Before we automate WIL evaluation, we need to ask what we're actually measuring

David Fulcher

doi:10.21153/jtlge2026vol17no2art2406

Authors

Dr David Fulcher University of Wollongong https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4696-5521

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21153/jtlge2026vol17no2art2406

Abstract

Community-engaged Work-Integrated Learning (WIL) is increasingly positioned as a mechanism for advancing graduate employability and social responsibility, yet the frameworks used to evaluate it remain anchored to countable proxies: employment rates, satisfaction scores, and placement completions. This provocation argues that these metrics are structurally misaligned with what WIL practitioners actually know about placement quality: knowledge that is relational, contextually rich, and routinely invisible in institutional reporting. As Generative AI enters WIL evaluation, this misalignment becomes urgent. Automating existing frameworks will not resolve their limitations, and risks further marginalising the evidence that most reliably signals whether community-engaged WIL is working. Drawing on research into practitioner agency in learning analytics, this provocation calls for evaluation frameworks that legitimise practitioner judgement, centre community partner perspectives, and deploy GenAI in service of relational knowledge rather than as a substitute for it. Effective WIL evaluation is not primarily a measurement problem, it is a question of whose evidence counts.

Author Biography

Dr David Fulcher, University of Wollongong

David Fulcher is Manager, Performance and Reporting (Student Equity) at the University of Wollongong, where he leads work combining student outreach, data and insights to strengthen equity and retention initiatives across the institution. He holds a PhD in learning analytics and educational technology, and has over eleven years of experience as both a learning analytics practitioner and researcher. His research examines how university teachers use learning analytics as part of their teaching practice, with particular attention to practitioner agency and the arrangements that shape it.

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