Rate My Professor Gail Bourne

Gail Bourne is a Senior Lecturer (Ed-Focused/WIL) in Computing Education within the Human-Centred Computing discipline at Monash University's Faculty of Information Technology. She serves as the Industry Experience Postgraduate Projects Co-ordinator, managing capstone experiences that integrate academic knowledge with real-world IT applications. Bourne's association with Monash dates back to at least 1989, as recorded in historical faculty handbooks where she is listed among computing education staff. The Industry Experience Postgraduate program she coordinates is a studio-based capstone offered in the final semester of masters degrees including Master of Information Technology, Master of Business Information Systems, Master of Data Science, and Master of Networks and Security. Students form self-managed, multidisciplinary teams of 4-5 members to research contemporary system development approaches, cultivate entrepreneurial thinking and new skills, analyze publicly available big data to pinpoint problems or opportunities, and apply agile methodologies to build IT artefacts such as apps or websites. The program features coaching and feedback from academic mentors, industry mentors, and sponsoring organisations, fostering industry-standard practices, stakeholder engagement, professional skills demonstration, and reflective documentation.

In addition to program coordination, Bourne acts as chief examiner or unit coordinator for several professional practice and industry-focused units, such as FIT5122 Professional Practice, ITI5121 Industry Experience Studio Project 2, FIT5238 Information Technology Systems Capstone Project, FIT5120 Industry Experience Studio Project, FIT3047 Industry Experience Studio Project 1, and ITO5001 Applied Practice 1. Her pioneering efforts in work-integrated learning have garnered notable accolades. In 2016, she received the Gold Disruptor award and was a finalist for ICT Educator of the Year at the Australian Computer Society's Digital Disruptors awards for the Postgraduate Industry Experience program. In 2017, alongside team members Chris Gonsalvez, Livia Mammarella, Peter O'Donnell, Harnam Thandi, and Yiwei Zhong, she was awarded the Monash Vice-Chancellor's Award for Programs that Enhance Learning. These honors reflect her substantial contributions to innovative IT education and student career readiness at Monash University.