Te Mātāpuna - Library & Learning Services

Permanent link for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10292/6708

This collection contains research done by AUT Te Mātāpuna - Library & Learning Services staff.

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Now showing 1 - 20 of 37

Homeland Insecurity: Revisiting Su Friedrich’s The Ties That Bind (1985)
(Jump Cut, 2025) Wilson, Miranda
Embedding Academic Literacies in Software Architecture Courses Using Threshold Concepts and Skills
(ATLAANZ (Association of Tertiary Learning Advisors, Aotearoa/New Zealand), 2025-11-19) Van der Ham, Vanessa; Breedt, Andre; Ma, Jing
The use of threshold concepts and skills within tertiary education courses holds promise for helping students develop disciplinary competencies and capabilities. This paper describes a collaborative partnership at Auckland University of Technology to develop learning materials and teaching strategies to support students in designing and documenting a blueprint for a software solution in a software architecture paper. Using specific threshold concepts and skills relating to architectural drivers and documentation of views, a face-to-face workshop incorporating related academic literacies was delivered. This initial exploration provides a catalyst for further study that intends to gather faculty and student perceptions of the impact and support that this targeted intervention provides.
Learning Advisors Should Be Doing Individual Consultations Differently: Why is That and What Should We Be Doing Instead?
(ATLAANZ (Association of Tertiary Learning Advisors, Aotearoa/New Zealand), 2025-10-23) Bassett, Mark
Individual consultations have long been seen as core to the tertiary learning advisor (TLA) role, but the traditional individual consultation needs to change. In this perspective paper, through a combination of reflection and the discussion of selected of research findings, three factors influencing the TLA role are discussed: equitable teaching and learning practices, the need to demonstrate the impact of our work, and the institutional adoption of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) and third-party writing feedback providers. These factors present challenges and opportunities to the traditional individual consultation as well as the ongoing existence of the TLA role itself. The research findings are drawn from TLA and lecturer perspectives collected within a larger doctoral study of TLA and lecturer collaborations to embed academic literacy development at an Aotearoa New Zealand university. Findings include perceived benefits and weaknesses of individual consultations, the institutional perspective of TLAs as providers of individual support, and disagreements amongst TLAs about the best use of their time. The paper calls for change in TLA practices in order that we teach students using culturally appropriate equitable practices, provide robust evidence of the impact of our work on student academic success, and clearly differentiate our contributions from those of GenAI and third-party providers.
Tracing the Ripples to Make Waves: The Challenge of Generating Meaningful Evidence of Our Impact [Blog post]
(ICALLD, 2025-05-16) Harding, Rachael; Bassett, Mark
Gay Men Coming Out Later in Life: A Hermeneutic Analysis of Acknowledging Sexual Orientation to Oneself
(Informa UK Limited, 22/05/2024) Allan, Quentin
Given the residual homonegativity in evidence throughout our diverse communities, and given the large numbers of gay people who remain “in the closet”, it is critical that we seek to understand in greater depth the complexities of the coming-out process with a view to dispelling some of the confusion relating to sexual identity. Internalised homophobia is more widespread than generally acknowledged, and it manifests in a variety of ways, including the sociological phenomenon of gay men remaining closeted until well into middle age. This article applies a hermeneutic phenomenological lens to examine the process of realisation, where an individual gradually becomes aware of his sexual orientation, and eventually acknowledges to himself that he is gay. This process can take decades. For this research project, twelve participants (gay men who have come out after the age of 40) from Aotearoa New Zealand willingly shared intensely personal accounts of their lived experiences. The findings indicate that individuals experience clarity about same-sex attraction in strikingly different ways. This study helps us to understand the difficulties faced by men who have lived the majority of their lives as “straight”, then in middle age find themselves having to negotiate the tortuous terrain between heterosexuality and a new gay identity.
