Sharing sustainability in the tertiary sector

More than 200 leading educators and researchers from across the Australian university sector have joined an online project to collaborate on sustainability education, including the open sharing of courses. Nearly 60 tertiary institutions, including Australia's leading universities, are involved.

Originally conceived in 2010 as a single source of information on individual courses at various institutions, the Learning and Teaching Sustainability website is being relaunched as a portal where educators can also discuss teaching methods and collaborate on course design.

"Sustainability cuts across everything," said Suzanne Benn, Professor of Sustainable Enterprise at UTS Business School, announcing the relaunch.  "Universities have come to realise that it's such an interdisciplinary area that they need to co-operate and share across disciplines. This website now takes it one step further – so they can share nationally, across campuses and institutions."

The project taps into the philosophy of the "sharing" economy and moves beyond the MOOC (massive open online course) model of a single institution placing its proprietary courses online, she said.

Members of the sustainability.edu community can access each other's learning and teaching materials, profile their own work and become involved in curriculum building. Materials range from study notes and lecture slides through to full courses.

The portal is also a space where academics can talk with people in other disciplines about sustainability, and where they can access reports, articles, reference points and a Twitter feed.

Along with science, the disciplines involved range from architecture and the creative arts through to business, law and health. The long-term aim of the site is to encourage collaboration across the various disciplines, for both teaching and research purposes.

UTS Business School lecturer Paul Brown – a finalist in the 2013 Green Gown awards, which recognise excellence in sustainability in the tertiary education sector – is one of the academics sharing teaching materials on the site. His materials have been downloaded more than 3000 times so far.

A team of academics from UTS Business School and UTS's Institute for Sustainable Futures is co-ordinating the site, which is funded by the Federal Government's Office for Learning and Teaching.

Universities recognise the important role they have to play in producing graduates with the knowledge, skills and values that ensure they contribute to more sustainable ways of living and doing business, Prof Benn said.

The UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014) is seeing educational resources across the world mobilised to help create a more sustainable future.

"If we are going to shift to a green economy we need a workforce for that, and it is universities that will provide the people with the necessary skills. This requires a spirit of sharing and a community of practice, and sustainability.edu.au is all about ramping that up," she said.