Developing research data management services at QUT

QUT Library and the High Performance Computing and Research Support (HPC) Team have been collaborating on developing and delivering a range of research support services, including those designed to assist researchers to manage their data. QUT’s Management of Research Data policy has been available since 2010 and is complemented by the Data Management Guidelines and Checklist. QUT has partnered with the Australian Research Data Service (ANDS) on a number of projects including Seeding the Commons, Metadata Hub (with Griffith University) and the Data Capture program. The HPC Team has also been developing the QUT Research Data Repository based on the Architecta Mediaflux system and have run several pilots with faculties. Library and HPC staff have been trained in the principles of research data management and are providing a range of research data management seminars and workshops for researchers and HDR students.

Exporting educational services : an Australian university’s experience in delivering offshore project management programs

Increasingly, Australian universities are facing the challenges of global education. While overseas students studying in Australia provide the primary source of export earnings for educational institutions, a number of institutions, including QUT, are also involved in international trade in educational services by providing services offshore. This paper discusses driving forces behind moves by Australian universities to enter the international education market. It then briefly describes Queensland University of Technology’s internationalisation strategy. The paper concludes with a case study describing how the School of Construction Management has pioneered the development of offshore courses at QUT. The introduction of the Master of Project Management and Graduate Diploma of Project Management programs in Singapore in November 1993 represented QUT’s first experience in this area. With the experience of 18 months of operation, the School now has the opportunity to reflect on the outcomes of this venture and consider future options.

The synergy of renewable energy technology and services to the public

This talk explores a new opportunity renewable energy technology has for society.

Independent review of ACT Corrective Services Alexander Maconochie Centre [Interim Report]

Under a Services Agreement dated 16th April 2010 the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) engaged Knowledge Consulting Pty Ltd to conduct an independent review of operations at the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) in the ACT. The Review was commissioned following a motion passed in the ACT Legislative Assembly as follows: “That this Assembly: (1) notes: (a) concerns regarding the operation of the AMC; (b) the unanimous findings of the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety report, Inquiry into the delay in the commencement of operations at the Alexander Maconochie Centre; and (c) the Government’s intention to have a review into the operation of the AMC after its first year of operation; and (2) calls on the Government to: (a) commission an independent reviewer to conduct the one year review into the AMC; (b) ensure that the review be open and transparent and public, and include input from community and non-government groups with an interest or involvement in the AMC, including on the terms of reference for the review; (c) ensure the review is completed in a timely manner and be tabled in the Legislative Assembly immediately upon completion; and (d) report upon the progress of the review in August 2010;”

The gender diversity-performance relationship in services and manufacturing organizations

Empirical findings on the link between gender diversity and performance have been inconsistent. This paper presents three competing predictions of the organizational gender diversity-performance relationship: a positive linear prediction derived from the resource-based view of the firm, a negative linear prediction derived from self-categorization and social identity theories, and an inverted U-shaped curvilinear prediction derived from the integration of the resource-based view of the firm with self-categorization and social identity theories. This paper also proposes a moderating effect of industry type (services vs. manufacturing) on the gender diversity-performance relationship. The predictions were tested in publicly listed Australian organizations using archival quantitative data with a longitudinal research design. The results show partial support for the positive linear and inverted U-shaped curvilinear predictions as well as for the proposed moderating effect of industry type. The curvilinear relationship indicates that different proportions of organizational gender diversity have different effects on organizational performance, which may be attributed to different dynamics as suggested by the resource-based view and self-categorization and social identity theories. The results help reconcile the inconsistent findings of past research that focused on the linear gender diversity-performance relationship. The findings also show that industry context can strengthen or weaken the effects of organizational gender diversity on performance.

The emerging management services of business transformation management

Business transformations are large-scale organizational change programs that, evidence suggests, are often unsuccessful. Our interest is in identifying the management capabilities required for the successful execution of these projects. We advance a service-oriented view of the enterprise, which suggests that different management services need to be identified and integrated in order to execute business transformation. In order to identify those management services that require integration, we conducted an exploratory empirical study of the demand for management services in US and Asia, and we show that two archetypes of management services exist in business transformation initiatives: transactional and transformational management services. We identify the relevant set of transactional and transformational services and discuss what the demand for these services implies for the execution of business transformations.

