The University has committed to delivering a student experience equal to the world’s best by 2025. Student First Program Director, Dean MacDonald, explains how the Program has made steady progress towards this commitment in 2022.   

“It’s been a constructive year for Student First, and we have a lot to celebrate. The discovery research has now been completed across our various student cohorts. Based on these insights we have been able to stand up our initiatives and made significant progress on their deliverables,” Dean says. 

Initiative 1 – Digital Student Experience 
Has been focused on understanding the needs of the ANU Community across administration and support services. Numerous co-design workshops have now been held with students, professional, College and HDR staff which surfaced the requirements needed to procure the first stages of the Initiative.  

Initiative 2 – Learning and Teaching Ecosystem 
In readiness for the decision on the future of the learning and teaching environment in 2023, initial upgrades have taken place across our existing learning and teaching platforms. Wattle 4.0 was successfully upgraded with an improved user interface and important security updates. An upgrade for the Curriculum Management System has also commenced. The upgrade will deliver greater reporting capabilities and improved curriculum templates to capture National Priorities and Industry Linkage Fund (NPILF) data.  

Initiative 3 – Student Voice  
Both staff and students have now been recruited to the Student and Staff Partnership Group (SSPG) with the first full meeting scheduled for early 2023. A Kambri shopfront space has been set-up and utilised for co-design sessions with students. The official launch of the shopfront will take place in early 2023.  A Hub Manager for the shopfront has also been appointed along with a Student Ambassador team.  

Dean further explained how the Program’s human-centred design and accessibility and inclusion streams have been integral to the Program’s success thus far.  

“All our work at both the Program and initiative level has been delivered using human-centred design principles. By working like this we find the best solutions because we listen to what is needed and co-design the solution with the ANU Community at every step.  We have also been proactive in making sure our activities reflect the strong value the University places on equity and diversity. To this end we have a dedicated Digital Accessibility Practice Lead in the Program,” Dean says. 

Maryanne Dever, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Education & Digital), Student First Executive Sponsor also provided her sentiments on how well the Program has progressed.

“Student First is a very big and complex program of work and it's really great to close out the year with such visible progress. I'm especially pleased to see how many students and staff members have been able to connect and contribute to Student First across the year," Maryanne says. 

For more information on the Student First Program and its initiatives, visit the Student First Program site or contact the Student First Program Team.