Performance-based contracting for roads – Experiences of Australia and Indonesia

Many countries over the last decade, have used performance-based contracting (PBC) to manage and maintain roads. The implementation of PBC provides additional benefits for the government/public such as cost savings and improved conditions of contracted road assets. In Australia, PBC is already being implemented on all categories of roads: national, state, urban and rural. Australian PBC arrangement is designed to turn over control and responsibility for roadway system maintenance, rehabilitation, and capital improvement projects to private contractors. Contractors’ responsibilities include determination of treatment types, the design, programming and the undertaking of works needed to maintain road networks at predetermined performance levels. Indonesia initiated two PBC pilot projects in 2011, the Pantura Section Demak-Trengguli (7.68 kilometers) in Central Java Province and Section Ciasem-Pamanukan (18.5 kilometers) in West Java Province. Both sections are categorized as national roads. The contract duration for both of these projects is four years. To facilitate a possible way forward, it is proposed to conduct a study to understand Australia's experiences of advancing from pilot projects to nation-wide programs using PBC. The study focuses on the scope of contracts, bidding processes, risk allocation, and key drivers, using relevant PBC case studies from Australia. Recommendations for future PBC deployment nation-wide should be based on more research associated with risk allocation. This will include investigation of standard conditions of contract. Implications of the contract clauses for the risk management strategy to be adopted by contractors. Based on the nature of risks, some are best managed by the project owner. It is very important that all parties involved to be open to the new rules of contract and to convince themselves about the potential increased benefits of the use of PBC. The most recent states of challenging issues were explored and described.

'Take away from the dry sixties style marking': Lecturer and student perceptions and experiences of audio feedback

Providing audio feedback to assessment is relatively uncommon in higher education. However, published research suggests that it is preferred over written feedback by students but lecturers were less convinced. The aim of this paper is to examine further these findings in the context of a third year business ethics unit. Data was collected from two sources. The first is a series of in-depth, semi-structured interviews conducted with three lecturers providing audio feeback for the first time in Semester One 2011. The second source of data was drawn from the university student evaluation system. A total of 363 responses were used providing 'before' and 'after' perspectives about the effectiveness of audio feedback versus written feedback. Between 2005 and 2009 the survey data provided information about student attitudes to written assessment feedback (n=261). From 2010 onwards the data relates to audio (mp3) feedback (n=102). The analysis of he interview data indicated that introducing audio feedback should be done with care. The perception of the participating lecturers was mixed, ranging from sceptism to outright enthusiasm, but over time the overall approach became positive. It was found that particular attention needs to be paid to small (but important) technical details, and lecturers need to be convinced of its effectieness, especially that it is not necessarily more time consuming than providing written feedback. For students, the analysis revealed a clear preference for audio feedback. It is concluded that there is cause for concern and reason for optimism. It is a cause for concern because there is a possibility that scepticism on the part of academic staff seems to be based on assumptions about what students prefer and a concern about using the technology. There is reason for optimism because the evidence points towards students preferring audio feedback and as academic staff become more familiar with the technology the scepticism tends to evaporate. While this study is limited in scope, questions are raised about tackling negative staff perceptions of audio feedback that are worthy of further research.

Development of a robust framework for an outdoor mobile manipulation UAV

There is a growing interest to autonomously collect or manipulate objects in remote or unknown environments, such as mountains, gullies, bush-land, or rough terrain. There are several limitations of conventional methods using manned or remotely controlled aircraft. The capability of small Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) used in parallel with robotic manipulators could overcome some of these limitations. By enabling the autonomous exploration of both naturally hazardous environments, or areas which are biologically, chemically, or radioactively contaminated, it is possible to collect samples and data from such environments without directly exposing personnel to such risks. This paper covers the design, integration, and initial testing of a framework for outdoor mobile manipulation UAV. The framework is designed to allow further integration and testing of complex control theories, with the capability to operate outdoors in unknown environments. The results obtained act as a reference for the effectiveness of the integrated sensors and low-level control methods used for the preliminary testing, as well as identifying the key technologies needed for the development of an outdoor capable system.

Entering the field: Beginning teachers’ positioning experiences of the staffroom

Little is known about beginning teachers’ political positioning experiences of the staffroom. This paper employs Bourdieu's conceptual tools of field, habitus and capital to explore beginning health and physical education teachers’ positioning experiences and learning in staffrooms, the place in which teachers spend the majority of their non-teaching school time. From an Australian context, we present beginning (or emerging) teachers’ stories from one rural general staffroom and one urban departmental staffroom. Using the narratives we reflect upon how their positioning in the politics of the staffroom as beginning teachers presented significant challenges including negotiating the professional micropolitics, negotiating capital and negotiating opportunities and risks for reflection and change in contrasting social spaces.

"Why are you crying? You got what you wanted!": Psychosocial experiences of sex reassignment surgery

Little is known about the psychosocial needs of trans individuals as they make the surgical transition to their preferred gender. This qualitative study explored the lived experiences of 14 Australian trans men and women, aged between 25 and 78 who had undergone sex reassignment surgery to determine if their needs were met. The key findings suggest that while the surgery met their personal needs, there are inconsistencies in the level of care and support provided at the medical level throughout the transition process. In legal terms, the complex legislative framework does little but increase the psychosocial burden of Australian trans people.

