An exploration of the maturity model concept as a vehicle for higher education institutions to assess their capability to address student engagement : a work in progress

Gaining a competitive edge in the area of the engagement, success and retention of commencing students is a significant issue in higher education, made more so currently because of the considerable and increasing pressure on teaching and learning from the new standards framework and performance funding. This paper introduces the concept of maturity models (MMs) and their application to assessing the capability of higher education institutions (HEIs) to address student engagement, success and retention (SESR). A concise description of the features of maturity models is presented with reference to an SESR-MM currently being developed. The SESR-MM is proposed as a viable instrument for assisting HEIs in the management and improvement of their SESR activities.

The maturity model concept as framework for assessing the capability of higher education institutions to address student engagement, success and retention : new horizon or false dawn?

While the engagement, success and retention of first year students are ongoing issues in higher education, they are currently of considerable and increasing importance as the pressures on teaching and learning from the new standards framework and performance funding intensifies. This Nuts & Bolts presentation introduces the concept of a maturity model and its application to the assessment of the capability of higher education institutions to address student engagement, success and retention. Participants will be provided with (a) a concise description of the concept and features of a maturity model; and (b) the opportunity to explore the potential application of maturity models (i) to the management of student engagement and retention programs and strategies within an institution and (ii) to the improvement of these features by benchmarking across the sector.

Prisons, dietetic services, research and training : win win

Learning Outcome: Gain knowledge in the area of dietetic training in Australia and the benefits of collaborative partnerships between government and universities to achieve improvements in dietetic service delivery, evidenced based practice, and student placements. Prisoners have high rates of chronic disease, however dietetic services and research in this sector is limited. Securing high quality professional practice placements for dietetic training in Australia is competitive, and prisons provide exciting opportunities. Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has a unique twenty year partnership with Queensland Corrective Services (QCS) with a service learning model placing final year dietetic students within prisons. Building on this partnership, in 2007 a new joint position was funded to establish dietetic services to over 5500 prisoners and support viable best practice dietetic education. Evaluation of the past three years of this partnership has shown an expansion of QUT student placements in Queensland prisons, with a third of final year students each undertaking 120 hours of foodservice management practicum. Student evaluations of placement over this period are much higher than the University average. Through the joint position student projects have been targeted on strategic areas to support nutrition and dietetic policy and practice. Projects have been broadened from menu reviews to more comprehensive quality improvement and dietetic research activities, with all student learning activities transferrable to other foodservice settings. Student practice in the prisons has been extended beyond foodservice management to include group education and dietetic counseling. For QCS, student placements have equated to close to a full-time dietitian position, with nutrition policy now being implemented as an outcome of this support. This innovative partnership has achieved a sustainable student placement model, supported research, whilst delivering dietetic services to a difficult to access group. Funding Disclosure: None

The internet of services and USDL

A prominent research focus, especially in the context of EU public funding, has been the systematic use of the Internet for new ways of value creation in the services sector. This idea of service networks in the Internet, frequently dubbed the Internet of Services or Web service ecosystems, wants to make services tradable in digital media. In order to enable communication and trade between providers and consumers of services, the Internet of Services requires a standard that creates a "commercial envelope" around a service. This is where the Unified Service Description Language (USDL) comes into play as a normative and balanced unification of service information. The unified description established by USDL is machine-processable, considers technical and business aspects of a service as well as functional and non-functional attributes.

It’s about time : investing in transportation to keep Texas economically competitive : Appendices

APPENDIX A : PAVEMENT QUALITY (Zhanmin Zhang, Michael R. Murphy, Robert Harrison), 7 pages -- APPENDIX B : BRIDGE QUALITY (Jose Weissmann, Angela J. Weissmann), 6 pages -- APPENDIX C : URBAN TRAFFIC CONGESTION (Tim Lomax, David Schrank), 32 pages -- APPENDIX D: RURAL CORRIDORS (Tim Lomax, David Schrank), 6 pages -- APPENDIX E: ADDITIONAL REVENUE SOURCE OPTIONS FOR PAVEMENT AND BRIDGE MAINTENANCE (Mike Murphy, Seokho Chi, Randy Machemehl, Khali Persad, Robert Harrison, Zhanmin Zhang), 81 pages -- APPENDIX F: FUNDING TRANSPORTATION IMPROVEMENTS (David Ellis, Brianne Glover, Nick Norboge, Wally Crittenden), 19 pages -- APPENDIX G: ESTIMATING VEHICLE OPERATING COSTS AND PAVEMENT DETERIORATION (by Robert Harrison), 4 pages

