Research Team

Ms. Sarah Lambert (Chief Investigator) completed a multi-phase qualitative and mixed methods PhD on Open Education as Social Justice after a 20-year career in educational technology. Sarah’s work in higher education has been made in the context of regional communities and widening participation. She has a track record of quality critical research outputs, including best-in-conference awards and runner-up best research paper in the 2018 Fred Mulder Awards for Global Open Education research. She maintains extensive international research and practice networks and recently co-edited a special edition of the Journal of Interactive Media in Education with Prof. Laura Czerniewicz (University of Cape Town). The special edition project was supported by funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation to ensure ECR and Global South participation and representation in the publishing opportunity.

Previous research and scholarship interests have included ePortfolio, MOOCs and collaborative online learning. Sarah has been involved in 4 Australian Office of Learning and Teaching national research projects (two on ePortfolio, one on Open Education, and one as Steering Committee member). As a hybrid practitioner/researcher she is uniquely placed to leverage her technological, research and widening participation experiences to lead this study.

 

Ms. Habiba Fadel (Research Assistant) completed her Master of Teaching degree by research. Her thesis focussed on Humanities teachers’ perspectives on student engagement with contemporary local and global news events in the classroom. She published a journal article in the Social Educator Journal to showcase the findings of this research study. She has worked as a research assistant on multiple projects at Deakin and also has been an Assistant Lecturer at the Faculty of Business and Law. Throughout her roles at Deakin University  Habiba has been collaborating closely with academics, researchers and HDRs, as well as with external organisations that are part of the projects she has been involved in. She is passionate about academic research that have impact on the field of education. Habiba is currently in the process of pursuing a PhD.