The Australian screen producer: Understanding screen production cultures in a period of industrial transition [Abstract]

The screen producer plays a vital role in shaping the creative, commercial and entrepreneurial dimensions of production. And yet Australian film history is most often presented as an appreciation of film directors or an examination of industrial governance measures. On the other hand, public funding agencies in Australia have, for the most part, supported independent film and television production as a producer-led, or producer-as-auteur production system, and as such the producer has played a critical role in shaping the broader independent production landscape. In recent years, fundamental changes to distribution and consumption practices have had a major impact on the nature of screen production. Screen producers are increasingly migrating into emerging online, transmedia and cross-media production; generating both opportunities and challenges for traditional producers. However, the production cultures and motivations of producers operating in these emergent spaces remain poorly understood. This presentation will focus on the largely unremarked role of the producer in Australian screen scholarship. It will explore the ways in which the practice of screen producing is evolving and the migratory pathways of traditional producers moving into digital/new media production. The presentation’s primary findings are drawn from the 2011 Australian Screen Producer Survey; a national study of the activities of Australian screen producers conducted by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI), Queensland University of Technology, with support from the Centre for Screen Business /Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS). From longitudinal analysis, the presentation will compare and contrast data from the 2009 and 2011 survey across film, television, corporate production and new media industry segments. In so doing the presentation will delineate the practices, attitudes, strategies, and aspirations of screen producers operating in a convergent digital media marketplace and suggest ways forward for a more industrially cognisant approach to screen history.

Innovative Products Survey Report

This report presents the results of the 2011 Australian road and bridge product innovation survey, the largest survey of its kind ever undertaken. The survey sample was defined as key organisations involved in the Australian road and bridge construction industry. The survey focused on four sectors across the road and bridge product supply chain: suppliers (comprising manufacturers and distributors), consultants (primarily engineering consultant firms), contractors (comprising head and trade contractors and subcontractors) and clients (state government road agencies). The sample comprised the four sectors in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.

Benefit cost analysis applied to behavioral and engineering safety countermeasures in San Francisco, California

The state of the practice in safety has advanced rapidly in recent years with the emergence of new tools and processes for improving selection of the most cost-effective safety countermeasures. However, many challenges prevent fair and objective comparisons of countermeasures applied across safety disciplines (e.g. engineering, emergency services, and behavioral measures). These countermeasures operate at different spatial scales, are funded often by different financial sources and agencies, and have associated costs and benefits that are difficult to estimate. This research proposes a methodology by which both behavioral and engineering safety investments are considered and compared in a specific local context. The methodology involves a multi-stage process that enables the analyst to select countermeasures that yield high benefits to costs, are targeted for a particular project, and that may involve costs and benefits that accrue over varying spatial and temporal scales. The methodology is illustrated using a case study from the Geary Boulevard Corridor in San Francisco, California. The case study illustrates that: 1) The methodology enables the identification and assessment of a wide range of safety investment types at the project level; 2) The nature of crash histories lend themselves to the selection of both behavioral and engineering investments, requiring cooperation across agencies; and 3) The results of the cost-benefit analysis are highly sensitive to cost and benefit assumptions, and thus listing and justification of all assumptions is required. It is recommended that a sensitivity analyses be conducted when there is large uncertainty surrounding cost and benefit assumptions.

In defence of Victoria's Children's Court : its value and role in the child protection system

Australian child protection systems have been subject to sustained and significant criticism for many decades. As a central part of that system Children’s Courts have been implicated: three recent inquiries into the child protection system in Victoria all criticised the Family Division of the Children’s Court.1 In the resulting debate two diametrically opposed points of view surfaced about the Children’s Court and the role that legal procedures and professionals should play in child protection matters. On one side bodies like the Children’s Court of Victoria, Victoria Legal Aid (‘VLA’), the Law Institute of Victoria (‘LIV’), and the Federation of Community Legal Centres (‘FCLC’) argued that the Children’s Court plays a vital role in child protection and should continue to play that role.2 On the other side a coalition of human service and child protection agencies called for major change including the removal of the Children’s Court from the child protection system. Victoria’s Department of Human Services (‘DHS’) has been critical of the Court3 as have community sector organisations like Anglicare, Berry Street, MacKillop Family Services and the Salvation Army — all agencies the DHS funds to deliver child protection services.4 Victoria’s Child Safety Commissioner has also called for major reform, publicly labelling the Court a ‘lawyers’ playground’ and recommending abolishing the Court’s involvement in child protection completely.

