American Accounting Association honours Quitch creators
In Summary
- Two Swinburne academics awarded for innovation in accounting education
- Quitch app also recognised at the Victorian iAwards
- Quitch now on trial in 102 universities worldwide
Swinburne’s Dr Grainne Oates and Professor Dan Hunter have won the American Accounting Association’s 2017 award for Innovation in Accounting Education for their mobile learning platform, Quitch.
The platform was a 2015 initiative of senior lecturer in accounting and CEO of Quitch, Dr Oates. It uses gamification principles and interactivity to connect students with their lecturers and engage them in their studies. As a content-neutral platform it can be used across all disciplines.
Dr Oates worked with Professor Hunter, the Dean of Swinburne's Law School, who is also an expert on gamification in education, to build the Quitch app, which engages students via their mobile devices.
“We are delighted to achieve this prestigious award and thank the American Accounting Association for supporting innovation in accounting education," Dr Oates says.
“We also thank the Ernst & Young Foundation for sponsoring this award and for recognising the importance of continuous improvement in teaching to skill our students for the future.”
With Quitch now in use in a number of universities across Australia, as well as in the corporate sector for compliance and training, Dr Oates looks forward to working with US colleagues on implementation of this innovative solution, which improves both engagement and performance.
“Quitch is now on trial in 102 universities across the world, and we could not be happier with its uptake.”
Quitch was set up with $50,000 seed money from Swinburne plus $350,000 of private investment.
Commercial licences have been sold to the University of Melbourne, the University of Western Australia, Monash College, Swinburne Online, Access Education and Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore for training of junior doctors.
Version 3 of the app will be released soon with new features designed to help educators get their job done more efficiently and robust data analytics to identify what is happening with students in real time.
The mobile learning platform also won Mobility Innovation of the Year and Startup of the Year awards at the Victorian iAwards.
Contact Dr Grainne Oates for a trial: goates@swin.edu.au