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The purpose of this research is to assess the impact of the synchronous online teaching strategy on higher degree research students, particularly those dealing with isolation. The aim is to enhance their coping mechanisms and writing productivity, fostering a supportive learning environment.

This study employed surveys to evaluate the effectiveness of a synchronous online teaching strategy designed for Higher Degree Research students who may experience isolation. The strategy incorporated activities involving writing, reflection, and peer interaction, targeting students who prefer social and solitary learning.

The results indicate that the teaching strategy significantly benefited a majority of higher degree research students, promoting skill improvement in writing, reflection, and meaningful connections within the student community. Notably, it exhibited the strongest positive correlation with solitary learners, particularly in terms of social connection, reducing their sense of isolation.

This research underscores the potential of tailored teaching strategies in addressing isolation among Higher Degree Research students, acknowledging limitations including reliance on surveys. The study’s findings have significance for pedagogical design in online and blended learning environments, offering strategies to combat isolation and enhance the student experience while supporting diverse learning preferences. Further investigation into different learning contexts and demographics is also warranted.

This research contributes to the field by demonstrating the positive impact of a synchronous online teaching strategy on higher degree research students, particularly those prone to isolation. It emphasises the value of tailored approaches in enhancing their educational experience and combating feelings of solitude.

Driven to improve the quality of higher education as an engine of growth and socio-economic development within Pakistan for 20 years, the Higher Education Commission (HEC) in Pakistan has focused on linking academics and professional services staff with their counterparts in various countries, including the UK, US, and Australia. In collaboration with the British Council, the PAK-UK initiative has been launched to offer deeper linkages between the academics and universities in the UK and Pakistan. This paper presents statistical analysis of data collected in a British Council project highlighting the gender inequalities of the current HEC strategy. The results suggest the potential for online opportunities to help close and amend this gender gap and improve higher education in Pakistan, and the PAK-UK initiative's role in contributing more broadly to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

The purpose of this study is to address the generalised lack of guidance on ethical treatment of corporate (e.g. non-research) data in higher education institutions, by focusing on the case of the University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia). No actionable framework is currently available in the country to govern the ethical usage of corporate data. As such, this research takes a stakeholder-centred approach to data ethics; the lived experience of the stakeholders involved coupled with a theory-based ethical framework allowed the authors build to build a framework to guide ethical data practice.

Adopting a revised canonical action research approach focused on intervention on the context, the authors conducted a review of the literature on ethical usage of data in higher education institutions; administered one survey to university students (n = 168); and facilitated three workshops with professional staff (two) and students (one).

Collected data highlighted how, among other themes, the role and ethical importance of transparency was the dominant claim among all stakeholder groups. Findings helped the authors develop an Enhanced Enterprise Data Ethics Framework (EEDEF) emphasising transparency and stakeholder-centricity.

Legislation is the driver to regulate the use of corporate data in higher education; however, this can be problematic because legislation is retrospective, lacks normativity and offers scarce directions for cases that do not exactly follow within the legislative mandate. In light of these regulatory limitations, the authors’ EEDEF offers operators guidance on how to ethically manage corporate data in the higher education environment.

This study fills gaps in praxis and theory; that is the lack of literature and guiding ethical frameworks to inform data practice in higher education. This research fosters a more ethical data management by virtue of genuine and authentic engagement with stakeholders and emphasises the importance of strategic decision-making and maturity of data culture in the higher education sector.

Senior Indigenous leadership positions across the Australian higher education sector has increased over the past decade. Despite this advancement, there is limited understanding in terms of how to best integrate Indigenous leadership into existing governance structures of Australian universities. In 2018 the Walan Mayiny: Indigenous Leadership in Higher Education project commenced, aimed at establishing a model of best practice for the inclusivity of Indigenous leadership in higher education governance structures. This article presents key findings from the project, namely, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian universities based on the perceptions of a group of Indigenous academics.

Through qualitative semi-structured interviews with Indigenous academic staff, the perceived value, characteristics and challenges of senior Indigenous leadership were examined. The varying opinions held by Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position were also highlighted. In doing so, a model of senior Indigenous leadership within the Australian higher education system is presented. The model of best practice presented in this article is underpinned by Indigenous Institutional Theory (Coates et al., 2022), a theoretical framework developed from the Walan Mayiny study.

The research findings highlight the diverse opinions of Indigenous academics in relation to the qualifications and experience required to fulfil a senior Indigenous leadership position. The six essential components are built upon the core characteristics, values and behaviours that senior Indigenous leaders need to have according to Indigenous academics, in order to advance Indigenous success within the academy.

Given Australian universities are being called upon to ensure that senior Indigenous leaders are in the best position possible to forge institutional change, senior Indigenous leaders within the academy may find the contextual Indigenous leadership model beneficial. The model allows one to uphold cultural integrity and fulfil the responsibilities and obligations of their higher education institution, while being able to serve their Indigenous colleagues and communities, leading to the advancement of Indigenous higher education outcomes. Importantly, the model can be adapted to suit all First Nations Peoples globally, who also find themselves working within the shackles of Western institutions.

