Tim Pitman
Biographic Data
| ID | 3591065 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Tim Pitman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Tim |
| FAMILY NAME | Pitman |
| SIGNATURE | PITMAN T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Curtin University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-4237-2203 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 34 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 14 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
The Pandemic Preferred User
As COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, universities acted quickly to move their core business of teaching and research online. Classes shifted to platforms such as Zoom, Webex, Collaborate and Microsoft Teams and teachers and students alike were expected to adapt. And they did. This paper draws on critical disability studies to offer a conceptual and theoretical analysis of a deeply problematic aspect of the rapid move to online education in respon…
Disability and Australian higher education
This article explores a century and a half of supporting students with disabilities in Australian higher education, spanning the introduction of mass public education legislation in 1872 through to 2022. The article documents the transition from a paradigm in which disability was not integral to universal public instruction to systemic approaches to provision of reasonable adjustments. This transition has opened opportunities for persons with dis…
Three decades of misrecognition
In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act and associated Educational Standards prevent educational institutions from treating people with disability less favourably than those without disability – directly or indirectly. However, people with disability are still subject to both economic and cultural disadvantage in Australian higher education policy. In this article we describe this as a ‘recognition–redistribution dilemma’, whereby this po…
‘Profitable for the country’. An Australian historical perspective of the contested purpose of public universities
This article analyses the social contract formulated between state and university, in the period 1850–1930. Using contemporary records – for example, legislation, parliamentary debates, university acts, newspaper articles, senate and professorial board minutes, and similar – this article examines how Australia’s early scholarly community contested and negotiated what it believed to be the purpose of higher education, with a sometimes-conflicting …
Constructing a ranking of higher education institutions based on equity
To be seen and heard
An important goal for educators is to foster student engagement in order to support a sense of valuing and aspiring to higher levels of education. To value education, students need to perceive that they are welcome, express their ideas and engage meaningfully in each education space they enter. Therefore, ‘pupil voice’ has the potential to become an important influencing factor regarding the degree to which students become self‐regulated learners…
Understanding ‘fairness’ in student selection
Universities are required to adopt ‘fair’ student admission practices, yet understandings of fairness in student selection are contested. This paper uses an analysis of the admission policies of Australia's public universities to critically examine the use and application of notions of fairness. A further analysis of enrolment data is used to contextualise policy rhetoric against admission practice. Three broad themes of fairness emerge: merit ba…
Converting RPL into academic capital
Recognition of prior learning (RPL) requires an assessment of the equivalence and transferabilityof learning acquired in one context to another. However, this study’s examinationof the institutional policies and practices of three Australian universities reveals thatRPL can also be understood as a Bourdieuian process of ‘capital conversion’, where anindividual’s economic, social and cultural capital are assessed as being equivalent to ‘academicex…
Selling Visions for Education
This article analyses the educational visions put forward by Australian federal politicians in their maiden (first) speeches to Parliament. The theoretical approach was a Habermasian-based analysis of the communication strategies adopted by the politicians, meaning that it was not only the content of the speeches but also the delivery that was the focus of the analysis. The findings reveal bipartisan agreement on the importance of education to pe…
Recognition of prior learning (RPL) policy in Australian higher education
The Bourdieuian concept of ‘position-taking’ is applied in this analysis of recognitionof prior learning (RPL) policy and practice in Australian higher education.Data from institutional documents and participant interviews indicate that,within RPL policy, the universities selectively employ prevailing discourses of‘quality’ and ‘equity’ to reinforce or potentially improve their reputation andsymbolic power in the !eld of higher education. There i…
Teaching ethics beyond the Academy
Universities traditionally construct ethical, as well as educational goals in their mission, which they attempt to promote not only through their graduates, but sometimes directly to the wider community. This study explores how targeting lifelong learners through the medium of educational tourism might be one such way in which universities can impart moral and ethical lessons, through a pedagogical construction based on the Aristotelian notion of…
Australian universities, generic skills and lifelong learning
