New educational service products : tertiary EC/EB education - the Asia-Pacific region

Electronic Commerce (EC) / Electronic Business (EB) has been (and is expected to continue to be) a dynamic, rapidly evolving area of technology, requiring skilled people with up-to-date knowledge and skills. The global community has required (and still requires) tertiary academic programs to prepare and train these people quickly. In the late nineties, following a tidal wave of tertiary EC program development in the United States, new tertiary programs began to appear in the Asia-Pacific (AP) region to satisfy this need, over a very short period of time. This research project aims to examine whether the development and effectiveness of tertiary EC/EB educational programs can be enhanced through employing a particular marketing paradigm. Four regions - Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong SAR and the Republic of Singapore — were selected from the AP region, for this study. Based on a review of marketing literature, an inductive approach is adopted to build a model for new educational service product offerings. I also provide a description and comprehensive analysis of EC/EB education, and explore the model empirically, examining how it applies to the way EC education programs have been developed, to date. Essentially, this project consists of two major activities: theory building and theory testing – and is divided into three parts. Part 1: Preliminary study – literature review for theory building. This section of the thesis provides a literature review of the domains of curriculum development, EC/EB program development and management, EC/EB component models and new service product development. Part 2 : Understanding the marketplace – quantitative analysis. This section comprises five major surveys which provide an understanding of EC/EB education. Part 3 : In-depth analysis – qualitative research for theory testing. This section discusses the results of the multiple case studies of EC/EB degree programs undertaken over a five year period. The results of this project highlight both theoretical and practical aspects of the topic. In terms of the theoretical aspect, I provide a contribution to existing theory concerning the planning and development of new tertiary education programs. Research into academic course development in the past has tended to assume that all program development is pedagogically based and influenced. There is an assumption that people only develop academic programs and academic courses for pedagogic reasons. What this research project has done is to suggest that there are, in fact, many possible reasons for developing new programs and that, although these reasons might be pedagogic in nature, they can also be industry-focased, and market-oriented in the following ways: -the university is shaping the way it is perceived by the public – that is, the market; -the university is highlighting where its expertise lies. This led me to a form of new service product development consistent with the new image of the university. There is a clear need for diverse models for program development which accommodate the dynamic roles of modern universities. My research project develops such a model based on conditions in the Asia-Pacific region, and discusses findings arising from the overall project, which can be used to improve new educational program offerings in future, in both the Asia-Pacific and, I suggest, in other regions. This potential use of my findings highlights the practical contribution made by the research Project.

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.

New teachers, professional knowledge and educational reform in New Zealand

This thesis examines the professional knowledge of new secondary school teachers in New Zealand, their negotiation of multiple discourses encountered in policy and practice, and their processes of professional identity formation. It is also a study of policy reform. In New Zealand, as elsewhere, recent educational and social reforms have brought about major changes to the way education is managed and implemented. These reforms emphasise market ideologies promoting consumer choice and responsibility, while measuring and monitoring quality and effectiveness. At the same time, the reforms attempt to alleviate social inequality. Teachers' negotiation of an accountability culture and the dominant equity policies is a major focus of this study. The study draws upon group interviews held with nine new teachers during the first two years of their teaching careers. The group interviews were designed to elicit extended narratives from individual teachers, as well as promote more interactive dialogue and reflections within the groups. Because the interviews were conducted at different points in their early careers, the study also has a longitudinal element, allowing insight into how teachers' views are formed or changed during an intense period of professional learning. Analysis of the teachers' narratives is informed by poststructural and feminist understandings of identity and knowledge and by a methodological orientation to writing as a method of enquiry. The thesis develops three main types of discussion and sets of arguments. The first examines new teachers' negotiation of the 'macro' context of teacher knowledge formation that is, their negotiation of an educational policy environment that juxtaposes an equity agenda with accountability controls. In order to historically situate these dilemmas, the particular political, social and educational context of New Zealand is examined. It is argued that teachers negotiate competing political and conceptual debates about social justice, equity and difference, and that this negotiation is central to the formation of professional knowledge. The analysis illustrates ways in which teachers make sense of equity discourses in educational policy and practice, and the apparent contradictions that arise from placing tight accountability standards on schools and teachers to achieve associated equity goals. The second type of discussion focuses on teachers' negotiation of the 'micro' dimension of professional knowledge, looking closely at the processes and practices that form professional identity. Against stage or developmental models of teacher identity, it is argued that professional identity is formed in an ongoing, uneven and fluid manner and is socially and discursively situated/embedded. It is further argued that professional knowledge and identity are entwined and that this relationship is most usefully understood through analysis of the discursive practices that frame teachers' working lives and through which teachers work out who they are or should become and what and how they (should) think. This analysis contributes new perspectives to debates in teacher education about teacher preparation and the knowledge required of teachers in current 'new times'. The final cluster of arguments brings together these macro and micro aspects of professional knowledge and identity with a case study of how new teachers negotiated a recent educational reform of senior secondary school qualifications in New Zealand. This reform has had a significant impact on secondary schools and on the way teachers, and New Zealanders in general, think about education, achievement and success. It was found that this reform significantly challenged new teachers to question their beliefs about assessment and justice in education, and what counts as success. This case study draws attention to the tensions between equity, academic excellence and standards-based assessment, and contributes to understanding how teacher professional knowledge forms both in the context of a specific educational policy reform and in relation to educational reform in general. This study contributes new knowledge to the formation of teacher professional knowledge and identity in an educational climate of change in New Zealand. The findings offer new insights for teacher educators, policymakers and schools into how teachers build, shape and sustain professional knowledge; how they juggle contradictions between a desire for justice, policy imperatives and teacher education rhetoric; the self-constructed, but contingent nature of professional knowledge and identity; and the urgency to address identity formation as part of teacher education and to take account of the dynamic ways in which identities form. These matters need to be articulated in teacher education both pre-service and in-service in order to address teacher retention and satisfaction, and teachers' commitment to equity reform in education.

