Otago's Distance Learning Programme

ISSUE 9 20 May 2011

OTAGO BULLETIN

FORTNIGHTLY NEWSLETTER FOR UNIVERSITY STAFF AND POSTGRADUATE STUDENTS

Researchers showcase their work

Participants and audience members at a public event to showcase Otago’s cutting-edge research last month.The symposium, For the Public Good, attracted a record 30 early to mid-career staff from across the four academic Divisions to the Barnett LectureTheatre.The group volunteered to boil down their work into mere four-minute presentations, creating a series of snapshots of the exciting research under way at Otago.A member of the public audience commented afterwards that “it was better than going to the movies,” says organiser Dr Jacob Edmond, who was delighted with the turnout of researchers – double last year’s – and the extremely high standard of all the presentations. Continued on page 2...

Next Research DeputyVice-Chancellor named

Otago’s next Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) Professor Richard Blaikie is excited about returning to the university at which his scientiﬁc career began. in 1993. From 2002 he was the Deputy Director of the MacDiarmid Institute, succeeding Sir Paul Callaghan as Director in 2008.
Professor Blaikie, who is currently a Professor at the University of Canterbury and Director of the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, will take up the position in December. He replaces Professor Harlene Hayne, whose appointment as Otago’s next Vice-Chancellor was announced earlier this year.
In addition to his Deputy Vice-Chancellor role at Otago, Professor Blaikie will hold a personal Chair in Physics.

He says he is looking forward to taking up his new position. “Otago is noted for the strength of its research and my goal is to maintain and enhance the University’s outstanding performance in this area.”
After graduating with a ﬁrst class honours degree in Physics

from Otago in 1988, Professor Blaikie was a Rutherford Memorial Scholar at the University of Cambridge, where he received his PhD in Physics in 1992. He returned to New Zealand to take up a position at the University of Canterbury
For the intervening six months before Professor Blaikie begins, Professor Helen Nicholson will be the Acting Deputy ViceChancellor. Professor Nicholson is currently the Dean of the Otago School of Medical Sciences.

Researchers showcase their work ... Continued from Page 1

ABOUTTHE BULLETIN

Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research and Enterprise) Professor Harlene Hayne said at the beginning of the event she was “extremely proud” of the researchers who had “bravely put their hands up to present”.

In this issue

“It is important that they present the results of their work to the public. It reﬂects one of the key strengths of the University of Otago – our ongoing commitment to our local and national communities,” she said.

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News General Notices for all Staff Dunedin Wellington

“We are all public servants to a certain extent, and we cannot be complacent about the need to explain to the public that they’ve actually made a really good investment in both the people and the research at the University of Otago.”

Postgraduate Notices

Seven of the 30 researchers were selected to go to Wellington

Dr Caroline Larsen presents her

Next Issue:

to present their work to Parliament next month: Jonathan Broadbent of Dentistry, Elspeth Gold of Anatomy and Structural Biology, Dione Healey of Psychology, Anne-Louise Heath of Human Nutrition, Pete Jones of Physiology, Caroline

research in four minutes during a public event to showcase Otago’s cutting-edge research.

Friday 3 June. The deadline for

notices and advertisements is

midday, Friday 27 May. The

Bulletin is published fortnightly.

Orchiston of Tourism and Robert Thompson of Mathematics and Statistics.

Advertising:

Go to www.otago.ac.nz/news/ bulletin/ ﬁll in the details in the template and submit.

This is the second year that a group from Otago has visited Parliament to showcase their research. Dr Edmond says the event at Parliament last year was so well received the University had been asked to visit again.

But he says the symposium in Dunedin was also one he hoped would become popular in its own right and become an annual event.

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Otago launches MEntr in Queenstown

Otago is launching a new stream of its popular Master of Entrepreneurship degree in Queenstown in July. people wishing to set up innovative new ventures in the tourism and hospitality sectors.

Website:

The Bulletin can be viewed at www.otago.ac.nz/news/bulletin/

The Master of Entrepreneurship programme is designed to provide emergent entrepreneurs with the skills they need to succeed and thrive in business, and is ideally suited for people wanting to turn a new business idea into commercial reality or for those exploring new venture opportunities.
Classes will be held in the modern and wellappointed Queenstown Resort College.

