WERC

A brief history of the Workplace Education Research Consortium.

The Workplace Education Research Consortium (WERC) website originated in a strategic initiative project in 1997 funded by the Vice Chancellor of the University of New England (UNE, Australia) to increase the links between the Adult Education Program at UNE and industry. Members of the adult education team visited a range of industries from heavy manufacturing (mining, steel production) to health (aged care, nursing), service (hospitality, telecommunications) and finance industries. As a result of these visits, they added a new direction to the teaching programs with input from these various industries and new research collaborations.During the intervening time the Adult and Workplace Education program grew and changed to formally expand notions of the workplace to include unpaid work in the home and volunteer community work as well as paid employment. Education is an all-embracing concept that includes formal education that usually happens in classrooms and institutions, non-formal education that happens in communities; informal training that happens in the workplace and informal, self directed and experiential learning.The consortium expanded to include lecturers in peace studies and early childhood as well as the adult education team. Changes to adult education program completed in 2007 have resulted in researchers migrating to other programs, schools and institutions. Current projects, WERC legacies and researchers personal websites are listed below.

WERC Associates, Projects and Legacies

Current WERC Associates (at UNE)

Dr. Bob Boughton
Senior Lecturer, Adult Education
ph: 02 6773 2913

Paul Reader
WERC Web coordinator
ph: (02) 6773 2652

Assoc. Prof. Larry Smith
Director, Graduate School of Business
ph: (02) 6773 2806

Dr Rebecca Spence
Coordinator - Peace Studies Program
ph: (02) 6773 5095

Insights to other associates and their recent projects

WERC E-Journal 2000-2002

Dr. Margaret Somerville, Place pedagogies

Dr. Sue Gelade

Adult and Workplace Learning at UNE

Dr Ralph Catts, Applied Educational Research Scheme: Schools and Social Capital Project

Knowledge and action networks