The Teaching and Learning Forum - header image

Call for papers

The 2012 Teaching and Learning Forum continues a 20 year tradition of bringing together educators from universities around Perth and beyond to discuss, share, and develop their ideas on issues confronting teaching and learning in the Higher Education sector.

This year the focus is on looking beyond the mainstream to ensure we engage as far as possible with all of our students to meet their learning needs, and thus retain them as students.

We encourage you to be creative in your proposals. This includes Symposia (several presentations around the same theme in a longer time slot), Debates, Panel Sessions and Dilemmas. In all cases, think carefully about how you can build interactivity into your session.

Abstract only (due 29th November)

Abstract only submissions may be made by those who would like to present their work at the forum, but who do not want, or are not ready, to have it refereed or published. The majority of presentations at the Teaching and Learning Forums in the past have been of this kind. Accepted abstracts will be published in the Program Booklet, and presentation times will be scheduled in the program.

  • Presentation: 25 minutes
  • Publication: In program booklet and online
  • Submission due: 22nd November
  • Notification of acceptance: 7th December
  • Final changes for publication: 20th December
  • Format: should not exceed 250 words and should include the name(s) of author(s), institution(s) and email address(es).
  • Submit: (as email attachment) to  rjatkinson@bigpond.com

Workshops (due 29th November)

 Workshops should constitute a contribution towards staff development and professional development in educational topics. In many cases the workshops are derived from staff development activities conducted previously at the presenters' own institutions. Workshops enable participants to work with experts in specific areas to acquire knowledge, enhance skills and develop broader perspectives. These are not research presentations, although some workshops may include topics in research skills and techniques. Workshops will be given 55 minutes, enabling detailed discussion and interactive consideration of topics and issues.

  • Presentation: 55 minutes
  • Publication: Extended abstract in program booklet and online
  • Submission due: 22nd November
  • Notification of acceptance: 7th December
  • Final changes to abstract for publication in booklet: 20th December
  • Final changes to full paper for online publication: 13 January
  • Format: Workshop proposals should be no longer than 1,000 words. You should include the following information.
    • A detailed description of the workshop format including activities workshop participants will be expected to engage in.
    • Clear statement of the objectives of the workshop.
    • Facilities required and maximum number of participants.
    • Intended audience and degree of expertise required by workshop participants.
    • A list of previous presentations (if any) of the workshop and website or publication references (if any).
    • A brief biography of the presenter or presenters.
    • If your Workshop is accepted, you will be invited to submit an "extended abstract" (about 500 words) describing the themes, questions and planned activities of the workshop for publication in the online Forum Proceedings.
  • Submit: (as email attachment) to rjatkinson@bigpond.com

Full Paper (Refereed Research or Professional Practice) (due 8th November)

Refereed research papers will show clear strengths in creativity, originality, and increasing humanity's stock of knowledge. Accepted papers are eligible for the ARC research category "Conference publication" as detailed under ERA 2010 Submission Guidelines (ARC, 2010). Refer also to Advice to reviewers for more detail.

Professional practice papers will show clear strengths in creativity, leadership and excellence in professional practice, demonstrated in teaching, staff development, program or institutional development, educational media or services developments, or learning skills services. Being grounded in showcasing best practice rather than new knowledge, accepted papers are not eligible for the ARC category "Conference publication". Refer also to Advice to reviewers for more detail.

  • Presentation: 25 minutes
  • Publication: In program booklet (abstract only) and online (full paper)
  • Submission due: 8th November
  • Notification of acceptance: 7th December
  • Final changes to abstract for publication in booklet: 20th December
  • Final changes to full paper for online publication: 13 January
  • Format: abstracts should not exceed 250 words and should include the name(s) of author(s), institution(s) and email address(es).
  • Submit: (as email attachment) to rjatkinson@bigpond.com
Please submit abstracts, papers and workshop proposals as email attachments to rjatkinson@bigpond.com

Formatting your paper

Use MS Word or compatibles only. Use Normal style only and do not use any templates. Do not use .docx. Use A4 size pages and set your margins at 2.5 cm all round. Limit the length of your title to 10-12 words, according to APA advice. You may wish to use this document as a template: Formatting your paper (Doc, 59 KB)

State clearly whether your submission is Research, Professional Practice or a Workshop.

