Successful Ideas

Where do ideas go?

The Ideas Gateway is continuing to be well supported with over 50 ideas submitted in 2007. An unexpected, yet important, outcome has been the panel's role in directing and referring people with good ideas to the best places in Swinburne where their ideas can be considered, acted on, incorporated into existing practices or to suggest possible actions to move the idea forward. See below for examples of previously submitted ideas and what has happened to them.

Getting your idea funded

When submitting an idea give details of the actions being proposed, the amount of funds being requested and how the funds will be used. If you would like to obtain further information email Jennifer Fleischer jfleischer@swin.edu.au. Remember funding is always conditional to agreed project actions and outcomes.

Previously submitted ideas

Idea	Dept	Response	Referred
Install a system in computer classrooms to charge students for the cost of printing as a means of reducing the amount of waste printing that occurs.	CIT		Strategic Business Development to consider.
To list a student's mobile number rather than their landline number, on Pandora. In that way it would be quicker and easier to use class lists to contact students via sms to cancel a class.	Ind Sci	Student Admin TAFE to action now
Set up studio based learning for IT students (Wantirna) where students would have the one studio for all of their classes. This would give them ownership of their space and access to the facilities during the week and a one point of contact for teachers and students. Would also provide an industry focused environment where designers, programmers and multimedia people work in one studio.	CIT	$500 to prepare a project brief for developing and implementing studio learning and the Flex IT idea as one project.
Flex-IT Project based learning. Further development of a teaching and learning initiative set up at Lilydale campus early 2005 enabling students to complete competencies using a range of flexible delivery options.	CIT	See above
To develop a "virtual tour" for students who are unable to attend field trips. Phase 1 would be to develop a virtual, cultural tour of the Basin Region examining the cultural and natural resources of the region.	Hort & Environ Sci	Funded to $1500 to scope the project and prepare a development plan.	Elearning leader and School (AH&S) innovation coordinator to explore use of existing elearning grants
Extend the use of red vehicles, as used by the new apprenticeship team, for Swinburne's car fleet. Would form part of the Swinburne branding strategy. Art work could also be used on the vehicles.	RLN /		TAFE Marketing to consider
Workplace Skills Access to trial a mentoring and shadowing program to support teachers in the transition to workplace delivery. Teachers interested in working in workplace delivery would be matched with an experienced workplace teacher/trainer who would act as a mentor and who the mentee/teacher would shadow for a period of time.	Access		Professional Development to consider as a trial as a PD model
To develop and promote the Access Knowledge Pool- an annotated list of useful web resources for the use of Access Staff and students.	Access		Department to explore ways of applying this technology within existing elearner funds
To construct WebCT courses for each unit or cluster of units in the certificate 1V, Diploma & Adv. Dip. Accounting.	FS		Dept to explore use of elearning funds available thr' i2e projects
Development of interactive online resources for aviation students.	Eng		Flexible Learning, i2e can provide training on using WebCT for online teaching and learning
Set up a pool of qualified teachers, which department heads could then use to fill gaps in their teaching requirements. This would enable teachers to maximize their fractional time loads and would reduce the duplication which is incurred when every department sources their own teachers.	Market & Intern		HR is currently trialling a data base of the knowledge and skills of Swinburne's workforce. Once set up the data base will be able to be accessed by managers and others to locate existing capabilities within Swinburne including the purpose to which your idea suggests.
Reverse the re-structuring of the School of Engineering by decentralising Admin & support staff and decreasing the span of control.	Eng		Sch Eng to consider.
Monthly finance accounts to provide details of costs being directly debited to each school. Currently corporate areas are able to debit amounts for services that were not known to incur a cost. This can sometimes mean arranging internal transfers to reverse incorrect debits to schools.	Eng Admin		TAFE Finance to examine the issue
Enable senders of emails to store large email attachments in a location on a specific drive. Appropriate links to the location can be provided in the email allowing receivers to download the attachments if they want to. This would free up storage limits on groupwise accounts.	Ind Sci		ITS is exploring the idea.
To develop a collection of visual and text based information and ideas to inspire best practice and creative ideas for use in Child Care. Resources to be made available through WebCT.	Child Care		Dept to explore use of elearning funds available thr' i2e projects
Develop a secure online exams facility for WebCT to improve the way exams are conducted online and prevent students from visiting other URLs during an exam.	CIT	$1500 conditional to a project brief detailing how the funds will be used.
"PDF Portal Stage 2" To continue work on 2003 project to improve usability and efficiency of a web portal to generate PDF format books from selected web pages/html documents.	CIT	$1500 conditional to a project budget detailing how the funds will be used.
New course offering to Secondary and Primary School teachers covering the basics of IT including writing, producing and managing online content.	CIT	$500 to complete a brief business plan including details of the product to be developed, possible markets & commercial potential.
An online data repository that would produce ATQF documentation to a uniform compliant standard across Eng school and possibly Swinburne TAFE.	CIT		Wayne Jenkes and Di Noels to explore and consider a trial for Eng with application to the whole division.
Extend the "Student Portal" idea, which allows for a single login to access all in-house sites, to staff in particular for admin staff who currently have numerous logins to access many in-house programs.	Child & Family Studies	A Staff portal is currently being developed by Learning and Teaching Support services and will be implemented later this year.