Using student projects to link academics, business and students

Academics in business areas are striving to develop innovative teaching approaches that address the needs of their key stakeholders, in particular academics, employers and students. To do this programs have to be theoretically sound, address the needs of businesses and ensure that students obtain the knowledge and skills necessary to obtain productive employment. One action-orientated approach that can be used to address these diverse interests is that of an applied student project. This paper discusses an approach used at one Australian university to implement student projects as a mechanism to address the interests of key stakeholders, as well as identifies issues that need to be addressed by academics considering using this approach.