Paper title in sentence case Arial 16 bold

Author/s (Arial 12 pt)
Institution (Times New Roman 11, italics
Email addresses

[If the authors are from different institutions, they should be listed separately]

Place your abstract here ... no more than 250 words … in Times New Roman 10, indented 1.0 cm left and right margins, left aligned. Title, author details, abstract and keywords are the only parts of your paper which will appear in the Forum's printed Program Booklet.

Keywords: One line of key or focus terms by which your paper can be identified by users of online search engines.

First level heading in Arial 12 bold

Body of your paper … use Times New Roman 11 point, left aligned, single spaced. Blank lines before and after headings are to be sized the same as text, i.e., Times New Roman 11 point.

For paragraphing, use a single blank line between each paragraph, and no indents. Do not use Spacing Before or Spacing After your paragraphs.

Second level heading in Arial 10 bold

Put a blank line before and after the second level heading.

Third level heading in Times New Roman 11 point italic
Do not include a blank line after a third level heading. Use bulleted or numbered lists in preference to third level headings where possible.

[This is a quotation] Use Times New Roman 10 point, left aligned, single spaced, indented 1.0 cm left and right, not italicised, without quotation marks, one blank line before and after. Indents may be varied slightly from 1.0 cm to improve the fit. Referencing for the quotation may be given in the running text immediately before the quotation, or may be appended to the end of the quotation. Very short quotations using only a few words should be given with quotation marks in your running text, whilst only longer quotations using a line or more should be formatted as quotations (reference).

This is a bulleted list:

  • Times New Roman 11 point
  • left aligned, single spaced
  • no indents except a hanging indent 0.5 cm. Indentation may be varied slightly to improve the fit.

This is an ordered list:

  1. Times New Roman 11 point
  2. left aligned, single spaced
  3. no indents except a hanging indent 0.5 cm. Indentation may be varied slightly to improve the fit.
  4. select only from these kinds of ordering: 1., 2., …; i., ii., …; a., b., … Do not use any other kind.

Do not use page breaks or sections breaks. Where necessary or desirable, use several carriage returns to obtain a page break.

Sample of a figure - Image

Figure 1: Sample of a figure (title is below the figure, centred, bold)


Figures must be placed in their correct locations in your running text. All figures should be included in your Word file, and not in separate graphics or drawing packages. Labelling within the figure should be consistent with the fonts used in the text of your paper, i.e., Times New Roman. Number your figures sequentially, Figure 1, Figure 2, etc. Do not use variations such as Figure 1a, 1b.

Table 1: A sample table (title is above the table, centred, bold)

Location Tables must be placed in their correct locations in your running text.
General Use Times New Roman and other body text specifications for all text within a table. You may use 11, 10 or even 9 point as required to fit the width of columns. For headings within tables use sentence case, with bold and centering optional.
Format Centre each table and select appropriate widths for the table and for each column. In columns of numbers, use centre or decimal point alignment.
Explanatory text If your table requires explanatory text which doesn't fit easily into your running text, place it at the bottom of the table, in a smaller font size, formatted to the same width as the table.
Other features Cell background colouring or shading may be used, but note the Proceedings editors may use a standard background colour for the first row or other elements of a table.


References

Please use APA referencing. Use Times New Roman 11 point, left aligned, hanging indent 0.5 cm, with no blank lines. Wherever possible, insert URLs or DOIs for references. Date of viewing may be omitted for journal and proceedings URLs considered to be of high reliability. The following list provides examples of referencing for the main kinds of publications.

Bunney, D. & Therry, L. (2011). Employability skills in the Master of Professional Accounting: One school's journey. In Developing student skills for the next decade. Proceedings of the 20th Annual Teaching Learning Forum, 1-2 February 2011. Perth: Edith Cowan University. http://otl.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf2011/refereed/bunney.html [viewed 8 June 2011].

Doherty, I. (2010a). Staff development workshops for teaching with Web 2.0 tools. In C. D. Maddux, D. Gibson & B. Dodge (Eds.), Research highlights in information technology and teacher education 2010 (pp. 61-70). Chesapeake, VA: SITE.Dunn, L., Morgan, C., O'Reilly, M., & Parry, S. (2004). The student assessment handbook. London: Routledge Falmer.

