk rock covers ever from The Vandals.
No, in fact, this week I'm briefly leaving Fortress Murdoch in Sydney and heading off to sunny (and reportedly cold) Hobart to deliver my first contract cheating Masterclass for the friends at TEQSA. The puppies will not be impressed.
For anyone with an interest in contract cheating, professional and otherwise, I highly recommend doing the short course modules. Essentially they were designed to help anyone who works in this space (academic and professional) to get a head start on some of the things that have taken a long time to work out through investigative case work. The modules, and particularly the in-person workshops are also designed to help people get a better understanding of how various institutions approach this problem, how they may fit into the efforts their institution is undertaking, and how to turbo charge those efforts. Being a proud member of Team Professional Staff, I also want to be able to encourage all professional staff whose work touches on contract cheating and misconduct to join us. Alongside what you will learn at the workshops, I view this as an invaluable opportunity to expand your networks, learn from each other's experiences, and understand that your job is as crucial as academic's in many areas of higher ed. In my experience the best working relationships have grown from a shared respect for capabilities and knowledge, where I've learned from academics and vice versa.
Essentially, I fully encourage professional staff to be linesteppers in the best way.
Learn about what others are doing, empathise with them, learn from them. But don't be put off by titles. Sometimes we are not only the best placed people to be doing certain types of work, but also the best people to be doing that work. I hope that these workshops encourage folks to cross lines.
I'll try to report back on my impressions from the workshop this Thursday later this week.
Until next time,
KM