The Vice-Chancellor informed the Committee of the discussion with Monash Mt Eliza School of Business to date and the position the University would bring to the Board of Monash Mt Eliza School of Business. The Committee affirmed its support for the position outlined by the Vice-Chancellor and the Vice-Chancellor was congratulated by members on the leadership he had shown in expeditiously consolidating the University's position.

Professor Darvall reported that the University was waiting for the results of the recent round of CRCs. There was brief discussion of CRC, in relation to possible changes in government policy.

Professor Graham Webb was in attendance for this item and spoke to the paper, Progress Report: Introduction to University Teaching Program and Graduate Certificate in Higher Education that had been distributed with the agenda papers.

The Committee noted that the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education was now running and that the first module had been presented 3 times, once at Gippsland, twice at Clayton. The programme had been well received.

The Committee gave detailed attention to future prospects for the Graduate Certificate. The Committee noted that international accreditation of the Graduate Certificate was currently being negotiated with a staff education development accreditation body located in the United Kingdom.

In relation to performance indicators, it was noted that about 20% of the university staff had completed teaching qualifications. There was considerable discussion of whether staff new to teaching should be required to take the Graduate Certificate as part of their probationary requirement. Issues raised included the resulting workload for staff who were also Ph.D candidates and who would be required to take the Graduate Certificate course, the potential for the course if it was made compulsory to deter recruitment of staff and the situation of staff who had gained teaching qualifications elsewhere. Professor Webb was requested to give further thought to the implementation of the recommendation that staff new to teaching should be required to undertake the Graduate Certificate as part of the probationary requirement.

With regard to reward structures for staff undertaking the course, Professor Webb explained that staff serving on promotion committees across the University need to have a view of teaching that takes teaching seriously as a valuable part of the professional life of academic staff.

The Committee noted the comment in the paper prepared by Professor Webb that "the success in enrolment in 1999 had been despite the fact that some Heads Of Department and other senior staff had actively discouraged staff from enrolling". In discussion of this comment, Deans agreed that they wished to know of staff who actively opposed the programme and they expressed their strong support for the programme and its continuance.

At the conclusion of discussion Professor Webb received congratulations on the success of the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education course.

Professor John Anderson, Director, Berwick and Gippsland Campuses was in attendance for this item.

The Vice-Chancellor introduced discussion noting that when the Ramler Report was delivered the University had taken the position that it would not be a party to mergers but would actively engage in partnerships and other joint endeavours with TAFE providers. In this context discussion with Central Gippsland Institute of TAFE (CGIT) were proceeding with the aim of investigating and realising collaborative ventures for an improved education system within the region.

Professor Anderson spoke to two matters arising from the Monash/CGIT partnership:

1. that Deans encourage Heads of Schools at the Gippsland campus to support the Monash/CGIT partnership, and
2. that Deans delegate responsibility to their Heads of Schools at the Gippsland campus to become involved in partnership initiatives.

There was general support for the first matter outlined by Professor Anderson. With regard to Deans delegating responsibility to Gippsland Heads of Schools, it was agreed that Deans would need to make it clear to Professor Anderson the precise nature of the delegation from their respective faculties. Professor Anderson agreed to follow up this matter with Deans in a supplementary memorandum.

Mr Wade advised the Committee on proposals for providing vehicles with 'e-tags'. The Committee noted that a paper setting out University policy on this matter would be brought to the next meeting.

Mr Alan McMeekin and Mr John Julian were in attendance for this item.

Professor Brisk spoke to this item and reported that he anticipated it would cost the Faculty of Engineering around $200,000 to implement the system in the Faculty. Of this amount around $120,000 would be direct expenditure, while the remaining $80,000 was an estimate of costs in relation to staff time for training and associated IAS activity.

Some Deans indicated they faced similar costs while Mr Wade observed that the impact on the central administration of the University would be proportionally greater than the Faculties in terms of staff time taken for training and other IAS activities.

Mr Julian responded to queries and outlined the following major issues related to implementation of IAS:

• training and installation
• equipment
• labour in the cut over period, and
• changes in work practices.

Mr Julian commented on the advantages of choosing SAP as a provider of a system that could run off a relatively low technical threshold. He noted that the Department of Information Technology would provide support in training and installation. The cut over period posed problems for faculties and central administration insofar as the old system would have to run concurrently with the new system while staff learnt the new system; he anticipated that this would be both a labour and time intensive period. However, overall there would be significant savings in moving from a paper based system to an electronic system.

Mr McMeekin commented that communications with the teaching hospitals was a current issue. He also commented that all software applications in the new system would require up to date hardware and that a three year replacement cycle was a necessity.

It was also observed that there would be in due course gains made in terms of better financial and other reports and also in staff productivity.

Toward the close of discussion it was noted that the estimates of implementation costs suggested by the Faculty of Engineering and other faculties were in reality relatively small as a percentage of faculty budgets.

There was also discussion of salaries of IT staff and the difficulties associated with recruiting and retaining such staff in a highly competitive market.

Professor Lindsay reminded the Committee that bids from faculties would be due on 1^st May. Three faculties had submitted claims for lead site areas. Professor Lindsay advised Deans that their Associate Deans should report on this at the next meeting of the Education Committee (5^th May).

6.2  Expansion of LTOP Activities

Professor Lindsay reminded the Committee that Strategic Innovations Fund (SIF) applications are due by 4 June and that Faculties were encouraged to produce applications reflecting LTOP and the Monash Plan.

Professor Davies advised the Committee that a proposal in relation to the Science at Monash Innovation Fund would be submitted in the near future and Professor Rosenberg drew members attention to the imminent Barry Jones Inaugural Lecture.