Socio-technical factors influencing channel use for knowledge-sharing in regional SME networks

The economic sustainability of regional areas is dependent on cross-industry innovation and knowledge-sharing among Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The web-based initiatives deployed in regions worldwide to facilitate SME knowledge-sharing have typically been unsuccessful. This paper argues that the main reason for these failures is the lack of understanding of the socio-technical factors which influence the use of web-based channels (websites, online forums and expertise databases) as well as the more conventional channels (face-to-face and e-mail). This paper reports the findings of interpretive case studies of two regional SME business networks. It evaluates the major channels on six socio-technical criteria: link strength; trustworthiness; tacitness; usability; durability and currency. None of the channels were strong against all socio-technical factors. This highlights the importance of achieving an appropriate mix of channels to facilitate SME knowledge-sharing.

Newbs vs. geeks : encouraging creativity in an online learning community

This article explores the development and creative practices of an online  community within an Australian university. The authors argue that creativity can be enhanced and supported by the development and implementation of purpose-specific learning environments, such as an online learning community. Within such a community the participants are exposed to a number of requisite elements designed to support the exploration of their own learning process and the development of creativity. The following study discusses the establishment of such a community and the social, cultural and learning practices of the student participants.

Australian public sector adoption of EDRMS : a preliminary survey

Governments around the world are placing increasing emphasis on effective corporate recordkeeping within both private and public sector organisations, with some governments mandating such approaches: for example, The State Government of South Australia has required all its agencies to have 'an adequate records management program' in place by the end of 2009 (State Records of South Australia 2007). These demands are often met through the implementation of centralised electronic records management solutions – frequently, Electronic Document and Records Management Systems (EDRMS) – but not all implementing organisations adopt an EDRMS solution in the most optimal way; and many such systems fail to meet organisational needs, or gain acceptance form all (or even most) users. This paper reports on a Web-based survey of Australian public sector EDRMS implementation at three levels (federal, state and local government) and forms the first component of a multi-part investigation of Australian public sector records management. This preliminary survey was designed to identify the EDRMS solutions adopted by government agencies, as well as any guidelines or frameworks used in designing and implementing those solutions.

Academic staff take the lead : experimenting with social software at Deakin University

This paper reports on a two staged staff development exercise to help new academic staff to integrate Web 2.0 technologies including web-based communication and some digital technologies into their curricula. It involved professional development for the teaching staff in the first stage followed by these teachers providing professional development for the course participants. The teachers engaged in a blended community of inquiry with face-to-face sessions and online work while the professional development for the course participants included technical support, training and a peer group environment with formal allocation of time for the course, finally leading to an institutionally recognised qualification. Evaluations conducted through focus group interviews revealed that collegial networks and time were important for effective professional development. The paper reflects on the successes and limitations of the model and its potential for further development. It also highlights the importance of providing professional development in a safe environment for academics to adopt technologies for teaching and learning.

The Wikipedia : experts, expertise and ethical challenges

Participatory models are replacing the traditional models of experts and expertise that are based on individuals, their credentials and domain experience. The Wikipedia is a well-known and popular online encyclopedia, built, edited and administrated by lay citizens rather than traditional experts. It
utilises a Web-based participatory model of experts and expertise to enable knowledge contributions and provide administration. While much has been written about the Wikipedia and its merits and pitfalls, there are important ethical challenges stemming from the underlying Wikipedia model. Ethical concerns are likely to be important to Wikipedia users, however as yet, such
concerns have not been systematically explored. By reviewing and synthesising existing literature, this paper identifies six key ethical challenges for existing and potential Wikipedia users, stemming
from the underlying Web-based participatory model of experts and expertise. Important implications arising from the findings are also discussed.

Family circumstance and adolescent dietary behaviours

The available information on the contribution of family circumstance to adolescent dietary behaviours is inconsistent. Indicators of family circumstance may impact adolescent behaviours by influencing their daily home environment. This study examined cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between indicators of family circumstance and (i) breakfast skipping and (ii) consumption of snack food, fast food, fruits and vegetables among adolescents. Dietary behaviour was assessed using a web-based survey completed by 1884 adolescents from years 7 and 9 of secondary schools in Victoria, Australia, at baseline and 2 years later. Five indicators of family circumstance (parental marital status, maternal education, maternal employment status, number of brothers and number of sisters) were assessed with a questionnaire completed by parents at baseline only. Logistic regression was used to examine cross-sectional associations between indicators of family circumstance and dietary behaviours. Multinomial logistic regression was used to examine associations between indicators of family circumstance and 2-year change in dietary behaviours. Individual indicators of family circumstance were differentially associated with adolescent dietary behaviours. Cross-sectional and longitudinal associations differed for adolescent boys and girls highlighting the importance of assessing specific dietary behaviours and food types individually by gender. This study highlights the complexity of the relationships between family circumstance and adolescent dietary behaviours. Future research needs to assess the efficacy of strategies promoting maternal nutritional knowledge on the dietary behaviours of adolescents.

