Enabling access to and re-use of publicly funded research data as Open Educational Resources : a strategy for overcoming the legal barriers to data access and re-use

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials that have been released under an open licence that permits online access and re-use by others. The 2012 Paris OER Declaration encourages the open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds. Digital data and data sets produced as a result of scientific and non-scientific research are an increasingly important category of educational materials. This paper discusses the legal challenges presented when publicly funded research data is made available as OER, arising from intellectual property rights, confidentiality and information privacy laws, and the lack of a legal duty to ensure data quality. If these legal challenges are not understood, addressed and effectively managed, they may impede and restrict access to and re-use of research data. This paper identifies some of the legal challenges that need to be addressed and describes 10 proposed best practices which are recommended for adoption to so that publicly funded research data can be made available for access and re-use as OER.

The use of Creative Commons licensing to enable open access to public sector information and publicly funded research results : an overview of recent Australian developments

This chapter provides an account of the use of Creative Commons (CC) licensing as a legally and operationally effective means by which governments can implement systems to enable open access to and reuse of their public sector information (PSI). It describes the experience of governments in Australia in applying CC licences to PSI in a context where a vast range of material and information produced, collected, commissioned of funded by government is subject to copyright. By applying CC licences, governments can give effect to their open access policies and create a public domain of PSI which is available for resue by other governmental agencies and the community at large.

Enabling open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data in Malaysian public universities : a legal and policy analysis

Numerous statements and declarations have been made over recent decades in support of open access to research data. The growing recognition of the importance of open access to research data has been accompanied by calls on public research funding agencies and universities to facilitate better access to publicly funded research data so that it can be re-used and redistributed as public goods. International and inter-governmental bodies such as the ICSU/CODATA, the OECD and the European Union are strong supporters of open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data. This thesis focuses on the research data created by university researchers in Malaysian public universities whose research activities are funded by the Federal Government of Malaysia. Malaysia, like many countries, has not yet formulated a policy on open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data. Therefore, the aim of this thesis is to develop a policy to support the objective of enabling open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data in Malaysian public universities. Policy development is very important if the objective of enabling open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data is to be successfully achieved. In developing the policy, this thesis identifies a myriad of legal impediments arising from intellectual property rights, confidentiality, privacy and national security laws, novelty requirements in patent law and lack of a legal duty to ensure data quality. Legal impediments such as these have the effect of restricting, obstructing, hindering or slowing down the objective of enabling open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data. A key focus in the formulation of the policy was the need to resolve the various legal impediments that have been identified. This thesis analyses the existing policies and guidelines of Malaysian public universities to ascertain to what extent the legal impediments have been resolved. An international perspective is adopted by making a comparative analysis of the policies of public research funding agencies and universities in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia to understand how they have dealt with the identified legal impediments. These countries have led the way in introducing policies which support open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data. As well as proposing a policy supporting open access to and re-use of publicly funded research data in Malaysian public universities, this thesis provides procedures for the implementation of the policy and guidelines for addressing the legal impediments to open access and re-use.

Open educational resources: Enhancing education provision and practice

Open educational resources (OERs), a disruptive technology, made their appearance in early 2002 as a promising tool for enhancing the quality of and access to education generally and higher education in particular. OERs were also perceived to have the potential to reduce costs by reusing learning materials. This brief draws on a study that reviewed the uptake of OERs and related activities in six institutions in Hong Kong, China; India; Malaysia; Pakistan; and Thailand.

Multi-criteria assessment of innovative technology in the beef industry

In Australia rural research and development corporations and companies expended over $AUS500 million on agricultural research and development. A substantial proportion of this is invested in R&D in the beef industry. The Australian beef industry exports almost $AUS5billionof product annually and invest heavily in new product development to improve the beef quality and improve production efficiency. Review points are critical for effective new product development, yet many research and development bodies, particularly publicly funded ones, appear to ignore the importance of assessing products prior to their release. Significant sums of money are invested in developing technological innovations that have low levels and rates of adoption. The adoption rates could be improved if the developers were more focused on technology uptake and less focused on proving their technologies can be applied in practice. Several approaches have been put forward in an effort to improve rates of adoption into operational settings. This paper presents a study of key technological innovations in the Australian beef industry to assess the use of multiple criteria in evaluating the potential uptake of new technologies. Findings indicate that using multiple criteria to evaluate innovations before commercializing a technology enables researchers to better understand the issues that may inhibit adoption.

Testing the vision: Preschool settings as places for meeting, bonding and bridging

The OECD (2006 Starting Strong II: Early Childhood Education and Care. OECD Publishing: Paris) envisions early childhood education and care settings as meeting places for diverse social groups; places that build social capital. This vision was assessed in a comparison of three preschools types: full-fee paying, subsidised-fee and publicly funded. The social composition within each was examined and the connectedness of the children (n = 472) who attended compared. Publicly funded preschools had more socially diverse populations. The quantity of social connectedness did not differ but children in publicly funded preschools described higher quality social relationships. Not all preschool settings are socially diverse but, where they are, the quality of relationships is highest.

