Developing a social justice framework to ensure good practice in higher education

The concept of student engagement is a key factor in student achievement and retention and Australasian universities have a range of initiatives aimed at monitoring and intervening with students who are at risk of disengaging. Given the aspirations about widening participation, it is absolutely critical that these initiatives are designed to enable success for all students, particularly those for whom social and cultural disadvantage have been a barrier. Consequently, these types of initiatives must be consistent with the concept of social justice and a set of principles would provide this philosophical foundation for the sector. An Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) project that involves ten Australasian universities, is designing of a suite of resources for the sector which will include: (1) a set of principles for good practice in MSLE, (2) a good practice guide for the design and implementation of institutional MSLE policy and practice, and (3) a collection of resources for and exemplars of good practice to be taken up by the sector. This workshop session will provide an opportunity for participants to examine the draft set of principles and to discuss their potential value for the participants’ institutional contexts. Australian Learning and Teaching Council Competitive Grant CG10-1730 2010-2012: Good practice for safeguarding student learning engagement in higher education institutions.

Academic faculty’s teaching social networks : what is the extent of library faculty’s inclusion?

Collaboration between academic and library faculty is an important topic of discussion and research among academic librarians. Partnerships are vital for developing effective information literacy education. The research reported in this paper aims to develop an understanding of academic collaborators by analyzing academic faculty’s teaching social network. Academic faculty teaching social networks have not been previously described through the lens of social network analysis. A teaching social network is comprised of people and their communication channels that affect academic faculty when they design and deliver their courses. Social network analysis was the methodology used to describe the teaching social networks. The preliminary results show academic faculty were more affected by the channels of communication in how they taught (pedagogy) than what they taught (course content). This study supplements the existing research on collaboration and information literacy. It provides both academic and library faculty with added insight into their relationships.

An exploration of the technical, social and macro-societal pressures influencing the adoption of online social networking services by organisations

Measuring the business value that Internet technologies deliver for organisations has proven to be a difficult and elusive task, given their complexity and increased embeddedness within the value chain. Yet, despite the lack of empirical evidence that links the adoption of Information Technology (IT) with increased financial performance, many organisations continue to adopt new technologies at a rapid rate. This is evident in the widespread adoption of Web 2.0 online Social Networking Services (SNSs) such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. These new Internet based technologies, widely used for social purposes, are being employed by organisations to enhance their business communication processes. However, their use is yet to be correlated with an increase in business performance. Owing to the conflicting empirical evidence that links prior IT applications with increased business performance, IT, Information Systems (IS), and E-Business Model (EBM) research has increasingly looked to broader social and environmental factors as a means for examining and understanding the broader influences shaping IT, IS and E-Business (EB) adoption behaviour. Findings from these studies suggest that organisations adopt new technologies as a result of strong external pressures, rather than a clear measure of enhanced business value. In order to ascertain if this is the case with the adoption of SNSs, this study explores how organisations are creating value (and measuring that value) with the use of SNSs for business purposes, and the external pressures influencing their adoption. In doing so, it seeks to address two research questions: 1. What are the external pressures influencing organisations to adopt SNSs for business communication purposes? 2. Are SNSs providing increased business value for organisations, and if so, how is that value being captured and measured? Informed by the background literature fields of IT, IS, EBM, and Web 2.0, a three-tiered theoretical framework is developed that combines macro-societal, social and technological perspectives as possible causal mechanisms influencing the SNS adoption event. The macro societal view draws on the concept of Castells. (1996) network society and the behaviour of crowds, herds and swarms, to formulate a new explanatory concept of the network vortex. The social perspective draws on key components of institutional theory (DiMaggio & Powell, 1983, 1991), and the technical view draws from the organising vision concept developed by Swanson and Ramiller (1997). The study takes a critical realist approach, and conducts four stages of data collection and one stage of data coding and analysis. Stage 1 consisted of content analysis of websites and SNSs of many organisations, to identify the types of business purposes SNSs are being used for. Stage 2 also involved content analysis of organisational websites, in order to identify suitable sample organisations in which to conduct telephone interviews. Stage 3 consisted of conducting 18 in-depth, semi-structured telephone interviews within eight Australian organisations from the Media/Publishing and Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museum (GLAM) industries. These sample organisations were considered leaders in the use of SNSs technologies. Stage 4 involved an SNS activity count of the organisations interviewed in Stage 3, in order to rate them as either Advanced Innovator (AI) organisations, or Learning Focussed (LF) organisations. A fifth stage of data coding and analysis of all four data collection stages was conducted, based on the theoretical framework developed for the study, and using QSR NVivo 8 software. The findings from this study reveal that SNSs have been adopted by organisations for the purpose of increasing business value, and as a result of strong social and macro-societal pressures. SNSs offer organisations a wide range of value enhancing opportunities that have broader benefits for customers and society. However, measuring the increased business value is difficult with traditional Return On Investment (ROI) mechanisms, ascertaining the need for new value capture and measurement rationales, to support the accountability of SNS adoption practices. The study also identified the presence of technical, social and macro-societal pressures, all of which influenced SNS adoption by organisations. These findings contribute important theoretical insight into the increased complexity of pressures influencing technology adoption rationales by organisations, and have important practical implications for practice, by reflecting the expanded global online networks in which organisations now operate. The limitations of the study include the small number of sample organisations in which interviews were conducted, its limited generalisability, and the small range of SNSs selected for the study. However, these were compensated in part by the expertise of the interviewees, and the global significance of the SNSs that were chosen. Future research could replicate the study to a larger sample from different industries, sectors and countries. It could also explore the life cycle of SNSs in a longitudinal study, and map how the technical, social and macro-societal pressures are emphasised through stages of the life cycle. The theoretical framework could also be applied to other social fad technology adoption studies.