The degree is three semesters long, with the ﬁrst two spent doing seven six-week papers. Each paper begins with an intensive three day on-campus course, followed by a number of assignments which students complete off-campus. The ﬁnal semester consists of a business incubation report.

Copyright:

We welcome reprinting if permission is sought. Contact the Editor.

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Queenstown is New Zealand’s “adventure capital” and is therefore ideally suited to

iTunes U – pick of the month

The Bulletin is produced by: Marketing and Communications, University of Otago, Scott/Shand House, 90 St David Street, Dunedin

Business Lectures:Associate Professor Jeremy Kees – The Elusive Goal of Good Health: Common Barriers and Innovative Solutions

In March Associate Professor Jeremy Kees (Villanova School of Business) visited the University of Otago as the recipient of the Australian and New Zealand Marketing Academy (ANZMAC) International Visiting Scholar Award.

In this podcast Associate Professor Kees looks at the relationship between marketing and public health, and in particular how the social sciences can be used to help understand and then positively inﬂuence people’s decision making process with regards to obesity.

He explains how for many of us the short-term pain of exercising is seen as a negative, while it is hard to place a ‘worth’ on long-term beneﬁts of that exercise when those beneﬁts may be two, six, or 12 months away. In contrast, certain fatty foods may have long-term negative effects but these normally only eventuate over time while the food tastes good in the here and now. This is something I have experienced, making his discussion particularly interesting.

ITS T e aching and Learning Facilities Manager Emerson Pratt www.otago.ac.nz/itunesu

Contact details

Editor: Lisa Dick and Jo Register

Ph:

03 479 4378

Email:

[email protected]

Address: PO Box 56, Dunedin

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WHAT’S NEW

The very entertaining Director of Education at Shakespeare’s GlobeTheatre in London, Patrick Spottiswoode, will visit Otago next week.

Globe visitor

Mr Spottiswoode oversees a department of 25 full-time staff and 65 freelance practitioners that provide lectures, workshops, courses and productions for over 100,000 people at the Globe every year and many more through outreach and distance learning.

He will present a public lecture Shakespeare

and the Glob e T heatre onThursday 26 May at

5.30pm in the Burns 1 LectureTheatre. The University is a major sponsor of the annual University of Otago Sheilah Winn Shakespeare Festival for secondary schools, and Mr Spottiswoode’s visit is in association with Shakespeare GlobeTheatre New Zealand.

A new analysis rates Otago as one of the world’s best research institutions for oceanography.

Top oceanography ranking

A survey examining how Otago’s various departments, divisions, residential colleges and food and drink outlets are recycling has revealed broad support for sustainability at the University.

The survey by Property Services staff showed that most departments are using the existing central campus recycling programme to some extent, although there is certainly room for improvement.

Recycling results

A new analysis of scientiﬁc articles published in international journals since 2000 has judged the University of Otago as being amongst the best research institutions in the world for oceanography.

After analysing the top one percent of oceanography-related papers published in journals since that year, the UK Times Higher Education magazine ranked Otago as the institution with the highest average citations per paper in the world. The second placed institution was the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

In the analysis, oceanography was defined as encompassing many specific disciplines and their journals, including marine biology, limnology (study of inland waters), fisheries science, ecology and geophysics. Papers published in multidisciplinary journals such as Science and Nature relating to the discipline were also included.

In addition, Campus Resource Planner Katrina Roos says it has also revealed some of the innovative things people are doing.

“We have people running worm farms, donating old computer equipment to schools, even collecting food scraps for stock feed.”

The results will be used to review the existing campus recycling programme, expand coverage to include different types of waste and more bins in ofﬁces and to negotiate a better deal on existing collection contracts.

Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Sciences) Professor Keith Hunter says that while caution is required against reading too much into individual ranking exercises and their particular measures, the University’s result conﬁrms the high quality and inﬂuential nature of oceanography-related research carried out at Otago.

