Creative Exchange: An evolving model of multidisciplinary collaboration

Katja Fleischmann, Clive Hutchison
2012 Journal of Learning Design  
Often the traditional creative arts curriculum does not sufficiently respond to, nor reflect, contemporary work practice. Multidisciplinary teams are now increasingly the norm in creative arts practice especially when driven by technological innovation. Drawing on contemporary research that centres on the benefits of multidisciplinary collaboration, Creative Exchange is a direct attempt to implement multidisciplinary practice within a tertiary learning environment. Outcomes aim to prepare
more » ... ts for dynamic engagement with the challenges and possibilities of their future workplace in the creative arts industries. After the initial planning stages and based on recent research findings, the scope of Creative Exchange has broadened from collaborative engagement within the creative arts to a broader rationale that includes noncreative arts' disciplines e.g. Information Technology, Business and Journalism. In order to develop a sustainable solution this approach was formalised in the POOL MODEL framework (Fleischmann, 2008a (Fleischmann, , 2008b (Fleischmann, , 2010 within which Creative Exchange saw its first implementation in 2009 in the School of Creative Arts at James Cook University. The background to Creative Exchange The traditional university-based creative arts curriculum often has not sufficiently responded to, nor reflected, contemporary workplace realities. This was significantly the case at the authors' University's school. However, recent sweeping changes have seen a complete restructure of the School of Creative Arts with a reinvention of the curriculum. Integral to these changes have been the interrogation and evolution of new possibilities that aim to position future students not only at the centre of new media arts practice, but as versatile and adaptable professionals prepared to seek strategic alliances, within and external to, the creative arts. Creative arts professionals within a range of creative industries-including advertising, animation, video and film production, performing arts, and entertainment-have long structured their workplace relationships around a variety of team-based models. In advertising, for example, at the
doi:10.5204/jld.v5i1.92 fatcat:z6ns7q3benevbc52ufrchwggq4