Current affairs in audit

Current Affairs in Audit highlights and discusses developments in auditing. The Current Affairs in Audit are prepared monthly by Rod Johnson, lecturer in the School of Accounting and Finance at Deakin University. Tom Ravlic, Financial Journalist, is also contributing articles.

The pragmatics of text facilitation : the study of academic English of native and non-native writers

In this paper I describe the discursive strategies related to the writer–reader textual reciprocity. I focus on one way of achieving such reciprocity -- the employment by the writer of facilitative schematic structures and metalanguage where one text segment signposts information conveyed in the segment that follows. I refer to these facilitative schematic structures as "organising relational schemata". I see organising relations as the most explicit components of the rhetorical structure of texts: they illuminate the main message and aid the reader's cognitive processes in the orientation of how information is conveyed by text.
This paper discusses the way the choices of organising relations and associated metalanguage by the writers in different cultures and different discourse communities contribute to the communicative homeostasis in the world of text. It shows how the influence of a native culture and intellectual style together with the forces operating within the writer's international disciplinary community interact in the authorial guidance in the scholarly prose.
I introduce and exemplify three types of organising relational structures: Advance Organisers, Introducers and Enumerators. I trace the utilisation of these three types of relations in sociology research papers written in English and produced in "Anglo" and Polish academic discourse comunities by native English speaking and native Polish speaking scholars. The relational typology adopted is based on a study by Golebiowski (2002), which proposed a theoretical framework for the examination of discoursal structure of research papers, referred to as FARS – Framework for the Analysis of the Rhetorical Structure of Texts. FARS entails a relational taxonomy which displays a pattern of rhetorical relations utilised by the writer to achieve textual coherence.
I describe intertextual differences in the frequency of occurrence of organising relations, their degree of explicitness and their positioning in the hierarchical structure of texts. Differences in the mode of employment of textual organisers suggest that the rhetorical structure of English research prose produced by non-native speakers cannot escape being shaped by the characteristics and conventions of the authors’ first language. They are also attributed to cultural norms and conventions as well as educational systems prevailing within the discourse communities which constitute the social contexts of texts.

It's academic : American studies in a time of crisis

My archive- the collection of resources I have drawn upon for my comments- includes, among other sources, a panel on international American studies held at the American Studies Association conference in Montreal in November 1999, the Wednesday Higher Education supplement of the Australian newspaper, and another supplement- this is one in the Derridean sense of the word- the Howard government. I hope to draw these threads together to focus on the present crisis facing American studies and, not coincidentally, this Association. To arrive at this point I take a tour through theoretical and disciplinary responses to the prevailing situation.

Academic social networks affecting the adoption of e-learning in Turkey

This article reports findings from an ethnographic study of e-leaming adopters in Turkey and examines ways in which cultural factors shape the adoption and use of infonnation technology for online teaching. This research focuses on influential early adopters in the tertiary education sector in Turkey who have become change agents by inspiring small networks of their peers into e-learning. The study examines the operation of trust and inspiration in networking and teamwork in the Asian academic environment. A key finding of this research is that the early adopters of e-Ieaming tend to become change agents in small groups and networks. This research sheds light on the mechanisms by which the process of e-Ieaming adoption relies on social networks and connections.

Academic assessment of arts management journals: a multidimensional rating survey

The authors report the results of a journal rating survey assessing 14 publications dedicated to arts management and related topics. Establishing a rating scheme for journals is an important step in the professionalization of an academic field. The authors argue that the development of a rating system in arts management is in the best interests of the discipline. Academics used weighted multidimensional perceptual ratings to evaluate each journal’s prestige, contribution to theory, contribution to practice and contribution to teaching. Cluster analysis using these four criteria identified three classes of journals: A, B+ and B. The setting of standards serves to identify quality goals for academics and journal editors alike, thus enhancing the standing of arts management as a subdiscipline of management.

Perceptions of e-commerce as an academic discipline in Australian universities

This paper presents findings from a study on perceptions of e-commerce as an academic discipline in Australian universities. The study examined Australian universities' perceptions on whether e-commerce should be regarded as a business-oriented discipline or a technology-oriented discipline and further whether e-commerce should be considered as a distinctive discipline. Data was collected from official websites of all Australian universities and was categorized in accordance to award titles, host faculty and program structures. Findings showed that most Australian universities perceived e-commerce as a business-oriented discipline. However, there was no consensus on whether e-commerce should be considered as a distinctive discipline.

Online students : relationships between participation, demographics and academic performance

Using information technology to support teaching and learning is becoming ubiquitous in tertiary education. However, how students participate and perform when a major component of the learning experience is conducted via an online learning environment is still an open question. The objective of this study was to investigate whether any relationships existed between the participation, demographics and academic performance of students in an information technology course that was taught wholly online. Tracking data generated by the online learning environment was collected throughout the semester. Through a detailed analysis of this tracking data it was found that a relationship existed between students' participation in the online learning environment and their performance, as measured by final results in the course. Relationships also existed between gender, nationality, participation and performance. However, there was no relationship between age and performance and participation. These findings suggest that when designing online learning for a diverse population, student demographics should be taken into account to maximise the benefits of the learning experience. The results also suggest that the tracking data can be used as an early indicator of students who are likely to fail the course since lack of participation early in the semester is indicative of lower outcomes in the course. Being able to identify such students allows staff to take remedial action proactively rather than reactively in the latter part of the semester.