Digitization and automation across all industries has resulted in improvements in efficiencies and effectiveness to systems and process, and the higher education sector is not immune. Online learning, e-learning, electronic teaching tools, and digital assessments are not innovations. However, there has been limited implementation of online invigilated examinations in many countries. This paper provides a brief background on online examinations, followed by the results of a systematic review on the topic to explore the challenges and opportunities. We follow on with an explication of results from thirty-six papers, exploring nine key themes: student perceptions, student performance, anxiety, cheating, staff perceptions, authentication and security, interface design, and technology issues. While the literature on online examinations is growing, there is still a dearth of discussion at the pedagogical and governance levels.

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The COVID-19 pandemic has created cause for rapid innovation in, reimagining of, and pivoting of higher education institutions. Prior to 2020, the global higher education sector began to radically focus their efforts on creating sustainable institutions, and incorporated the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The novel coronavirus pandemic may have changed that. This systematic review examines eight manuscripts, identified through a systematic search strategy on sustainability during the COVID-19 pandemic across 2020–2021. Interestingly, the low volume of manuscripts identified highlights potential learning and teaching risks, as priorities may have shifted during rapid digitalization and emergency remote teaching practices. These manuscripts focused on Goal 4, inclusive and equitable quality education (50%); Goal 8, decent work and economic growth; Goal 9, industry, innovation, and infrastructure (37.5%); and goal enabling through integrating and embedding sustainability into the curriculum (12.5%). The implications of this systematic review highlight a need to rebuild efforts to focus on the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly considering the evolving higher education landscape during COVID-19. While there were still considerable volumes of manuscripts on higher education and sustainability during 2020–2021, the lack of contextualization to current higher education conditions should be of concern for sustainability scholars. This systematic review creates a critical foundation for accelerating our understanding of achieving SDGs in higher education during and beyond the pandemic.

The OpenAI’s ChatGPT-3, or Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer was released in November 2022 without significant warning, and has taken higher education by storm since. The artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot has caused alarm for practitioners seeking to detect authenticity of student work. Whereas some educational doomsayers predict the end of education in its current form, we propose an alternate early view. We identify in this commentary a position where educators can leverage AI like ChatGPT to build supportive learning environments for students who have cultivated good character. Such students know how to use ChatGPT for good, and can engage effectively with the ChatGPT application. In building our ChatGPT argument, we acknowledge the existing literature on plagiarism and academic integrity, and consider leadership as a root support mechanism, character development as an antidote, and authentic assessment as an enabler. In doing so, we highlight that while ChatGPT – like papermills, and degree factories before it – can be used to cheat on university exams, it can also be used to support deeper learning and better learning outcomes for students. In doing so, we offer a commentary that offers opportunities for practitioners, and research potential for scholars.

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Increasingly poor and unethical decision-making on the part of leaders across the globe, such as the recent Australian Cricket Ball Tampering Scandal, pose a significant challenge for society and for organisations. Authentic leadership development is one strategy that has been positioned as an antidote to unethical leadership behaviours. However, despite growing interest in authentic leadership, the construct still embodies several criticisms including conceptual clarity; leader-centricity; bias towards the person, not the leader; philosophical ambiguity; and demographic challenges. Each of these criticisms will be explored in depth to inform a reconceptualisation of the authentic leader construct, comprising indicators of awareness, sincerity, balanced processing, positive moral perspective and informal influence. Importantly, this revised conceptualisation considers how researchers can conceptually distinguish between authentic leaders, followers and individuals. To conclude, we propose a research agenda for authentic leaders, encouraging the pursuit of further construct clarity, including the development of rigorous authentic leader behaviour measures, expanding the psychometric profile of the authentic leader construct, increasing the focus on authentic followers and enhancing leader development programmes. JEL Classification: M12

‘To learn about X, observe what happens to the system when X is removed.’ What happens to the higher education student experience when, during a pandemic, so many of the avenues for building a sense of belonging are radically and fundamentally disrupted? How should we respond as individuals, a collective and a sector, to redress this? The national student survey data in Australia has highlighted a significant drop in learner engagement and their sense of belonging as a result of the pandemic. Indeed, the pandemic has been a significant point of anxiety for students, educators, and universities globally. We see the pandemic as a unique opportunity to critically examine belongingness among university students in a climate where their normal avenues to feel they belong need to establish a new kind of normal. In this article, we seek to articulate what can be learned from the pandemic experience about student belongingness and what instructors can do to improve it, even under difficult circumstances. We found opportunities to strengthen a students’ sense of belonging in online environments, when necessary, and how responses within the constraints of lockdown and emergency remote teaching can still support student success.

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