ABSTRACT It is important to develop educational leadership skills in academics to benefit their developmental needs, as well as the organisational needs of universities. Faculty development (FD) programmes aimed at developing educational leadership often require participants to implement educational innovation projects. The current study investigates the role these projects and the facilitation by academic developers play in the development of educational leadership. Interviews with three facilitators and six participants from two different leadership programmes indicate that the project serves to connect the programme and practice, acting as a boundary object. Facilitators play an important role in supporting and coaching learning. By referencing their own leadership expertise, they can serve as role-models for participants. It is suggested that academic developers take opportunities to develop their own leadership skills, before facilitating programmes aimed at developing educational leadership.

ABSTRACT Recent shifts in higher education have highlighted the critical role of pedagogical leadership in driving educational change. While much prior work focuses on positional influence, our study studies informal pedagogical leadership across three programs at three institutions in two national contexts: conference presenters, departmental ambassadors, and teaching fellows. We asked: (1) What motivates academics to assume informal pedagogical leadership roles? (2) What benefits do they perceive from these experiences? (3) How do these motivations and benefits compare across different institutional contexts and programme types? Through focus groups with 45 participants, we analyse experiences using a validated framework, identifying five additional dimensions beyond their model. We find that enabling learning for teachers and students and professional development consistently motivates engagement across diverse program structures, while the reported benefits vary significantly with context. Conference presenters valued gaining visibility and recognition, departmental ambassadors were able to create new learning spaces, and teaching fellows garnered changing leadership opportunities. These findings provide academic developers with insights into what motivates faculty to engage in informal pedagogical leadership and the benefits they value. This understanding can inform how such programs might be framed or designed for those who step into roles of informal leadership.

ABSTRACT Distributed leadership provides a robust framework for navigating the complexity of educational change in higher education. This paper presents a reflective, practice-based analytic case examining how distributed leadership was enacted and sustained over seven years within the School of Information Technology at an Australian university. Drawing on retrospective narrative reflections from the Associate Head of School (Teaching and Learning) and the Academic Developer, the study explores how leadership was shared and negotiated across formal and informal roles to support assessment and learning design innovation. Through thematic analysis of these reflective accounts, we identify the interdependent leadership practices, such as co-design, peer championing, and adaptive governance, that were interpreted as supporting the sustainability of change. The findings extend distributed leadership theory by interpreting how strategic, relational, and adaptive practices operate over time, illuminating mechanisms through which innovation was pursued within a complex institutional system. This study thus offers an analytical account of distributed leadership as an evolving, longitudinal process that bridges conceptual frameworks and reflective accounts of enactment in university settings.

ABSTRACT Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is reshaping higher education, enabling innovation while raising tensions about authorship, sustainability, and equity. Many universities have shifted from prohibition to constructive engagement, but success depends on staff effectively translating policy into everyday teaching practices. At Southern Cross University, a professional learning module has built a capability for responsible GenAI use. Early outcomes showed higher confidence and assessment redesign, yet familiar challenges emerged: uneven digital literacy, authorship dilemmas, rapidly changing tools, and selective ethical attention. Academic development should move beyond tool training toward sustained, values-driven, internationally informed approaches that broaden ethical reflection and support consistent practice across institutions worldwide today.

ABSTRACT This study compares the effectiveness of online versus traditional face-to-face advancement programs for higher education teaching staff. Using a pre-and post-test design, we assessed the knowledge and skills of student teaching staff participating in online and face to-face classes. Data on teaching staff satisfaction were drawn from a satisfaction survey. The study population comprised 300 teaching staff recruited from different higher education institutions and divided into two equal groups. Using the analysis of variance (ANOVA) method, we found that face-to-face learners reported higher satisfaction with learning than those engaged in online training, with mean scores of 77.10 versus 75.04 points. This study has important implications for education policymakers, curriculum developers, and academic institutions, and it highlights the need to balance technological advances with traditional teaching effectiveness. The result of this study can be helpful in choosing professional development strategies and integrating online and traditional learning activities.

ABSTRACT Educators’ change readiness is crucial for successful transitions to active learning. This study solicits the perspectives of 33 educators from HITAM, an autonomous Indian engineering college, on their readiness for such a transition under a PBL-focused institutional initiative. Q methodology yields four viewpoints, respectively prioritizing: 1) initial positive experiences with new teaching designs; 2) improved student learning outcomes; 3) contextual support for educational changes, and 4) alignment between institutional and individual readiness. While all groups acknowledge both the necessity of institutional support and the societal trends favoring PBL, they differ in their priorities and motivations for educational change. These findings emphasize the need for institutions to provide diverse resources to support educators’ change readiness and practices, foster a culture of innovation, and meet evolving educational demands.

ABSTRACT The Writerly Observation Protocol is designed to create space for dialogue and meaning making in the peer observation of teaching, leading to a more productive and reciprocal experience for the observer and the observed. The protocol, based on the writerly framework for teaching and learning, calls for reviewers to identify ‘exemplary moments’ where the writerly teaching and learning occurs and ‘opportunities’ where, with some adjustment, it might occur. The Writerly Observation Protocol also creates a professional learning experience that is itself writerly, where participants make new meanings and understandings together by deeply and purposefully engaging in their own practice.

ABSTRACT Journal article reviewing is often considered an unexplored or unknown practice. There is limited discussion about it, and what there is often rests on assumptions that reviewers are experienced and have knowledge about the topic of the article review, and that the model of practice involves double-blind reviewing. This curriculum review investigates a professional development program for article reviewers which was introduced by an educational journal in response to its reviewers’ request for professional development. The curriculum was based on a community of practice model and was reviewed by inviting stories of experience from the program participants. The review highlights that professional development initiatives can be evaluated based on participants’ perception of improvement in practice, and that hidden practice elements exist in any professional practice development program, and these can also be enhanced by professional development. The implications of this realisation for academic development practice emphasise not only the viability of a community of practice model for professional development but the value of participant stories in evaluating the impact of such initiatives.

ABSTRACT This article builds on Boud’s concept of ‘animator’ to propose a new way of understanding the role of academic developers and a changed emphasis on academic development during periods of resource-constrained educational crisis. With retrospective ethical clearance, we, two Business School academics, engaged in collaborative autoethnography over a twenty-three-month period. Our data comprises emails, images, and reflections upon conversations that took place between the authors, also emails and reflections upon conversations exchanged with colleagues including academic developers. While, in examining the data, we acknowledge the implications of our positionality as academics, our findings suggest that replacing the prevailing perspectives that characterise existing developer roles with an emancipatory perspective allows for participatory and transformative action. From this position, the developer’s role is as ‘animator’, giving academics a voice to define change for themselves from within, supporting them to discern their own approaches to addressing it through reflexive learning from their experiences. We conclude by considering the implications of these findings for academic development.

ABSTRACT Although there is a growing movement toward creating more equitable learning and teaching practices in higher education, academic developers are still grappling with practical ways to guide academics in inclusive curricular transformation. We briefly characterize the current conversation among academic developers and present and reflect on a new tool, the Culturally Sensitive Curricula Educator Self-Reflection Tool, that extends our earlier research using the Culturally Sensitive Curricula Scales student survey.