Ian Wright

I have had a quite diverse working career. I started by studying psychology at La Trobe then switched to sociology. It took me ten years to get my degree and I did other interesting stuff during that time. I have always had broad interests that encompass technologies as well as the human sciences. While at school and when studying I worked in professional audio including periods installing recording studios and doing studio maintenance. I've also been a photographer; including magazine photography, social documentary work and book illustration.

My first serious jobs were working as a caseworker in welfare with children in care and their families. I also worked with intellectually disabled adults in community settings. The major part of my working life prior to joining UB about ten years ago was spent in community work and more specifically community development in rural settings with a focus on youth services. During this phase I set up a statewide organisation and managed it for five years. Following that, I set up my own business in tender/submission writing, organisational analysis and project planning and management. This was successful. At this time I was invited to work for the University of Ballarat in their Business Development Unit. I resisted and eventually negotiated a part-time position.

Following a year of this part-time work in the Business Development Unit writing tenders and business proposals I joined the University of Ballarat full-time in a newly established position, Web Content Manager, to implement the University's first integrated, whole-of-institution website. This was a success. Soon after the initial web redevelopment at UB I was asked to manage the IT team responsible for online services and since then have been in management roles. Much of this time I've been managing people in technical roles but that broadened to include staff involved with learning design, resource development and academic development.

During my time at UB, in addition to oversighting three major corporate web upgrades,  I was at the forefront of most online learning initiatives. From WebCT through Blackboard CE to Moodle, I've been responsible for the teams selecting, implementing and supporting these systems. Over this time UB's web-mediated offerings expanded to include ePortfolios, virtual classrooms, media repository, plagiarism management and multi-point video/audio lecturing, all driven from within my teams. I also managed a major classroom technology install (50+ spaces) and other technology infrastructure projects. A particular interest was in developing UB's capacity to produce high quality resources using good design and rich media and I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to establish a small team including learning designer, resource developers/graphic designer, media producer and LMS analyst/developer. While quite limited in numbers, the impact of this team at UB has been outstanding.

At UB I really enjoyed management responsibility and particularly seeing people develop and grow in their confidence, abilities and self esteem.

My time at the University of Ballarat enabled me to apply many of the diverse skills and interests I've acquired over my working life - sometimes providing unusual scope and breadth to my roles. For example, in being responsible for Learning Innovation, I can apply many of the skills I've acquired in people/group management to planning the use of appropriate technologies. While I enjoy using technologies, it's essentially their capacity to empower people that excites me most.

I'm very fortunate to have had such a stimulating and satisfying role at UB and am also fortunate to have worked with many talented and positive people, both within my team and more broadly across the University.

My last role at UB involved being seconded to an exciting Structural Adjustment Fund project, the Dual Sector Partnership Project, which was a creative initiative to set up a partnership with six regional TAFE Institutes to provide UB Applied Degrees. Leveraging the Institutes' local community engagement, this project provided opportunities for local people to access tertiary education in their home regions while strengthening the viability of the TAFEs. My particular brief was to investigate appropriate learning technologies that could help strengthen and support the partnership and to support aggregation of students across large distances to build viable student cohorts.

Since moving to the University of the Sunshine Coast I've appreciated many of the strengths of UB as well as many of the challenges it presented. USC is an exciting university on a strong growth trajectory and it's great being in a position to influence some of those directions, particularly across the technology supported learning environment. My recent move from IT Services to the Centre for the Support and Advancement of Learning and Teaching has seen me in a very happy spot where I have a dynamic and enthusiastic team positioned to make a real impact at USC.