A joint first year biology-chemistry project looked at the way in which these disciplines are taught at the first year level at the Universities of Melbourne and Sydney.  The project investigated a number of parameters about the teaching of these disciplines at the two universities. 

The objectives of this collaborative project included:

• self-improvement - to improve processes within our discipline areas on the basis of identifying and adopting best practice: and 
• piloting benchmarking techniques to instil an understanding of the value of benchmarking for quality improvement in our discipline areas.

The project looked at the structure of the two universities, the structure of the Faculty of Science at each university and the detailed information about the two discipline areas.  In addition transition programs were identified and compared and the use of e-learning in first year units was given a special emphasis, in particular the use of ChemCAL in the teaching of chemistry at both universities.

One of the purposes of the project was to improve the quality of the programmes and subsequently to have a positive impact on teaching, assessment practices and student learning.  We used the process as a vehicle for critical reflection on current practice and we recognised its potential as a stimulus for changing current practice for the better. 

The outputs of the project include making a teaching quality inventory that might help to identify areas of best practice and possible transfer of practice from one institution to another.

A report of the project "A Collaborative evaluation of the teaching of first year Chemistry and Biology at the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney" by Sue Franklin, Mary Peat, Adrian George (The University of Sydney), Dawn Gleeson and Peter Tregloan (The University of Melbourne) is available online at http://science.uniserve.edu.au/disc/benchmarking/