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Student Experience Podcast – EP3: how AI is reshaping doctoral research, writing, and learning

Most PhDs are built on original ideas and critical thinking—so what happens when AI enters the equation? On this episode of the HEDx Student Experience Podcast, three researchers confront the daunting yet exciting challenges AI poses to research integrity, authorship, and the very core of scholarly originality.

Join HEDx Associate Sharon Saunders as she hosts an expert-driven discussion about how AI tools are already reshaping doctoral work across disciplines. Discover how AI influences research practices, the importance of balancing AI-assisted productivity with critical thinking, and the ethical dilemmas around authorship in an AI-enabled world. Perfect for doctoral candidates, research supervisors, and policymakers, this episode offers vital insights into navigating AI’s complex landscape.
The panel brings together diverse perspectives from across the sector all united by a shared belief in the power of asking better questions and truly listening to students. Together, they explore why student voice matters and how meaningful dialogue can shape the future of higher education.

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EP 208. CIT: harmonising the nation’s human capital

CEO Margot McNeill and Chief Industry and Innovation Officer Georgia von Guttner host HEDx at the Canberra Institute of Technology to share insights into the new Woden campus at the heart of the tertiary harmonisation agenda. They outline its history, philosophy and strategy allowing a radical approach to skills development, AI mastery and giving voice to students as human capital is developed to be future-fit for a changing world of work. And Michelle Lincoln as Deputy Vice-Chancellor joins us in the foyer of the UA summit to comment on CIT and its success and outline the nature of its partnership with UC in the second episode in a HEDx tertiary harmonisation series.This episode explores the evolving landscape of the sector, offering insights, questions, and perspectives from those at the forefront of teaching and learning.

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Podbite#6: Reconnecting with purpose

This episode reflects on what members in UTS and USyd are bringing to the next HEDx event. It follows meetings making plans for workshops on collective intelligence, AI agents for HEDx content, and the further development of the Castlereagh Statement. And it gives updates on what partners notably MCDS, AWS, Salesforce and many others are collaborating on for shared standards and human capability records to increase equity of access for lifelong learners. This is set in the context of great charitable work to support recovery for victims of domestic violence and sufferers of eating disorders on the Sunshine Coast as we all reflect of what we all do this for. For many of us, it’s not for the money .

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Fiddling while Rome burns

Demand for fee-paying, on-campus, degree-awarding, undergraduate and postgraduate education by domestic and international students is falling in developed countries. Demand is changing in shape and nature. It is migrating toward online, stackable, credentialed, personalised and globally available learning, and will continue to do so. Ignoring this is futile and dangerous.

Secondly, university public sympathy has reduced. As has employer satisfaction, staff morale, student satisfaction and government support, and the detrimental impact of the way government currently manages provision of learning has got worse. Meanwhile public, government and employer support for competitor innovative learning providers – not just universities – is growing and will continue to. You’re not the favourite child any more.

Thirdly, this is occurring while global demand for skills grows. But it is now less for school leaver graduates and more for lifelong learning, for an ageing population as falling birth rates become widespread, and as the need for skills updating rises exponentially.  Global demand in developing countries for democratised access to lifelong learning is growing fast and will continue as a search for equity in global declining populations, amid geo-political turmoil, makes it inevitable.

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