Bringing the Manu | Birds Together: The Open Access Critical Friends Rōpū as a Model for Nationwide Connection & Collaboration
(IATUL, 2025-03-05) Coventry, Donna; Anderson, Berit; Chidlow, Rachel
Globally, openly accessible research is growing exponentially. However, Aotearoa New Zealand (AoNZ) still has one of the lowest national open access rates, sitting at approximately 40% open. In 2023, Te Pōkai Tara (Universities New Zealand) released a statement committing to drive and support open access across the University sector. The goal, to raise the national percentage of open research to 70% by 2025. To support this initiative, the Council of Aotearoa New Zealand University Librarians (CONZUL) sponsored a project to produce a resource to guide New Zealand’s researchers through the open access publishing process. To ensure nationwide relevance, ten librarians from AoNZ’s eight universities formed the Open Access Critical Friends Rōpu. Together they produced the Open Access Toolkit for Aotearoa New Zealand Researchers. During this presentation, project team members will share their journey and learnings including strategies that libraries can use to connect and collaborate on large-scale projects. Whilst the toolkit was the major output of the project, success hinged on the whanaungatanga (relationships) and manaakitanga (respect) established amongst the rōpū (group) over the course of the ten-month project. This created an environment where members felt safe sharing knowledge and resources. Goals were set together and honesty encouraged. Inclusion was paramount and included using online tools that were accessible to all. Each member’s workload capacity and preferred roles were taken into consideration. The project concluded with individual and group reflection on project successes and lessons learned.
What Homophobic Thinking Looks Like: Insights from New Zealand’s Homosexual Law Reform Debates of the Late 20th Century
(Sociological Association of Aotearoa New Zealand (SAANZ), 28/04/2025) Allan, Quentin
This excerpt from a well-known and widely respected parliamentarian is indicative of deeply entrenched homonegative attitudes that were not unusual for the time—in fact, an accurate reflection of the mindset of many individuals throughout Aotearoa/New Zealand. In this article, I examine the Hansard transcripts of the New Zealand parliamentary debates around three parliamentary Bills: the Crimes Amendment Bill of 1974/75, the Homosexual Law Reform Bill of 1985/1986, and the Human Rights Amendment Bill (HRAB) of 1992/1993. From our contemporary vantage point, it is strange to reflect on a period when homonegative sentiments were so easily articulated, so diverse in content, and so seemingly correct in the mind of those who uttered them. The passage of time helps us to overlook much of what has happened in the past, but when we choose to focus on particular aspects of historical interest, forgotten details emerge with clarity. My objective in this article is to help us remember—or discover —the sorts of things that were said about ‘our people’ by members of parliament who opposed the legislation. In revisiting twentieth-century parliamentary discourse relating to homosexual law reform, we may find it surprising to apprehend the intensity and pervasiveness of societal homonegativity in Aotearoa/New Zealand last century. Applying the lens of Systemic Functional Linguistics, analysis of the text elucidates a homonegative discourse, with arguments based on ignorance and emotion, rather than logic or empirical evidence. This article contributes to our understanding of historical homonegativity in New Zealand, providing important implications for contemporary perspectives on LGBTQ+ issues.
'We Didn't Need to Know About Everything All at Once': Using UX to Give Students Easy Access to Relevant Assessment Resources
(Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education, 2024-11-23) Bassett, Mark; Wattam, Craig
Tertiary student engagement with information and academic literacy online resources provided by centralized units is low. Although these resources are designed to prepare students for their assessments, they are often positioned peripherally to students’ learning environments. In attempting to position resources within students’ learning environments, our Library team conduct regular user experience (UX) testing of a course we have designed in our institution’s learning management system. Our two-year UX project has focused on the design and organization of resources that show students examples and guidance with how to do their assessments. Over two rounds of data collection and analysis, UX methods of usability testing, card sorting, low-fidelity wireframing, and high-fidelity prototyping helped identify student preferences for organising and accessing our resources. Findings indicate that students value the provision of relevant examples and guidance that show them what is expected in assessments and that they want direct access to that content as part of their courses. Implications for design include maximizing ease of use by positioning links to relevant examples and guidance in the assessment instructions and/or specific learning materials of courses, with the content being linked to positioned within a centralized repository in the same online learning environment.