Statphylococcus aureus bacteraemia : a major cause of mortaility in Australia and New Zealand

Objective : To document the types of, and mortality from, Staphylococcus aureus bacteraemia in Australia and New Zealand, and determine factors associated with mortality.

Design and setting : Prospective observational study in 27 independent or hospital pathology laboratories in Australia (24) and New Zealand (3), employing a web-based database to prospectively record demographic features, selected risk factors, principal antibiotic treatment and mortality data on all patients with positive blood cultures for S. aureus from June 2007 to May 2008.

Main outcome measure : 30-day all-cause mortality.

Results : 1994 episodes of S. aureus bacteraemia were identified, and complete 30-day follow-up data were available for 1865. Most episodes had their onset in the community (60.8%; 95% CI, 58.7%–63.0%). Methicillin-resistant S. aureus (MRSA) caused 450 episodes (24.1%; 95% CI, 22.2%–25.9%), and 123 of these (27.3%) had a susceptibility profile consistent with community-associated MRSA. All-cause mortality at 30 days was 20.6% (95% CI, 18.8%–22.5%). On univariate analysis, increased mortality was significantly associated with older age, European ethnicity, MRSA infection, infections not originating from a medical device, sepsis syndrome, pneumonia/empyema, and treatment with a glycopeptide or other non-β-lactam antibiotic. On multivariable analysis, independent predictors of mortality were age, sepsis syndrome, pneumonia/empyema, device-associated infection with a secondary focus, left-sided endocarditis, and treatment with a glycopeptide such as vancomycin, but not MRSA infection.

Conclusions : S. aureus bacteraemia is a common infection in both the community and hospitals in Australia and New Zealand, and is associated with appreciable mortality. Invasive MRSA infection may be more life-threatening, partly because of the inferior efficacy of the standard treatment, vancomycin. National web-based surveillance of S. aureus bacteraemia and its outcomes is not only important but also easily achievable.

Introducing a learning repository using a blended professional development approach

This paper outlines the professional development program used to introduce a learning repository at Deakin University. Providing appropriate, timely and effective professional development programs to support academic and other staff is one of the objectives of the Deakin University Teaching and Learning Functional Plan 2008. Our blended program combines web-based and face-to-face training with a wide variety of resources to support staff. Issues noted in the literature relating to the introduction and use of learning repositories informed the planning and development of our program. Challenges and issues we experienced at Deakin are also outlined.

An online environment for value added learning : more than you bargained for

Online web-based technologies are increasingly being used in educational and professional contexts to create an effective environment for teaching or professional learning. A number of studies have explored the intersections between on and off line teaching and learning, participants’ perceptions, and claims of connectedness and community fostered by online sites (Jones, 1998; Rheingold, 1995; Soderstrom, 2006). This paper will outline the development, functionality and usefulness of the online environment (Drupal) installed and used to support the Australian Government Summer School for Teachers of English. It includes an analysis of the virtual environment (social software) established for the Summer School. The research project aimed to determine what aspects of an online environment supported the success of this national professional development activity that incorporated physically present, and online communication, connection, and collaboration between 200 teachers over a period of seven months. In this paper the site manager explains their role and perspective of the potential of social software for learning.

Anycast services and its applications

Anycast in next generation Internet Protocol is a hot topic in the research of computer networks. It has promising potentials and also many challenges, such as architecture, routing, Quality-of-Service, anycast in ad hoc networks, application-layer anycast, etc. In this thesis, we tackle some important topics among them. The thesis at first presents an introduction about anycast, followed by the related work. Then, as our major contributions, a number of challenging issues are addressed in the following chapters. We tackled the anycast routing problem by proposing a requirement based probing algorithm at application layer for anycast routing. Compared with the existing periodical based probing routing algorithm, the proposed routing algorithm improves the performance in terms of delay. We addressed the reliable service problem by the design of a twin server model for the anycast servers, providing a transparent and reliable service for all anycast queries. We addressed the load balance problem of anycast servers by proposing new job deviation strategies, to provide a similar Quality-of-Service to all clients of anycast servers. We applied the mesh routing methodology in the anycast routing in ad hoc networking environment, which provides a reliable routing service and uses much less network resources. We combined the anycast protocol and the multicast protocol to provide a bidirectional service, and applied the service to Web-based database applications, achieving a better query efficiency and data synchronization. Finally, we proposed a new Internet based service, minicast, as the combination of the anycast and multicast protocols. Such a service has potential applications in information retrieval, parallel computing, cache queries, etc. We show that the minicast service consumes less network resources while providing the same services. The last chapter of the thesis presents the conclusions and discusses the future work.

