The 7 articles in this 8th volume comprise the referred proceedings of the 2012 ATLAANZ (Association of Tertiary Learning Advisors Aotearoa/New Zealand) conference. The first three chapters present tools that can assist students with their academic development: In chapter 1, ("The DELNA Language Advisory Session: How do Students Respond?"), Janet van Randow outlines the development of the Diagnostic English Language Needs Assessment (DELNA) which was introduced at the Auckland of University as a tool that English as Additional Language (EAL) students use to improve their English. Janet draws on students' anonymous online evaluations over 11 years, to present a discussion of their response to DELNA being made a requirement; In chapter two, ("A Journey to Access Free Open Source Referencing Management Systems (FOSRMS): Zotero"), Barbara Morris outlines the journey undertaken at the Western Institute of Technology at Taranaki (WITT) and reports on student uptake and response to Zotero, a free open source referencing management system; Lois Burns in chapter 3, ("The Development of an Interactive Writing Tool"), outlines the development of interactive tools, designed to assist postgraduate students with their academic writing. The next two chapters focus on student orientations: In chapter 4, ("Active Learning in Large Groups: A Case Study from New Students' Orientation"), Emma Osborne outlines an incentive by Massey University, Wellington, to include in the new student orientation programme a workshop in which students were encouraged to engage in critical thinking through activity based learning in a lecture setting; In chapter 5, ("Developing an Online Orientation Workshop for First-Year Students in a Distance Education Context"), Hanna Craig and Ximena Riquelme outline the development and trial of an Online Orientation Workshop at their institute, the Open Polytechnic of New Zealand. The final two chapters focus on the importance of reflection for Learning Advisors: In chapter 6, ("Reflecting on One-To-One Teaching--What Strategies Might Shed Light on Our Practice?"), Caroline Malthus explores the purpose of reflective practice for Learning Advisors and presents a reflective practice checklist and "wheel of learning advising" which Learning Advisors could use as prompts to review one-to-one sessions; and in chapter 7, ("'Physician, Heal Thyself': What We Can Learn From Our Own Writing Advice"), Sean Sturm argues that Learning Advisors (including himself) are often loathe to reflect on their own writing practices. His article, which includes reflection of his own writing practices throughout, provides strategies for Learning Advisors on how to become productive writers. Also included is a Preface and Acknowledgements, Foreword, Editor's introduction, and Appendix 1: Statistics Related to the Proceedings. [Individual articles also contain footnotes.]