Making the invisible visible

Abstract

This article outlines the development and implementation of the Academic Skills Model (ASM). The ASM is a quality framework that is enabling professional staff to visually align assessment and workshop content and engage in conversations with our academic partners. The model’s development and implementation pilot have been steered through an arduous and wobbly path of administration, organisational restructuring, multiple objectives and traditional work models for more than 18 months. Implementation experiences of professional staff have been collected and analysis suggests the ASM is helping academic staff visualise academic skills in courses and programs, while providing them with the language of academic skills to have better conversations with students and Library and Learning Services staff. It offers academic skills advisers and academics a way to engage while avoiding awkward conversations about pedagogy or content. The ASM is achieving its goals of building and developing partnerships across the university through the shared ownership and offering a way for the invisible work of professional staff such as Learning Advisers, Librarians and Digital Capability Advisers to be more visible to academic partners and the institution.