A multimodal physiotherapy programme plus deep water running for improving cancer-related fatigue and quality of life in breast cancer survivors

The aim of the study was to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of aquatic‐based exercise in the form of deep water running ( DWR ) as part of a multimodal physiotherapy programme ( MMPP ) for breast cancer survivors. A controlled clinical trial was conducted in 42 primary breast cancer survivors recruited from community‐based P rimary C are C entres. Patients in the experimental group received a MMPP incorporating DWR , 3 times a week, for an 8‐week period. The control group received a leaflet containing instructions to continue with normal activities. Statistically significant improvements and intergroup effect size were found for the experimental group for P iper F atigue S cale‐ R evised total score ( d = 0.7, P = 0.001), as well as behavioural/severity ( d = 0.6, P = 0.05), affective/meaning ( d = 1.0, P = 0.001) and sensory ( d = 0.3, P = 0.03) domains. Statistically significant differences between the experimental and control groups were also found for general health ( d = 0.5, P < 0.05) and quality of life ( d = 1.3, P < 0.05). All participants attended over 80% of sessions, with no major adverse events reported. The results of this study suggest MMPP incorporating DWR decreases cancer‐related fatigue and improves general health and quality of life in breast cancer survivors. Further, the high level of adherence and lack of adverse events indicate such a programme is safe and feasible.

Teaching and Assessing Reflective Writing in a Large Undergraduate Core Substantive Law Unit

The focus of higher education has shifted towards building students’ skills and self-awareness for future employment, in addition to developing substantive discipline knowledge. This means that there is an increasing need for embedding approaches to teaching and learning which provide a context for skills development and opportunities for students to prepare for the transition from legal education to professional practice. This chapter reports on a large (500-600 students) core undergraduate Equity law unit in an Australian University. ePortfolio has been embedded in Equity as a means of enabling students to document their reflections on their skill development in that unit. Students are taught, practice and are assessed on their teamwork and letter writing skills in the context of writing a letter of advice to a fictional client in response to a real world problem. Following submission of the team letter, students are asked to reflect on their skill development and document their reflections in ePortfolio. A scaffolded approach to teaching reflective writing is adopted using a blended model of delivery which combines face to face lectures and online resources, including an online module, facts sheets designed to guide students through the process of reflection by following the TARL model of reflection, and exemplars of reflective writing. Although students have engaged in the process of reflective writing in Equity for some years, in semester one 2011 assessment criteria were developed and the ePortfolio reflections were summatively assessed for the first time. The model of teaching and assessing reflective practice was evaluated in a range of ways by seeking feedback from students and academic staff responsible for implementing the model and asking them to reflect on their experiences. This chapter describes why skill development and reflective writing were embedded in the undergraduate law unit Equity; identify the teaching and learning approaches which were implemented to teach reflective writing to online and internal Equity students; explain the assessment processes; analyse the empirical evidence from evaluations; document the lessons learnt and discuss planned future improvements to the teaching and assessment strategies.

Sessional academic success : the QUT Law School experience

Sessional academics are an important part of the provision of legal education in higher education with many institutions relying to a large extent on their sessional academics to deliver the teaching program, particularly in the first year. This is particularly relevant to Law Schools as many sessional academics are legal practitioners rather than HDR students. Therefore it is important for both the staff and student experience as well as to the attainment of the learning outcomes that consideration is given to the professional development and training of sessional academics. The QUT Law School has been a participant in a university pilot providing opportunities through the Sessional Academic Success program for academic development, support and developing a sense of belonging for sessional academics. This article will explain the program and initial outcomes and report on the results of surveys and focus groups of sessional academics as well as feedback from fulltime staff. The article will conclude with an analysis of the benefits to sessional academics, students and the School as a whole.

To boldly go where no advertising academic has gone before

We are the future: A Proposal for a Special Topic Session from the Students of the World" began as an international collaboration between like-minded and technology-fearing advertising academics."Star to the right..and straight on 'til morning." Videoconferencing exponentially grows the possibilities and the boundaries of academic collaboration.

Study burden, academic stress and mental health among high school students in Vietnam

Pressure on children to succeed in high schools is a serious problem in Asian societies. The focus of this study in three provinces of Vietnam was to identify the thresholds at which supplementary study has positive or negative effects on mental health and academic achievement. The findings contribute evidence for parents, teachers and young people about optimal levels of supplementary study (2–3 hours per day) and the most beneficial mode (self-study versus cram classes and private tutors). The work will be used to inform policy makers about strategies to minimize harmful effects of study burden for high school students.

