The student-staff partnership: Pooling our
expertise to develop a user-friendly skills web site

The Faculty of Science at The University of Sydney has initiated a number of projects in line with University and external trends towards improving the student experience. It has a strong ongoing commitment to the provision of a positive total experience for its students as evidenced by its Student Transition Workshop, the use of student-centred flexible learning and its use of ICT in teaching, especially in large first year classes. The philosophy for all projects has been that they are rigorously evaluated, comfortably sustainable and become core business of the Faculty of Science. More recently the Faculty has sought to raise awareness of the need to develop generic skills/attributes required for future employment by putting in place processes whereby students take responsibility for self assessing the development of these attributes during their degree program. This paper outlines the development of a web site for students, Life Long Earning, and discusses the way in which the iterative process with students and our own honest reflections changed the project from a somewhat academic view of skills and attributes to a student-friendly message about how to best prepare one's self for the job market.