The concept of lifelong learning implies a cycle where the learner contributes prior learning into a new learning environment and sees that learning upgraded. In recent years, a range of internal and external pressures have encouraged Australian universities to identify the meta or generic skills embedded in tertiary study. Using a content analysis of relevant university policy documents, this study assesses how the Australian higher education se…
Of what benefit and to whom? Linking Australian humanities research with its 'end users
There is increasing pressure for university researchers to secure 'end-user' support for their research projects. Yet the ways in which this imperative affects humanities researchers, operating in a science-centric funding environment, have not yet been fully explored. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study into the experiences of humanities researchers in securing competitive national funding for research involving collaborations…
Perceptions of Academics and Students as Customers
This article examines the extent to which university administrative staff perceive academics and students as customers. These perceptions have an effect on the provision of quality customer service. The role of administrative staff in the educational experience for students has been generally ignored in academic research. A discussion of quality service provision in higher education can be enhanced by a consideration of the perceptions held by ad…
Perceptions of Academics and Students as Customers
This article examines the extent to which university administrative staff perceive academics and students as customers. These perceptions have an effect on the provision of quality customer service. The role of administrative staff in the educational experience for students has been generally ignored in academic research. A discussion of quality service provision in higher education can be enhanced by a consideration of the perceptions held by ad…
Australian universities, generic skills and lifelong learning
The concept of lifelong learning implies a cycle where the learner contributes prior learning into a new learning environment and sees that learning upgraded. In recent years, a range of internal and external pressures have encouraged Australian universities to identify the meta or generic skills embedded in tertiary study. Using a content analysis of relevant university policy documents, this study assesses how the Australian higher education se…
Three decades of misrecognition
In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act and associated Educational Standards prevent educational institutions from treating people with disability less favourably than those without disability – directly or indirectly. However, people with disability are still subject to both economic and cultural disadvantage in Australian higher education policy. In this article we describe this as a ‘recognition–redistribution dilemma’, whereby this po…
Converting RPL into academic capital
Recognition of prior learning (RPL) requires an assessment of the equivalence and transferabilityof learning acquired in one context to another. However, this study’s examinationof the institutional policies and practices of three Australian universities reveals thatRPL can also be understood as a Bourdieuian process of ‘capital conversion’, where anindividual’s economic, social and cultural capital are assessed as being equivalent to ‘academicex…
To be seen and heard
An important goal for educators is to foster student engagement in order to support a sense of valuing and aspiring to higher levels of education. To value education, students need to perceive that they are welcome, express their ideas and engage meaningfully in each education space they enter. Therefore, ‘pupil voice’ has the potential to become an important influencing factor regarding the degree to which students become self‐regulated learners…
Teaching ethics beyond the Academy
Universities traditionally construct ethical, as well as educational goals in their mission, which they attempt to promote not only through their graduates, but sometimes directly to the wider community. This study explores how targeting lifelong learners through the medium of educational tourism might be one such way in which universities can impart moral and ethical lessons, through a pedagogical construction based on the Aristotelian notion of…
Of what benefit and to whom? Linking Australian humanities research with its 'end users
There is increasing pressure for university researchers to secure 'end-user' support for their research projects. Yet the ways in which this imperative affects humanities researchers, operating in a science-centric funding environment, have not yet been fully explored. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study into the experiences of humanities researchers in securing competitive national funding for research involving collaborations…
Perceptions of Academics and Students as Customers
This article examines the extent to which university administrative staff perceive academics and students as customers. These perceptions have an effect on the provision of quality customer service. The role of administrative staff in the educational experience for students has been generally ignored in academic research. A discussion of quality service provision in higher education can be enhanced by a consideration of the perceptions held by ad…
Australian universities, generic skills and lifelong learning
The concept of lifelong learning implies a cycle where the learner contributes prior learning into a new learning environment and sees that learning upgraded. In recent years, a range of internal and external pressures have encouraged Australian universities to identify the meta or generic skills embedded in tertiary study. Using a content analysis of relevant university policy documents, this study assesses how the Australian higher education se…
Of what benefit and to whom? Linking Australian humanities research with its 'end users
