In the last post here I indicated that things were heating up for the year.  Well, here’s two more activities that need to make it on to your calendar.

Details of the AVETRA 2019 Conference have been announced and calls for abstracts have gone out.  So put 17-18 June in your calendar with a  big red circle (well, may be with a high priority in a digital calendar) for an informative and inspirational gathering in Sydney.  See more details at the link below.

The second important event:  NCVER has opened an important survey in an attempt to get feedback from all kinds of stakeholders who use the VOCEDplus platform.  Whether you are an existing user of this wonderful platform, or if you think you could be, I urge you to complete the survey so what they provide is even better still.  It’s a really useful service, and with your input will be even better.  Click here to access the survey.

See you in Sydney in June and/or in Adelaide in July.

AVETRA Conference 2019

The year is certainly in full swing again.  The AVETRA Educator Hub has been a bit quiet over the summer – and what a summer it has been!!! I’ll leave the commentary on scientific explanations of our weather to much more informed sources than me.

Like record-breaking features of this past summer, let’s hope that there will be record-breaking features of this year’s No Frills Conference conducted by NCVER.  It’s always a great highlight of my research calendar.  I hope it’s on yours too.

I am just taking this afternoon to make sure I can meet the deadline for submission of abstracts:  Monday 18 February.  That leaves a couple of weeks, even if you hadn’t thought yet about making a presentation, or even preparing a poster.  Perhaps this little reminder will be the motivator you need if you are currently considering or completing some research.

I am very interested in The Student Journey as it relates to  many of us older hands, and newcomers to the industry undertaking the TAE40116 qualification.  As you have probably observed there is an absolute flurry of activity in the qualification with the changes to the Standards for RTOs (2015) Clauses 1.14 (b) and 1.15 (b).  So I thought it would be interesting to review the characteristics of  organisations skilling for life the practitioners in our own industry – VET.  It seems  to me the experiences of this group might impact very significantly on the industry overall in the next five to ten years.  I will provide an overview of enrolments and completions across the years 2014 – 2017, using NCVER stats.    Hopefully you will find this area of investigation interesting too, and I would be really excited to get any comments from you below.

Anyway, enough about my efforts for the exciting No Frills event.  It would be great if you would like to comment below on any research you are considering or have recently completed which you think fits the No Frills theme.  I am sure all of our members, those based in Australia and our international members, would be really interested.  So go on … make a comment below and share with others.  It’s always worthwhile.  See you in Adelaide from 10 – 12 July for some informative, inspiring and I’m sure social experiences!

Yes, October has come and gone but the OctoberVET events continue on.  The final two events will be held on Thursday 15 November (NSW) and Friday 16 November (SA).   Places are still available (including online for the NSW event), so please feel free to join us. The details are shown below:

NSW:  OctoberVET in NSW:  Please note room change

Click here for the event flyer

• Host:  TAFE NSW
• Date:  Thursday 15 November 2018, 1.30 pm – 4.30 -pm
• Venue:  Building E, Room EG.13, TAFE NSW St Leonards Campus, 213 Pacific Highway, Sydney;  Online at Skype for Business Meeting https://meet.lync.com/tafensw.edu.au/ili.pelletier/S66J1M4J
• Enquiries:  annie.bowden@gmail.com; Phone:  0419 42 5555
• Registration:  Please register by emailing annie.bowden@gmail.com.  Please note registration is not compulsory though it will assist in ensuring those joining us online can be contacted.

SA :  OctoberVET in SA

Click here for the event flyer

• Host:  National Centre for Vocational Education Research
• Date:  Friday 16 November 2018, 10:00am – 2:00 pm
• Venue:  5th Floor, 60 Light Square Adelaide
• Registration:  Please register by emailing josiemisko@ncver.edu.au  cc emerick.chew@ncver.edu.au 

OctoberVET events aim to showcase VET research and promote discussion between VET stakeholders about research needs. A number of OctoberVET events have been conducted in Queensland and Victoria.  Further events will be held in Victoria, South Australia and NSW as follows.

