H'ani : National Parks and Wildlife Facilities at Springbrook.

The paper describes the process in whcih a multi-disciplinary group of design students propose a redevelopment of individual and group camping facilities at Springbrook national Park. A romantic and fairyland atmosphere is developed to enhance the natural educational potential of the site and heighten the experience of the transient community, the campers.

National numeracy tests : a graphic tells a thousand words

Mandatory numeracy tests have become commonplace in many countries, heralding a new era in school assessment. New forms of accountability and an increased emphasis on national and international standards (and benchmarks) have the potential to reshape mathematics curricula. It is noteworthy that the mathematics items used in these tests are rich in graphics. Many of the items, for example, require students to have an understanding of information graphics (e.g., maps, charts and graphs) in order to solve the tasks. This investigation classifies mathematics items in Australia’s inaugural national numeracy tests and considers the effect such standardised testing will have on practice. It is argued that the design of mathematics items are more likely to be a reliable indication of student performance if graphical, linguistic and contextual components are considered both in isolation and in integrated ways as essential elements of task design.

National practices in investment decision making in road sector

This document provides the findings of a national review of investment decision-making practices in road asset management. Efforts were concentrated on identifying the strategic objectives of agencies in road asset management, establishing and understanding criteria different organisations adopted and ascertaining the exact methodologies used by different sate road authorities. The investment objectives of Australian road authorities are based on triple-bottom line considerations (social, environmental, economic and political). In some cases, comparing with some social considerations, such as regional economic development, equity, and access to pubic service etc., Benefit-Cost Ratio has limited influence on the decision-making. Australian road authorities have developed various decision support tools. Although Multi-Criteria Analysis has been preliminarily used in case by case study, pavement management systems, which are primarily based on Benefit Cost Analysis, are still the main decision support tool. This situation is not compatible with the triple-bottom line objectives. There is need to fill the gap between decision support tools and decision-making itself. Different decision criteria should be adopted based on the contents of the work. Additional decision criteria, which are able to address social, environmental and political impacts, are needed to develop or identify. Environmental issue plays a more and more important role in decision-making. However, the criteria and respective weights in decision-making process are yet to be clearly identified. Social and political impacts resulted from road infrastructure investment can be identified through Community Perceptions Survey. With accumulative data, prediction models, which are similar as pavement performance models, can be established. Using these models, the decision-makers are able to foresee the social and political consequences of investment alternatives.

Australian national survey: preliminary findings

The National survey was the third phase in an ongoing initiative to identify critical success factors in ICT mediated supply chains. This study has been designed to harness the tacit and explicit knowledge to be found on the subject from the widest range of appropriate sources. At its core is the assumption that, provided with the fullest list of candidate success factors, a representative sample of experienced industry-based practitioners will (with the aid of statistical analysis) reveal a set of critical success factors. A postal survey has been judged to be the most appropriate mechanism for achieving this outcome.

Harmonisation of OH&S regulations

Policy instruments of education, regulation, fines and inspection have all been utilised by Australian jurisdictions as they attempt to improve the poor performance of occupational health and safety (OH&S) in the construction industry. However, such policy frameworks have been largely uncoordinated across Australia, resulting in differing policy systems, with differing requirements and compliance systems. Such complexity, particularly for construction firms operating across jurisdictional borders, led to various attempts to improve the consistency of OH&S regulation across Australia, four of which will be reviewed in this report. 1. The first is the Occupational Health and Safety Act 1991 (Commonwealth) which enabled certain organisations to opt out of state based regulatory regimes. 2. The second is the development of national standards, codes of practice and guidance documents by the National Occupational Health and Safety Council (NOHSC). The intent was that the OHS requirements, principles and practices contained in these documents would be adopted by state and territory governments into their legislation and policy, thereby promoting regulatory consistency across Australia. 3. The third is the attachment of conditions to special purpose payments from the Commonwealth to the States, in the form of OH&S accreditation with the Office of the Federal Safety Commissioner. 4. The fourth is the development of national voluntary codes of OHS practice for the construction industry. It is interesting to note that the tempo of change has increased significantly since 2003, with the release of the findings of the Cole Royal Commission. This paper examines and evaluates each of these attempts to promote consistency across Australia. It concludes that while there is a high level of information sharing between jurisdictions, particularly from the NOSHC standards, a fragmented OH&S policy framework still remains in place across Australia. The utility of emergent industry initiatives such as voluntary codes and guidelines for safer construction practices to enhance consistency are discussed.

Positioning the Arts in the Australian National Curriculum

In 2008 the Australian Government embarked on the development of a National Curriculum. To date, announcements about development of learning areas in Phase 1 (English, mathematics, science and history) and Phase 2 (geography and languages) have been released. But where are the arts positioned? This article traces the advocacy strategy employed by Drama Australia and the National Advocates for Arts Education (NAAE) in the fight for the arts to be included in National Curriculum Board (NCB) timeline for development, trial and implementation.