Research data finder : an institutional metadata repository

QUT’s new metadata repository (data registry), Research Data Finder, has been designed to promote the visibility and discoverability of QUT research datasets. Funded by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS), it will provide a qualitative snapshot of research data outputs created or collected by members of the QUT research community that are available via open or mediated access. As a fully integrated metadata repository Research Data Finder aligns with institutional sources of truth, such as QUT’s research administrative system, ResearchMaster, as well as QUT’s Academic Profiles system to provide high quality data descriptions that increase awareness of, and access to, shareable research data. In addition, the repository and its workflows are designed to foster smoother data management practices, enhance opportunities for collaboration and research, promote cross-disciplinary research and maximize existing research datasets. The metadata schema used in Research Data Finder is the Registry Interchange Format - Collections and Services (RIF-CS), developed by ANDS in 2009. This comprehensive schema is potentially complex for researchers; unlike metadata for publications, which are often made publicly available with the official publication, metadata for datasets are not typically available and need to be created. Research Data Finder uses a hybrid self-deposit and mediated deposit system. In addition to automated ingests from ResearchMaster (research project information) and Academic Profiles system (researcher information), shareable data is identified at a number of key “trigger points” in the research cycle. These include: research grant proposals; ethics applications; Data Management Plans; Liaison Librarian data interviews; and thesis submissions. These ingested records can be supplemented with related metadata including links to related publications, such as those in QUT ePrints. Records deposited in Research Data Finder are harvested by ANDS and made available to a national and international audience via Research Data Australia, ANDS’ discovery service for Australian research data. Researcher and research group metadata records are also harvested by the National Library of Australia (NLA) and these records are then published in Trove (the NLA’s digital information portal). By contributing records to the national infrastructure, QUT data will become more visible. Within Australia and internationally, many funding bodies have already mandated the open access of publications produced from publicly funded research projects, such as those supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC), or the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC). QUT will be well placed to respond to the rapidly evolving climate of research data management. This project is supported by the Australian National Data Service (ANDS). ANDS is supported by the Australian Government through the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy Program and the Education Investment Fund (EIF) Super Science Initiative.

New directions in intercultural early education in Australia

Early education in Australia encompasses both early education and care(ECEC) and the early years of school. Educational approaches to cultural and linguistic diversity have varied not only by sector but also by jurisdiction based on distinct curriculum frameworks and policies. In Australian early education, provision for cultural and linguistic diversity has been framed largely by multicultural discourse, as defined by a complex history of progressive, yet often superficial reforms. Current initiatives serve to change this trajectory and the positioning of stakeholders. The incorporation of intercultural rather than multicultural approaches offers new possibilities for early education and directs attention to real challenges for ECEC. They re-position Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders as the First Australians, and direct attention to both Australia’s social, cultural and linguistic diversity and to the role of early childhood educators in enacting more inclusive pedagogies. Challenges yet to be addressed include the cultural understanding of Australian early childhood educators, particularly those who identify as Anglo- Australian, deeper policy enactment in pedagogic practice and negotiation with diverse families and communities. This paper will address the historical and current policy contexts of intercultural early education in Australia, the development of intercultural initiatives, and emerging issues as national policies are introduced. The discussion draws on responses to intercultural early education in New Zealand and Canada to consider approaches to intercultural priorities in Australia. The paper will attend predominantly to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander perspectives as a core element of change in Australian early childhood policy, focusing on ECEC.

Creative entrepreneurship education for graduate employability in the creative arts

The higher education sector in Australia is under increasing pressure to prove quality and efficacy of education provision, including graduate outcomes. One of the central tasks of higher education has become to prepare nascent professionals as far as possible for initial employment and future working lives beyond this (Boden & Nedeva, 2010). Tertiary educators in the creative arts face significant and distinctive challenges in demonstrating graduate employability, and creative graduates consistently have the poorest outcomes of any subject grouping. In part, this is because the national graduate destinations survey (Graduate Careers Council of Australia, 2012) does not cater to the distinctive ‘portfolio’ nature of creative careers, or take account of the fact that creative careers can take concerted effort over several years to establish (e.g., McCowan & Wyganowska, 2010). However, it is worth asking whether we as tertiary arts educators are doing enough to prepare creative arts students for the world of work, particularly given that the majority of them will be self-employed to some degree (Bureau of Labour Statistics, 2011, Throsby & Zednik, 2010), and will be challenged to build their own careers without recourse to the support of HR departments or intra-firm promotion schemes. It has been demonstrated empirically that career management and creative enterprise skills are among the most important graduate capabilities in determining early creative career success (Bridgstock, 2011), although these skills do not appear in the Learning and Teaching Academic Standards for the Creative and Performing Arts (2010). This paper explores the nature and development of enterprise capabilities for creative arts students (as distinct from students of the business school), examines best practice in the field internationally, and proposes a theoretically-driven creative arts-specific enterprise curriculum model which commences in first year, for demonstrable impact on student enterprise behaviours (such as grant seeking, professional networking and intention to start an enterprise) and employability.