Communications materials on methods of development of revenue and cost estimates to non-technical audiences

This CDROM includes PDFs of presentations on the following topics: "TXDOT Revenue and Expenditure Trends;" "Examine Highway Fund Diversions, & Benchmark Texas Vehicle Registration Fees;" "Evaluation of the JACK Model;" "Future highway construction cost trends;" "Fuel Efficiency Trends and Revenue Impact"

Business planning in emerging firms : do nascent and young firms use business planning differently

Previous research suggested that due to the uncertainties surrounding the venture creation process, planning activities may be more valuable for already operating firms than for emerging ventures (McGrath and MacMillan, 1995). Business planning may serve different purposes during the early stages of the venture development process. Early planning during the nascent stage may be used to marshal the resources toward the achievement of preliminary goals (Locke and Latham, 2000), to gain external legitimization and funding (Karlssson & Honig, 2009; Stinchcombe, 1965). Planning may reduce the risk of future failure by facilitating the decision making process of launching -or not- the venture (Chwolka & Raith, 2011) by analysing the opportunity and its market potential (Boyd, 1991; Delmar & Shane, 2003). In later stages, planning may have a more internal role and may act as a strategic implementation tool (Brews & Hunt, 1999). However, if the reasons why ventures should engage (Frese, 2009) –or not- (Honig, 2004) in business planning have been investigated quite extensively (Brinckmann et al., 2010), how business plans are actually used over time by new ventures at different stages of their development and how these uses impact the performance of the firms are still unclear.

Structuring and restructuring nonprofit associations

In the mid seventies there was a spate of legal claims involving unincorporated not-for-profit associations. These claims highlighted the liability exposure of management committee members and prompted a dramatic increase in the number of associations seeking shelter behind the corporate veil. Corporate structure decisions during this period were primarily motivated by the incentive of limited liability. Twenty years later, the not-for-profit sector is subject to new challenges. The Industry Commission Report into Charitable Organisations in Australia heralds an increasing intrusion of legislative responsibilities and reform in the sector. The traditional sources of funds for not-for-profit organisations are about to radically change with the advent of “competitive tendering” for government funding and the declining benevolence of society. The legal scuffle between Australian Rugby Football League Limited (the “ARL”) and News Limited has also exposed the vulnerability of not-for-profit groups and the many legal and commercial minefields in structural decision-making. The sector is beginning to respond to these pressures by rationalisation and restructure. Corporate structure decisions are now motivated by the need to promote efficiency and resilience. Survival of the fittest. Restructuring is by no means a task for the faint-hearted. A delicate balance between legality and practicality needs to be maintained. The focus of this paper is on the restructuring choices for not-for-profit organisations and groups in Queensland. It answers “how-to” questions and identifies some important restructuring issues.

A CAD interface for GEANT4

Often CAD models already exist for parts of a geometry being simulated using GEANT4. Direct import of these CAD models into GEANT4 however,may not be possible and complex components may be diffcult to define via other means. Solutions that allow for users to work around the limited support in the GEANT4 toolkit for loading predefined CAD geometries have been presented by others, however these solutions require intermediate file format conversion using commercial software. Here within we describe a technique that allows for CAD models to be directly loaded as geometry without the need for commercial software and intermediate file format conversion. Robustness of the interface was tested using a set of CAD models of various complexity; for the models used in testing, no import errors were reported and all geometry was found to be navigable by GEANT4. Funding source: Cancer Australia (Department of Health and Ageing) Research Grant 614217

Building community resilience – learning from the 2011 floods in Southeast Queensland, Australia

