The COVID-19 outbreak in late 2019 required a complete shift to online learning across all educational institutions, including universities. The rapid transition to online learning globally meant that many educators were suddenly tasked with adapting their classroom-based pedagogy to the online space. While this was undoubtedly challenging for teachers and students, it also opened up possibilities for reimagining the delivery of content, along with creating increased access for students who had barriers for studying remotely before the impact of COVID-19. The study discussed in this paper examines the experiences of students studying at a regional Australian university that already offered online courses, and whose instructors were already using a diverse range of online delivery tools. Specifically, the study sought to investigate how instructors used interactive strategies to promote student engagement, and how the interaction between learner and content influences student engagement. With research showing that online students typically have higher attrition rates than their on-campus counterparts, engagement has been identified as an important factor in online learning. Online interaction in particular is considered to be instrumental in influencing student engagement and positively impacting student satisfaction, persistence, and academic performance. Data collected from interviews conducted with two different cohorts of students, studying two different courses (mathematics education and Chinese language) at the same university, demonstrated ways instructors utilised interactive online pedagogies to engage students with potentially challenging course content. The study has implications for online educators who are looking for ways to adapt their on-campus courses to online delivery, with a focus on engaging and maintaining online students’ interest and ongoing participation in their courses.

Rapid growth in digital health technologies has increased demand for eHealth literacy of all stakeholders within health and social care environments. The digital future of health care services requires the next generation of health professionals to be well-prepared to confidently provide high-quality and safe health care. The aim of this study was to explore the eHealth literacy of undergraduate health profession students to inform undergraduate curriculum development to promote work-readiness. A cross-sectional survey was undertaken at an Australian university using the seven-domain eHealth Literacy Questionnaire (eHLQ), with 610 students participating. A one-way Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) with follow-up univariate analysis (ANOVA) was used to determine if there were differences in eHLQ scores across 11 sociodemographic variables. Students generally had good knowledge of health (Scale 2); however, they had concerns over the security of online health data (Scale 4). There were also significant differences in age and ownership of digital devices. Students who were younger reported higher scores across all seven eHLQ scales than older students. This research provided an understanding of eHealth literacy of health profession students and revealed sub-groups that have lower eHealth literacy, suggesting that digital health skills should be integrated into university curriculums, especially related to practice-based digital applications with special focus to address privacy and security concerns. Preparation of health profession students so they can efficiently address their own needs, and the needs of others, is recommended to minimise the digital divide within health and social care environments.

This is the first time Australia-wide agreement has been reached on the core concepts of physiology with the Delphi method. Embedding of the core concepts will result in consistency in physiology curricula, improvements to teaching and learning, and benchmarking across Australian universities.

Employability is a set of key personal attributes and transferable and discipline-specific skills considered essential for effective workplace performance; however, there are numerous perspectives about employability and how to develop it in higher education. Definitions and measurements of employability are influenced by factors such as government policy, requirements of employers, discipline norms and structural barriers. In the context of the Special Issue: 20-year JUTLP Review, this structured narrative review aimed to explore and understand employability to inform higher education learning and teaching practice. Forty-six articles published in the Journal of University Teaching & Learning Practice were included, set in the context of 45 review articles on employability sourced from Scopus and ERIC databases and other selected literature. Several definitions of employability drew on existing employability frameworks and researchers’ evolving conceptions of employability within their disciplinary contexts. We propose a composite definition of employability based on the findings from this review: Employability is lifelong, evolving and complex, requiring adaptability and capabilities including knowledge, skills and attributes to obtain sustainable employment and resolve work ambiguities in challenging globalised, sociocultural and economic contexts. Higher education teaching practices, curriculum and assessment develop employability by developing discipline-specific alongside transferable knowledge, skills, attitudes, literacies, competencies, capacities and capabilities relevant to potential workplaces and aligned with employability attributes. Student-centred experiential learning models such as work-integrated learning, internships, industry experience, problem-based learning and reflection promote employability. Higher education also should promote career development competencies to enable students to showcase their skills, experiences, and attributes to employers through e-portfolios.

Two mechanisms for engaging in critical reflective dialogue are discussed and compared: face-to-face meetings and asynchronous online discussion. The context is an umbrella action research project, with over 20 participants, which aimed to improve practices in online teaching and contribute to the development of graduate attributes. The article compares discussion using the two modes (face-to-face and online) of the nature of and development of problem-solving and other graduate attributes. Face-to-face discussion was wide ranging and quite loosely structured, so divergent aspects of a topic were uncovered. The asynchronous nature of online discussion, however, permitted topics to be explored more thoroughly. The two modes worked well in conjunction with one another, if aspects of face-to-face discussion topics were posted online as discussion threads. The asynchronous online discussions then allowed each thread to be explored in depth, so that collective understanding of a given topic could be enhanced.