Anchoring and exposing in the third place : regular identification at the boundaries of social realms

Harry’s is my favourite bar in my neighbourhood. It is a small wine bar, owned by three men in their late thirties and targeted at people like them; my gentrifying inner city neighbourhood’s 20 to 40 something urban middle class. Harry’s has seats along the bar, booths inside, and a courtyard out the back. The seating arrangements mean that larger groups tend to gather outside, groups of two to four spread around the location, and people by themselves, or in groups of two, tend to sit at the bar. I usually sit at the bar....

The evidence-based development of an intervention to address the information needs of adults newly diagnosed with primary brain tumours and their carers

Adults diagnosed with primary brain tumours often experience physical, cognitive and neuropsychiatric impairments and decline in quality of life. Although disease and treatment-related information is commonly provided to cancer patients and carers, newly diagnosed brain tumour patients and their carers report unmet information needs. Few interventions have been designed or proven to address these information needs. Accordingly, a three-study research program, that incorporated both qualitative and quantitative research methods, was designed to: 1) identify and select an intervention to improve the provision of information, and meet the needs of patients with a brain tumour; 2) use an evidence-based approach to establish the content, language and format for the intervention; and 3) assess the acceptability of the intervention, and the feasibility of evaluation, with newly diagnosed brain tumour patients. Study 1: Structured concept mapping techniques were undertaken with 30 health professionals, who identified strategies or items for improving care, and rated each of 42 items for importance, feasibility, and the extent to which such care was provided. Participants also provided data to interpret the relationship between items, which were translated into ‘maps’ of relationships between information and other aspects of health care using multidimensional scaling and hierarchical cluster analysis. Results were discussed by participants in small groups and individual interviews to understand the ratings, and facilitators and barriers to implementation. A care coordinator was rated as the most important strategy by health professionals. Two items directly related to information provision were also seen as highly important: "information to enable the patient or carer to ask questions" and "for doctors to encourage patients to ask questions". Qualitative analyses revealed that information provision was individualised, depending on patients’ information needs and preferences, demographic variables and distress, the characteristics of health professionals who provide information, the relationship between the individual patient and health professional, and influenced by the fragmented nature of the health care system. Based on quantitative and qualitative findings, a brain tumour specific question prompt list (QPL) was chosen for development and feasibility testing. A QPL consists of a list of questions that patients and carers may want to ask their doctors. It is designed to encourage the asking of questions in the medical consultation, allowing patients to control the content, and amount of information provided by health professionals. Study 2: The initial structure and content of the brain tumour specific QPL developed was based upon thematic analyses of 1) patient materials for brain tumour patients, 2) QPLs designed for other patient populations, and 3) clinical practice guidelines for the psychosocial care of glioma patients. An iterative process of review and refinement of content was undertaken via telephone interviews with a convenience sample of 18 patients and/or carers. Successive drafts of QPLs were sent to patients and carers and changes made until no new topics or suggestions arose in four successive interviews (saturation). Once QPL content was established, readability analyses and redrafting were conducted to achieve a sixth-grade reading level. The draft QPL was also reviewed by eight health professionals, and shortened and modified based on their feedback. Professional design of the QPL was conducted and sent to patients and carers for further review. The final QPL contained questions in seven colour-coded sections: 1) diagnosis; 2) prognosis; 3) symptoms and problems; 4) treatment; 5) support; 6) after treatment finishes; and 7) the health professional team. Study 3: A feasibility study was conducted to determine the acceptability of the QPL and the appropriateness of methods, to inform a potential future randomised trial to evaluate its effectiveness. A pre-test post-test design was used with a nonrandomised control group. The control group was provided with ‘standard information’, the intervention group with ‘standard information’ plus the QPL. The primary outcome measure was acceptability of the QPL to participants. Twenty patients from four hospitals were recruited a median of 1 month (range 0-46 months) after diagnosis, and 17 completed baseline and follow-up interviews. Six participants would have preferred to receive the information booklet (standard information or QPL) at a different time, most commonly at diagnosis. Seven participants reported on the acceptability of the QPL: all said that the QPL was helpful, and that it contained questions that were useful to them; six said it made it easier to ask questions. Compared with control group participants’ ratings of ‘standard information’, QPL group participants’ views of the QPL were more positive; the QPL had been read more times, was less likely to be reported as ‘overwhelming’ to read, and was more likely to prompt participants to ask questions of their health professionals. The results from the three studies of this research program add to the body of literature on information provision for brain tumour patients. Together, these studies suggest that a QPL may be appropriate for the neuro-oncology setting and acceptable to patients. The QPL aims to assist patients to express their information needs, enabling health professionals to better provide the type and amount of information that patients need to prepare for treatment and the future. This may help health professionals meet the challenge of giving patients sufficient information, without providing ‘too much’ or ‘unnecessary’ information, or taking away hope. Future studies with rigorous designs are now needed to determine the effectiveness of the QPL.