Technology adoption : voices of teaching academics, educational designers and students

This folio presents three studies (a dissertation and two electives) which use qualitative case study methodologies to investigate technology adoption from three perspectives. Central to all three studies is the study context of Monash University. The Dissertation explores adoption of web-based learning and teaching approaches from the perspective of teaching academics as they incorporate these to facilitate their students’ learning. The study investigates teaching academics’ reasons for adopting these new technologies, the factors that influenced their adoption decisions, and the challenges they were confronted with, including the contributing factors that impacted on their adoption decisions. The study shows that while contextual factors such as power and politics of the school, department, faculty and the institution impact on adoption, supportive organisational infrastructures and policy frameworks are necessary to encourage adoption, including wider adoption. In turn, on going staff development, adoption of new work practices and being adaptive to changing work environments are key demands made on teaching academics as a result of adopting web-based teaching approaches. Elective 1, a smaller study, leads on from the dissertation and examines the impact of technology adoption on the evolving role of educational designers. The study identifies the educational designers’ role change in assisting teaching academics to move from more conventional forms of teaching to more technology based learner-centred collaborative models. An important aspect of the study is the managers’ perspectives of this role in a university that has adopted a strong flexible learning and technology policy. The findings show that educational designers now work as project managers in larger teams consisting of a wider range of professionals, their expanded role in introducing technology into learning designs, providing staff development in the area, and giving technical help including advice on copyright and intellectual property issues. Elective 2 explores student readiness to adopt these technologies for learning. The study is designed to achieve an understanding of three broad categories of learners from a first year design unit: (1) South East Asian and East Asian students, (2) all other international students, and (3) local Australian students are studied to examine their readiness for modes of learning that are flexible; their approaches to study in a creative discipline area; and their openness to using technology. Findings of the study are discussed under the key themes – dependence on the teacher and classroom environment, flexible learning and working alone, structure, communication and work patterns. The study concludes by discussing the possible cultural attributes that have an impact on the learning. The three studies found that the institution, its people, structures and processes must all adapt, evolve and grow in order to provide effective, engaging, student-centred web-based learning environments. Students in turn must be enabled to manage their study, make use of the technologies and maximise their learning experience. The findings revealed the stage of technology use reached at Monash University at the time of the study through the voices of the teaching academics, educational designers and students.

