History in the making

Queensland College of Art lecturer Dr Julie Fragar made history this week with the unveiling of her official portrait of Queensland’s first female premier, Hon Anna Bligh AC.
The stunning oil portrait is the first painting of a female premier to hang in Queensland’s Parliament House.
Dr Fragar said she was “honoured” to be chosen to capture Ms Bligh for posterity.
“I believe Anna asked QAGOMA Director Chris Saines to draw up a shortlist of female, Queensland-based artists,” she said.
“She was familiar with my work from an exhibition at GOMA, and I think we share a similar aesthetic.
“The fact that she specifically wanted to work with a young, local female artist is really inspiring.”
Dr Fragar worked with Queensland College of Art photography graduate Louis Lim on a series of photographs of Ms Bligh which were used to create the stunning oil painting.
“It was a really long process – I can’t imagine anyone, let

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Engaging with online networks leads to higher grades

New research at Griffith has revealed a direct correlation between student activities on enterprise social networks (ESN) and their academic grades.
The study examined the habits of online postgraduate students and how they engaged with Microsoft’s Yammer network to share ideas and collaborate with other students and academic staff.
The online opportunity to ask the right question at the right time also emerged as a significant benefit for students.
Professor Nick Barter, Academic Director of Griffith Online, looked at SWOOP Analytics data focusing on three Yammer groups and the activities of 222 students at Griffith University.
Each individual was attributed with one of five online personas as a result of their engagement activities.
“Preliminary results showed a clear correlation between SWOOP persona and academic performance,” Professor Barter said. “On average, the highest performing students were engagers, the most desirable of the five personas.”
SWOOP is designed to analyse and report on all relationships that are formed

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