There is increasing pressure for university researchers to secure 'end-user' support for their research projects. Yet the ways in which this imperative affects humanities researchers, operating in a science-centric funding environment, have not yet been fully explored. This paper presents the findings of an empirical study into the experiences of humanities researchers in securing competitive national funding for research involving collaborations…
Teaching ethics beyond the Academy
Universities traditionally construct ethical, as well as educational goals in their mission, which they attempt to promote not only through their graduates, but sometimes directly to the wider community. This study explores how targeting lifelong learners through the medium of educational tourism might be one such way in which universities can impart moral and ethical lessons, through a pedagogical construction based on the Aristotelian notion of…
Selling Visions for Education
This article analyses the educational visions put forward by Australian federal politicians in their maiden (first) speeches to Parliament. The theoretical approach was a Habermasian-based analysis of the communication strategies adopted by the politicians, meaning that it was not only the content of the speeches but also the delivery that was the focus of the analysis. The findings reveal bipartisan agreement on the importance of education to pe…
Recognition of prior learning (RPL) policy in Australian higher education
The Bourdieuian concept of ‘position-taking’ is applied in this analysis of recognitionof prior learning (RPL) policy and practice in Australian higher education.Data from institutional documents and participant interviews indicate that,within RPL policy, the universities selectively employ prevailing discourses of‘quality’ and ‘equity’ to reinforce or potentially improve their reputation andsymbolic power in the !eld of higher education. There i…
Converting RPL into academic capital
Recognition of prior learning (RPL) requires an assessment of the equivalence and transferabilityof learning acquired in one context to another. However, this study’s examinationof the institutional policies and practices of three Australian universities reveals thatRPL can also be understood as a Bourdieuian process of ‘capital conversion’, where anindividual’s economic, social and cultural capital are assessed as being equivalent to ‘academicex…
Understanding ‘fairness’ in student selection
Universities are required to adopt ‘fair’ student admission practices, yet understandings of fairness in student selection are contested. This paper uses an analysis of the admission policies of Australia's public universities to critically examine the use and application of notions of fairness. A further analysis of enrolment data is used to contextualise policy rhetoric against admission practice. Three broad themes of fairness emerge: merit ba…
‘Profitable for the country’. An Australian historical perspective of the contested purpose of public universities
This article analyses the social contract formulated between state and university, in the period 1850–1930. Using contemporary records – for example, legislation, parliamentary debates, university acts, newspaper articles, senate and professorial board minutes, and similar – this article examines how Australia’s early scholarly community contested and negotiated what it believed to be the purpose of higher education, with a sometimes-conflicting …
Constructing a ranking of higher education institutions based on equity
To be seen and heard
An important goal for educators is to foster student engagement in order to support a sense of valuing and aspiring to higher levels of education. To value education, students need to perceive that they are welcome, express their ideas and engage meaningfully in each education space they enter. Therefore, ‘pupil voice’ has the potential to become an important influencing factor regarding the degree to which students become self‐regulated learners…
Three decades of misrecognition
In Australia, the Disability Discrimination Act and associated Educational Standards prevent educational institutions from treating people with disability less favourably than those without disability – directly or indirectly. However, people with disability are still subject to both economic and cultural disadvantage in Australian higher education policy. In this article we describe this as a ‘recognition–redistribution dilemma’, whereby this po…
Disability and Australian higher education
This article explores a century and a half of supporting students with disabilities in Australian higher education, spanning the introduction of mass public education legislation in 1872 through to 2022. The article documents the transition from a paradigm in which disability was not integral to universal public instruction to systemic approaches to provision of reasonable adjustments. This transition has opened opportunities for persons with dis…
The Pandemic Preferred User
As COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, universities acted quickly to move their core business of teaching and research online. Classes shifted to platforms such as Zoom, Webex, Collaborate and Microsoft Teams and teachers and students alike were expected to adapt. And they did. This paper draws on critical disability studies to offer a conceptual and theoretical analysis of a deeply problematic aspect of the rapid move to online education in respon…
Political science (13 works) · Sociology (11 works) · Higher education (10 works) · Public relations (10 works) · Law (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Higher Education Governance and Development (5 works) · Pedagogy (5 works) · Higher Education and Employability (4 works) · Higher Education Research Studies (4 works)