The effectiveness of workshops as managerial learning opportunities

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the effectiveness of workshops as a learning tool for small business owner‐managers (SBO‐Ms). It aims to concentrate on workshops delivered over 18 months from January 2007 to July 2008 as part of several publicly‐funded small business development programmes in two Australian local government areas (LGAs). Design/methodology/approach Effectiveness is measured in terms of meeting the overarching learning needs and expectations of participants in the context of the programme goals. The paper analyses data gathered from workshop participants either post‐workshop, in later focus groups or through a questionnaire as well as additional feedback from participants and the organisers' reflections. The thematic analysis is organised through an analogy of “going shopping”, where the SBO‐M shopper is buying “learning” when they attend a workshop. Findings Understanding motivation to participate or the “what's in it for me” is important as SBO‐Ms tend to be reluctant, resist or fail to engage with externally sponsored business support initiatives. Workshops were valued for the “space” they create to reflect on practice. For many SBO‐Ms, content “comes alive” with discussion while networking helps reduce the isolation SBO‐Ms can feel. Practical implications The shopping analogy suggests workshops must cater for purposeful shoppers as well as browsers, while interaction with others in the workshop is critical to realising the value of workshops. Originality/value Knowing whether, and how, workshops deliver learning can help to better target and refine these types of support initiatives to ensure they provide positive outcomes for individuals, organisations and economies.

Creating a legal framework for copyright management of open access within the Australian academic and research sector

This chapter analyses the copyright law framework needed to ensure open access to outputs of the Australian academic and research sector such as journal articles and theses. It overviews the new knowledge landscape, the principles of copyright law, the concept of open access to knowledge, the recently developed open content models of copyright licensing and the challenges faced in providing greater access to knowledge and research outputs.

Hospital infection control units: Staffing, costs, and priorities

Background: This article describes infection prevention and control professionals’ (ICPs’) staffing levels, patient outcomes, and costs associated with the provision of infection prevention and control services in Australian hospitals. A secondary objective was to determine the priorities for infection control units. Methods: A cross-sectional study design was used. Infection control units in Australian public and private hospitals completed a Web-based anonymous survey. Data collected included details about the respondent; hospital demographics; details and services of the infection control unit; and a description of infection prevention and control-related outputs, patient outcomes, and infection control priorities. Results: Forty-nine surveys were undertaken, accounting for 152 Australian hospitals. The mean number of ICPs was 0.66 per 100 overnight beds (95% confidence interval, 0.55-0.77). Privately funded hospitals have significantly fewer ICPs per 100 overnight beds compared with publicly funded hospitals (P < .01). Staffing costs for nursing staff in infection control units in this study totaled $16,364,392 (mean, $380,566). Infection control units managing smaller hospitals (<270 beds) identified the need for increased access to infectious diseases or microbiology support. Conclusion: This study provides valuable information to support future decisions by funders, hospital administrators, and ICPs on service delivery models for infection prevention and control. Further, it is the first to provide estimates of the resourcing and cost of staffing infection control in hospitals at a national level. Copyright

Key ideas, research and challenges in early childhood education and care

The Australian government has recognised the importance of early childhood education and care (ECEC) in recent years. With over one million Australian children accessing early childhood education provision every day (Productivity Commission, 2014), today’s children are a generation who spend a large part of their early years in some form of out-of-home child care. Early chapters in this text have discussed a range of people, theories and approaches that inform the development of ECEC. Early childhood pedagogical practice is an eclectic mix of these ideas. This chapter begins with an overview of the ways young children learn in early childhood education, highlighting play-based learning as a pedagogical response to our understandings about children. Next the chapter outlines areas that have more recently influenced ECEC including international models of early childhood education, neuroscience, studies of young children, economic research and social justice principles. Drawing on the reflections of educators working in various ECEC contexts, the chapter then presents four topics encountered by educators as part of their everyday work with diverse communities. These topics include: • the educational program for children in the early years • relationships and partnerships with diverse families • professional accountabilities, and • changing constructions of childhood.

New directions in coach education research

There has been substantial growth in the provision of, and importance attached to, coach education in many Western countries in particular, but there is also an emerging interest in the developing world (Gilbert & Trudel, 1999; Lyle, 2002). Yet this growth in interest has not resulted in a corresponding increase in research activity. Much of the focus of the existing coach education literature has been on coach development and learning (Cushion, Armour,& Jones, 2003; Malete et al, 2000; Sage, 1989; Weiss et al, 1991), coaching behavior and coach effectiveness training in the context of youth sports (Smith & Smoll, 1990; Smith, Smoll, & Barnett, 1995; Smoll et al.,1993) and the problems associated with the privileging of technical, tactical, and bio-scientific knowledges that have been characteristic features of much coach education provision (Abraham & Collins, 1998; Campbell, 1993; Potrac et al, 2000; Schempp, 2000). While this scholarship has provided valuable insights into some aspects of coach education, it underlines the absence of research addressing a range of topics such as the development of coach education curricula, the structures for coach learning, coaches’ learning processes and coach certification (Gilbert & Trudel, 2000). In this paper we discuss a new theoretical frame for coach education research centered on the idea of communities of practice.