Posted on 28 Feb 2009
Noel Frankham, Head, School of Art, University of Tasmania
Welcome to the ACUADS newsletter, my first as Chair. The newsletter relates the executive committee’s discussions and decisions on a broad range of current matters facing the sectors and the organisation. Please give me feedback on any issues that interest you – either from within the newsletter or that you have come across more generally.
I write this in the midst of ERA preparation, which I’m sure occupies many of us across the nation. The ERA represents the first comprehensive recognition of research within the Creative Arts, exhibitions of an artist’s work, curation of exhibitions and the catalogues published to accompany exhibitions will all be ‘counted’ properly as valid research outputs. Whilst esteem indicators ere excluded from the 2009 trial, they will be introduced for the full submission round in 2010, so hopefully there will be an opportunity for us to introduce elements of research productivity that are not so easily considered in the ‘standard’ measures of HERDC funding and citations so useful to other disciplines. The current ERA trial is a wonderful opportunity for us all to present the range of research activity that we undertake in the Creative Arts, and should be taken full advantage of by all of us as a learning experience. I’m hoping that there’ll be time at the national conference in Brisbane for some reflective analysis of the trial submission process so that we can share and benefit from each other’s experiences.
As you’ll see from the notes from our recent ACUADS executive meetings progress on the 2009 conference at QCA in Brisbane (30 September – 2 October) is continuing apace. I encourage everyone to take a keen interest in the conference and attend if you can. There have been many papers proposed, so the program will be rich. Moreover the traditional ‘roundtable’ discussions on 30 September will be relevant and exciting for teachers and researchers within art and design. There’s a link to the conference web site at www.staging.acuads.com.au. I look forward to seeing strong membership support for the Queensland organising committee’s efforts.