Many higher education institutions have implemented a learning management system (LMS) to manage online learning and teaching, with varying levels of support provided to staff and students, but often there is little subsequent investigation into the quality of the online sites or the use made of the support structures provided. This paper presents findings from an institutional survey investigating the use of WebCT by academic staff and students in their learning and teaching at a large Australian university. It was expected that student feedback would relate to technical and infrastructure issues, but instead, the survey elicited responses primarily on how WebCT was used in teaching and learning, indicating that quality control is a major issue for the University. Student opinions appear to reflect more the use of the technology made by teaching staff -students who have experienced a well-designed unit rich with resources, timely feedback and good interaction with staff reported a positive experience with the technology. Staff responses are more focused on the technical and administrative aspects of using WebCT rather than teaching issues. The findings in this paper have implications for quality teaching and learning with technology, and the way in which tertiary institutions support academic staff.

BackgroundClinical activities that trainees can be trusted to perform with minimal or no supervision have been labelled as Entrustable Professional Activities (EPAs). We sought to examine what activities could be entrusted to psychiatry trainees in their first year of specialist training.MethodsWe conducted an online survey of Fellows of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP).ResultsThe majority of respondents considered initiating patients with the common medications, discharging patient suffering from schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or following a crisis admission, conducting risk assessments and managing psychiatric emergencies were activities that trainees could be entrusted with by the end of the first stage of training.ConclusionsFour activities were identified that trainees should be entrusted with by the end of their first year of training. Each of these activities comprises a set of competencies in each of the CanMEDS roles. When a trainee is unable to satisfactorily perform an EPA, deficits in the underpinning competencies can be a focus for remediation. Further EPAs are being identified in areas of more specialised practice for use within more advanced training.

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Alternative training settings are required to help address the anticipated growth in numbers of medical graduates and to meet the need of psychiatry trainees for greater experience in treating high prevalence mental disorders. To progress the expansion of training settings within psychiatry, it is essential that comprehensive consultation be undertaken to understand the implications of this program for trainees, existing training facilities and expanded setting providers to ensure that all stakeholders, including patients and carers, derive benefit.

Objective: The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists (RANZCP) is working together with the Australian Federal Government to expand the range of training experiences and settings with the object of producing better equipped and better distributed psychiatrists to address the rising prevalence of mental disorder. To assist in this process, the College sought the views of its Fellows (psychiatrists) and trainees concerning important gaps in clinical experience and the settings best suited to filling them. Method: An electronic survey was sent to all Australian RANZCP psychiatrists and trainees in June 2008. Results: Only 15% of psychiatrists and 28% of trainees responded to the survey. There was striking concordance, however, that psychological therapies required much greater emphasis and that this experience would best be acquired in the private healthcare system. Conclusions: These findings support the recommendations of the Medical Specialist Training Steering Committee's report on expanded settings, suggesting that RANZCP members are likely to engage enthusiastically in the expanded specialist training program. It will be important to ensure that trainees are well supervised in their treatment of anxiety, affective and substance abuse disorders.

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Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to describe examples of the application of learning analytics (LA), including the assessment of subject grades, identifying subjects that need revision, student satisfaction and cohort comparisons, to program curriculum review. Design/methodology/approach -Examples of analyses that address specific questions that a curriculum review wishes to address are provided, together with examples of visualizations from the analyses to aid interpretation. Findings -The results show that using LA as a part of curriculum review can provide insights not possible with the traditional curriculum review methods and can yield useful and actionable insights.Research limitations/implications -The work in this paper illustrates another important application for LA and demonstrates the value this approach has for informing curriculum enhancement at the program level. Practical implications -The analyses described provide insights not possible with traditional curriculum review methods. However, the challenge remains to develop analytic tools that can assist teachers to conduct LA independently. Originality/value -LA have been used to predict grades or identify at-risk students (Gaševic et al., 2016), but there is little research on its use for curriculum evaluation (Méndez et al., 2014). This paper addresses this gap and provides examples of its application in program curriculum review and the insights it can provide.