Negative experiences and donor return: An examination of the role of asking for something different

BACKGROUND Negative donation experiences, including vasovagal reactions, deter donor retention. However, whether this deterrence effect varies as a function of whole blood (WB) donation history and requests to donate the same or a different product remains unclear. STUDY DESIGN AND METHODS The responses of 894 eligible WB donors who had been approached to convert to plasmapheresis and 954 eligible first-time plasmapheresis donors who had been surveyed on their last donation experience and their intention to donate plasma were considered. This information was matched with individual vasovagal reaction records, deferral category, WB donation history, and subsequent donation behavioral data obtained from the blood collection agency. RESULTS Path analysis indicated that the application of a deferral and an officially recorded vasovagal reaction decreased donors' intentions to continue plasmapheresis donation, but had no effect on WB donors' intentions to convert to plasmapheresis. Consistent with past findings, vasovagal reactions occurred more frequently with female and inexperienced donors. CONCLUSION Experiencing vasovagal reactions and deferrals may not universally deter donors from continuing to donate. Rather, the offer to convert to another form of donation—in this instance, plasmapheresis—after experiencing a negative donation event while donating WB may be sufficient to eliminate the deterrence effect on retention.

Proceedings of the 2nd Workshop on (Re)Creating Lively Cities Through Ambient Technology in Arts, Culture and Gastronomic Experiences

Digital and interactive technologies are becoming increasingly embedded in everyday lives of people around the world. Application of technologies such as real-time, context-aware, and interactive technologies; augmented and immersive realities; social media; and location-based services has been particularly evident in urban environments where technological and sociocultural infrastructures enable easier deployment and adoption as compared to non-urban areas. There has been growing consumer demand for new forms of experiences and services enabled through these emerging technologies. We call this ambient media, as the media is embedded in the natural human living environment. This workshop focuses on ambient media services, applications, and technologies that promote people’s engagement in creating and recreating liveliness in urban environments, particularly through arts, culture, and gastronomic experiences. The RelCi workshop series is organized in cooperation with the Queensland University of Technology (QUT), in particular the Urban Informatics Lab and the Tampere University of Technology (TUT), in particular the Entertainment and Media Management (EMMi) Lab. The workshop runs under the umbrella of the International Ambient Media Association (AMEA) (http://www.ambientmediaassociation.org), which is hosting the international open access journal entitled “International Journal on Information Systems and Management in Creative eMedia”, and the international open access series “International Series on Information Systems and Management in Creative eMedia” (see http://www.tut.fi/emmi/Journal). The RelCi workshop took place for the first time in 2012 in conjunction with ICME 2012 in Melbourne, Autralia; and this year’s edition took place in conjunction with INTERACT 2013 in Cape Town, South Africa. Besides, the International Ambient Media Association (AMEA) organizes the Semantic Ambient Media (SAME) workshop series, which took place in 2008 in conjunction with ACM Multimedia 2008 in Vancouver, Canada; in 2009 in conjunction with AmI 2009 in Salzburg, Austria; in 2010 in conjunction with AmI 2010 in Malaga, Spain; in 2011 in conjunction with Communities and Technologies 2011 in Brisbane, Australia; in 2012 in conjunction with Pervasive 2012 in Newcastle, UK; and in 2013 in conjunction with C&T 2013 in Munich, Germany.

Worldwide outdoor round robin study of organic photovoltaic devices and modules

Accurate characterization and reporting of organic photovoltaic (OPV) device performance remains one of the important challenges in the field. The large spread among the efficiencies of devices with the same structure reported by different groups is significantly caused by different procedures and equipment used during testing. The presented article addresses this issue by offering a new method of device testing using “suitcase sample” approach combined with outdoor testing that limits the diversity of the equipment, and a strict measurement protocol. A round robin outdoor characterization of roll-to-roll coated OPV cells and modules conducted among 46 laboratories worldwide is presented, where the samples and the testing equipment were integrated in a compact suitcase that served both as a sample transportation tool and as a holder and test equipment during testing. In addition, an internet based coordination was used via plasticphotovoltaics.org that allowed fast and efficient communication among participants and provided a controlled reporting format for the results that eased the analysis of the data. The reported deviations among the laboratories were limited to 5% when compared to the Si reference device integrated in the suitcase and were up to 8% when calculated using the local irradiance data. Therefore, this method offers a fast, cheap and efficient tool for sample sharing and testing that allows conducting outdoor measurements of OPV devices in a reproducible manner.

