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EP 200. Addressing trust in our universities

Professor Deborah Terry AC leads The University of Queensland and the Group of 8 universities. She outlines declining trust as the key issue facing the sector. She explains why and how it has happened and that doing something about it primarily calls for a return to purpose. She illustrates how that is being done at UQ through The Queensland Commitment. And she explains how that applies to the challenges with the emergence of AI in particular. This seminal episode is the start of a tipping point with the HEDx podcast as we move beyond what has got us here, and explore more fully what will get us where we need to be, including listening more to students and focussing on the student experience.

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HEDx The Student Experience: New Student Podcast

HEDx Student Experience brings student perspectives directly into conversations about the future of higher education. Each episode highlights what students really experience and how research and policy decisions translate into real-world impact on learning, engagement, and outcomes.

Why Listen?

Gain authentic insight into student experiences and priorities
Understand the practical implications of research and policy for learners
Hear students’ voices shaping ideas for change across the tertiary sector
Support evidence-based decision-making that reflects what learners need

Expect

Monthly podcast episodes hosted by Professor Kelly Matthews
Student perspectives through interviews, reflections, and curated discussion segments
Accessible, honest, and actionable discussions grounded in real experiences
Topics connect research, innovation, and sector trends to the student experience

Relevant to university leaders, professional staff, policymakers, sector partners, and anyone looking to make learning more student-centered.

Tune in to the HEDx podcast to hear students’ insights and engage with ideas that drive meaningful change in higher education.
This white paper outlines a sector-led, government-enabled plan to build that infrastructure and is a summary of a collaborative HEDx and MortarCAPS Higher Learning Data Standard.

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White paper: Unlocking Australia’s Capability Economy

Australia is entering a new era where skills, capabilities and lifelong learning matter more than traditional credentials alone. As AI reshapes work and industries evolve faster than ever, we need national infrastructure that recognises what people can actually do — not just what they’ve studied.

This white paper outlines a sector-led, government-enabled plan to build that infrastructure and is a summary of a collaborative HEDx and MortarCAPS Higher Learning Data Standard.

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EP 199. Commitments for lifelong learners

Charlsey Pearce as CEO of Mortar Caps Data Standard is a long term HEDx partner leading an innovation project around data standards for human capability records that support lifelong learning and tertiary harmonisation. In this episode she introduces, leads and comments on a HEDx webinar that led to the development of a White Paper recently submitted to ATEC, JSA and the Productivity Commission. This is a chance for Australia to jump from last to first in a global race for technology to support tertiary harmonisation and lifelong learners having records that set them up for life. Numerous HEDx partners join a conversation ending with views of a student of why this is so important.

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EP 198. Why trust is our social capital for change

Kivanch Oner is CIO of University of Nevada Las Vegas. He joins me and co-host Matt Cavallaro of Salesforce to discuss how change to serve changing student needs is achieved in a leading R1 US university. Our discussion traverses changes facing students and how they impact providers seeking to serve them. The place of technology as an enabler is analysed through the UNLV experience. The importance of partnerships and culture arising from trust is key to accelerating transformation and represents social capital for change. Insights from two technological pioneers of the cultural and human side of change that shines a light on transformation that is possible and needed by global providers in the sector.

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EP 197. Celebrating vulnerability in our community

Professor Kris Ryan DVCA of The University of Queensland introduces and reflects on the most recent HEDx event on Our Commitments to Students in the Age of AI. He does so by celebrating our adoption of the student voice in our work and the need to commit to it continuously in the future. We saw that in our most recent conference close up. And we saw how vulnerable all of us are and how that is something to celebrate as Manuela Franceschini of Adobe illustrates in a beautifully reflective poem written on the day at the event. And it all gives pointers to the community we build in doing this which Professor Kylie Readman of UTS celebrates in inviting us all to the next HEDx in the first week in June in Sydney.

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EP 196. Commitments to online learners

Professor Kylie Readman DVC of UTS leads a panel of Australian experts in online learning in a discussion of the needs of this special group of lifelong learners. Professor Dominique Parrish of Torrens University Australia, Tom Steer of University of Adelaide, Catherine Reynolds of OUA and Erin Jancauskus of OES share experiences from leaders of online education. They dissect how AI is impacting this area of higher education. And they outline what it is going to take as we shift even more fully to this mode of learning in an omni-channel future as one of the ways that the growing demand for lifelong learning can be met particularly from equity groups.

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EP 195. Aiming Higher: Universities and Australia’s Future

George Williams of Western Sydney University launches a seminal essay on the crisis of social license in our universities and what we have to do about it. As a publication of The Australia Institute, George shares thoughts on why the essay was written and what is contribution will be with Alice Grundy of The Australia Institute Press. The session is a response to the conversation between Alphia Possamai-Inesedy and Ann Kirschner, advisor to President at ASU and the University of California. Ann sees an opportunity to rebuild from the tremors impacting the sector globally and makes the perfect case for why the essay was needed.

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