Opportunities for enhancing the Australian national road safety strategy

With the current National Road Safety Strategy [1] coming to the end of its term, it is timely to consider ways in which the next iteration of this strategy can be enhanced. Strategic planning should be a cyclic process in which learning and adaptation are just as important as planning and implementation. It will always be the case that some actions are not as effective as expected, or that barriers to effective implementation will emerge. Rather than being setbacks, these are opportunities for learning about the validity of our assumptions. They are also opportunities for us to adapt to meet unanticipated or emerging challenges. One of the positive aspects of the implementation of the first and second National Road Safety Strategies has been the willingness of road safety agencies to critically assess progress and to identify where and how actions would be better focused. This has been reflected in the evolving nature of the periodic National Road Safety Action Plans. As the decade of the current Strategy reaches an end, there is a need to take this process further, and undertake a thorough critical evaluation of the Strategy development and implementation. While not an attempt to be exhaustive, the following article will identify some key priorities for consideration as part of this process.

A national building products inventory

Australia has no nationally accepted building products life cycle inventory (LCI) database for use in building Ecologically Sustainable Development (ESD) assessment (BEA) tools. More information about the sustainability of the supply chain is limited by industry’s lack of real capacity to deliver objective information on process and product environmental impact. Recognition of these deficits emerged during compilation of a National LCI database to inform LCADesign, a prototype 3 dimensional object oriented computer aided design (3-D CAD) commercial building design tool. Development of this Australian LCI represents 24 staff years of effort here since 1995. Further development of LCADesign extensions is proposed as being essential to support key applications demanded from a more holistic theoretical framework calling for modules of new building and construction industry tools. A proposed tool, conceptually called LCADetails, is to serve the building product industries own needs as well as that of commercial building design amongst other industries’ prospective needs. In this paper, a proposition is examined that the existing national LCI database should be further expanded to serve Australian building product industries’ needs as well as to provide details for its client-base from a web based portal containing a module of practical supply and procurement applications. Along with improved supply chain assessment services, this proposed portal is envisaged to facilitate industry environmental life cycle improvement assessment and support decision-making to provide accredited data for operational reporting capabilities, load-based reasoning as well as BEA applications. This paper provides an overview of developments to date, including a novel 3-D CAD information and communications technology (ICT) platform for more holistic integration of existing tools for true cost assessment. Further conceptualisation of future prospects, based on a new holistic life cycle assessment framework LCADevelop, considering stakeholder relationships and their need for a range of complementary tools leveraging automated function off such ICT platforms to inform dimensionally defined operations for such as automotive, civil, transport and industrial applications are also explored.

Reading Squadron: Crossing borders in literacy experiences for preservice teachers.

Teaching literacy requires accurate and current knowledge in the field (Commonwealth of Australia, 2005). There have been persistent inquiries into what constitutes specialist knowledge and skills for teaching students to be literate. Preservice teacher education is fundamental to literacy development, which includes the approaches universities employ to prepare graduates for teaching literacy. Indeed, preservice teacher programs and literacy education also elicit insatiable media coverage. There is a continued push to improve literacy outcomes for school students across the nation and prepare the literacy knowledge and skills of Australian teachers. This study mainly focuses on 10 final-year preservice teachers attending a regional university campus who volunteered for further experiences to teach students to read traditional texts. These preservice teachers completed three university literacy units before commencing with practical applications. A literacy program, titled Reading Squadron, was developed in partnership between a local primary school and the university. Primary students were identified by the school as requiring literacy support. Preservice teachers attended a whole day training session run by school staff at the university and then visited the school for two one-hour sessions each week over a six-week period. Each preservice teacher was assigned two students and worked with each student for half an hour twice a week. The aim of this small-scale qualitative study was to investigate the perceptions of the preservice teachers and school staff as a result of their involvement in the Reading Squadron program. The preservice teachers completed a questionnaire to determine their views of the program and ascertain how it assisted their development. Further data were gathered from the preservice teachers through individual face-to-face interviews. Three school staff involved in the program also completed a questionnaire to determine the value of the program. Results indicated that the preservice teachers made links between theory and practice, and felt they gained knowledge about teaching reading. Three preservice teachers noted it was difficult to work around timetable commitments but gained from the experience and suggested embedding such experiences into university literacy units. Data gathered from school staff indicated that six-weeks was not sufficient time to measure improvements in the school students, however, they were supportive of such a program, particularly for its continuation. Collaborations between schools and universities can provide opportunities for preservice teachers to use theoretical knowledge gained from core university subjects with application to assist primary students’ literacy development in schools. Teachers in this study were supportive of the Reading Squadron program, however, more data needed to be collected to understand the literacy improvement of students. Longitudinal studies are required to ascertain specific knowledge and skills gained by preservice teachers to teach reading and how these programs enhance students’ literacy levels.

Moving from Awareness to Knowing, Understanding, Speaking and Doing: Indigenous Women Academics in Higher Education. National Tertiary Education Women's Conference, 18-19 July 2009, South Melbourne, Victoria.

Bronwyn Fredericks was asked to outline some of the issues faced by Indigenous women academics.

Library technician course recognition : meeting the challenge of a distributed national education program

This paper looks at the challenges presented for the Australian Library and Information Association by its role as the professional association responsible for ensuring the quality of Australian library technician graduates. There is a particular focus on the issue of course recognition, where the Association's role is complicated by the need to work alongside the national quality assurance processes that have been established by the relevant technical education authorities. The paper describes the history of course recognition in Australia; examines the relationship between course recognition and other quality measures; and describes the process the Association has undertaken recently to ensure appropriate professional scrutiny in a changing environment of accountability.