Dr Iain Doherty

I have had a diverse career with two leadership positions at a Faculty level where I was employed by the Faculty of Medical and Health Sciences, University of Auckland for 7 years and by Deakin where my leadership roles have been located within the Faculty of Arts and Education for the last 7 years. 

I held two positions inbetween my two Faculty level positions, one as Associate Professor, Director eLearning Pedagogical Support Unit The University of Hong Kong and one as Associate Professor, Director, Learning and Teaching Innovation, Navitas Professional and English Programs.

These "interim positions" were challenging and interesting and I believe that I grew as a professional from working at the University of Hong Kong and at Navitas. However, I became very clear during this time that I am most fulfilled and make my "best" contributions when working within a Faculty.

With a 19 year career, it can be a little difficult to pick out some highlights. Two things come to mind. The first has to do with my sense of fulfilllment and personal reward across all of the work that I have done. The second has to do with how I believe that I have impacted teaching and learning for the better as a result of my work. Here are some dot point highlights in that respect:

• My successes in my three University positions in leading and managing teams that became deeply embedded in the contexts in which they worked thereby making significant contributions to the quality of teaching and learning at a Faculty and university level.
• My teaching into postgraduate certificate courses for my peers on teaching and learning in the three University positions that I have held as I have had a significant impact through my teaching as evidenced consistently by students' evaluations of my teaching.
• There's so much at Deakin but what comes to mind is the fact of being trusted and relied upon to work with key teaching and learning leaders to shift all of the Faculty's Trimester 1, 2020 units online when Covid required a one week turnaround for 300 or so units.
• My "bravery", in taking up a central teaching and learning position at the University of Hong where my work included leading my team to deliver on HKUs fist eLearning strategy and included the design and development of HKUs first three MOOCs for the EDx platform.
• Work I did at the University of Auckland with the Werry Center for Child and Adolescent Health to support their design of interventions for depression prevention in adolescents. I was honored to be included in their research outputs for my contributions.  

My Google Scholar profile reports 118 research outputs with 1591 citations, an h-index of 21 and an i-10 index of 30. These outputs have been realized in and from praxis in the context of the multiple dimensions of my leadership roles that are outlined professional section of this profile. To put this another way, my scholarly knowledge informs all of my work and my research derives from what I am doing at any particular point in my teaching and learning leadership role.

Furthermore, it is my research into and from my practices that provides the continuity to my research career. This fact means that my publications range from being a co-author of a paper on a million dollar funded research project at the University of Auckland to design, develop, implement and evaluate a  mobile phone depression prevention program through to a small piece of action research at the University of Hong Kong on flipping the medical classroom.

In addition to 10 unique publications reported by Google Scholar since joining Deakin in 2016, I have the following publications that have been accepted:

• Willems, J., Huijser, H., Doherty, I, Soong, A. Whither the LMS: Is the LMS Still Fit for Purpose? in Journal of Teaching and Learning Practice.
• Doherty, I. & Vincent, T. Technology in Medical Education in Oxford Handbook of Medical Education, eds. Finn, G., Church C., Brown, M., Byrne, M., Sharma, N. 
• Doherty, I., Henning, M., and Mataroria, L., Challenges in Medical Education in Oxford Handbook of Medical Education, eds. Finn, G., Church C., Brown, M., Byrne, M., Sharma, N.
• Skedzuhn-Safir, A., Katelynn Williams,K.,  Cooke, S., and Doherty, I. Collaborative Conservation E-Course Across Borders: Site Interpretation and Presentation of an Uncomfortable Heritage Site in Berlin in Museum Studies for Post-pandemic World, eds. Leda, S., Crawford, P.

Senior Fellow Higher Education Academy

Member Deakin Teaching and Learning Academy

I have designed, developed and taught into postgraduate certificate courses in teaching and learning in each of my three University positions. I have done this because of my love of teaching and because I believe that it "keeps me honest" in terms of my role in leading teams who are working with teaching academics. By this I mean that I am able to emphasise with, for example, Unit Chairs as I have acted as a Unit Chair myself for four trimesters.