If We Can Do It, So Can You: How Doctoral Study Leads to Personal and Professional Growth for Tertiary Learning Advisors
(Association of Tertiary Learning Advisors Aotearoa/New Zealand (ATLAANZ), 2024-12-09) Bassett, Mark; Cater, Kaaryn; Gearing, Nigel; Allan, Quentin
The work of tertiary learning advisors (TLAs) in Aotearoa New Zealand is performed in collaboration with staff from all disciplines and support services on campus and online all year round. This work occurs across the full gamut of educational levels, starting with the school to tertiary study transition right through to working with doctoral students. In amongst all of that, some TLAs even manage to do doctorates ourselves. In this article, four of us reflect on our respective journeys towards successfully completing our doctoral studies while also doing our work. We share and discuss our markedly varied personal experiences of balancing work, life, study, and relationships; personal health and wellbeing; working in solitude and/or within communities; and impacts on TLA professional practice. In reading this article, we hope that other TLAs are inspired to start, continue, or restart their doctorate.
Academic Misconduct Among Undergraduates Across Aotearoa: Insights and Implications for Policy and Practice
(Springer Science and Business Media LLC, 2024-03-26) Stephens, JM; Absolum, K; Adam, LA; Blickem, CJ; Gilliver-Brown, KE; Hart, DE; Kelly, J; Olsen, W; Ulrich, N
As elsewhere in the world, academic misconduct is a serious problem in Aotearoa. Yet, beyond the occasional newspaper headline, we know relatively little about the extent of the problem here or the factors associated with it. Consequently, our educational leaders and practitioners are left under-informed as they seek to address the problem and promote academic integrity. To help provide the knowledge and insights needed to craft good policy and best practice, the Research on Academic Integrity in New Zealand (RAINZ) Project—a research collaboration involving eight tertiary institutions—was founded in 2021. In the second semester of 2022, the RAINZ Project launched the first-ever nationwide survey of undergraduate students’ perceptions, attitudes, and behaviours related to academic integrity. Results from this survey, which was completed by undergraduates (N = 4493), indicate that most students (approximately two-thirds) reported engaging in at least one form of academic misconduct in the past year. As hypothesised, students’ perceptions (of the institutional climate and peer norms) and moral attitudes (related to cheating) were significantly associated with their engagement in academic misconduct. Details of these results as well as their implications for policy and practice are discussed.
Embedded Approaches to Academic Literacy Development: A Systematic Review of Empirical Research About Impact
(Taylor and Francis Group, 2024-05-20) Bassett, Mark; Macnaught, Lucy
This systematic literature review identifies evidence used to justify embedded approaches to academic literacy development. This inquiry is of direct relevance to widening participation in higher education and persistent inequity with completion rates for linguistically and culturally diverse student groups. Using the PRISMA-P checklist, 20 studies were included. Analysis focused on their research designs, types of evidence presented, pedagogic practices implemented, and journal choice. Findings show that research designs often involved questionnaire, interview, and focus group data to generate insights about student and staff perceptions. Descriptions of pedagogic practices were brief and not always related to claims about impact, and publishing targeted a variety of disciplines. These findings highlight the need for research teams with discipline knowledge and literacy knowledge so that evidence about the impacts of embedded approaches on academic performance are included, as well as complementary publications that detail the pedagogic practices contributing to change in academic performance.
‘I don’t know the hierarchy’: Using UX to Position Literacy Development Resources Where Students Expect Them
(Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ASCILITE), 2023-11-28) Bassett, Mark; Chapman, Emma; Wattam, Craig
The provision of online resources for tertiary student literacy development outside of students’ curricular contexts is problematic because engagement with centralised support provisions is low. As part of a Library team focused on student literacy development across our university, we have conducted multiple rounds of user experience (UX) testing with our students to design a set of resources in a course within our learning management system that all students can access. Our most recent UX employed usability testing, card sorting, and low-fi wire framing activities to identify how students experience our resources. Findings indicate that students are confused by enforced groupings of literacy development content and that they expect our resources to be accessible with the rest of their assessment information. Implications for design include balancing student expectations of immediate access to relevant literacy development resources with the constraints of having a small team who can design this content.