He says the achievement is the result of a team effort, with many University staff from across several departments, and collaborators at the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA), all contributing.

Full survey results will be the subject of a report to be shared with staff and students on the upcoming Sustainability @ Otago website, scheduled to be launched later this year.

Famed chimpanzee researcher and

Goodall update

DVDs help teaching

environmentalist Dame Jane Goodall will present her public lecture at the University between 5-6pm onThursday 23 June. Entry is by ticket only and from June 1 these are available for free from Zoology’s reception (340 Great King Street).

In an innovative approach, the Department of Public Health at the Wellington campus is using popular movies to familiarise fourth year medical students with the role of public health in society.

The Medical School library is lending 20 commercial movies with public health themes to fourth-year students. So far this novel approach to public health education is working quite well,

according to a recent report in the New Zealand Medical Journal

by Associate Professor Nick Wilson and colleagues.

Two Jane Goodall-related ﬁlms will also be shown at the University next month. On 2 June, the 2010 documentary Jane’s Journey, which has yet to be released in New Zealand, will play at Castle 1 at 6pm. On 16 June, the

2005 documentary Return to Gombe will

screen at the same venue and time. There will be opportunities at the ﬁlm screenings and lecture to donate towards Dame Jane’sTchimpounga Chimpanzee Rehabilitation Centre.

He says the most popular titles for fourth-year students were Sicko, a documentary feature about the American health system by Michael Moore, followed by Born into Brothels which deals with the lives of the children of sex workers in an Indian city.

Research co-author Dr Peter Gallagher says further research on the educational value of watching DVDs for medical students is desirable.

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POSTGRADUATE NEWS

Strength in numbers: Otago’s distance learning programme

The Bulletin talks to Director of Distance Learning, Dr Bill Anderson, about Otago’s distance learning programmes and the growing importance of distance learning in the postgraduate education mix.

1. Tell us about the size and extent of Otago’s distance learning programme.

Otago has 127 programmes available by distance. Most of these are at the postgraduate level since the University is focusing on distance education at the postgraduate level in areas where we have special expertise.We offer over 430 papers but only around 350 are offered in any one year.We are New Zealand’s largest provider of postgraduate distance education in the health sciences and we also offer qualiﬁcations in the Sciences and Humanities in areas in which the University is acknowledged as having particular expertise, including Dietetics, Clothing andTextile Sciences andTheology and Religion.

2. What are the particular strengths of our distance learning programme?

The staff. Distance papers are taught by people who are wonderfully enthusiastic about and interested in the subjects they teach. Our administrative staff are also vital.

3. What areas offer opportunities for growth in Otago’s distance programme?

Distance Learning Director Dr Bill Anderson.

Otago’s international reputation for research in the health sciences and other subject areas enables us to provide professional leadership through research-informed teaching.We can reach out to members of professional communities no matter where they are located.That’s the great strength of distance education.

“We can reach

4. What consideration needs to be given to developing courses which will be

out to members

delivered via distance?

of professional

Our departments recognise the value of distance courses.There is also increasing recognition that new digital technologies are blurring the lines between distance and on-campus courses.There is one distinct aspect that makes distance courses different, however: people formulating new distance courses need to realise that their students are nearly always parttime, and that they’ll possibly never appear on campus. Most likely studying is a distance student’s ‘third shift’, after working 40- to 60-hours-a-week and after time spent with family. So clarity of materials, certainty of expectations, open communication channels and clear pathways to learning support are essential.

communities no matter where they are located.”

5. What lies in the future for distance learning at Otago?

The future of distance learning lies in ensuring that we have a great batch of excellent teachers who excel in their ﬁeld and are passionate about their subject.

Courageous art rescues by Otago Master’s student

Lydia Baxendell’s life currently resembles that of a superhero. By day she rescues art works from the walls of earthquake struck Canterbury University; by night she works on her Otago Master’s thesis. collection, it is a big job. Her storage area is overﬂowing, and she has had to arrange for more to be built. The works will be kept safe until the buildings are repaired and the university is ready to re-display them.
The Otago Art History student took a job as Art Collections Curator for Canterbury University just three weeks before the September earthquake, and since the second major earthquake in February has been visiting every ﬂoor of every building to rescue art works that are at risk during repairs.
When her day’s work is complete, she heads home to work on her Otago thesis - Nigel Brown

and New Zealand’s National Identity.

