Integrating graduate quality and ethical responsibility into the UniSA curriculum

Sue Knight, Carol Collins and Robert Muller
University of South Australia

Keywords: Abilities; ethical responsibility; curriculum framework

The University of South Australia (UniSA) has a set of seven measures of graduate qualities known as the Graduate Qualities Framework. These qualities form the range of skills, abilities and dispositions that a UniSA student is expected to graduate with. It is this framework that informs the aims and objectives, assessment, and the teaching and learning arrangements of every UniSA course. They also align the UniSA strategic and corporate objectives as they are heavily informed by the various professions that are connected to the various courses. Each Graduate Quality can be assessed through a range of differing and flexible forms of assessment. Two of the most difficult Graduate Qualities to imbed into the curriculum are Graduate Quality #5 (ethical responsibility) and Graduate Quality #7 (internationalisation). Graduate Quality #7 has been analysed in the literature by Leask (2004), however, this task has not been undertaken for Graduate Quality #5. This paper is an attempt to demonstrate a pathway for embedding Graduate Quality #5 into the UniSA curriculum, in order to foster a sense of ethical responsibility. It will be demonstrated that a sense of ethical responsibility can be fostered effectively within a range of courses and discipline areas.