Using Historical Evidence: Semantic Profiles and Demonstrating Understanding of Ancient History in Senior Secondary School
(University of Newcastle, 2023-03-06) Macnaught, Lucy; Matruglio, Erika; Doran, Yaegan
This paper presents findings from the Australian Research Council funded ‘Disciplinarity, Knowledge and Schooling’ project (DISKS) which investigates knowledge-building practices in Australian secondary schools and gave rise to the ground-breaking notions of ‘semantic waves’ (Maton, 2013) and ‘power pedagogy’ (Martin, 2013). In this paper, we investigate student writing in senior secondary school Ancient History. We focus on how students use evidence in their responses to different types of exam questions. Our research question focuses on the extent to which key features of responses to short answer questions appear in extended responses and vice versa. This focus arose through findings that teachers in our study tended to view short answer questions as a ‘mini’ version of extended responses and prepared students accordingly. The similarities and differences are important to identify as extended responses make a significant contribution to the overall exam grade. To better understand the use of evidence in responses to different types of exam questions, the study draws on the dimension of Semantics in Legitimation Code Theory (Maton, 2013). We use the newly developed wording and clausing tools (Doran & Maton, 2018, forthcoming) to analyse the relative strength of context dependence in responses to Year 12 exam questions. Context dependence is particularly relevant to how students use evidence, as it involves relating the concrete particulars of specific historical artefacts, events, and the behaviours of historical figures to more abstract concepts in the discipline of history that are not bound to one historical setting. Our analysis tracks relative shifts in context dependence in student texts to generate semantic profiles of their exam responses. Findings show that although teachers may use the writing of short answer questions as preparation towards the high-stakes extended writing tasks, short answer responses are not ‘minature’ versions of extended responses. We argue that the differences are teachable and propose the use of model texts to make these features visible to students. Beyond the timeframe of secondary school education, learning to use evidence, particularly for the development of arguments, may provide a robust foundation for tertiary level writing tasks where students need to control degrees of context dependence.
"Be better than what's out there."
(Auckland University of Technology, 6/07/2023) Murdoch, Craig
Tucked down an alleyway in central-ish Auckland is the place where I get my hair done. If you don’t know it’s there, you’re not very likely to find it. The big open space with the deliberate lack of signage is run in the manner of a collective, and peopled by tattoo artists, pop-up vendors, the occasional market which spills into the alleyway, and my hairdresser. It’s a welcoming and safe space for those blessed by neurodiversity and for members of the Rainbow community. It is one of my favourite places...
The Library Consortium of New Zealand's Shared IRR Infrastructure
(Open Repositories, 2012) Murdoch, Craig; Schweer, Andrea; Brown, Allison; Lockett, Andrew; Miller, Kate
The Library Consortium of New Zealand has run an Institutional Research Repository Project for three universities and one institute of technology in New Zealand since 2006. After a brief introduction to the context in which the project operates, this document describes the Institutional Research Repositories that are part of this project and their shared infrastructure. Particular emphasis is placed on advantages and challenges created by the shared infrastructure.
