Milestones between lockdowns: digital equity research, UK Fellowship, and Equity Advisor role

5 August 2021

CRADLE’s first PhD graduate Sarah Lambert shares her reflections and achievements with us before her upcoming online presentation in October as part of CRADLE’s Seminar Series. Our Research Fellow and tree-changer Sarah Lambert made it to Melbourne between lockdowns three, four and five to catch up with colleagues, and celebrate some successes and milestones.

In May, more than 12 months after receiving the PhD testamur in the mail, I finally got to wear the gown and celebrate with supervisors and friends. CRADLE colleagues enjoyed getting some photos to mark the event in and around our Deakin Downtown research centre.

Sarah with her supervisors Prof. Phillip Dawson, Assoc. Prof. Marcus O’Donnell, Dr Joanna Tai and Alfred Deakin Prof. David Boud.

May saw revisions to the final report of my Open Textbooks as Social Justice: a national scoping study funded by the National Centre of Student Equity in Higher Education (NCSEHE). I have been blogging about the insights from staff and student interviews (here, here, here and here) while the report is in the final stages of proofreading and design before release.

I also kicked off a six month Fellowship with the Global-OER Graduate Network. The Fellowship provides funding and support to extend my open textbook research through a local action research project. Through networking and a touch of synchronicity, I accepted an offer from Dr Amanda White at UTS to work on developing a 100 level open textbook for the Australian accounting curriculum at about the same time. This project will become the focus of the Fellowship research. I will investigate ways of incorporating gender equity, indigenous and Asian/Eastern knowledges into the open textbook as part of modifying the American text for local needs.

In June, I began work on my contribution to CRADLE’s annual symposium, looking at ways that the decolonisation of learning materials (a focus of my open textbook research) can inform more inclusive forms of assessment.

To cap off a great few months, I recently began a new part time role as an Equity Advisor with RMIT. I am pleased to have a position that will allow me to provide evidence-based advice to shape strategic projects supporting regional, remote and mature age students entering higher education.

Watch this space for details relating to Sarah’s upcoming 5 October 2021 seminar! To contact Sarah please email, [email protected]