Conceptualising social media support for tacit knowledge sharing: physicians’ perspectives and experiences

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the potential contributions of social media in supporting tacit knowledge sharing, according to the physicians’ perspectives and experiences. Design/methodology/approach – Adopting a qualitative survey design, 24 physicians were interviewed. Purposive and snowball sampling were used to select the participants. Thematic analysis approach was used for data analysis. Findings – The study revealed five major themes and over 20 sub-themes as potential contributions of social media to tacit knowledge flow among physicians. The themes included socialising, practising, networking, storytelling and encountering. In addition, with the help of the literature and the supporting data, the study proposed a conceptual model that explains the potential contribution of social media to tacit knowledge sharing. Research limitations/implications – The study had both theoretical (the difficulty of distinguishing tacit and explicit knowledge in practice) and practical limitations (small sample size). The study findings have implications for the healthcare industry whose clinical teams are not always physically co-located but must exchange their critical experiential and tacit knowledge. Originality/value – The study has opened up a new discussion of this area by demonstrating and conceptualising how social media tools may facilitate tacit knowledge sharing.

Learning experiences in a giant interactive environment: Insights from The Cube

In November 2012, Queensland University of Technology in Australia launched a giant interactive learning environment known as The Cube. This article reports a phenomenographic investigation into visitors’ different experiences of learning in The Cube. At present very little is known about people’s learning experience in spaces featuring large interactive screens. We observed many visitors to The Cube and interviewed 26 people. Our analysis identified critical variation across the visitors’ experience of learning in The Cube. The findings are discussed as the learning strategy (in terms of Absorption, Exploration, Isolation and Collaboration); and the content learned (in terms of Technology, Skills and Topics). Other findings presented here are dimensions of the learning strategy and the content learned, with differing perspectives on each dimension. These outcomes provide early insights into the potential of giant interactive environments to enhance learning approaches and guide the design of innovative learning spaces in higher education.

Enhancing the learning experiences through Industry-Based Learning from Indonesian university perspective

This paper investigates how students’ learning experience can be enhanced by participating in the Industry-Based Learning (IBL) program. In this program, the university students coming into the industry to experience how the business is run. The students’ learning media is now not coming from the textbooks or the lecturers but from learning by doing. This new learning experience could be very interesting for students but at the same time could also be challenging. The research involves interviewing a number of students from the IBL programs, the academic staff from the participated university who has experience in supervising students and the employees of the industry who supported and supervised the students in their work placements. The research findings offer useful insights and create new knowledge in the field of education and learning. The research contributes to the existing knowledge by providing a new understanding of the topic as it applied to the Indonesian context.

Experiences in becoming a paramedic: The professional socialization of university qualified paramedics

In this article, the professional socialization of university educated paramedics from the United Kingdom and Australia is discussed using the anticipatory, formal and post-formal phases of socialization. Participants for this research were from universities and ambulance services in Australia and the United Kingdom, and the data were collected and analyzed by qualitative methods. The anticipatory, formal and post-formal phases were deemed to be relevant to the professional socialization of university paramedics. However a fourth phase, called the post-internship phase was identified which better accounted for the paramedic training and practice model. The findings from this research led to the development of a four phase model of professional socialization to describe the experiences of university educated paramedics making the transition from university students to qualified paramedics.

'More like the kids than the other teachers': One working-class pre-service teacher's experiences in a middle-class profession

While teaching is largely a White, middle-class profession, some teachers, including White teachers, come from low socio-economic backgrounds. This paper examines how one working-class pe-service teacher in Australia experiences studying in a predominantly middle-class teacher education program. Drawing on Bourdieu, this paper seeks to explore what we can learn from the pre-service teaching reflections of one woman who is a member of this smaller group of teachers and who brings to her teaching the habitus and life history that aligns with many of her students and the low socio-economic communities in which she teaches.

Asking the critical questions: An evaluation of social work students' experiences in an international placement

Preparing social work students for the demands of changing social environments and to promote student mobility and interest in overseas employment opportunities have resulted in an increasing demand for international social work placements. The literature describes numerous examples of social work programmes that offer a wide variety of international placements. However, research about the actual benefit of undertaking an overseas placement is scant with limited empirical evidence on the profile of students participating, their experience of the tasks offered, the supervisory practice and the outcomes for students' professional learning and career. This study contributes to the existing body of literature by exploring the relevance of international field placements for students and is unique in that it draws its sample from students who have graduated so provides a distinctive perspective in which to compare their international placement with their other placement/s as well as evaluating what were the benefits and drawbacks for them in terms of their careers, employment opportunities and current professional practice.

Many disciplines-common approach: Experiences in the development and delivery of an interprofessional health subject

In 2004, the Faculty of Health Sciences at La Trobe University in Victoria, Australia, introduced a new, final-year subject ‘Interdisciplinary Professional Practice’. The subject is taught to all students enrolled in the 11 allied health and human service disciplines at La Trobe University across metropolitan and rural campuses. The delivery is online to overcome timetabling barriers and to provide time and geographic flexibility. The subject is presented using an enquiry-based learning model. Students are exposed to the concepts of interdisciplinary teamwork through shared learning across professional boundaries to enable a collaborative workforce. An outline of the background development and design of this subject, and its implementation and content areas is presented. A discussion of relevant literature and an analysis of the subject evaluations and focus groups that have guided subject development to enhance student learning over eight cohorts is included.