Publishing the perished : the visibility of foreign death in Australian quality newspapers

The issue of media coverage of death has been under discussion by only a few scholars, and there have existed some disagreements as to just how present death is in public discourse in the Western world. This study adds to the literature on death by investigating the Australian media context. Specifically, it examines how journalists at two Australian quality newspapers, The Australian and the Sydney Morning Herald, cover death in their foreign news reporting. It finds that journalists express preferences for certain types of death, as well as for certain nationalities. Further, it sheds some light on just how visible death is in the news by arguing that, while present in the written word, the visual representation of death is still highly marginalised.

Injecting Creative Commons Licensing into university policy and publishing

Australian universities are publishing previously unpublished works such as theses in institutional repositories or by publishing scholarly journals on their own presses. This re-invented role of publisher is due in part, to the availability of digital age technologies which scaffold the publishing process and facilitate inexpensive production of digital-only journals. The global push for Open Access to the outputs of publicly-funded research has also been a major driver. Research funder mandates and institutional Open Access policies apply only to publications for which the authors have no expectation of commercial gain. In all cases the primary motivation is to disseminate widely for maximum uptake with attribution to the author thereby increasing impact. This makes works published in institutional repositories and on university presses ideal candidates for Creative Commons licences.

Emerging from the shadows: Tax as a research discipline (Editorial)

More than ever, research is playing an important part in supporting proposed tax reforms and finding solutions to Australia’s tax system. Also, for tax academics the importance of quality research is critical in an increasingly competitive tertiary environment. However, life for an academic can be an isolating experience at time, especially if one’s expertise is in an area that many of their immediate colleagues do not share an interest in. Collegiately and the ability to be able to discuss research is seen as critical in fostering the next generation of academics. It is with this in mind that on the 5th of July 2010 the Inaugural Queensland Tax Teachers’ Symposium was hosted by Griffith University at its Southbank campus. The aim was to bring together for one day tax academics in Queensland, and further afield, to present their current research projects and encourage independent tax research. If was for this reason that the symposium was later re-named the Queensland Tax Researchers’ Symposium (QTRS) to reflect its emphasis. The Symposium has been held annually mid-year on four occasions with in excess of 120 attendees over this period. The fifth QTRS is planned for June 2014 to be hosted by James Cook University.

Making trouble: Ethnographic designs on ruling relations for students and teachers in non-academic pathways

Since 2009, all Australian states require young people to be ‘earning or learning’ until age 17. Secondary schools and vocational colleges now accommodate students for whom the conventional academic pathways of the past were not designed. The paper reflects on a project designed to explore the moral orders in these institutional settings for managing such students in extended compulsory schooling. Originally designed as classroom ethnographies, the project involved observations over three to four weeks and interviews with teachers and students in five sites in towns experiencing high youth unemployment. The project aimed to support teachers to work productively in such classrooms with such students, under the assumption that teachers orchestrate classroom interactions. However, it became clear events in these classrooms were being shaped by relations and parties above and beyond the classroom, as much as by those present. Teachers and students were observed to both comply with, and push against, the layers of policy and institutional processes regulating their behaviours. This paper re-thinks the original project through the gaze and resources of institutional ethnography, to better account for the layers of accountabilities and documentation practices that impacted on both teacher and student behaviours. By tracing the extended webs of ‘ruling relations’, it shows both how teachers and students could make trouble for the institutional moral order, and then be held accountable for this trouble.

Understanding classroom trouble through regulative gravity and instructional elasticity

This paper aims to develop a more nuanced analytic vocabulary to typify how and where classroom trouble can manifest in pedagogic discourse. It draws on classroom ethnographies conducted in non-academic secondary school pathways and alternative programs in Australian communities with high youth unemployment, where the policy of ‘earning or learning’ till age 17 has effectively extended compulsory schooling. Three concepts are developed and exemplified: ‘regulative flares’, being moments when teachers resort to explicitly reasserting the lesson’s social order; ‘moral gravity’ to describe the degree to which the moral order underpinning the regulative discourse is tied to the immediate context or beyond; and ‘instructional elasticity’ to account for trouble originating in the instructional register.

