Underpinning practice-based creative research with quality supervision

In the past few years, there has been some interestingdebate on the notion of postgraduate research by the exegesis route, which is currently the most favoured approach to higher degree qualification in the creative arts arena. The production of an artwork, which is accompanied by scholarly written exposition, has become a well-accepted way in which cultural and social knowledge is generated within the creative disciplines. Some problems, however, still remain with the quality supervision of creative arts postgraduate students because of the concurrent requirements of having a supervisor with a significant reputation in the student's field of creative endeavour and the skills to advise on the preparation of the scholarly document that expounds on the creative work. In addition, because of the recent history of the exegesis route to higher degrees, there are relatively few experienced research staff in creative arts departments. At the University of Ballarat's Arts Academy, we have been developing an approachto the supervisionof creative Masters and Doctoral exegeses in the context of small staff numbers, a wide variety of practice areas, and a relatively large number of enrolled students. Results to date have been encouraging, and this paper will report on the way in which we are attempting to provide each studnet with the best educational experience possible and produce world-class creative higher degree graduates within a school that has a limited financial and personnel resource baseE