ABS Insights

The most consequential shift is happening in how students are examined. MBA Course Convenor Dr Monique Moore is leading a redesign of the entire MBA, creating a modular course that can be taken as either microcredentials, or an entire degree. She is redesigning assessments within these, connected directly with industry stakeholder feedback, moving away from the traditional essays and written report and in their place adding real-world scenario case studies and quizzes, strategic diagnostics, and oral presentations where students have to defend their thinking in real time. The learning outcomes stay the same; but the modes are changing. Oral defence and applied scenarios are harder to outsource to a chatbot, and they map more naturally onto a future of modular, micro-credentialed study that the School is actively planning for. It's a considered answer to a question every university is now grappling with: what does authentic assessment look like when generative AI can write a competent essay in seconds?

That thinking is spreading. This semester the School approved assessment changes across a spread of units, part of a broader move to make the way students prove their knowledge matches the way they'll actually use it.

Associate Professor Seedwell Sithole, who convenes the Business course, is leading an impact study into the UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy designation held by Launceston and Northern Tasmania, work carried out in partnership with the Northern Tasmania Development Corporation. It is research that reaches beyond the University ecosystem into something widely economically valuable, asking what a global cultural designation actually does for a regional economy.


Associate Professor Sithole has also been busy on the sector-shaping side of the job, chairing a Course Advisory Committee for the Atlas Institute of Education, sitting on a counselling management committee where he brings financial expertise, and taking part in national conversations about how universities guarantee quality in online teaching. He was also a part, alongside Marketing Strand Convenor Jacqueline Calvo, of one of the more practical wins for students this semester: getting an Entrepreneurship minor formally approved, so students across a range of majors can now build entrepreneurial skills into their degree.

Business lecturer Jacqui Calvo has spent the semester making sure her teaching stays connected to industry reality, pursuing a serious program of professional development focused on where marketing is actually moving: the practical use of AI and generative tools in the field, backed up by industry certifications in social media strategy. She presented a professional development showcase to the wider Avondale University staff on assessment innovation, discussing her cutting-edge use of Simternships, case studies and the Professional Readiness Program she is developing as part of the School’s strategic plan.

All of this is happening in the lead-up to something larger. The Business School is in the middle of formulating its five-year strategic plan, due out before the end of the year. Without giving too much away, there are significant and genuinely exciting developments coming, all connected to the wisdom and lived experience of our alumni and industry stakeholders. The assessment redesign, the micro-credential direction and the industry partnerships now taking shape are early signs of where the School is heading.