It has been difﬁcult, particularly in the weeks immediately following the February earthquake when power was intermittent and she had to compulsively back up her work to avoid losing

anything and had no access to resources.

“I’m taking the art works out so that crews

coming in to ﬁx things don’t put a hole in a painting, or scratch it with scaffolding,” she explains. “These really are our treasures; they are really important to salvage.”

Otago Art History Master’s student Lydia Baxendell with aVan derVelden oil painting c.1895 which she rescued from Canterbury University’s Registry Building.

But she says Otago has been on her side. “The University Library has a distance learning service. They scanned and emailed me pages of books and even sent me whole books. They have been tremendously supportive.”
With over 3000 pieces in the university’s

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WHAT’S NEW

First EdD graduate for College of Education

The ﬁrst graduate of the University of Otago College of Education’s Doctor of Education programme will cross the stage during tomorrow’s graduation ceremony.

College Teaching Fellow David Berg is the ﬁrst person to complete the EdD programme, which was launched in 2008 as an alternative doctoral-level degree to the PhD. Rather than being aimed at professional researchers, the programme is designed for scholarly or researching professionals – with their research projects closely related to their professional practice.

Mr Berg worked as a teacher in Liverpool for 10 years and Nepal for one. He then spent two years at a local university working on their teacher education programmes, before coming to Otago to do a PhD.

But, he says, when he saw the planned design of the EdD he decided to complete this programme, because he liked the expectation that theory should be linked to practice.

The programme has three components – a 12-month paper in the ﬁrst year, a thesis, and a research to practice portfolio, in which students have to provide evidence of the link between their

The ﬁrst graduate of the University of Otago College of Education’s Doctor of Education programme, David Berg.

research and practice. It is primarily a distance programme, with students only physically required on campus for one ﬁve-day residential school in the ﬁrst and second year. they usually admit fewer than 10. “We now have four cohorts, with a total of 27 students. We probably only have about 20 PhD students at College, so I would say it is a popular programme.”
The programme was designed by Professor Kwok-Wing Lai, who did a thorough literature review and visited nine universities, including four in the United Kingdom, two in Australia and one in Hong Kong during its development.
It is expected to take up to six years part-time, but Mr Berg worked on it full-time to complete it in just three.

“I am delighted to have ﬁnished. It has been hard work and a signiﬁcant challenge – but well worth it.”
And it is certainly proving popular. Professor Lai says there are 15 to 20 applicants every year, but

In Brief ...

Forest is a great opportunity to highlight the increasing importance of the plants about us.

Esteemed scholar visits

In May and June the Division of Humanities is hosting esteemed scholar and author Professor Casetti (pictured below).

Foreign Policy School

Professor Casetti, from the Film Studies Program at Yale University in the United States, is a William Evans Fellow for 2011.
Next month’s Foreign Policy School at the University is putting the spotlight on ‘science diplomacy’ − the new catch-cry for international relations.
His vast biography includes his role as “consultant” of the Pontiﬁcal Council for

Social Communications at the Vatican.

The School, which features an impressive

line-up of national and international speakers, will address the potential and the realities for science diplomacy, particularly as they apply to this part of the globe.

Forests celebrated

Professor Casetti’s publications and
A Botany Teaching Fellow is joining forces with the Dunedin Botanic Gardens in the coming months to celebrate the International Year of the Forest. interests cover the ﬁelds of literature, philosophy, media and the arts in equal measure, although he has achieved most recognition as a ﬁlm and television scholar.
John Steel (pictured above with students Aimee Pritchard (left) and Kelly Frogley) will run a joint workshop with Botanic Garden staff on conifers in July, give a talk about “The forests beneath our feet” in August, and speak on Radio New Zealand National as part of a series on New Zealand trees in October.
Staff and students from across the University as well as members of the local community are welcome to register to take part in the event.
See page 17 for details of events during his visit.