Graduate qualities and skills

At the University of Southern Queensland, the term ‘graduate qualities’ refers to five broad vision statements that describe desirable forms of student attainment that go beyond knowledge-based outcomes.

The term, ‘graduate skill’, refers to assessable components of these five graduate qualities that apply at the course level. A breakdown of graduate qualities and skills can be found in The Qualities of a USQ Graduate policy.

To align with this policy, the five USQ Quality statements are customised so that they express a meaningful vision for a given program or discipline.

USQ Graduate skills are also customised at a course level to reflect disciplinary norms and assessment practices: they are expressed within learning objectives on course specifications and as criteria on assessment criteria sheets and marking rubrics.

Students can undertake activities outside of their program to develop graduate qualities and skills, including the USQ Phoenix Award and Work Integrated Learning activities (including at Springfield Campus) offered by USQ Careers and Employment Services. These and relevant achievements from their formal studies can be recorded in their Student ePortfolio.

Information flyers

• USQ Graduate Qualities and Skills - customisation, mapping and alignment template (PDF* 112kb) 
• Defining learning levels for USQ skills assessed in your course (PDF*256kb)

Audiovisual resources

• Professor Beverley Oliver,  Manager, Course and Teaching Development, Curtin University of Technology
• Professor Robyn Quin, Pro Vice-Chancellor (Teaching and Learning), Curtin University of Technology
• Professor Joe Luca, Director, Graduate School, Edith Cowan University

Assuring Graduate Capabilities

The Graduate Employability Indicators is a survey hosted by Curtin University which is designed to supplement data from the Australian Graduate Survey. It provides users with data from graduates, employers and program teams. Data is based on their perception of the importance of specified employability skills or capabilities for professional success of graduates.

This survey would provide a useful source of data for program teams engaged in evaluation and/or re-accreditation of discipline majors or programs. For more information about implementing this survey, join the Assuring Graduate Capabilities website and select the 'Employability Indicators' option from the 'Course Review' menu.

Contact

If you have any queries about Graduate Qualities and Skills, contact an LTS representative.

*This file is in Portable Document Format (PDF) which requires the use of Adobe Acrobat Reader. A free copy of Acrobat Reader may be obtained from Adobe .