Assessing cost-effectiveness in mental health: helping policy-makers prioritize and plan health services

Objective: We assessed, from a health sector perspective, options for change that could improve the efficiency of Australia's current mental health services by directing available resources toward 'best practice' cost-effective services.

Method: We summarize cost-effectiveness results of a range of interventions for depression, schizophrenia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and anxiety disorders that have been presented in previous papers in this journal. Recommendations for change are formulated after taking into account 'second-filter criteria' of equity, feasibility of implementing change, acceptability to stakeholders and the strength of the evidence. In addition, we estimate the impact on total expenditure if the recommended mental health interventions for depression and schizophrenia are to be implemented in Australia.

Results: There are cost-effective treatment options for mental disorders that are currently underutilized (e.g. cognitive–behavioural therapy (CBT) for depression and anxiety, bibliotherapy for depression, family interventions for schizophrenia and clozapine for the worst course of schizophrenia). There are also less cost-effective treatments in current practice (e.g. widespread use of olanzapine and risperidone in the treatment of established schizophrenia and, within those atypicals, a preference for olanzapine over risperidone). Feasibility of funding mechanisms and training of staff are the main second-filter issues for CBT and family interventions. Acceptability to various stakeholders is the main barrier to implementation of more cost-effective drug treatment regimens. More efficient drug intervention options identified for schizophrenia would cost A$68 million less than current practice. These savings would more than cover the estimated A$36M annual cost of delivering family interventions to the 51% of people with schizophrenia whom we estimated to be eligible and this would lead to an estimated 12% improvement in their health status. Implementing recommended strategies for depression would cost A$121M annually for the 24% of people with depression who seek care currently, but do not receive an evidence-based treatment.

Conclusions: Despite considerable methodological problems, a range of cost-effective and less cost-effective interventions for major mental disorders can be discerned. The biggest hurdle to implementation of more efficient mental health services is that this change would require reallocation of funds between interventions, between disorders and between service providers with different funding mechanisms.

Chronic disease self-management programs : perspectives on enablers and barriers to GP and patient engagement

