Farmscape online : participatory design of internet meetings with farmers

This paper presents aspects of a longitudinal study in the design and practice of Internet meetings between farmer their advisors and researchers in rural Australia. It reports on the use of Microsoft NetMeeting (NM) by a group of agricultural researchers from Australia's CSIRO (Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation) for regular meetings, over nine years, with farmers and the commercial advisers. It describes lessons drawn from this experience about the conditions under which telecollaborative tools, such as NM and video conferencing, are likely to be both useful and used.

Codes of conduct for mobile device use in meetings : an exploratory analysis

The present paper addresses the findings of a preliminary investigation into policy and codes of conduct pertaining to the use of laptops and PDA’s in business meetings. The purpose of this study was to conduct a review of policies or codes of conduct pertaining to the use of laptops and PDAs in meetings. The investigation included academic literature, policy searches in the public domain of the Internet, as well as personal contact with target industries (large corporations – N=1000 + employees). The results highlight the dearth of policy and codes of conducts pertaining to the use of laptops and PDA’s in business meetings. Consequently, given the growing interdependence between mobile technologies and the contemporary workplace, there exists an opportunity for communication professionals to further research and develop policy and codes of conduct in this area. Implications for corporate communication policies and practices are also discussed.

Submission to the Legal Affairs and Community Safety Committee - Youth Justice (Boot Camp Orders) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2012

This submission addresses the Youth Justice (Boot Camp Orders) and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2012 which has as its objectives (1) the introduction of a Boot Camp Order as an option instead of detention for young offenders and (2) the removal of the option of court referred youth justice conferencing for young offenders. As members of the QUT Faculty of Law Centre for Crime and Justice we welcome the invitation to participate in the discussion of these issues which are critically important to the Queensland community at large but especially to our young people.

Colour and Camp Bring Shakespeare’s As You Like It to Life

As You Like It By Shakespeare. La Boite Theatre Company, Brisbane, February 24. DURING the past three years, La Boite Theatre Company has started each season with a modern adaptation of a Shakespearean favourite. This time, director David Bertold's choice is not a tragedy but As You Like It, a comedy about love's twists and turns in which a strong female figure, Rosalind, takes the leading role...

Exploring board dynamics : director participation during board meetings

Despite board meetings representing the main arena where directors discharge their duties and make critical corporate decisions, we know little about what occurs in the boardroom. Consequently, there is increasing academic interest in understanding how meetings are run and how directors participate. This study contributes to this emerging literature by exploring the impact of board meeting arrangements on directors’ interactions and perceptions of meeting effectiveness. We video-taped board meetings at two Australian corporations operating in the same industry and use an in-depth analysis of interactions and board processes to reveal that a rather small difference in meeting arrangements (i.e. the timing and length of meetings) had a significant influence on interaction patterns. Specifically, given significant amounts of environmental turbulence in the sector, director inclusiveness and participation were reduced as time pressure increased due to shorter meetings, lowering director perceptions of meeting effectiveness.

Characterising and predicting cyber attacks using the Cyber Attacker Model Profile (CAMP)

Purpose Ethnographic studies of cyber attacks typically aim to explain a particular profile of attackers in qualitative terms. The purpose of this paper is to formalise some of the approaches to build a Cyber Attacker Model Profile (CAMP) that can be used to characterise and predict cyber attacks. Design/methodology/approach The paper builds a model using social and economic independent or predictive variables from several eastern European countries and benchmarks indicators of cybercrime within the Australian financial services system. Findings The paper found a very strong link between perceived corruption and GDP in two distinct groups of countries – corruption in Russia was closely linked to the GDP of Belarus, Moldova and Russia, while corruption in Lithuania was linked to GDP in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine. At the same time corruption in Russia and Ukraine were also closely linked. These results support previous research that indicates a strong link between been legitimate economy and the black economy in many countries of Eastern Europe and the Baltic states. The results of the regression analysis suggest that a highly skilled workforce which is mobile and working in an environment of high perceived corruption in the target countries is related to increases in cybercrime even within Australia. It is important to note that the data used for the dependent and independent variables were gathered over a seven year time period, which included large economic shocks such as the global financial crisis. Originality/value This is the first paper to use a modelling approach to directly show the relationship between various social, economic and demographic factors in the Baltic states and Eastern Europe, and the level of card skimming and card not present fraud in Australia.