Action research and unit improvement in higher education : a case study approach

Student satisfaction data has been collected on a national basis in Australia since 1972. In recent years this data has been used by federal government agencies to allocate funding, and by students in selecting their universities of choice. The purpose of this paper is to present the findings of an action research project designed to identify and implement unit improvement initiatives over a three year period for an underperforming unit. This research utilises student survey data and teacher reflections to identify areas of unit improvement, with a view to aligning learning experiences, teaching and assessment to learning outcomes and improved student satisfaction. This research concludes that whilst a voluntary student survey system may be imperfect, it nevertheless provides important data that can be utilised to the benefit of the unit, learning outcomes and student satisfaction ratings, as well as wider course related outcomes. Extrapolation of these findings is recommended to other underperforming units.

Hazard based models for freeway traffic incident duration

Assessing and prioritising cost-effective strategies to mitigate the impacts of traffic incidents and accidents on non-recurrent congestion on major roads represents a significant challenge for road network managers. This research examines the influence of numerous factors associated with incidents of various types on their duration. It presents a comprehensive traffic incident data mining and analysis by developing an incident duration model based on twelve months of incident data obtained from the Australian freeway network. Parametric accelerated failure time (AFT) survival models of incident duration were developed, including log-logistic, lognormal, and Weibul-considering both fixed and random parameters, as well as a Weibull model with gamma heterogeneity. The Weibull AFT models with random parameters were appropriate for modelling incident duration arising from crashes and hazards. A Weibull model with gamma heterogeneity was most suitable for modelling incident duration of stationary vehicles. Significant variables affecting incident duration include characteristics of the incidents (severity, type, towing requirements, etc.), and location, time of day, and traffic characteristics of the incident. Moreover, the findings reveal no significant effects of infrastructure and weather on incident duration. A significant and unique contribution of this paper is that the durations of each type of incident are uniquely different and respond to different factors. The results of this study are useful for traffic incident management agencies to implement strategies to reduce incident duration, leading to reduced congestion, secondary incidents, and the associated human and economic losses.

Multilevel determinants of breast cancer survival : association with geographic remoteness and area-level socioeconomic disadvantage

A major priority for cancer control agencies is to reduce geographical inequalities in cancer outcomes. While the poorer breast cancer survival among socioeconomically disadvantaged women is well established, few studies have looked at the independent contribution that area- and individual-level factors make to breast cancer survival. Here we examine relationships between geographic remoteness, area-level socioeconomic disadvantage and breast cancer survival after adjustment for patients’ socio- demographic characteristics and stage at diagnosis. Multilevel logistic regression and Markov chain Monte Carlo simulation were used to analyze 18 568 breast cancer cases extracted from the Queensland Cancer Registry for women aged 30 to 70 years diagnosed between 1997 and 2006 from 478 Statistical Local Areas in Queensland, Australia. Independent of individual-level factors, area-level disadvantage was associated with breast-cancer survival (p=0.032). Compared to women in the least disadvantaged quintile (Quintile 5), women diagnosed while resident in one of the remaining four quintiles had significantly worse survival (OR 1.23, 1.27, 1.30, 1.37 for Quintiles 4, 3, 2 and 1 respectively).) Geographic remoteness was not related to lower survival after multivariable adjustment. There was no evidence that the impact of area-level disadvantage varied by geographic remoteness. At the individual level, Indigenous status, blue collar occupations and advanced disease were important predictors of poorer survival. A woman’s survival after a diagnosis of breast cancer depends on the socio-economic characteristics of the area where she lives, independently of her individual-level characteristics. It is crucial that the underlying reasons for these inequalities be identified to appropriately target policies, resources and effective intervention strategies.