The year 2010 was the wettest year on record for Queensland, Australia and the wettest year since 1974 for Southeast Queensland. The extremely heavy rain in early January 2011 fell on the catchments of heavily saturated Brisbane and Stanley Rivers systems resulting in significant runoff which rapidly produced a widespread and devastating flood event. The area of inundation was equivalent to the total land area of France and Germany combined. Over 200,000 people were affected leaving 35 people dead and 9 missing. The damage bill was estimated at over $1B and cost to the economy at over $10B with over 30,000 homes and 6,000 business flooded and 86 towns and regional centres affected. The need to disburse disaster funding in a prompt manner to the affected population was paramount to facilitate individuals getting their lives back to some normality. However, the payout of insurance claims has proved to be a major area of community anger. The ongoing impasse in payment of insurance compensation is attributed to the nature and number of claims, confusing definition of flooding and the lack or accuracy of information needed to determine individually the properties affected and legitimacy of claims. Information was not readily available at the micro-level including, extent and type of inundation, flood heights at property level and cause of damage. Events during the aftermath highlighted widespread community misconceptions concerning the technical factors associated with the flood event and the impact of such on access to legitimate compensation and assistance. Individual and community wide concerns and frustration, anger and depression, have arisen resulting from delays in the timely settlement of insurance claims. Lessons learnt during the aftermath are presented in the context of their importance as a basis for inculcating communities impacted by the flood event with resilience for the future.

Queensland Emergency Medicine Research Foundation: Special report

The development of any new profession is dependent on the development of a special body of knowledge which is the domain of the profession and key to this is the conduct of research. In 2007, as part of the settlement of an Enterprise Bargaining Agreement and following sustained lobbying by Emergency Physicians, the Queensland Government agreed to establish an Emergency Medicine Research Fund to foster the development of research activities in Emergency Medicine in Queensland. That fund is now managed by the Queensland Emergency Medicine Research Foundation. The aims of this article are to describe the strategic approaches taken by the Foundation and its first three years of experience, to describe the application of research funds and to foreshadow an evaluative framework for determining the strategic value of this community investment. The Foundation has developed a range of personnel and project support funding programs and competition for funding has increased. Ongoing evaluation will seek to determine the effectiveness of this funding strategy on improving the effectiveness of research performance and the clinical and organisational outcomes that may derive from that initiative.

Proteomics science & society : the role of knowledge translation in moving towards clinical applications

Background: Outside the mass-spectrometer, proteomics research does not take place in a vacuum. It is affected by policies on funding and research infrastructure. Proteomics research both impacts and is impacted by potential clinical applications. It provides new techniques & clinically relevant findings, but the possibilities for such innovations (and thus the perception of the potential for the field by funders) are also impacted by regulatory practices and the readiness of the health sector to incorporate proteomics-related tools & findings. Key to this process is how knowledge is translated. Methods: We present preliminary results from a multi-year social science project, funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, on the processes and motivations for knowledge translation in the health sciences. The proteomics case within this wider study uses qualitative methods to examine the interplay between proteomics science and regulatory and policy makers regarding clinical applications of proteomics. Results: Adopting an interactive format to encourage conference attendees’ feedback, our poster focuses on deficits in effective knowledge translation strategies from the laboratory to policy, clinical, & regulatory arenas. An analysis of the interviews conducted to date suggests five significant choke points: the changing priorities of funding agencies; the complexity of proteomics research; the organisation of proteomics research; the relationship of proteomics to genomics and other omics sciences; and conflict over the appropriate role of standardisation. Conclusion: We suggest that engagement with aspects of knowledge translation, such as those mentioned above, is crucially important for the eventual clinical application ofproteomics science on any meaningful scale.

Development of network-level project screening methods supporting the 4-Year pavement management plan in Texas

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is concerned about the widening gap between pavement preservation needs and available funding. Thus, the TxDOT Austin District Pavement Engineer (DPE) has investigated methods to strategically allocate available pavement funding to potential projects that improve the overall performance of the District and Texas highway systems. The primary objective of the study presented in this paper is to develop a network-level project screening and ranking method that supports the Austin District 4-year pavement management plan development. The study developed candidate project selection and ranking algorithms that evaluated pavement conditions of each project candidate using data contained in the Pavement Management Information system (PMIS) database and incorporated insights from Austin District pavement experts; and implemented the developed method and supporting algorithm. This process previously required weeks to complete, but now requires about 10 minutes including data preparation and running the analysis algorithm, which enables the Austin DPE to devote more time and resources to conducting field visits, performing project-level evaluation and testing candidate projects. The case study results showed that the proposed method assisted the DPE in evaluating and prioritizing projects and allocating funds to the right projects at the right time.

The public hospital system

When you finish this chapter you should be able to: * understand how the public hospital system is funded by the Federal, state and territory governments * appreciate some of the major funding issues facing public hospitals in Australia * have a beginning understandingof casemix Deagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) * have insight into the position of the various interest groups funding public hospitals in Australia.

