Creating Knowledge is a Vice-Chancellor’s course for talented, inquiring students from all areas of the ANU who are interested in what makes universities tick. Featuring a host of researchers and ideas from different disciplines, this course introduces the nature of academic inquiry and its relationship to other ways of knowing and creating knowledge. Through individual and group learning, students will explore:

• how researchers in various fields including the arts, social sciences, law, science, business, engineering and Asia and the Pacific think about what they are doing, including the relationship between academic ideals and everyday research practice;

• whether and how academic inquiry differs from knowledge creation in other contexts (traditional ways of knowing, non-Western intellectual traditions, religious thought, policy making, investigations by police or journalists, corporate knowledge production, creative art and design); and

• the changing social context of academic research, including the idea of the knowledge economy and links between knowledge creation and political power.

Enrolment process

First year students who expect in their first semester to complete 24 units are encouraged to apply for this course. An inquiring mind and a demonstrated capacity to engage with the course subject matter in a critical, reflective manner is the key selection criterion. Degree program constraints may apply to some students.

Interested students need to register an expression of interest at https://apollo.anu.edu.au/apollo/default.asp?pid=6023&script=true and give their name, student number, and a short statement explaining why they wish to do the course.

• Enhanced awareness of the nature and scope of academic research and its relationship to broader concepts of knowledge and knowledge creation
• Understanding how different disciplines and cultures go about constructing knowledge
• Improved capacity to think critically about the nature of knowledge and the learning process, both in relation to your own work and the work of others
• Enhanced ability to communicate effectively and to convey meaning

• Evidence of preparation for tutorials, including reflective writing tasks (up to 300 words for each tutorial), posted online 10%
• Facilitating a class seminar/tutorial 20%
• Small group collaborative project producing a written research report based on interview(s) with ANU researchers: 30% (1000 words)
• Individual final reflective piece integrating course themes: 40% (2500 words or equivalent)

4 hours contact a week, 6 hours independent learning a week

Students need to have completed 24 units towards their degree.