In most Australian universities, student-perceptions-of-teaching surveys are seen to play an important role in assisting staff to improve their teaching. It is often assumed that on receipt of their student survey report, diligent and committed academics will review and interpret their report, identify areas of weakness in their teaching and seek to address them though various means, including identifying suitable staff development activities and accessing print and non-print resources. While some members of teaching staff do manage to find the time to identify staff development workshops on teaching or access relevant books and other resources, many do not because of difficulties in identifying their specific needs as well as their perception of the effort and time involved in locating and accessing resources.

The project 'Linking Feedback from Student Perceptions of Teaching to Active Strategies for Teaching Improvement', funded by a two-year grant from the Committee for University Teaching and Staff Development, is a collaborative project between the University of Adelaide and the University of Western Australia. The project aims to provide an effective way of linking feedback on various aspects of teaching to existing resources that might assist in the development of strategies to enhance student learning through changed teaching practices. Poorly rated items in student survey reports will be linked with relevant strategies and resources through an automated system. Academics receiving feedback reports will thus be provided not only with student ratings, but also areas for development and change would be identified, and available strategies such as workshops, books, videos, CD-ROMs and Web-based resources would be listed. For the project team in each university, this involves auditing and classifying existing resources, establishing databases and linking selected student feedback items with resource databases.

This paper provides details of the project and a progress report on what has been achieved and learned in the first six months of the project.