Bullying : the moral and social orders at play

This special issue came about following an international symposium on bullying held in December 2008 at the Department of Child Studies, Linko¨ping University, Sweden, led by Jakob Cromdal and Paul Horton. The articles represent a diverse body of theoretical and empirical work that emphasises children and young people’s views of and participation in everyday experiences. The articles, as a collection, aim to be provocative in terms of challenging some existing dominant understandings about bullying to propose alternate ways to understand this phenomenon.

Social outcomes in the construction industry : the case of the Western Australia ‘Percent for Art’ policy

Social outcomes, in particular intangible social outcomes, are generally difficult to achieve in the construction industry due to the predominantly episodic, fragmented and heavily regulated nature of construction that presupposes a tendency towards mainstream construction processes and design. The Western Australian ‘Percent for Art’ policy is recognized for stimulating social outcomes, by creating richer and more aesthetically pleasing social environments through the incorporation of artwork into public buildings. A case study of four Percent for Art projects highlights the role of the Artwork Selection Committee in incorporating artwork into construction. A total of 20 semi-structured interviews were conducted with committee members and policy officers. Data analysis involved a combination of pattern coding and matrix categorization, and resulted in the identification of the committee’s three key elements of collaborative communication, democratic decision-making and project champions. The findings suggest these key elements foster the interaction, communication and relationships needed to facilitate feedback, enhance relationships, create cross-functional teams and lower project resistance, which are all necessary to overcome constraints to social outcomes in construction. The findings provide greater insight into the mechanisms for achieving social outcomes and a basis for future discussion about the processes for achieving social outcomes in the construction industry.

School education as social and economic governance : responsibilising communities through industry-school engagement

This article examines shifts in educational and social governance taking place in Queensland, Australia, through Industry School Engagement Strategy of Education Queensland and its Gateway Schools program. This significant educational initiative is set within the context of the social investment agenda first articulated in the education policy framework, Queensland State Education-2010. The article traces the historic extension of this governmental strategy through establishment of the Gateway Schools concept that brokers industry-school partnerships with global players in the Queensland economy. Industry sectors forming the partnerships include Minerals and Energy, Aerospace, Wine Tourism, Agribusiness, Manufacturing and Engineering, Building and Construction and ICT. We argue that this ‘post-bureaucratic’ model of schooling represents a new social settlement of neoliberal governance, in which educational outcomes align with economic objectives, and frame the conditions for community self-governance.

