Key opportunities for the future of roads to contribute to Australia's climate change response

Road agencies face growing pressure to respond to a range of issues associated with climate change and the reliance on fossil fuels. A key part of this response will be to reduce the dependency on fossil fuel based energy (and the associated greenhouse gas emissions) of transport, both vehicles and infrastructure. This paper presents findings of investigations into three key areas of innovative technologies and processes, namely the inclusion of onsite renewable energy generation technologies as part of road and transport infrastructure, the potential for automated motorways to reduce traffic fuel consumption (referred to as 'Smart Roads'), and the reduction of energy demand from route and signal lighting. The paper then concludes with the recommendation for the engineering profession to embrace sustainability performance assessment and rating tools as the basis for enhancing and communicating the contribution to Australia's response to climate change. Such tools provide a rigorous structure that can standardise approaches to key issues across entire sectors and provide clarity on the evidence required to demonstrate leading performance. The paper has been developed with funding and support provided by Australia's Sustainable Built Environment National Research Centre (SBEnrc), working with partners including Main Roads Western Australia, NSW Roads and Maritime Services, Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads, John Holland Group, the Infrastructure Sustainability Council of Australia, Roads Australia, and the CRC for Low Carbon Living.

Child Abuse and Neglect: A Socio-legal Study of Mandatory Reporting in Australia - Report for the West Australian Government

This report presents the results of a study exploring the law and practice of mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect in Western Australia. Government administrative data over a decade (2003-2012) were accessed and analysed to map trends in reporting of different types of child abuse and neglect (physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, and neglect) by different reporter groups (e.g., police, teachers, doctors, nurses, family members, neighbours), and the outcomes of these reports (whether investigated, and whether substantiated or not). The study was funded by the Australian Government and administered through the Government of Victoria.

Task profiling : A task-Based approach to measuring the integration of ICT in the classroom

The measurement of ICT (information and communication technology) integration is emerging as an area of research interest with such systems as Education Queensland including it in their recently released list of research priorities. Studies to trial differing integration measurement instruments have taken place within Australia in the last few years, particularly Western Australia (Trinidad, Clarkson, & Newhouse, 2004; Trinidad, Newhouse & Clarkson, 2005), Tasmania (Fitzallen 2005) and Queensland (Finger, Proctor, & Watson, 2005). This paper will add to these investigations by describing an alternate and original methodological approach which was trialled in a small-scale pilot study conducted jointly by Queensland Catholic Education Commission (QCEC) and the Centre of Learning Innovation, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) in late 2005. The methodology described is based on tasks which, through a process of profiling, can be seen to be artefacts which embody the internal and external factors enabling and constraining ICT integration.