My main teaching interests are related to postgraduate courses that are "teaching teachers" about good practice in teaching, learning and assessment. As an example, and most recently, I have taught the foundational unit in the Graduate Certificate Higher Education (Learning and Teaching), which is a course that all new academics must take if they do not have a teaching qualification. In terms of impact, I have taught over 150 students in this unit and I my eVALUate scores strongly suggest that my teaching has had a significant impact.

Associate Director Learning Innovation, Deakin Learning Futures, Deakin University

2019-2020 Unit Chair for Unit EEE740, “Designing and Teaching Student-Centered Learning Programs in Higher Education” in the new Graduate Certificate Higher Education (Learning and Teaching) for four trimesters across 2020-2021.

2017-2018 I co-taught the unit EEE731 “Designing, Teaching and Assessing Higher Education Programs” with Professor Damian Blake for two Trimesters across 2018-2019 as part of the Graduate Certificate in Higher Education.

My knowledge areas are diverse as a result of working in what has been termed the "third space" which I take to mean that I operate in a context defined significantly by both academic and professional responsibilities. This space differs in that respect from a traditional academic role or a traditional professional role.

In an academic context I have a contemporary knowledge of teaching and learning in Higher Education which has been evidenced in my role as Unit Chair for a course in the School of Education. I appy this knowledge across curriculum design work, teaching accredited courses and delivering professional development opportunities to teaching staff.

I also draw on my substantive scholarly knowledge of teaching and learning in providing service to the Faculty and University through contributing actively to committees that ensure the quality and integrity of teaching and learnin in the Faculty and by contributing to University work groups such as the Generative AI Networking Group.

My expertise lies in my strategic and operational leadership practices and in the way in which my scholarly knowledge of contemporary practices and challenges in Higher Education informs my leadership and the other dimensions of my role including, for example, curriculum development, teaching and designing learning opportunities with Course Directors and Unit Chairs.

• Education

During my early to mid-career years and I presented at a significant number of international conferences and these contributions can be viewed on my Google Scholar profile page. In more recent years I have eschewed conferences in favour of concentrating on other forms of publication such as journal articles and book chapters.

I provide external service when requested and in that respect I have, during my time at Deakin, examined an external PhD and acted as one of the editors for ASCILITE conference proceedings in 2018.

A core part of my career trajectory has been to always ensure that I work on projects alongside my team. My reason for doing this, and not everyone will agree, is that leaders can become too removed from the work that is being done leaving them without the day to day knowledge and skills that enable them to contribute whilst also ensuring that they can lead with empathy for the "coal face work". Here are some dot points of projects that I have worked on alongside my team.

• Two current projects that speak to my desire to keep working in the thick of it all are the successful applications from faculty staff for Seeding Grants to support innovative assessment practices. I have attended the start up meetings for each grant with my expertise and the value of my involvement being recognised by grant recipients.
• I have been working alongside my team in a collaboration with NIKERII to develop a "model" and "resource" to support learning designers in their work with the Deakin Design Relationality Principle" from a First Nation's perspective. This work represents a collaborative, collegial and reciprocal way of working with NIKERII that I have developd over a period of time.
• I was actively involved in the learning design process for Deakin's internationally recognised FutureLearn initiative and in this respect I instrumental in ensuring that the Master of Development and Humanitarian Assistance was successfully launched. This work was intense and stressful for the academics but I led in supporting them with empathy and compassion.
• I worked alongside my team on the Bachelor of Creative Arts course revision process. The aim was to consolidate four diverse disciplines (photography, visual arts, dance, and drama) into a single program. I was recognized by the Associate Head of School for my core contribution in making this piece of work successful in terms of my knowledge and my empathy in working with the academics involved.