Australia pioneers portal

Australia pioneers portal for sustainability on campus
Bernard Lane From: The Australian April 11, 2011 12:00AM

A PIONEERING web guide to sustainability in higher education launches today.

Sustainability.edu.au is believed to be the first searchable website showing higher education courses, teaching tips and other resources.

It is a project of the Australian Learning and Teaching Council and University of Western Sydney with federal funding.

"It is a first --- the first time there's been a national collection of resources and courses relating to sustainability in higher education,'' said ALTC chief executive Carol Nicoll.

But the site is in search of a host because the ALTC is being wound up as a cost cutting measure by the federal government.

"We had committed that we would maintain it into the future, it was to be hosted on our website,'' Dr Nicoll said.

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"We do not want this work to be lost, it is such a major contribution.''

Key ALTC programs are being transferred to the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations but it is unclear whether government IT policy would allow the sustainability site to be hosted there.

A spokeswoman for DEEWR said the department would "consider the retention of any existing ALTC websites on a case by case basis within Commonwealth publishing guidelines".

Dr Nicoll said it might be hosted by a university centre such as the Australian Research Institute for Environment and Sustainability at Macquarie University.

Geoff Scott, UWS pro vice-chancellor for quality, pointed to the variety of resources gathered together by the site.

"It's not only got the what --- what you might want to do --- it's also got a little bit of the how,'' he said.

He said the closest overseas parallel was the US Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education website.

But Professor Scott said the Australian site was more sophisticated.

"It takes in what every university in Australia was able to send along to us and we've made sense of it in a framework,'' he said.

"It's an active search device for people, not just a long list.''

He hoped the same would be done for schools and vocational education because leaders in sustainability were needed across society.

"[Otherwise] you can have all the [sustainability] policies in the world but there will be no implementation,'' he said.

Australia pioneers portal for sustainability on campus | The Australian