Project-based learning is one of the most effective methods of transferring academic knowledge and skills to real-world situations in higher education. However, its effectiveness is not much investigated focusing on the students' narrative. This study aims at evaluating the students' experience and perspective on adopting project-based learning in master by research and doctoral programmes for proactive skills development.

This study evaluates the self-reflection of 10 postgraduate students and their supervisor who have participated in developing a software tool for solar photovoltaics (PV) integrated building envelope design, management and the related education.

Findings reveal that the students have effectively improved their knowledge on the subject via collaborating with the industry, self-learning/observation, peer learning, problem-solving and teamwork. Dividing the project into student-led tasks has improved the decision-making and leadership skills, risks identification, planning and time management skills. The overall experience has (1) built up confidence in students, (2) enhanced their creativity and critical thinking and (3) improved their proactive skills and context knowledge.

A clear research gap can be seen in exploring the effectiveness of project-based learning for master by research and doctoral programmes, which mainly focus on extensive research. These programmes do not necessarily focus on developing students' proactive skills, which is the main requirement if they intend to work in the construction industry. This paper addresses the above research gap by demonstrating the effectiveness of project-based learning for developing the proactive skills in a research-intensive learning environment.

The sudden COVID-19 epidemic in 2019 has frustrated China's overall economy, and the implementation and development of the National Fitness Program has encountered huge obstacles. At a new historical starting point, in order to realize the dream of becoming a powerful country in sports, it is necessary to transform the successful experience gained since the reform and opening up into regular understanding and systematic theories, so as to make a theoretical response to the new contradictions and challenges faced in development and give full play to the National Fitness has comprehensive values and multiple functions in improving people's health, promoting people's all-round development, promoting economic and social development and demonstrating the country's cultural soft power.

Taking the topic of national fitness as an example, this paper sets out from the three dimensions of knowledge input, knowledge output and knowledge production, using citation analysis, social network analysis, co-word analysis and cluster analysis, to measure the characteristics and knowledge structure of interdisciplinary knowledge exchange.

China's national fitness is still in the primary development stage, and the strong boost of the national top-level policy is the biggest driving force of its development, driven by the policy together with the settlement of many major events, constantly improving and enriching the wings. The main body of knowledge production on the topic of national fitness is mainly colleges and universities, with low participation of government and enterprises, high degree of cooperation among authors, obvious interdisciplinary characteristics and strong application of research themes.

This study provides a strong theoretical basis for the promotion of the Healthy China strategy. Especially under the influence of COVID-19, this paper can contribute to the comprehensive value and multimodal functions of national fitness in improving the health of people, promoting economic and social development and demonstrating the soft power of national culture.

This study aims to advance the understanding on individual variations in PhD candidates’ personal interest in their doctorate and supervisory and research community support, and several individual and structural attributes potentially having an impact on the profiles.

The authors explored the interrelationship between personal interest – social support profiles, and nationality, gender, research group and study status and the risk of dropping out. A total of 768 PhD candidates from a research-intensive university in Finland responded to a modified version of the cross-cultural doctoral experience survey. Latent profile analysis was used to explore the individual variations in PhD candidates’ interest and support from the supervisor and research community.

Three distinctive PhD interest-social support profiles were detected; the high interest–high support profile (74.4%, n = 570), the high interest–moderate support profile (18.2%, n = 140) and the moderate interest–moderate support profile (7.4%, n = 56). The profiles exhibited high to moderate levels of research, development and instrumental interest. Individuals in the high interest–moderate support and in the moderate interest–moderate support profiles were more prone to consider dropping out from their PhD than in the high interest–high support profile.

The results indicate that by cultivating PhD candidates’ interest and providing sufficient supervisory and the research community offers a means for preventing candidates from discontinuing their doctorate. Hence, building a supportive learning environment that cultivates a PhD candidate’s personal interest is likely to reduce high dropout rates among the candidates.

This paper aims to extend our understanding of the concept of crisis leadership based on perceptions of 48 Australian leaders drawn from various sectors including Australian politics, higher education, not-for-profit and corporate sectors.

This qualitative study employed semi-structured virtual interviews of 48 leaders from Australian politics, higher education, not-for-profit and corporate sectors during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Leximancer text analytics program was used for data analysis.

Participants perceived effective leadership during a crisis as encompassing four macro themes: leadership as power, leadership as emanating from people, leadership as management and leadership as specific to the organization. While these findings reinforced extant literature on facets of effective leadership, leaders from different sectors differed on the relative importance of some leadership themes and their relevance to specific sectors.

While the data were collected from a convenient sample, our findings from multiple sectors in Australia extend our knowledge on crisis leadership by revealing differences in sectorial perspectives of crisis leadership. Further, these findings help refine the extant traditional explanations of leadership and especially offer an enhanced understanding of leadership during a crisis. Consequently, our findings support future research that could help identify specific attributes of leaders navigating organizational crises. Such future research could subsequently help develop a theory on crisis leadership based on a valid and reliable measurement for assessing crisis leadership effectiveness in diverse organizational settings.

Our study is based on multi-sector data and consequently lays a solid foundation for extending the conceptualization of leadership during crisis, and the need to reconceptualize effective leader attributes useful in crisis contexts. Theoretically, the current study extended recent research on crisis leadership, by examining the conceptualizations of crisis leadership within specific Australian sectors.