In summary

  • Swinburne became Australia’s first Adobe Creative Campus in 2019, with all students and staff having free access to the full Adobe Creative Cloud suite.

  • Swinburne and Adobe have signed another three-year partnership from 2023 – 2025 which has elevated student and staff Adobe access to Creative Cloud Pro Edition.

  • The partnership continues to focus on embracing innovation, boosting digital literacy and employability skills for students, while embedding and uplifting tech across all study areas.

Swinburne’s Adobe Creative Campus has just received an upgrade following a successful three years as Australia’s first Adobe Creative Campus. Swinburne and Adobe have renewed their partnership agreement for 2023-2025 that will continue to build on the benefits that have been embraced by students and staff, focusing on improving digital literacy and innovation across all areas of learning and teaching at Swinburne.  

This new phase of the Adobe Creative Campus partnership means Swinburne students and staff have been upgraded to the Adobe Creative Cloud Pro Edition, which comes with unlimited access to over 270 million photos, illustrations, vectors and templates with an education license.  

Embedding digital literacies into all teaching and learning

Since the partnership began in 2019, Swinburne’s Adobe Creative Campus program has supported our educators with the continuous development of their digital skills through regular workshops and coaching sessions. 

The Adobe Innovation Grant Program has awarded 65 grants to educators to support them to embed digital literacies into their curriculum using the Adobe Creative Cloud suite. Initiatives that have received these grants in the past include the use of volumetric capture technology for virtual performances by the National Institute of Circus Arts (NICA), creating accessible robotics through digital and physical prototyping, as well as decolonising and Indigenising the curriculum through Swinburne’s Moondani Toombadool Centre and National Centre for Reconciliation Practice.   

The Curriculum Innovator Program, launched in 2023, takes the Adobe Innovation Grants to the next level.  Professor Sarah Maddison, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education, Experience & Employability) says, “The Curriculum Innovator Program is helping us level up from the amazing work our educators have done with the Adobe Innovation Grants over the past few years. The program aims to embed digital literacies at the course level, which will ensure that our students build their digital skills throughout their studies.  We’re supporting collaborative teaching teams to transform curriculum to ensure our students are digitally fluent upon graduation.”  

Supporting students for a tech-rich future

Students across all study areas can upskill in the Adobe Creative Cloud suite through our Adobe Labs, regular workshops, drop-in sessions and through the extensive resources available to all on our Digital Literacies Hub. These initiatives are led by our Adobe Digital Coaches, who are current students and recent graduates employed and supported by Swinburne. The Adobe Digital Coaches are also available to work with teachers using Adobe applications within the curriculum. Staff are able to book the Adobe Digital Coaches to work as mentors in class, to run a workshop or to answer questions during a drop-in session.

Adobe Creative Coach Rohan on the program’s success   

Rohan completed a Bachelor of Design, majoring in Communication Design and User Experience & Interaction Design at Swinburne in 2018, and has a successful freelance design business alongside his role as an Adobe Digital Coach.  Starting from the conception of the Adobe Hub, Rohan has seen how the program has evolved and students’ digital fluency along with it.

“It’s been amazing to see the transformation of the digital skill level across the university, which is really visible in types of questions being asked in our workshops drop-in sessions,” he said.

“In the first year that I was an Adobe Digital Coach, at least half of the questions we were getting was how to sign into an app or tool and how to get a general sense of what the Adobe tools can do and why students should use them.  

“Now, we’re getting questions from students with a particular project in mind and wanting to bring it to life with Adobe apps and helping them innovate through use of the software. Seeing this change has been the best part of being a coach.”

Learn more about Swinburne’s Adobe Creative Campus and how you can get involved.

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