Disaster resilience and local adaptation capacity in coastal Queensland

The 2011 floods illustrated once again Queensland’s vulnerability to flooding and similar disasters. Climate change will increase the frequency and magnitude of such events and will have a variety of other impacts. To deal with these impacts governments at all levels need to be prepared and work together. Like the rest of the nation most of the population of the state is located in the coastal areas and these areas are more vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. This paper examines climate change adaptation efforts in coastal Queensland. The aim is increasing local disaster resilience of people and property through fostering coordination between local and state government planning activities in coastal high hazard areas. By increasing the ability of local governments and state agencies to coordinate planning activities, we can help adapt to impacts of climate change. Towards that end, we will look at the ways that these groups currently interact, especially with regard to issues involving uncertainty related to climate change impacts. Through an examination of climate change related activities by Queensland’s coastal local governments and state level planning agencies and how they coordinate their planning activities at different levels we aim to identify the weaknesses of the current planning system in responding to the challenges of climate change adaptation and opportunities for improving the ways we plan and coordinate planning, and make recommendations to improve resilience in advance of disasters so as to help speed up recovery when they occur.

A model for enhancing assessment and teaching practice at the coalface : Insights from a Fellow-In-Residence engagement program

Australian universities are currently engaging with new governmental policies and regulations that require them to demonstrate enhanced quality and accountability in teaching and research. The development of national academic standards for learning outcomes in higher education is one such instance of this drive for excellence. These discipline-specific standards articulate the minimum, or Threshold Learning Outcomes, to be addressed by higher education institutions so that graduating students can demonstrate their achievement to their institutions, accreditation agencies, and industry recruiters. This impacts not only on the design of Engineering courses (with particular emphasis on pedagogy and assessment), but also on the preparation of academics to engage with these standards and implement them in their day-to-day teaching practice on a micro level. This imperative for enhanced quality and accountability in teaching is also significant at a meso level, for according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, about 25 per cent of teachers in Australian universities are aged 55 and above and more than 54 per cent are aged 45 and above (ABS, 2006). A number of institutions have undertaken recruitment drives to regenerate and enrich their academic workforce by appointing capacity-building research professors and increasing the numbers of early- and mid-career academics. This nationally driven agenda for quality and accountability in teaching permeates also the micro level of engineering education, since the demand for enhanced academic standards and learning outcomes requires both a strong advocacy for a shift to an authentic, collaborative, outcomes-focused education and the mechanisms to support academics in transforming their professional thinking and practice. Outcomes-focused education means giving greater attention to the ways in which the curriculum design, pedagogy, assessment approaches and teaching activities can most effectively make a positive, verifiable difference to students’ learning. Such education is authentic when it is couched firmly in the realities of learning environments, student and academic staff characteristics, and trustworthy educational research. That education will be richer and more efficient when staff works collaboratively, contributing their knowledge, experience and skills to achieve learning outcomes based on agreed objectives. We know that the school or departmental levels of universities are the most effective loci of changes in approaches to teaching and learning practices in higher education (Knight & Trowler, 2000). Heads of Schools are being increasingly entrusted with more responsibilities - in addition to setting strategic directions and managing the operational and sometimes financial aspects of their school, they are also expected to lead the development and delivery of the teaching, research and other academic activities. Guiding and mentoring individuals and groups of academics is one critical aspect of the Head of School’s role. Yet they do not always have the resources or support to help them mentor staff, especially the more junior academics. In summary, the international trend in undergraduate engineering course accreditation towards the demonstration of attainment of graduate attributes poses new challenges in addressing academic staff development needs and the assessment of learning. This paper will give some insights into the conceptual design, implementation and empirical effectiveness to date, of a Fellow-In-Residence Engagement (FIRE) program. The program is proposed as a model for achieving better engagement of academics with contemporary issues and effectively enhancing their teaching and assessment practices. It will also report on the program’s collaborative approach to working with Heads of Schools to better support academics, especially early-career ones, by utilizing formal and informal mentoring. Further, the paper will discuss possible factors that may assist the achievement of the intended outcomes of such a model, and will examine its contributions to engendering an outcomes-focussed thinking in engineering education.

Wetlands, climate zones and Barmah Forest virus disease in Queensland, Australia

Barmah Forest virus (BFV) disease is the second most common mosquito-borne disease in Australia, but the linkages of the wetlands and climate zones with BFV transmission remain unclear. We aimed to examine the relationship between the wetlands, climate zones and BFV risk in Queensland, Australia. Data on the wetlands, climate zones, population and BFV cases for the period 1992 to 2008 were obtained from relevant government agencies. BFV risk was grouped as low-, medium- and high-level based on BFV incidence percentiles. The buffer zones around each BFV case were made using 1, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 50 km distances. We performed a discriminant analysis to determine the differences between wetland classes and BFV risk within each climate zone. The discriminant analyses show that saline 1, riverine and saline tidal influence were the most significant contributors to BFV risk in all climate and buffer zones, while lacustrine, palustrine, estuarine and saline 2 and saline 3 wetlands were less important. These models had classification accuracies of 76%, 98% and 100% for BFV risk in subtropical, tropical and temperate climate zones, respectively. This study demonstrates that BFV risk varies with wetland class and climate zone. The discriminant analysis is a useful tool to quantify the links between wetlands, climate zones and BFV risk.