Social benchmarking to improve river ecosystems

To complement physical measures or indices of river health a social benchmarking instrument has been developed to measure community dispositions and behaviour regarding river health. This instrument seeks to achieve three outcomes. First, to provide a benchmark of the social condition of communities’ attitudes, values, understanding and behaviours in relation to river health; second, to provide information for developing management and educational priorities; and third, to provide an assessment of the long-term effectiveness of community education and engagement activities in achieving changes in attitudes, understanding and behaviours in relation to river health. In this paper the development of the social benchmarking instrument is described and results are presented from the first state-wide benchmark study in Victoria, Australia, in which the social dimensions of river health, community behaviours related to rivers, and community understanding of human impacts on rivers were assessed.

Sustaining and improving the social condition of river ecosystems

This study uses and extends the theory of planned behavior to develop and empirically test a model of the social condition of riparian behavior. The theory of planned behavior is applicable to understanding the complexity of social conditions underlying waterway health. SEM identified complex interrelationships between variables. Aspects of respondent’s beliefs impacted on their stated intentions and behavior and were partially mediated by perceived behavioral control. The way in which people used waterways also influenced their actions. This study adds to theoretical knowledge through the development of scales that measure aspects of the social condition of waterways and examines their interrelationships for the first time. It extends the theory of planned behaviour through the incorporation of an objective measure of participants knowledge of waterway health. It also has practical implications for managers involved in sustaining and improving the social condition of river ecosystems.

Open source innovation in physical products : advantages and disadvantages, a corporate perspective

A better understanding of Open Source Innovation in Physical Product (OSIP) might allow project managers to mitigate risks associated with this innovation model and process, while developing the right strategies to maximise OSIP outputs. In the software industry, firms have been highly successful using Open Source Innovation (OSI) strategies. However, OSI in the physical world has not been studied leading to the research question: What advantages and disadvantages do organisations incur from using OSI in physical products? An exploratory research methodology supported by thirteen semi-structured interviews helped us build a seven-theme framework to categorise advantages and disadvantages elements linked with the use of OSIP. In addition, factors impacting advantage and disadvantage elements for firms using OSIP were identified as: „h Degree of openness in OSIP projects; „h Time of release of OSIP in the public domain; „h Use of Open Source Innovation in Software (OSIS) in conjunction with OSIP; „h Project management elements (Project oversight, scope and modularity); „h Firms. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) values; „h Value of the OSIP project to the community. This thesis makes a contribution to the body of innovation theory by identifying advantages and disadvantages elements of OSIP. Then, from a contingency perspective it identifies factors which enhance or decrease advantages, or mitigate/ or increase disadvantages of OSIP. In the end, the research clarifies the understanding of OSI by clearly setting OSIP apart from OSIS. The main practical contribution of this paper is to provide manager with a framework to better understand OSIP as well as providing a model, which identifies contingency factors increasing advantage and decreasing disadvantage. Overall, the research allows managers to make informed decisions about when they can use OSIP and how they can develop strategies to make OSIP a viable proposition. In addition, this paper demonstrates that advantages identified in OSIS cannot all be transferred to OSIP, thus OSIP decisions should not be based upon OSIS knowledge.

The analysis of social capital in online social communities

Social networks have proven to be an attractive avenue of investigation for researchers since humans are social creatures. Numerous literature have explored the term “social networks” from different perspectives and in diverse research fields. With the popularity of the Internet, social networking has taken on a new dimension. Online social communities therefore have become an emerging social avenue for people to communicate in today’s information age. People use online social communities to share their interests, maintain friendships, and extend their so-called circle of “friends”. Likewise, social capital, also known as human capital, is an important theory in sociology. Researchers usually utilise social capital theory when they investigate the topic relating to social networks. However, there is little literature that can provide an explicit and strong assertion in that research area due to the complexity of social capital. This thesis therefore focuses on the issue related to providing a better understanding about the relationship between social capital and online social communities. To enhance the value within the scope of this analysis, an online survey was conducted to examine the effects of the dimensions of social capital: relational capital, structural capital, and cognitive capital, determining the intensity of using online social communities. The data were derived from a total of 350 self-selected respondents completing an online survey during the research period. The main results indicate that social capital exists in online social communities under normal circumstances. Finally, this thesis also presents three contributions for both theory and practice in Chapter 5. The main results contribute to the understanding of connectivity in the interrelationships between individual social capital exchange within online social networks. Secondly, social trust was found to have a weak effect in influencing the intensity of individuals using online social communities. Third, the perpetual role of information sharing has an indirect influence on individual users participating in online social communities. This study also benefits online marketing consultants as marketers can not only gain consumer information easier from online social communities but also this understanding assists in designing effective communication within online social communities. The cross-sectional study, the reliability of Internet survey data, and sampling issues are the major three limitations in this research. The thesis provides a new research model and recommends that the mediating effects, privacy paradox, and social trust on online social communities should be further explored in future research.

