Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education

The Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education, also known as ascilite, is an association for academics, staff developers and trainers involved in tertiary computer-based education and training. Ascilite acts as a forum for discussing issues on the use of technology in education, and promotes research and evaluation. Ascilite holds an annual conference and runs a community mentoring program.

The association has some 590 members located in 24 countries and has been in existence since the early 1980s.

The elected executive consists of ten committee members from Australia, New Zealand, and Hong Kong and is supported by a Secretariat.

Annual Conference

The annual ascilite conferences have been a key part of ascilite since its beginning and are very popularfact|date=January 2008 within the international higher education community. The Conference provides opportunities to meet with practitioners from different national contexts to exchange ideas and information. It provides a forum for the presentation of refereed papers, short "work-in-progress" papers and posters.

In addition the ascilite community provides a repository of downloadable papers from each conference. These papers are publicly available refereed papers addressing key themes in the educational technology field. In 2007, ascilite will be held in Singapore. This year's theme is "ICT: Providing Choices for Learners and Learning".

Community Mentoring Program

The ascilite Community Mentoring Program seeks to involve participants in a professional mentoring relationship built between an early career professional (the mentee) and an experienced practitioner (the mentor). The ascilite Community Mentoring Program is a vehicle for enhancement of specific knowledge, skills or capacities in an area of developing expertise. It targets ascilite members and aims to provide mentoring opportunities across a number of fields including technical, academic development, learning development, faculty academics, graphic designers, and programmers.

Ascilite Awards

The internationally judged ascilite awards are designed to reward leaders in the use of electronic technologies in teaching and learning in tertiary education. Each year at the ascilite conference these awards recognise exemplary design and development in this area.

AJET

The Australiasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) is a refereed journal publishing research and review articles in educational technology, instructional design, educational applications of computer technologies, educational telecommunications and related areas. It is published three or four times each year. Ascilite members are encouraged to contribute to the Journal as a means of disseminating their work.

Early Researcher Grants

The objectives of the ascilite Research grant scheme are to:
* Provide the opportunity for New Researchers to initiate research within the ascilite community.
* Provide stronger support for Early Researchers to begin to establish their research potential.
* Assist New and Early Researchers to reach national and international levels of recognition through ascilite-related publications.
* Provide support for small projects or pilot projects likely to form the basis for a larger grant proposal.
* Support team research, especially that involving several less experienced researchers from the ascilite community.

Newsletter

In addition ascilite has a regular Newsletter and communication network with Campus representatives. ascilite is also actively collaborating with the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) as part of its research agenda.