Start Smart : QUT’s trial support program for commencing undergraduate students who have not completed year 12 in the past two years

Commencing students in undergraduate degrees who identify as mature age students experience particular issues when faced with enrolment into university as an adult learner (Bird & Morgan, 2003). In line with QUT’s commitment to “supporting all commencing students to adjust successfully to study at QUT by providing a strong transition experience” (QUT, 2008, 6.2.1), the Start Smart trial program was developed and implemented for Semester 1, 2012. The Start Smart trial program consists of an orientation event, wrapped around and supported by existing First Year Experience (FYE) and Retention strategies within QUT, namely the Student Success Program (SSP) and the Peer Programs Strategy (PPS). This report examines the motivations for designing a program as a response to the needs of a cohort that are unique amongst all commencing undergraduate students. Participants will be asked to consider the implications of delivering special and unique orientation events to specific cohorts, and the long term sustainability of such programs within their own university structures.

Because you told me to

I knew a woman who lived by herself in a white brick house near the light house at Watson’s Bay. As she grew older, and her memory played tricks, she started to collect odd things. At breakfast each morning, she pulled the stickers off fruits—apples and pears and mandarins—and stuck them to her shoes. When she finished a meal, she stacked the dirty dishes on the couch in her sun room. In spring, when her garden bloomed, she cut orchids from their stems and arranged them in bowls of water around the house. When she ran out of bowls, she used butter containers instead...

The Cambridge companion to creative writing [Edited book]

Creative writing has become a highly professionalised academic discipline, with popular courses and prestigious degree programmes worldwide. This book is a must for all students and teachers of creative writing, indeed for anyone who aspires to be a published writer. It engages with a complex art in an accessible manner, addressing concepts important to the rapidly growing field of creative writing, while maintaining a strong craft emphasis, analysing exemplary models of writing and providing related writing exercises. Written by professional writers and teachers of writing, the chapters deal with specific genres or forms – ranging from the novel to new media – or with significant topics that explore the cutting edge state of creative writing internationally (including creative writing and science, contemporary publishing and new workshop approaches).

The process of remembering with The Forgotten Australians : digital storytelling and marginalized groups

Digital storytelling projects have proliferated in Australia since the early 2000s, and have been theorized as a means to disseminate the stories and voices of “ordinary” people. In this paper I examine through the case study of a 2009 digital storytelling project between the Australasian Centre for Interactive Design and a group identifying as Forgotten Australian whether digital storytelling in its predominant workshop-based format is able to meet the needs of profoundly marginalized and traumatized individuals and groups. For digital storytelling to be of use to marginalized groups as a means of communication or reflection a significant re-examination of the current approaches to its format, and its function needs to undertaken. This paper posits new ways of utilizing digital storytelling when dealing with trauma narratives.

Words and Silences : The journal of the International Oral History Association

Words and Silences is the official on-line journal of the International Oral History Association. It is an internationally peer reviewed, high quality forum for oral historians from a wide range of disciplines and a means for the professional community to share projects and current trends of oral history from around the world. We are extremely pleased to release the first online issue of Word &Silences. This e-journal is the result of long standing discussion and debate about the best way to publish a quality bilingual oral history journal (including a blind peer reviewed section) as a viable solution to mounting difficulties associated with publishing in print. We have discovered that an online version is also not without its challenges and requires tremendous labor intensive dedication. We strongly encourage members to assist us with small review process tasks in the future, so that we can ensure the sustainability of an annual W&S publication for our members and beyond.

Disaster strikes, then what? Using evaluation in narrative driven (oral history & digital storytelling) community-based projects

In 2011 Queensland suffered both floods and cyclones, leaving residents without homes and their communities in ruins (2011). This paper presents how researchers from QUT, who are also members of the Oral History Association of Australia (OHAA) Queensland’s chapter, are using oral history, photographs, videography and digital storytelling to help heal and empower rural communities around the state and how evaluation has become a key element of our research. QUT researchers ran storytelling workshops in the capital city of Brisbane i early 2011, after the city suffered sever flooding. Cyclone Yasi then struck the town of Cardwell (in February 2011) destroying their historical museum and recording equipment. We delivered an 'emergency workshop', offering participants hands on use of the equipment, ethical and interviewing theory, so that the community could start to build a new collection. We included oral history workshops as well as sessions on how best to use a video camera, digital camera and creative writing sessions, so the community would also know how to make 'products' or exhibition pieces out of the interviews they were recording. We returned six months later to conduct follow-up workshops and the material produced by and with the community had been amazing. More funding has now been secured to replicate audio/visual/writing workshops in other remote rural Queensland communities including Townsville, Mackay and Cunnamulla and Toowoomba in 2012, highlighting the need for a multi media approach, to leverage the most out of OH interviews as a mechanism to restore and promote community resilience and pride.

