Attendees came from as far afield as the USA, Canada, UK, China, South Africa and Thailand. The hour-long interactive presentation was given by Judith Smith, Associate Director, Academic – Real World Learning at QUT, with input provided by representatives from InPlace.
Ms. Smith facilitated a workshop focused on the future of work and 21st century capabilities, QUT’s highly successful institutional strategy and approach to strengthening work integrated learning (WIL) across all courses. Ms. Smith discussed how InPlace has supported QUT in this approach.
The conference gave the InPlace team an opportunity to meet representatives from the world’s most active universities in the integrated learning space, to view innovative research from around the world and to see the benefits of this research to students and industry.
InPlace’s Product Executive Aaron White said, “Attending these kinds of events gives us a good understanding of what the industry wants. It demonstrated a definite thirst for technologies like InPlace. Feedback from attendees suggested lots of institutions don’t have a university-wide WIL solution in place,” Mr. White continued.
Mr. White said the visit gave him a sense that many universities are looking for a solution such as InPlace. “Excellent research and case studies are being presented on WIL from a theoretical standpoint. What many institutions are missing is an operational solution which can be used as the foundation to capitalise on research findings and deliver meaningful change. We hope QUT’s presentation and workshop allowed delegates to see the potential for WIL programs, and how instrumental the right software can be in delivering a WIL strategy or initiative.”
InPlace is a global partner of WACE – the leading body for WIL in the world. As such, InPlace presents at the majority of WACE events. In 2014, the organisation partnered with the UK’s Nottingham Trent University to present on the positive outcomes of that particular relationship at WACE’s research symposium.
“We are proud to be a partner of WACE,” Mr White said. “It’s a great organisation making a powerful impact on strengthening the links between industry and universities, and promoting WIL into curriculum worldwide.”