Improving self organizing capabilities of local communities for sustainable development in decentralized Indonesia : the roles of procedural justice and social learning

The development planning process introduced under Law No. 25/2004 is said to be a better approach to increase public participation in decentralised Indonesia. This Law has introduced planning mechanisms, called Musyawarah Perencanaan Pembangunan (musrenbang), to provide a forum for development planning. In spite of the expressed intention of these mechanisms to improve public participation, some empirical observations have cast doubt on the outcomes. As a result, some local governments have tried to provide alternative mechanisms for participatory local development planning processes. Since planning constitutes one of the most effective ways to improve community empowerment, this paper aims to examine the extent to which the alternative local development planning process in Indonesia provides sufficient opportunities to improve the self organising capabilities of communities to sustain development programs to meet local needs. In so doing, this paper explores the key elements and approaches of the concept of community empowerment and shows how they can be incorporated within planning processes. Based on this, it then examines the problems encountered by musrenbang in increasing community empowerment. Having done this, it is argued that to change current unfavourable outcomes, procedural justice and social learning approaches need to be incorporated as pathways to community empowerment. Lastly the capacity of an alternative local planning process, called Sistem Dukungan (SISDUK), introduced in South Sulawesi, offering scope to incorporate procedural justice and social learning is explored as a means to improve the self organizing capabilities of local communities.

Social influences on Chinese drivers : cultural context and traffic law enforcement

Reducing road crashes and associated trauma is a critical focus as the Decade of Action for Road Safety commences. China is one of many rapidly-motorizing nations to experience recent increases in private-vehicle ownership and an associated escalation in novice drivers. Unfortunately, however, China also experiences a high rate of death and injury from road crashes. Several key pieces of legislation have been introduced in recent decades in China to deal with these changes. While managing the legal aspects of road use is important, social influences on driver behaviour may offer additional avenues for promoting safe driving, particularly in a culture where such factors carry high importance. To date, there is limited research on the role of social influence factors on driver behaviour in China, yet we know that Chinese society is strongly based on social rules, customs, and relationships. There is reason to assume therefore, that road use and driving-related issues may also be strongly influenced by social relationships. One previous study that has investigated such issues highlighted the need to consider culturally-specific issues such as interpersonal networks and social hierarchy when examining driver behaviour in China (Xie & Parker, 2002). Those authors suggested that there are some concepts relating to Chinese driving culture that may not necessarily have been identified from research conducted in western contexts and that research conducted in China must be considered in light of such concepts. The current paper reports qualitative research conducted with Beijing drivers to investigate such social influence factors. Findings indicated that family members, friends, and driving instructors appear influential on driver behaviour and that some novice drivers seek additional assistance after obtaining their licence. The finding relating to the influence of driving instructors was not surprising, given the substantial number of new drivers in China. In Beijing, driving instruction is conducted off-road in purpose-specific driving facilities rather than on the road network. Once licensed, it is common for new drivers to have little or no experience driving in complex traffic situations. This learning situation is unlikely to provide all the skills necessary to successfully negotiate crowded city streets and assess the related risk associated with such driving. Therefore, it was not surprising to find that one reported strategy to assist new drivers was to employ the services of an ‘accompanying driver’ to provide ongoing driving instruction once licensed. In more highly motorised countries supervised practice is part of a graduated licensing system where it is compulsory for new drivers to be supervised by a more experienced driver for a requisite period of time before progressing to solo driving. However, as this system is not in place in China, it appears that some drivers seek out and pay for additional support once they commence on-road driving. Additionally, strategies to avoid detection and penalties for inappropriate road use were discussed, many of which involve the use of a third person. These findings indicate potential barriers to implementing effective traffic enforcement and highlight the importance of understanding culturally-specific social factors relating to driver behaviour.