Healy, C. & McKay, M. (2000). Nursing stress: The effects of coping strategies and job satisfaction in a sample of Australian nurses. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 31(3), 681-688. DOI: 10.1046/j.1365-2648.2000.01323.x

Kearsley, G. (2004). Explorations in learning & instruction: The theory into practice database. http://tip.psychology.org/ [viewed 8 April 2010].

Taplin, R. H., Low, L. H. & Brown, A. M. (2011). Students' satisfaction and valuation of web-based lecture recording technologies. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 27(2), 175-191. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet27/taplin.html


Review procedure

All research and professional practice papers will be subjected to a double blind peer review process using an external panel of reviewers [see Advice to reviewers]. Reviewers will assign ratings and make recommendations which will enable the Program Committee to prepare offers of acceptance or rejection to authors. The acceptance offers will specify a presentation and a publication format (abstract only, refereed research, or refereed professional practice), and may include advice on mandatory or desirable revisions.


Advice to reviewers

The form issued to the panel of reviewers will use three criteria, summarised as follows, and will ask for ratings on a four point scale, 'Poor, Fair, Good, Very good'. Acceptance or rejection of reviewed papers for publication will be based on these ratings.

1. Suitability for the TL Forum (25%) Contribution to a teaching and learning forum such as this; importance and interest of the topic to TL Forum participants; potential to stimulate interactive discussion.
2. Academic merit (50%) Reviewers: Please give your rating in the category nominated by the author, or, if you wish to recommend a variation of category, enter a rating for both categories.
Refereed research paper Quality of literature review and statement of research goals. Appropriately chosen and documented methods, logical presentation and analysis of results, findings, inferences and conclusions. Novelty and significance of the work, and implications for practices, policies or further research. Consistency with ARC definition of research in relation to creativity, originality, and increasing humanity's stock of knowledge.
TLF refereed professional practice paper Creativity, leadership and excellence in professional practice, demonstrated in teaching, staff development, program or institutional development, educational media or services developments, or learning skills services.
3. Standard of writing (25%) Clear and logical presentation, appropriate style, freedom from errors, ease of reading, correct grammar and spelling, use of non-sexist language, appropriate abstract, conformance with Forum specifications for referencing, length and format details


Final decisions on acceptances and on publication and presentation formats will be the responsibility of the TL Forum Committee.


Presenting at the forum

We would like you to attend the whole Forum and join in the activities for the full two days. However, if you cannot attend on both days, or if you are not available to present on any particular morning or afternoon, please let us know before we draw up the timetable. This is very important.

Abstract only and full paper presentations will be 25 minutes long, and Workshops will be 55 minutes. 5 minutes will be scheduled between sessions for change over and setting up your slides.

Laptops will be provided in all rooms, and you are asked to bring your PowerPoint or other files on a USB drive. You will introduce yourself at the beginning of your session. A time-keeper will be appointed to your session, so if you have any specific time keeping needs please discuss these with your time-keeper before your presentation begins.

You are advised to organise your session so that you have no more than 15 minutes presenting your ideas, leaving about 10 minutes for interaction and discussion with your audience. If you do not have much experience in presenting at Forums and conferences, you might like to consult http://www.waier.org.au/forums/presentation-advice.html for some good advice.


Publication of Forum Proceedings

Forum proceedings will be published on the Teaching and Learning Forum Website. Please have a look at publications from earlier years on http://otl.curtin.edu.au/tlf/tlf-pubs.html

A USB drive containing all the papers and abstracts will be provided to participants at registration. There will be no printed version apart from the abstracts which will appear in the Program Booklet.

Individual authors hold the copyright in their own papers. If you wish to rewrite or extend your paper and publish it elsewhere after the conference, you may do so, although you should reference the original TLF publication in your references, and you should not apply for ARC recognition twice for the same research paper.


Editorial references

ARC (Australian Research Council) (2010). ERA 2010 Submission Guidelines.
http://www.arc.gov.au/pdf/ERA2010_sub_guide.pdf [1.4 MB]. See Section 5.4.9.7. Conference Publications-Full Paper Refereed, pp. 39-40. Note that the Guidelines may be changed when the ARC publishes its next version.

The Macquarie Dictionary
(1997). 3rd ed. Sydney: The Macquarie Library.

Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association
(2001). 5th ed. Washington DC: APA.

Style Manual for Authors, Editors and Publishers
(2002). 6th ed. Wiley Australia. (Previous editions were known with great respect and affection as the AGPS Manual).

A copy of this document is available in a pdf format.