Mapping the ethical journey of experienced nurses now practising in rural and remote hospitals in central and south-west Queensland and in domiciliary services in Brisbane : a grounded theory approach

The aim of this thesis has been to map the ethical journey of experienced nurses now practising in rural and remote hospitals in central and south-west Queensland and in domiciliary services in Brisbane. One group of the experienced nurses in the study were Directors of Nursing in rural and remote hospitals. These nurses were “hands on”, “multi-skilled “ nurses who also had the task of managing the hospital. Also there were two Directors of Nursing from domiciliary services in Brisbane. A grounded theory method was used. The nurses were interviewed and the data retrieved from the interviews was coded, categorised and from these categories a conceptual framework was generated. The literature which dealt with the subject of ethical decision making and nurses also became part of the data. The study revealed that all these nurses experienced moral distress as they made ethical decisions. The decision making categories revealed in the data were: the area of financial management; issues as end of life approaches; allowing to die with dignity; emergency decisions; experience of unexpected death; the dilemma of providing care in very difficult circumstances. These categories were divided into two chapters: the category related to administrative and financial constraints and categories dealing with ethical issues in clinical settings. A further chapter discussed the overarching category of coping with moral distress. These experienced nurses suffered moral distress as they made ethical decisions, confirming many instances of moral distress in ethical decision making documented in the literature to date. Significantly, the nurses in their interviews never mentioned the ethical principles used in bioethics as an influence in their decision making. Only one referred to lectures on ethics as being an influence in her thinking. As they described their ethical problems and how they worked through them, they drew on their own previous experience rather than any knowledge of ethics gained from nursing education. They were concerned for their patients, they spoke from a caring responsibility towards their patients, but they were also concerned for justice for their patients. This study demonstrates that these nurses operated from the ethic of care, tempered with the ethic of responsibility as well as a concern for justice for their patients. Reflection on professional experience, rather than formal ethics education and training, was the primary influence on their ethical decision making.

Producing better outcomes : music and public services

Music has played an important role in social life for thousands of years, and its varied forms of communication have significantly influenced the types of public services reported in this book. It is now time for practitioners and academics to sing songs of resilience that reinvigorate the public’s understanding of the positive role music can play in all of our lives, and for public services to better resource music projects. The last twenty years have seen major advances in studies of music and its affects on the brain’s neuroplasticity, but as yet no one has managed to provide a comprehensive response to Oliver Sachs’ (2006) question: why does music, for better or worse, have so much power? This chapter seeks to demonstrate the power of those music making experiences that bridge the gap between the physicaland social sciences across commercial, social and cultural contexts.

Design for eco-services. Part A - Environmental Services

Without the virtually free services of nature like clean air and water, humans would not last long. Natural systems can be incorporated in existing urban structures or spaces to add public amenity, mitigate the heat island effect, reduce pollution, add oxygen, and ensure water, electricity and food security in urban areas. Th ere are many eco-solutions that could radically reduce resource consumption and pollution and even provide surplus ecosystem services in the built environment at little or no operational cost, if adequately supported by design. Th is paper is the fi rst of a two part paper that explains what eco-services are, then provides examples of how design can generate natural as well as social capital. Using examples of actual and notional solutions, both papers set out to challenge designers to ‘think again’, and invent ways of creating net positive environmental gains through built environment design.

Design for eco-services. Part B - Building Services

Without the virtually free services of nature like clean air and water, humans would not last long. Natural systems can be incorporated in existing urban structures or spaces to add public amenity, mitigate the heat island eff ect, reduce pollution, add oxygen, and ensure water, electricity and food security in urban areas. Th ere are many eco-solutions that could radically reduce resource consumption and pollution and even provide surplus ecosystem services in the built environment at little or no operational cost, if adequately supported by design. Th is is the second part of a two part paper that explains what eco-services are, then provides examples of how design can generate natural as well as social capital. Using examples of actual and notional solutions, both papers set out to challenge designers to ‘think again’, and invent ways of creating net positive environmental gains through built environment design.

Response : letter to the editor by Al-Azri and Al-Maniri

Firstly, the authors would like to thank the editor for the opportunity to respond to Dr Al-Azri’s and Dr Al-Maniri’s letter. Secondly, while the current authors also accept that deterrence-based approaches should act as only one corner-stone of a suite of interventions and public policy initiatives designed to improve road safety, deterrence-based approaches have nonetheless consistently proven to be a valuable resource to improve road safety. Dr Al-Azri and Dr Al-Maniri reinforce their assertion about the limited utility of deterrence by citing drink driving research, and the issue of drink driving is particularly relevant within the current context given that the problem of driving after drinking has historically been addressed through deterrence-based approaches. While the effectiveness of deterrence-based approaches to reduce drink driving will always be dependent upon a range of situational and contextual factors (including police enforcement practices, cultural norms, etc), the utilisation of this approach has proven particularly effective within Queensland, Australia. For example, a relatively recent comprehensive review of Random Breath Testing in Queensland demonstrated that this initiative not only had a deterrent impact upon self-reported intentions to drink and drive, but was also found to have significantly reduced alcohol-related fatalities in the state. However, the authors agree that deterrence-based approaches can be particularly transient and thus require constant “topping up” not least through sustained public reinforcement, which was clearly articulated in the seminal work by Homel.

The impact of rhetoric and reality on community anticipation of risk in the development of multi-purpose services (MPS) : A grounded theory study

better health service.Conclusion:This research provides an insight into the perceptions of the rhetoric and reality of community member involvement in the process of developing multi-purpose services. It revealed a grounded theory in which fear and trust were intrinsic to a process of changing from a traditional hospital service to the acceptance of a new model of health care provided at a multi-purpose service.