Could mobile telephony be harnessed for development in Papua New Guinea?

Could mobile telephony be harnessed for development in Papua New Guinea (PNG)? Could mobile phones be utilised to enhance the security and prosperity of rural communities? Could mobile phones be a useful tool in the achievement of the PNG 2050 Vision targets? This paper is based on literature review around use of mobile phones in development in Asia, Africa, and the Caribbean. It also draws on discussions with key players in PNG, such as NGOs, UN agencies, donor partners, telecommunication companies and the government of PNG. Anticipated benefits of mobile phone availability have not been fully realised in rural areas of PNG to date due to pricing, difficulties with recharging handset batteries in communities which do not have mains electricity supply, and also concerns about negative social changes related to mobile telephony, for example parental stress over youth forming unsuitable relationships. Nonetheless, there are manifest possible ways for mobile phone technology to change user communication patterns positively regarding economic output. In sectors as diverse as health, education and law and justice, discussions are currently underway to establish how mobile phones could be used to increase service delivery, particularly to rural and marginal communities.

Commercial vehicle pre-clearance programs : current issues and recommendations for potential implementation

The regulation of overweight trucks is of increasing importance. Quickly growing heavy vehicle volumes over-proportionally contribute to roadway damage. Raising maintenance costs and compromised road safety are also becoming a major concern to managing agencies. Minimizing pavement wear is done by regulating overloaded trucks on major highways at weigh stations. However, due to lengthy inspections and insufficient capacities, weigh stations tend to be inefficient. New practices, using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) transponders and weigh-in-motion technologies, called preclearance programs, have been set up in a number of countries. The primary aim of this study is to investigate the current issues with regard to the implementation and operation of the preclearance program. The State of Queensland, Australia, is used as a case study. The investigation focuses on three aspects; the first emphasizes on identifying the need for improvement of the current regulation programs in Queensland. Second, the operators of existing preclearance programs are interviewed for their lessons-learned and the marketing strategies used for promoting their programs. The trucking companies in Queensland are interviewed for their experiences with the current weighing practices and attitudes toward the potential preclearance system. Finally, the estimated benefit of the preclearance program deployment in Queensland is analyzed. The penultimate part brings the former four parts together and provides the study findings and recommendations. The framework and study findings could be valuable inputs for other roadway agencies considering a similar preclearance program or looking to promote their existing ones.

Making Arrangements : Remote proposal sequences and attendant structural phenomena in social interaction

In this thesis, I contribute to the study of how arrangements are made in social interaction. Using conversation analysis, I examine a corpus of 375 telephone calls between employees and clients of three Community Home Care (CHC) service agencies in metropolitan Adelaide, South Australia. My analysis of the CHC data corpus draws upon existing empirical findings within conversation analysis in order to generate novel findings about how people make arrangements with one another, and some of the attendant considerations that parties to such an activity can engage in: Prospective informings as remote proposals for a future arrangement – Focusing on how employees make arrangements with clients, I show how the employees in the CHC data corpus use ‘prospective informings’ to detail a future course of action that will involve the recipient of that informing. These informings routinely occasion a double-paired sequence, where informers pursue a response to their informing. This pursuit often occurs even after recipients have provided an initial response. This practice for making arrangements has been previously described by Houtkoop (1987) as ‘remote proposing.’ I develop Houtkoop’s analysis to show how an informing of a future arrangement can be recompleted, with response solicitation, as a proposal that is contingent upon a recipient’s acceptance. Participants’ understanding of references to non-present third parties – In the process of making arrangements, references are routinely made to non-present third parties. In the CHC data corpus, these third parties are usually care workers. Prior research (e.g., Sacks & Schegloff, 1979; Schegloff, 1996b) explains how the use of ‘recognitional references’ (such as the bare name ‘Kerry’), conveys to recipients that they should be able to locate the referent from amongst their acquaintances. Conversely, the use of ‘non-recognitional references’ (such as the description ‘a lady called Kerry’), conveys that recipients are unacquainted with the referent. I examine instances where the selection of a recognitional or non-recognitional reference form is followed by a recipient initiating repair on that reference. My analysis provides further evidence thatthe existing analytic account of these references corresponds to the way in which participants themselves make sense of them. My analysis also advances an understanding of how repair can be used, by recipients, to indicate the inappositeness of a prior turn. Post-possible-completion accounts – In a case study of a problematic interaction, I examine a misunderstanding that is not resolved within the repair space, the usual defence of intersubjectivity in interaction (cf. Schegloff, 1992b). Rather, I explore how the source of trouble is addressed, outside of the sequence of its production, with a ‘post-possible-completion account.’ This account specifies the basis of a misunderstanding and yet, unlike repair, does so without occasioning a revised response to a trouble-source turn. By considering various aspects of making arrangements in social interaction, I highlight some of the rich order that underpins the maintenance of human relationships across time. In the concluding section of this thesis I review this order, while also discussing practical implications of this analysis for CHC practice.

