Call for papers

In this second decade of the 21st century, it is clear that the nature and pace of change in international and national public higher education are unprecedented. Not only does the public higher education sector have to deal with changes in student profiles, funding regimes, a dramatic increase in the privatisation and internationalisation of higher education, and more demand for empirical research, but we are also faced with the emergence of new providers and the increasing convergence of various forms of higher education. With new forms of higher education emerging and the convergence of traditional forms of higher education; there is increasing evidence of the “unbundling” of higher education with curriculum development, course delivery, teaching, student support, assessment and accreditation being designed and often delivered by different providers. This fragmentation of different elements of higher education is not necessarily negative, but it does change our assumptions and beliefs about knowledge production and knowledge dissemination, it questions the traditional roles of faculty, interrogates intellectual property regimes and challenges organisational structures and funding hierarchies. It is therefore no longer business as usual for higher education. The obsolescence of some curricula, assessment strategies, faculty expertise and roles and traditional forms of higher education are indeed facts to be reckoned with.

HELTASA 2013 will provide creative and critical spaces to interrogate, question, redefine and re-evaluate the shape and role of higher education in a fast changing world, focusing on, inter alia, the following:

• How do new technologies impact and shape teaching and learning? How prepared are our staff, institutions and learners?
• How do we prepare and develop our staff, institutions, and students for new and different roles in a dramatically changed and changing higher education landscape?
• To what extent do our legislative, regulative and policy frameworks provide an enabling environment for higher education practitioners to respond to the above changes?
• How do we support and increase student success, satisfaction and throughput rates in higher education?
• What are the implications of this changing higher education landscape for the scholarship of teaching and learning, as well as for disciplinary and multi-, inter- and trans-disciplinary research?
• What are the specific challenges and opportunities facing postgraduate students and their supervision?
• What are the implications of the increasing emphasis on harvesting more data from students on designing and delivering more effective and more appropriate curricula, teaching and learning?

Call for abstracts

The HELTASA 2013 Conference invite participants to submit original abstracts for oral and/or poster presentations for the conference to be held at University of South Africa, Muckleneuck, Pretoria, City of Tshwane from 27 to 29 November 2013.

Extended abstracts can be submitted online as from Friday 17 May, 2013. The deadline for abstract submission is 28 June 2013.

Guidelines for the submission of abstracts

Papers on any aspects related to the theme can be submitted. The required format for the submissions is as follows:

• Title: not more than 15 words
• Keywords: Maximum 5
• Extended abstract: Minimum 800, maximum 1,500 words (excluding references)
• Format: Arial, 11pt, single spacing
• First page: Title, keywords and author(s) details: Initials and surnames of all authors, the contact detail (e-mail address and postal address of corresponding author). Short statement of how the abstract relates to the theme of the conference, and what contribution it makes to our understanding of the changing landscape in higher education
• Second page and following pages: Title, abstract and references
• The acceptance of an abstract is dependent on the outcome of the double-blind peer-review process. Presenters may be advised to do oral or poster presentation.
• Accepted abstracts will be published under a Creative Commons licence
• The decisions of the Conference Abstract Review Team will be emailed to the presentation author on or before 19 July 2013.

Submission procedure

Abstracts should be submitted electronically from 17 May until the deadline 28 June 2012 via the provided conference website. The website is currently under construction but will go live by 3 May 2013.

Please follow the guidelines as indicated on the website. Abstracts that are submitted in any other way will automatically be disqualified.

Submission categories

The conference will provide for three types of presentations:

• Full papers
• Short papers presented in the PechaKucha style
• Poster presentations