Victoria: Apprenticeships and Traineeships: Research, Policy and Practice

Host: Federation University Researching Adult and Vocational Education (RAVE) research group

Date: 7 November, 12:45 – 4:30 pm

Venue: Ballarat Technology Park Central, SMB Campus, Lydiard St, Ballarat city centre

Enquiries: vet.research@federation.edu.au or go to the Federation University site for more information

Registration: Please register by emailing vet.research@federation.edu.au with your details.

NSW:  OctoberVET in NSW

Host:  TAFE NSW

Date:  Thursday 15 November 2018, 1.30 pm – 4.30 -pm

Venue:  Building J, Room J4.17, TAFE NSW St Leonards Campus, 213 Pacific Highway, Sydney;  Skype for Business Meeting at https://meet.lync.com/tafensw.edu.au/ili.pelletier/S66J1M4J 

Flyer:  See attachment

Enquiries:  annie.bowden@gmail.com; Phone:  0419 42 5555

Registration:  Please register by emailing annie.bowden@gmail.com.  Please note registration is not compulsory though it will assist in ensuring those joining us online can be contacted.

South Australia:  Up-skilling, re-skilling and right-skilling

Host:  National Centre for Vocational Education and Training Research (NCVER)

Date:  16 November 2018, 10.00 am to 2.00 pm

This is a call out to my colleagues in NSW and other parts of the world who would like to showcase their research at the 2018 OctoberVET event.  I am sure you will know about this annual event organised by AVETRA.   If you don’t, have a look at the interesting topics that have been investigated in 2017 and previous years, and you’ll find all the necessary details at the AVETRA website.

I am organising the NSW event, which will be held in Sydney, as well as via an online webinar to ensure that all the far-flung VET family can join in.  So if you can’t get to Sydney, you can always either present or watch via the webinar.

What makes these events really valuable is to have those people who are doing research, either practitioners or academics, come forward and share their findings.  You might be just playing around with the idea of some research and you would like to gauge the interest of others; you might have some preliminary findings from something you have partially completed; or you might have recently published some work that you would like to showcase.

All of this sharing is really valuable for us to make sure we keep the informed conversation about our highly-valued VET sector alive and engaging.  This is really an imperative time to have these conversations, and your input to them is what will make the difference.

Please get in touch with me, Anne Bowden, at annie.bowden@gmail.com or on +61 0419 42 5555, if you have any thoughts on something you would like to share at this important NSW event.  Remember, you could be physically present at the Sydney site, or you could be online from anywhere in the world.  We do have some international followers of the Hub so maybe they will be interested also – we hope so!

Many of the Hub members will have joined in AVETRA’s OctoberVET events in years past.  Well, it’s on again in 2018 even bigger and better.

AVETRA is calling for expressions of interest from people who wish to run an OctoberVET event in their area in 2018. What an outstanding opportunity this is to showcase, disseminate and debate VET research.  We are hoping that there will be members of this Hub who will take up this exciting opportunity to share their research, whether still in development, recently published or perhaps even published sometime ago but with reason to bring it to the light of day again now.

OctoberVET events can be large or small, formal or informal.

If you have an idea for an OctoberVET event, please email or call Steven Hodge (s.hodge@griffith.edu.au / 0421224474) or Anne Bowden (annie.bowden@gmail.com / 0419425555).  We are happy to work with you to refine or develop your event.

I am thrilled to be working with Dr Steven Hodge to coordinate this year’s event.  I will be even more thrilled to hear from any of you with ideas.  You don’t have to take responsibility for conducting an event, you might just have research that you are burning to share.  Ignite that passion here first if you wish, by including a comment in the reply area below; or contact Steven or I to get things rolling.

Although not strictly an OctoberVET event, the other important calendar date is 26th October 2018.  AVETRA will be hosting a further Research Forum at the Canberra Institute of Technology on that date.  Check out the details on the AVETRA website.  Look forward to seeing some of you there!