Work-integrated learning courses : an essential component for preparing students to work in statutory child protection?

Undergraduate programs can play an important role in the development of individuals wanting professional employment within statutory child protection agencies: both the coursework and the work-integrated learning (WIL) components of degrees have a role in this process. This paper uses a collective case study methodology to examine the perceptions and experiences of first year practitioners within a specific statutory child protection agency in order to identify if they felt prepared for their current role. The sample of 20 participants came from a range of discipline backgrounds with just over half of the sample (55 per cent) completing a WIL placement as part of their undergraduate studies. The results indicate that while some participants were able to identify and articulate specific benefits from their undergraduate coursework studies all participants who had undertaken a WIL placement as part of their degree believed the WIL placement was beneficial for their current work.

An evaluation of the Australian Capital Territory Sexual Assault Reform Program (SARP): Final Report

In 2005 the Australian Capital Territory (ACT) Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) and the Australian Federal Police (AFP) produced a report, Responding to sexual assault: The challenge of change (DPP & AFP 2005), which made 105 recommendations for reforming the way sexual offence cases are handled by the ACT’s criminal justice system. The Sexual Assault Reform Program (SARP) is one key initiative developed in response to these recommendations. Managed by the ACT Justice and Community Safety Directorate (JACS), SARP’s main objective is to improve aspects of the criminal justice system relating to: processes and support for victims of sexual offences as they progress through the system; attrition in sexual offence matters in the criminal justice system; and coordination and collaboration among the agencies involved. In November 2007 the ACT Attorney-General announced $4 million of funding for several SARP reforms. This funding provided for additional victim support staff; a dedicated additional police officer, prosecutor and legal policy officer; and an upgrade of equipment for the Supreme Court and Magistrates Court, including improvements in technology to assist witnesses in giving evidence, and the establishment of an off-site facility to allow witnesses to give evidence from a location outside of the court. In addition, the reform agenda included a number of legislative amendments that changed how evidence can be given by victims of sexual and family violence offences, children and other vulnerable witnesses. The primary objectives of these legislative changes are to provide an unintimidating, safe environment for vulnerable witnesses (including sexual offence complainants) to give evidence and to obtain prompt statements from witnesses to improve the quality of evidence captured (DPP 2009: 13). The current evaluation The funding for SARP reforms also provided for a preliminary evaluation of the reforms; this report outlines findings from the evaluation. The evaluation sought to address whether the program has met its key objectives: better support for victims, lower attrition rates and improved coordination and collaboration among agencies involved in administering SARP. The evaluation was conducted in two stages and involved a mixed-methods approach. During stage 1 key indicators for the evaluation were developed with stakeholders. During stage 2 quantitative data were collected by stakeholders and provided to the AIC for analysis. Qualitative interviews were also conducted with service delivery providers, and with a small number (n=5) of victim/survivors of sexual offences whose cases had recently been resolved in the ACT criminal justice system. The current evaluation is preliminary in nature. As the SARP reforms will take time to become entrenched within the ACT’s criminal justice system, some of the impacts of the reforms may not yet be evident. Nonetheless, this evaluation provides an insight into how well the SARP reforms have been implemented to date, as well as key areas that could be addressed in the future. Key findings from the preliminary evaluation are outlined briefly below.