Spectroscopic studies of the adsorption and reactions of chlorofluorocarbons (CFC-11 and CFC-12) and hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC-22) on oxide surfaces

Raman and Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopy have been applied to a systematic investigation of the adsorption and decomposition of dichlorodifluoromethane (CCl2F2, CFC-12), fluorotrichloromethane (CCl3F, CFC-11), chlorodifluoromethane (CHClF2, HCFC-22) and molecular chlorine on oxide surfaces. Additionally, the effects of heating and ultraviolet photolysis of the CFC and HCFCs adsorbed on the oxide surfaces have been investigated. Spectral features for these species indicated a small wavenumber shift (1-6 cm-1) associated with the adsorbed phase. Some evidence, specifically the appearance of the Raman band at 507 cm-1, is presented to show that chlorine decomposition species are associated with these oxide surfaces. It was concluded that the new spectral feature (at ca. 507 cm-1) related with the decomposition of the CFC and HCFC molecules was an important indicator of the extent to which the reaction between the adsorbed CFC and HCFC and oxide surface has taken place. The extent of CFC-surface interaction has been quantified in terms of a maximum (Raman) frequency shift parameter (AM). Wavenumber shifts suggest both cation-adsorbate and non-specific adsorption interactions are occurring in the internal channels of the zeolites. Slow decomposition of the adsorbed CFCs under ultraviolet-visible photolysis (at ? > 300 nm) and/or thermal treatment was observed spectroscopically. Using FT-IR spectroscopy, the formation of gas-phase products (CO, CO2, HCl) both onyn photolysis and heating was evident. Results of these measurements are compared with the observed atmospheric reactivity of these compounds.

Fully Bayesian experimental design for pharmacokinetic studies

Utility functions in Bayesian experimental design are usually based on the posterior distribution. When the posterior is found by simulation, it must be sampled from for each future data set drawn from the prior predictive distribution. Many thousands of posterior distributions are often required. A popular technique in the Bayesian experimental design literature to rapidly obtain samples from the posterior is importance sampling, using the prior as the importance distribution. However, importance sampling will tend to break down if there is a reasonable number of experimental observations and/or the model parameter is high dimensional. In this paper we explore the use of Laplace approximations in the design setting to overcome this drawback. Furthermore, we consider using the Laplace approximation to form the importance distribution to obtain a more efficient importance distribution than the prior. The methodology is motivated by a pharmacokinetic study which investigates the effect of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation on the pharmacokinetics of antibiotics in sheep. The design problem is to find 10 near optimal plasma sampling times which produce precise estimates of pharmacokinetic model parameters/measures of interest. We consider several different utility functions of interest in these studies, which involve the posterior distribution of parameter functions.

On the beach : exploring the complex egalitarianism of the Australian beach

Australia, internationally, is known as a beach loving country, particularly in popular culture. The beach did not figure significantly in academic discussion before the 1980s when Fiske, Hodge, and Turner (1987, 54) researched the beach as a space of myth, seeing it as an integral part of the modern Australian identity. One common myth in Australia is that the beach is an equaliser, a place of multiple ethnicities, shapes, sizes, and genders (Dutton, 1985). I agree that the beach remains a significant aspect of Australian identity; however, limiting its meaning to a mythic space contributing to a homogenous national identity is not adequate. This paper will explore how Australian texts comment on or challenge the myth of the beach as an egalitarian space. I argue that recent Australian texts show a more complex, layered representation of this concept; and that the beach also in this respect can no longer be understood as a myth transcending difference.

Not all dimensions of work self-efficacy are equal : understanding the role of tertiary work placements in the development of the elements of work self-efficacy

This paper examines the relationship between a final year tertiary work placement for criminology students at Griffith University in Brisbane and the development of their work self-efficacy. Using a work self-efficacy instrument developed by Professor Joe Raelin at Northeastern University in Boston, a pilot phase in 2006 and a larger study in 2007 investigated the students’ responses across seven self-efficacy factors of learning, problem-solving, teamwork, sensitivity, politics, pressure, and role expectations. Both studies utilised a pre- and post-test and comparisons between these indicated that they believed their abilities to participate constructively in their professional work contexts significantly improved as a result of their placement experience except in the areas of learning, teamwork and sensitivity. This finding will allow us to continue to refine the processes of work placements in order to ensure the integrity of this method for student learning.

