My ‘Hubs’

Central repositories of teaching and learning resources

As a quality scoping project, when I began my role as an Educational Designer at Monash in the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences in 2017, I audited eighteen courses within the faculty. I did this to understand the quality and educational needs of the faculty. I had been informed that our Learning Management System was being used predominantly as a file repository, and that there wasn’t a consistent template across courses. This was apparent during my audit.

As a result, I began developing a series of resources to support the gaps in faculty educators’ experience and knowledge identified from my initial Moodle audits. I designed the resources to be self-paced, just-in-time resources, and developed tipsheets and online learning modules. To cater to the needs of faculty educators, I created a range of professional development options, as some preferred deep engagement and collaboration with peers, while others preferred quick reference material. The collection grew quickly, and I realised I needed a central location to house them all, so, in 2017, I developed the first iteration of my ‘Hub’, a Moodle site called the MNHS Unit Enhancement Hub (Iteration 1)

In 2019, I discovered Google Sites, and I was taken by its clean, simple layout and ease of use. Housing the Hub in Moodle was not without issue, and it became apparent that there needed to be a clear distinction between the professional development resources and the Moodle good practice examples. So I separated the two concepts and created fully fleshed-out Moodle examples that aligned with several templates I designed for different teaching modalities. See the MNHS Moodle Example Site for further details. The second resource I created was a Google site that housed professional development, which became the MNHS Blended and Online Learning Hub (Iteration 2).

Over the years, I shifted my focus to workshops, and the reference materials I had created became a struggle to maintain and update. However, they were well placed to support educators when COVID-19 lockdowns meant that information about online learning was in high demand. In 2021, Monash TeachHQ was revealed and established a central teaching and learning resource hub. This allowed me to reduce the volume of resources I was managing and leverage the resources in Teach HQ. Post-COVID, most teaching and learning modes became hybrid or focused on digital delivery, so the term ‘blended learning’ was no longer used. So, along with the pairing back of resources to reduce overlap, I renamed the site to align with our current educational goals and directions: the MNHS Learning and Teaching Hub (Iteration 3).

In 2021, the three teams in our faculty merged to form one: Educational Design and Support. The team’s support covered Moodle and educational technologies, the microstudio and recording, and educational design. Further along in our team’s journey, 2021 brought a new look to the hub: The Education Design and Support website (Iteration 4). The website has since changed its design, philosophy, and structure in 2025, but the archived version of the site remains captured here.