Investigation of educator adoption of knowledge media

Human development has occurred against a timeline that has seen the creation of and diffusion of one innovation after another. These innovations range from language to complex computing and information technologies. The latter are assisting with the distribution of information, and extend to the distribution of the human species beyond the planet Earth. From early times, information has been published and mostly for a fee to the publisher. The absorption and use of information has had a high priority in most societies from early times, and has become institutionalised in universities and institutes of technical learning. For most in Western societies, education is now a matter of ‘lifelong learning’. Today, we see higher education institutions, worldwide, adapting their organisational structures and operating procedures and forming strategic alliances with communications content providers and carriers as well as with information technology companies. Modern educational institutes seek productivity and efficiency. Many also seek to differentiate themselves from competitors. Technological convergence is often seen by management to be a saviour in many educational organisations. It is hoped that lower capital and recurrent costs can be achieved, and that competitors in an increasingly globalised industry can be held at bay by strategic use of knowledge media (Eisenstadt, 1995) commonly associated with distance education in the campus setting. Knowledge media set up costs, intellectual property costs and training costs for staff and students are often so high as to make their use not viable for Australian institutes of higher education. Against this backdrop, one might expect greater educator and student use of publisher produced textbooks and digital enhancements to the textbook, particularly those involved in distance education. A major issue is whether or not the timing of instructor adoption of converging information technology and communications technologies aligns with the wishes of both higher education management and government, and with those who seek commercial gain from the diffusion and adoption of such technologies. Also at issue is whether or not it is possible to explain variance in stated intentions to recommend adoption of new learning technologies in higher education and implementation. Will there occur educator recommendation for adoption of individual knowledge media such as World Wide Web access to study materials by students? And what will be the form of this tool and others used in higher education? This thesis reports on more recent changes in the technological environment and seeks to contribute to an understanding of the factors that lead to a willingness, or unwillingness, on the part of higher education instructors, as influencers and content providers, to utilise these technologies. As such, it is a diffusion study which seeks to fill a gap in the literature. Diffusion studies typically focus on predicting adoption based on characteristics of the potential adopter. Few studies examine the relationship between characteristics of the innovation and adoption. Nearly all diffusion studies involve what is termed discontinuous innovation (Robertson, 1971). That is, the innovation involves adoptees in a major departure from previous practice. This study seeks to examine the relationship between previous experience of related technologies and adoption or rejection of dynamically continuous innovation. Continuous and dynamically continuous innovations are the most numerous in the real world, yet they are numerically the least scrutinised by way of academic research. Moreover, the three-year longitudinal study of educators in Australian and New Zealand meets important criteria laid down by researchers Tornatzky and Klein (1982) and Rogers (1995), that are often not met by similar studies. In particular the study examines diffusion as it is unfolding, rather than selectively examining a single innovation and after the fact, thus avoiding a possible pro-innovation bias. The study examines the situation for both ‘all educators’ and ‘marketing / management educators’ alone in seeking to meet the following aim: Establish if intended adopters of specific knowledge media have had more experience of other computer-based technologies than have those not intending to adopt said knowledge media. The analytical phase entails use of factor analysis and discriminant analysis to conclude that it is possible to discriminate adopters of selected knowledge media based on previous use of related technologies. The study does not find any generalised factor that enables such discrimination among educators. Thus the study supports the literature in part, but fails to find generalised factors that enable unambiguous prediction of knowledge media adoption or otherwise among each grouping of educators examined. The implications are that even in the case of related products and services (continuous or dynamically continuous innovation), there is not statistical certainty that prior usage of related products or technologies is related to intentions to use knowledge media in the future. In this regard, the present study might be said to confirm the view that Rogers and Shoemaker's (1971) conceptualisation of perceived innovation characteristics may only apply to discontinuous innovations (Stratton, Lumpkin & Vitell, 1997). The implications for stakeholders such as higher education management is that when seeking to appoint new educators or existing staff to knowledge media project teams, there is some support for the notion that those who already use World Wide Web based technologies are likely to take these technologies into teaching situations. The same claim cannot be made for computer software use in general, nor Internet use in general.

Lifelong learning, the knowledge economy and professional development

There is increasing rhetoric surrounding the concepts of lifelong learning and the knowledge economy (Peters, 2001); specifically e-learning and web-based learning environments. This paper seeks to explore the journeys of two professionals from two separate disciplines and work environments located in one higher-education institution where there is an increasing push to develop learning materials using online and other e-learning technologies.

With the steady shift from traditional learning, online learning is now playing an integral part of course delivery at the Australian regional university where the authors work. A contextual analysis of online learning within the broader views of the institution provides examples of discourses relating to online environments, knowledge management, and the professional development of the participants.

This discussion draws on the concepts of lifelong learning (Crowley, 2002; Serim & Murray, 2003) and embeds them within an online learning environment. Exploration of the multiple workplace environments within the institution under review demonstrates one way in which educators can embrace and position themselves as they negotiate changing educational discourses.

An integrated observation network for the Gippsland Lakes, Victoria, Australia : balancing the needs of science and management

The Gippsland Lakes region in eastern Victoria is a partially flushed coastal lake system within a diverse catchment of rural and urban communities. Pressure from lakeside developments, re-occurring blue-green algal blooms, declining fisheries, sedimentation and infilling of the ocean entrance, has borne several decades of focussed studies and routine monitoring programs, along with a variety of engineering and management solutions. A recent review recommended that these disparate studies should be enhanced to formulate a coordinated monitoring network that could improve both spatial and temporal coverage, develop a capacity to trigger responsive investigations and was able to serve the needs of system management. Through a series of partnerships an integrated network was developed that comprises event and baseline monitoring of catchment loads, local meteorological forcing and an array of water quality sampling sites within the lakes system. A majority of these sites are incorporated with real-time telemetry that provides up to the minute information to stakeholders via a web-based information management system and vital operational status to technical system management.

EDRMS implementation in the Australian public sector

Sad stories about EDRMS implementation failure are often told among records managers. An EDRMS project, like any other IS implementation, will need key ingredients to be successful. This paper reveals these components of a successful EDRMS implementation from the findings of a Web-based survey on the perspectives of records managers in the three levels of the Australian public sector. It also uncovers these organisations’ attitudes towards digital  recordkeeping initiatives and an insight on their EDRMS projects.