Conservation communication camp : come with ideas, leave with a plan

IUCN´s core work involves generating knowledge and tools to influence policy and practice for nature conservation. Whilst it appears that we are collectively making progress in some areas, we acknowledge the need to improve our communication processes and practices to ´move to action´ in this regard. We need to extend the influence of the science and the knowledge beyond the documents to achieve effective impact and action. The training course will focus on the process of getting the conservation messages out to a wider audience. This interactive and participatory training course will develop the skills and knowledge needed to communicate effective conservation messages for a range of IUCN internal and external audiences. The course will cover: • what is communication for conservation? • the communication planning process (developing your communication objectives) • identifying and understanding your target audiences • developing your conservation message • choosing your communication media and • evaluating the effectiveness of your communication strategies. A unique feature of the training course will be the use of Web 2.0 tools in innovative conservation communications e.g. use of social media in concept branding and social marketing. In the spirit of the Forum´s objective of ´Sharing know how´, each participant will bring a current conservation issue to the training course and will leave with their own communication plan. Potentially, the training course adopts a cross-thematic approach as the issues addressed could be drawn from any of the IUCN´s program themes. Primarily though, the training course´s best fit is with the ´Valuing and Conserving Biodiversity´ theme since it will provide concrete and pragmatic solutions to enhancing the implementation of conservation measures through participatory planning and capacity building.

A qualitative evaluation of an innovative resilience-building camp for young carers

Young carers are at increased risk of developing mental health and social problems. The objective was to pilot a camp-based resiliencebuilding programme for young carers. Twelve young carers (12 to 14 years) recruited from Carers Queensland attended a 3-day resilience-building camp adapted from the Resourceful Adolescent Program. One month after the camp, carers participated in a semistructured telephone interview. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Two key themes emerged. The first, coping self-efficacy, included subthemes of affect regulation, interpersonal skills, and recognition of strengths and coping ability. The second key theme, social benefits, included opportunities for respite and social engagement. Overall, participants reported enjoying the camp and would recommend it to other young carers, yet they were able to provide some suggestions to improve future camps. Implementing an integrative resilience-building program such as the Resourceful Adolescent Program in a camp format shows promise as a way of both engaging and benefiting young carers, as well as selective populations more generally.

Pattern-based analysis of EAI languages : the case of the business modelling language

Enterprise Application Integration (EAI) is a challenging area that is attracting growing attention from the software industry and the research community. A landscape of languages and techniques for EAI has emerged and is continuously being enriched with new proposals from different software vendors and coalitions. However, little or no effort has been dedicated to systematically evaluate and compare these languages and techniques. The work reported in this paper is a first step in this direction. It presents an in-depth analysis of a language, namely the Business Modeling Language, specifically developed for EAI. The framework used for this analysis is based on a number of workflow and communication patterns. This framework provides a basis for evaluating the advantages and drawbacks of EAI languages with respect to recurrent problems and situations.

Developing a vision for an nD modelling tool

The design of a building is a complicated process, having to formulate diverse components through unique tasks involving different personalities and organisations in order to satisfy multi-faceted client requirements. To do this successfully, the project team must encapsulate an integrated design that accommodates various social, economic and legislative factors. Therefore, in this era of increasing global competition integrated design has been increasingly recognised as a solution to deliver value to clients.----- The ‘From 3D to nD modelling’ project at the University of Salford aims to support integrated design; to enable and equip the design and construction industry with a tool that allows users to create, share, contemplate and apply knowledge from multiple perspectives of user requirements (accessibility, maintainability, sustainability, acoustics, crime, energy simulation, scheduling, costing etc.). Thus taking the concept of 3-dimensional computer modelling of the built environment to an almost infinite number of dimensions, to cope with whole-life construction and asset management issues in the design of modern buildings. This paper reports on the development of a vision for how integrated environments that will allow nD-enabled construction and asset management to be undertaken. The project is funded by a four-year platform grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in the UK; thus awarded to a multi-disciplinary research team, to enable flexibility in the research strategy and to produce leading innovation. This paper reports on the development of a business process and IT vision for how integrated environments will allow nD-enabled construction and asset management to be undertaken. It further develops many of the key issues of a future vision arising from previous CIB W78 conferences.

ARCS collaboration tools

The Australian Research Collaboration Service (ARCS) has been supporting a wide range of Collaboration Services and Tools which have been allowing researchers, groups and research communities to share ideas and collaborate across organisational boundaries.----- This talk will give an introduction to a number of exciting technologies which are now available. Focus will be on two main areas of Video Collaboration Tools, allowing researchers to talk face-to-face and share data in real-time, and Web Collaboration Tools, allowing researchers to share information and ideas with other like-minded researchers irrespective of distance or organisational structure. A number of examples will also be shown of how these technologies have been used with in various research communities.----- A brief introduction will be given to a number of services which ARCS is now operating and/or supporting such as:--- * EVO – A video conferencing application, which is particularly suited to desktop or low bandwidth applications.--- * AccessGrid – An open source video conferencing and collaboration tool kit, which is great for room to room meetings.--- * Sakai – An online collaboration and learning environment, support teaching and learning, ad hoc group collaboration, support for portfolios and research collaboration.--- * Plone – A ready-to-run content management system, that provides you with a system for managing web content that is ideal for project groups, communities, web sites, extranets and intranets.--- * Wikis – A way to easily create, edit, and link pages together, to create collaborative websites.