Moving beyond transition pedagogy: Maturity models and student engagement

Australian higher education institutions (HEIs) have entered a new phase of regulation and accreditation which includes performance-based funding relating to the participation and retention of students from social and cultural groups previously underrepresented in higher education. However, in addressing these priorities, it is critical that HEIs do not further disadvantage students from certain groups by identifying them for attention because of their social or cultural backgrounds, circumstances which are largely beyond the control of students. In response, many HEIs are focusing effort on university-wide approaches to enhancing the student experience because such approaches will enhance the engagement, success and retention of all students, and in doing so, particularly benefit those students who come from underrepresented groups. Measuring and benchmarking student experiences and engagement that arise from these efforts is well supported by extensive collections of student experience survey data. However no comparable instrument exists that measures the capability of institutions to influence and/or enhance student experiences where capability is an indication of how well an organisational process does what it is designed to do (Rosemann & de Bruin, 2005). This paper proposes that the concept of a maturity model (Marshall, 2010; Paulk, 1999) may be useful as a way of assessing the capability of HEIs to provide and implement student engagement, success and retention activities. We will describe the Student Engagement, Success and Retention Maturity Model (SESR-MM), (Clarke, Nelson & Stoodley, 2012; Nelson, Clarke & Stoodley, 2012) we are currently investigating. We will discuss if our research may address the current gap by facilitating the development of an SESR-MM instrument that aims (i) to enable institutions to assess the capability of their current student engagement and retention programs and strategies to influence and respond to student experiences within the institution; and (ii) to provide institutions with the opportunity to understand various practices across the sector with a view to further improving programs and practices relevant to their context. The first aim of our research is to extend the generational approach which has been useful in considering the evolutionary nature of the first year experience (FYE) (Wilson, 2009). Three generations have been identified and explored: First generation approaches that focus on co-curricular strategies (e.g. orientation and peer programs); Second generation approaches that focus on curriculum (e.g. pedagogy, curriculum design, and learning and teaching practice); and third generation approaches—also referred to as transition pedagogy—that focus on the production of an institution-wide integrated holistic intentional blend of curricular and co-curricular activities (Kift, Nelson & Clarke, 2010). The second aim of this research is to move beyond assessments of students’ experiences to focus on assessing institutional processes and their capability to influence student engagement. In essence, we propose to develop and use the maturity model concept to produce an instrument that will indicate the capability of HEIs to manage and improve student engagement, success and retention programs and strategies. References Australian Council for Educational Research. (n.d.). Australasian Survey of Student Engagement. Retrieved from http://www.acer.edu.au/research/ausse/background Clarke, J., Nelson, K., & Stoodley, I. (2012, July). The Maturity Model concept as framework for assessing the capability of higher education institutions to address student engagement, success and retention: New horizon or false dawn? A Nuts & Bolts presentation at the 15th International Conference on the First Year in Higher Education, “New Horizons,” Brisbane, Australia. Kift, S., Nelson, K., & Clarke, J. (2010) Transition pedagogy - a third generation approach to FYE: A case study of policy and practice for the higher education sector. The International Journal of the First Year in Higher Education, 1(1), pp. 1-20. Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations. (n.d.). The University Experience Survey. Advancing quality in higher education information sheet. Retrieved from http://www.deewr.gov.au/HigherEducation/Policy/Documents/University_Experience_Survey.pdf Marshall, S. (2010). A quality framework for continuous improvement of e-Learning: The e-Learning Maturity Model. Journal of Distance Education, 24(1), 143-166. Nelson, K., Clarke, J., & Stoodley, I. (2012). An exploration of the Maturity Model concept as a vehicle for higher education institutions to assess their capability to address student engagement. A work in progress. Submitted for publication. Paulk, M. (1999). Using the Software CMM with good judgment, ASQ Software Quality Professional, 1(3), 19-29. Wilson, K. (2009, June–July). The impact of institutional, programmatic and personal interventions on an effective and sustainable first-year student experience. Keynote address presented at the 12th Pacific Rim First Year in Higher Education Conference, “Preparing for Tomorrow Today: The First Year as Foundation,” Townsville, Australia. Retrieved from http://www.fyhe.com.au/past_papers/papers09/ppts/Keithia_Wilson_paper.pdf