Collaboration for Academic Literacies Development and Enriched Inter-professional Relationships
(Bloomsbury Publishing, 2023-05-18) McWilliams, Robyn; Raleigh, Susan
Developing Librarians’ Teaching Practice: A Case Study of Learning Advisors Sharing Their Knowledge
(Association for Learning Development in Higher Education, 2023-04-27) Harding, Rachael; McWilliams, Robyn; Bingham, Tricia
Increasingly, tertiary librarians are required to teach as part of their role. There is recognition that ongoing professional development (PD) is required in teaching and learning as this is not generally provided as part of formal library qualifications. Using an education design-based research approach, this collaboration aimed to enhance the teaching practice of liaison librarians to enable more consistent review, planning, and design of information literacy workshops. As part of a wider PD programme for liaison librarians at Auckland University of Technology (AUT), learning advisors developed and taught three workshops. The learning advisors were chosen by the library leadership due to their teaching expertise and adaptability. They provide embedded, academic literacy support for students tailored to specific assessment guidelines and marking criteria. The aim was to share examples of learner advisor practice underpinned by relevant theory and applied directly to an information literacy context. Liaison librarians were exposed to workshop strategies to develop appropriate learning outcomes, content, and pedagogical approaches for planning ongoing teaching. They had opportunities to assess and evaluate their current knowledge and skills and consider new approaches. These sessions enabled the team to go forward with shared knowledge to guide their workshop design to create more consistent, sustainable, and measurable content. Another outcome was the co-development of workshop design principles which have been applied to the redevelopment of workshops. As this process is replicable, the value of sharing knowledge and expertise between teams such as learning advisors and liaison librarians is worth exploring further.
No Turning Back on Global Open Access
(BMJ, ) Barbour, V; Flanagan, D; Tairi, K
Only Two Out of Five Articles by New Zealand Researchers Are Free-to-Access: A Multiple API Study of Access, Citations, Cost of Article Processing Charges (APC), and the Potential to Increase the Proportion of Open Access
(PeerJ, ) White, RKA; Angelo, A; Fitchett, D; Fraser, M; Hayes, L; Howie, J; Richardson, E; White, B
We studied journal articles published by researchers at all eight New Zealand universities in 2017 to determine how many were freely accessible on the web. We wrote software code to harvest data from multiple sources, code that we now share to enable others to reproduce our work on their own sample set. In May 2019, we ran our code to determine which of the 2017 articles were open at that time and by what method; where those articles would have incurred an Article Processing Charge (APC) we calculated the cost if those charges had been paid. Where articles were not freely available we determined whether the policies of publishers in each case would have allowed deposit in a non-commercial repository (Green open access). We also examined citation rates for different types of access. We found that, of our 2017 sample set, about two out of every five articles were freely accessible without payment or subscription (41%). Where research was explicitly said to be funded by New Zealand’s major research funding agencies, the proportion was slightly higher at 45%. Where open articles would have incurred an APC we estimated an average cost per article of USD1,682 (for publications where all articles require an APC, that is, Gold open access) and USD2,558 (where APC payment is optional, Hybrid open access) at a total estimated cost of USD1.45m. Of the paid options, Gold is by far more common for New Zealand researchers (82% Gold, 18% Hybrid). In terms of citations, our analysis aligned with previous studies that suggest a correlation between publications being freely accessible and, on balance, slightly higher rates of citation. This is not seen across all types of open access, however, with Diamond OA achieving the lowest rates. Where articles were not freely accessible we found that a very large majority of them (88% or 3089 publications) could have been legally deposited in an institutional repository. Similarly, only in a very small number of cases had a version deposited in the repository of a New Zealand university made the difference between the publication being freely accessible or not (125 publications). Given that most New Zealand researchers support research being open, there is clearly a large gap between belief and practice in New Zealand’s research ecosystem.
Sustainable Embedded Academic Literacy Development: The Gradual Handover of Literacy Teaching
(Informa UK Limited, ) Macnaught, L; Bassett, M; van der Ham, V; Milne, J; Jenkin, C
This study reports on a four-year project to embed academic literacy within one core course of a Bachelor of Education program. It involves an interdisciplinary collaboration between learning advisors, as literacy specialists, and lecturers, as subject specialists. It examines their roles and responsibilities and lecturers’ perspectives when handing over the teaching of academic literacy to them. Data encompasses interviews with lecturers, meeting notes, and cohort statistics about assessment grades. Discourse analysis with theory from Systemic Functional Linguistics identifies the shifting contributions of the collaborators and how lecturers evaluate their experiences. Findings suggest that handover is smooth when it is done gradually and involves intensive prior collaboration. However, the contrasting views of the lecturers raise questions about what is optimal for students. Although limited, data indicates that reductions in resubmission rates and students achieving in the minimal passing range co-occur with the addition of mini videos about reading and writing critically.

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