Pitfalls in the use of kappa when interpreting agreement between multiple raters in reliability studies

OBJECTIVE To compare different reliability coefficients (exact agreement, and variations of the kappa (generalised, Cohen's and Prevalence Adjusted and Biased Adjusted (PABAK))) for four physiotherapists conducting visual assessments of scapulae. DESIGN Inter-therapist reliability study. SETTING Research laboratory. PARTICIPANTS 30 individuals with no history of neck or shoulder pain were recruited with no obvious significant postural abnormalities. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES Ratings of scapular posture were recorded in multiple biomechanical planes under four test conditions (at rest, and while under three isometric conditions) by four physiotherapists. RESULTS The magnitude of discrepancy between the two therapist pairs was 0.04 to 0.76 for Cohen's kappa, and 0.00 to 0.86 for PABAK. In comparison, the generalised kappa provided a score between the two paired kappa coefficients. The difference between mean generalised kappa coefficients and mean Cohen's kappa (0.02) and between mean generalised kappa and PABAK (0.02) were negligible, but the magnitude of difference between the generalised kappa and paired kappa within each plane and condition was substantial; 0.02 to 0.57 for Cohen's kappa and 0.02 to 0.63 for PABAK, respectively. CONCLUSIONS Calculating coefficients for therapist pairs alone may result in inconsistent findings. In contrast, the generalised kappa provided a coefficient close to the mean of the paired kappa coefficients. These findings support an assertion that generalised kappa may lead to a better representation of reliability between three or more raters and that reliability studies only calculating agreement between two raters should be interpreted with caution. However, generalised kappa may mask more extreme cases of agreement (or disagreement) that paired comparisons may reveal.

Grand tours in the glare of the sun : harnessing digital media to develop cultural tourism in Queensland, Australia

It has been well established that highlighting the cultural attributes of a region through stories of place, local histories, and the creative arts boosts tourism income to a region. Cultural tourism also serves to promote the creative industries to visitors and residents alike and, by enhancing a region’s cultural identity, fosters new opportunities for the arts. It can therefore offer considerable potential benefit to the creative economy in Australia. However, in comparison with Europe, where cultural tourism can rely upon an established historical, artistic and literary cultural identity that stretches back to Grand Tours of the seventeenth century, in Queensland, Australia the relatively new enterprise of cultural tourism must compete with visitor expectations of sun, surf and the natural landscapes, which have become the mainstay of tourism advertising. Moreover, in Queensland, it is essential to connect vast distances, diverse communities and a variety of cultural experiences. We must also take account of the expectations of contemporary tourists, who anticipate a digitally mediated travel experience and increasingly seek to connect with local communities in authentic ways. In this paper we consider the unique considerations that must be taken into account in the Queensland context and propose approaches to developing an integrated identity that embraces both the ‘great outdoors’ and the region’s cultural attributes. We make recommendations for providing the types of digitally mediated ‘local’ experiences that cultural tourists now expect, and illustrate the design principles we propose through early, tentative approaches to smart phones, locative media and augmented reality applications for cultural tourism in the region. We conclude by proposing additional ways to formulate a digital strategy in line with the recommendations we make.

TEXTA Book Club in the QUT Art Museum

TEXTA runs as a type of book club that we have previously labelled as ‘bespoke’ (Ellison, Holliday and Van Luyn 2012). We visualise TEXTA as a meeting place between the community and the university, as a space for discussion and engagement with both visual art forms and written texts. In today’s presentation, we shall briefly establish the ‘bespoke’ bookclub. We then want to introduce the idea of TEXTA as an example of a book club that negotiates Edward Soja’s Thirdspace (1996) – a space that incorporates and extends concepts of First and Secondspace (or perceived and conceived spaces). In doing so, we showcase two recent sessions of TEXTA as case studies. We will then illustrate some ideas we have for expanding TEXTA beyond the boundaries of Brisbane city, and invite feedback on how to further extend the opportunities for community engagement that TEXTA can offer in regional areas.

Finding space and time in the West

WHENEVER I talk to my students about the requisites for writing, I always tell them that they need at least two things: space and time. Time, which we frequently describe through verbs of motion such as ‘flow’ or ‘flux’, and space, which we usually view as emptiness or the absence of matter. I.e., two dimensions, which are co-dependent, are not only features of the physical world but mental constructs that are elementary to the faculty of cognition...