The purpose of this cross-institutional study is to investigate the attitude and experiences of academic staff (or professional staff involved in direct support of curriculum and teaching) at six universities on the academic development support provided by the central teaching and learning unit/portfolio. In particular, it examines the extent and nature of use of this support and how it is perceived by those who have experienced it. The benefits of participating in this study are that you will be contributing towards an understanding of how staff perceive academic development work which will help improve such services.
We invite you to participate in this research project by responding to a survey, which should take you about 15 minutes to complete. Participation in this study is voluntary and you can withdraw at any time prior to the submission of the survey. However, once you have submitted, your submission cannot be reversed as your data won’t be individually identifiable.
There are no known risks associated with participating in this study. The online survey is intended to be anonymous. All records containing personal information will remain confidential and no information which could lead to identification of any individual will be released unless required by law. Every effort will be made to ensure that responses are kept confidential (for example, we are using robust and secure survey software, called Qualtrics, and the researcher will delete the data from the online platform as soon as practical after data collection is complete). However, the researcher cannot ultimately guarantee the confidentiality or anonymity of material transferred by email or the internet. Once the survey is complete the results will be exported from Qualtrics and stored for five years, as in a secure access folder only accessible by the researchers.
The data coming out of this study may be used in seminar presentations, conference papers and journal articles, including comparative studies with other universities. Note that the collaborating investigators from other universities will be doing similar research in their respective institutions and will have no access to Flinders data except in processed/ summarised and unidentifiable form for institutional comparative analysis. Any publications resulting from this study will be made available to you upon request. Should you wish to receive a copy of the findings, please contact the chief investigator via the contact details provided. Your individual data will not be identifiable in these publications.
If you volunteer your availability for a possible 30-minute follow-up interview, you will be asked to provide your email contacts. If you participate in the interview, the session will be audio recorded for later transcription and analysis. Both the recordings and the transcripts will be securely stored in restricted access folders with anonymised labelling.
This project has been approved by the University of South Australia’s Human Research Ethics Committee and has received cross-institutional ethics approval from Flinders (HREC6624). If you have any ethical questions or concerns about the project, or questions about your rights as a participant, please contact the Executive Officer of this Committee, Tel: +61 8 8302 6330; Email: humanethics@unisa.edu.au.
By completing and submitting the survey, you are indicating that you have read and understood the Participant Information Sheet and give your consent to be involved in the research.
