Staff Profiles

Introductory Profile:

Simon McIntyre is the Online Course Coordinator at the College of Fine Arts, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. He has co-operatively pioneered learning and teaching approaches for fully online art and design education since 2003, and has helped establish an internationally recognised reputation of quality for the Faculty’s online learning and teaching unit, COFA Online.  

Working under the guidance of colleague and online learning researcher Rick Bennett, Simon has since drawn together educators, researchers, and creative professionals to focus on researching the development and design of sustainable and effective online learning programs through the development the COFA Online Course Author Fellowship Program. The program provides cross-disciplinary staff training and support in curriculum development and teaching approaches specifically for the online environment, and has resulted in an 89% rate of student satisfaction with online teaching, and a 90% rate of student satisfaction with COFA Online course design in 2006. Simon’s research has culminated in the co-development and supervision of a fully online international Master of Cross-Disciplinary Art and Design program for COFA.

In 2006, McIntyre and Bennett’s research and implementation of online learning and teaching research was nationally recognised by the Carrick Institute for Learning and Teaching in Higher Education by being awarded a Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning for Pioneering internationally recognised best practice in online education in the creative arts and design.
 
McIntyre is currently undertaking a PhD examining fully online collaborative learning communities under the supervision of the Omnium Research Group and the UNSW Learning & Teaching Unit, and is focusing on addressing the under-researched area of online education within the creative arts.