An ePortfolio Approach: Supporting Critical Reflection for Pedagogic Innovation

This chapter investigates the capacity of a well-supported holistic ePortfolio program, the QUT Student ePortfolio Program (QSeP), to support critical reflection for pedagogic innovation in higher education, by exploring practice examples. The chapter looks across faculty and discipline areas to illustrate a range of ePortfolio learning case studies, which have led pedagogical innovation across a whole institution, to enhance student learning and support academic teaching. The ePortfolio strategies discussed support innovation in learning and teaching where academics use the ePortfolio approach in different ways to develop connectedness (productive pedagogies) within learning. Students are supported to develop awareness of the connections between formal and informal learning opportunities and between their learning and personal and professional goals. Students are guided to understand what they have learned and how they have learned in terms of generic employability skills or graduate attributes and also in relation to professional standards and competencies and personal goals. In essence, the ePortfolio-supported pedagogy creates capstone events enabling students to develop a professional identity and understanding of ongoing professional development. The examples are drawn from distinct discipline areas and illustrate the capacity of ePortfolio to underpin pedagogic innovation across discipline areas: • Bachelor of Information Technology—the ePortfolio approach supports students to explore the IT industry as a means of clarifying personal expectations and goals, thereby enhancing student potential in the course c• Bachelor of Nursing and Master of Nursing Science—students develop a professional ePortfolio to show development of the nursing competencies • Master of Information Technology—Library and Information students compile a Professional Portfolio for assessment in the Professional Practice subject • Bachelor of Laws—Virtual Law Placement (VLP) is a unit of study that challenges students to critically reflect on their performance and development duringthe work placement Each case study illustrates the academic teaching goal and student ePortfolio task in context. Issues, challenges and support strategies are identified. Comments from the students and their lecturers give an indication of the effectiveness of the ePortfolio approach to meet learning and teaching goals.

Using a free online questionnaire to determine the skills, competencies and knowledge required to work in a digital library environment in Australia

This paper discusses the data collection technique used to determine the skills and knowledge required of academic librarians working in a digital library environment in Australia. The research was undertaken as part of the researcher’s master’s thesis conducted at Tallinn University. The data collection instrument used was a freely available online survey tool, and its advantages and disadvantages are discussed in terms of the desired outcomes and circumstances surrounding the thesis project. Decisions regarding the design of the questionnaire are also discussed.

Process quality indicators targeting cognitive impairment to support quality of care for older people with cognitive impairment in emergency departments

Objectives The objective of this study was to develop process quality indicators (PQIs) to support the improvement of care services for older people with cognitive impairment in emergency departments (ED). Methods A structured research approach was taken for the development of PQIs for the care of older people with cognitive impairment in EDs, including combining available evidence with expert opinion (phase 1), a field study (phase 2), and formal voting (phase 3). A systematic review of the literature identified ED processes targeting the specific care needs of older people with cognitive impairment. Existing relevant PQIs were also included. By integrating the scientific evidence and clinical expertise, new PQIs were drafted and, along with the existing PQIs, extensively discussed by an advisory panel. These indicators were field tested in eight hospitals using a cohort of older persons aged 70 years and older. After analysis of the field study data (indicator prevalence, variability across sites), in a second meeting, the advisory panel further defined the PQIs. The advisory panel formally voted for selection of those PQIs that were most appropriate for care evaluation. Results In addition to seven previously published PQIs relevant to the care of older persons, 15 new indicators were created. These 22 PQIs were then field tested. PQIs designed specifically for the older ED population with cognitive impairment were only scored for patients with identified cognitive impairment. Following formal voting, a total of 11 PQIs were included in the set. These PQIs targeted cognitive screening, delirium screening, delirium risk assessment, evaluation of acute change in mental status, delirium etiology, proxy notification, collateral history, involvement of a nominated support person, pain assessment, postdischarge follow-up, and ED length of stay. Conclusions This article presents a set of PQIs for the evaluation of the care for older people with cognitive impairment in EDs. The variation in indicator triggering across different ED sites suggests that there are opportunities for quality improvement in care for this vulnerable group. Applied PQIs will identify an emergency services' implementation of care strategies for cognitively impaired older ED patients. Awareness of the PQI triggers at an ED level enables implementation of targeted interventions to improve any suboptimal processes of care. Further validation and utility of the indicators in a wider population is now indicated.