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=Institutional learning objectives are guided by learning and teaching strategic plans. =

Evidence
At an overarching level most institutions have a set of graduate attributes, which are skills., personal and professional qualities that are written into learning and teaching strategic plans as desirable in successful graduates. “The majority of Australian universities have engaged with the processes of graduate attribute development in recognition of their responsibility to equip graduates with the attributes needed for lifelong learning in a rapidly changing world and workplace” (Thompson et al. 2008).

Graduate attributes are defined by the Higher Education Council Australia (1992) report Achieving Quality as “the skills, personal attributes and values which should be acquired by all graduates, regardless of their discipline or field of study. In other words, they should represent the central achievements of higher education as a process” (p. 20). It is important for the learning objectives from individual courses to link to these graduate objectives to ensure that students completing programs can see a path leading from individual assessments to ultimate employability. An important function of learning objectives is to link the activities students undertake on a day to day basis with the institution-wide graduate attributes.

Gunn, Bell & Kafmann (2010) note that employability is something that a lot of institutions are concerned about for their graduates. Employability drives the setting of graduate attributes. To maximize the opportunities for their undergraduates, institutions need to coordinate at a strategic level and at a local disciplinary level. Some basic decisions at a strategic level are listed by Gunn et al., but importantly they note that decisions must also be made at the program design level about whether opportunities to develop graduate attributes are most effectively embedded in programs or where add-on courses would be helpful.