Preface

This book owes its origins to the open textbook “College Success”, written by Amy Baldwin. Baldwin’s text aims to assist students’ transition into tertiary study. Our team of learning advisors and librarians at the University of Southern Queensland have a similar desire to help new students flourish at university. Thus, the integration “College Success” with the wealth of knowledge and experience of our team made a natural union for our book.

In “Academic Success”, you will find an Australian perspective on the university experience, with content especially re-worked for Australian students. Our team has also contributed new discussions in areas such as English language foundations, working with information, writing assignments and many more. Our sincere thanks to each team member for their tireless efforts, enthusiastic support of the project and their valued work on this book. Please see About the Authors for the list of our contributors. We would also like to thank Dr Linda Clark for her superb artistic talents in designing the front cover, and several of the figures included in the book.

This book would not have been possible without the outstanding contribution of our Open Education Content Librarian Nikki Andersen. We offer our sincere thanks to Nikki for her expertise, insightful guidance and dedicated approach in stepping us through this new process.  Nikki, you made the journey enjoyable, exciting and achievable. Thank you. We also extend our appreciation to Adrian Stagg, Manager (Open Educational Practice) for his support, advice and expertise in open textbooks.

Finally, Dr Wendy Hargreaves committed her substantial skill and enthusiasm to create a seamless project which harnessed the writing talents of our team. Her writing and editing expertise supported us in producing our first open textbook.  Wendy’s boundless energy and plentiful smiles provided the best possible environment for this creation. Thank you, Wendy.