GCCA | Graduate Careers Council of Australia

Graduate Careers Australia

ergo - Number 91 June 2003

Graduates: Outcomes, Quality and the Future

The GCCA Surveys Symposium, entitled “Graduates: Outcomes, Quality and the Future”, was held at the National Convention Centre, Canberra, on 24 and 25 March 2003. More than 100 people attended this event and expressed their approval of both the content and focus.

Participants came from all states of Australia, representing universities, umbrella organisations such as the Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee, government departments such as the Department of Education Science and Training (DEST) and graduate recruitment companies. University attendees also came from a wide range of areas – planning, statistics, careers services and educational research.

When planning the program the intention had been to ensure a balance between considering the implications of the destinations data – the results of the Graduate Destination Survey (GDS) – and examining those perennial conference favourites, the Course Experience Questionnaire and the Postgraduate Research Experience Questionnaire.

Thus, on the first day of the symposium, sessions such as those provided by Richard Bridge and Scott Matheson from DEST used GDS data to look at the growth of professional jobs and the skills required to perform those jobs. Later that day two popular panel sessions teased out the implications of the GCCA surveys for external organisations and the public, and how GCCA data links in with the quality agenda. Incisive contributions from noted commentators such as Gavin Moodie and Paul Ramsden meant high-quality and absorbing discussion of issues.

On the second day the focus switched from the ways in which the surveys may be used to the surveys themselves. This was the opportunity for university survey managers such as Christina Ballantyne from Murdoch University and Claire Atkinson from ANU (now DEST) to talk about how their institutions managed the survey process. Speakers from RMIT spoke of how they analysed the CEQ and used the results to improve teaching standards across the university. Exciting new developments such as the Graduate Comments project – developing software for the analysis of qualitative data collected in the surveys – also attracted considerable attention.

It is not possible in the space of a short article to describe the contents of a very busy two days. Many of the presentations and papers are now on the gradlink website – go to the front page and click on the “Graduates: Outcomes, Quality and the Future” tile.

As a result of the success of the symposium it has been decided to hold these events regularly on a biennial basis. Smaller scale forums for survey managers will be held each year.