Aims & rationale/Objectives : Chronic disease self-management programs (CDSMP) are increasingly being integrated into the health system to improve the care of people with chronic conditions. Despite activity at both policy and program levels, GPs as the 'gatekeepers' to the health system have generally not been well informed or engaged in this process. This study, in collaboration with 3 Victorian Divisions of General Practice, sought both GP and patient perspectives on enablers and barriers to engagement in self-management programs.
Methods : Interviews were conducted with GPs (n=20) and consumers (n=45) purposefully recruited from metropolitan and rural Victoria, representing key demographics of interest including low socioeconomic areas.
Principal findings : Lack of education/information and uncertainty about the effectiveness of self-management programs were key barriers for both GP and patient engagement. Programs that were sustainable and utilised existing community resources were viewed as enablers to increase uptake. GP and patient preferences for disease specific or generic CDSMP differed.
Discussion : Outcomes from the recent Council of Australian Governments' meeting suggest that self-management will be a centerpiece in forthcoming chronic disease initiatives. International evidence has highlighted the need for GP and patient engagement as critical in ensuring the recruitment of a critical mass of individuals to participate in CDSMP to ensure the sustainability of such initiatives. Insight from this study indicates that GPs and patients are not well informed about self-management, have different preferences to current policy trends and identifies several other barriers which need to be addressed if CDSMP are to be successful.
Implications : Identification of barriers and enablers of GP and patient engagement in self-management is essential in shaping current policy initiatives and delivery of future programs. This is supported by international evidence which indicates strongly that GP engagement in particular is crucial to the success of these programs.
Presentation type : Paper

Justice-based service recovery in a service guarantee context

Although many service organisations have committed resources to developing service guarantee programmes, empirical research assessing their influence of consumers' post purchase evaluations is limited. This thesis addresses this deficiency in the guarantee literature by adapting and extending an established model of perceived justice and consumer satisfactionto the service guarantee context.

Descartes on the human soul : philosophy and the demands of Christian doctrine

By the 17th century Catholic orthodoxy had defined a range of propositions concerning the human soul as revealed by God and verifiable by natural reason. The writings of Rene Descartes display a consistent adherence to these orthodox propositions. The conclusion presents him as ultimately unsuccesful in convincing his contemporaries that his philosophy provided the rational demonstration of the key soul doctrines and that he was worthy of the title "Christian philosopher"

A nurse-assisted screening and referral program for depression among survivors of colorectal cancer : feasibility study

Objective: To test the feasibility and acceptability of a telephone-based program to screen survivors of colorectal cancer (CRC) for distress, and to refer distressed patients to their treating health service.

Design, setting and participants: A prospective, multicentre study involving 59 patients with CRC recruited from six public and private health services in Melbourne, Victoria, from 15 June 2008 to 22 September 2009. Patients who had completed adjuvant chemotherapy for CRC were contacted (7–10 days after recruitment [outcall one] and again 4 weeks later [outcall two]) by the Cancer Council Victoria’s helpline nurse, and screened for distress with the Distress and Impact Thermometer (DIT); participants were given tailored information and support and those with distress scores of ≥5, and impact scores of ≥4, were referred for follow-up. Telephone interviews were conducted 4 weeks after outcall two. Participating helpline and health service staff were surveyed on the feasibility and acceptability of the service. Main outcome measure: Anxiety and depression, measured by the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS).

Results: Of the 59 patients (87%) who agreed to participate, 63% were men; their mean age was 59 years (SD, 9.5 years). HADS depression decreased significantly from baseline (mean score, 4.93; SD, 4.22) to follow-up (mean score, 3.84; SD, 4.10; Z = −2.375; P= 0.02). However, there was no significant difference in HADS anxiety between baseline (mean score, 5.29; SD, 4.11) and follow-up (mean score, 4.78; SD, 3.65). Outcall one generated two referrals (4% of participants) and outcall two generated four referrals
(8%); five of these six participants took up the referrals. Satisfaction with the program among participants was high; 82% found outcall one “quite or very helpful” and 79% found outcall two “quite or very helpful”. Helpline and health service staff reported a straightforward process that did not adversely affect workloads.

Conclusion: This model of care carries the potential to meet ongoing psychosocial needs of survivors of CRC.

Reintegration services for long-term dangerous offenders : a case study and discussion

Successfully reintegrating long-term prisoners back into the community often presents significant challenges for service providers. Ex-prisoners typically experience high levels of social stigma; present with multiple needs; and can struggle to find meaningful employment, stable accommodation, and to maintain supportive relationships. There have, however, been relatively few published evaluations of the outcomes achieved by postrelease services on managing the risk of reoffending and, as such, it is difficult for service providers to meet these multiple and complex levels of need in ways that might be considered to be evidence based. In this article we describe a specialized prerelease support, reentry, and reintegration service that is offered to long-term prisoners, many of whom have been legally labelled as ‘‘dangerous.’’ The current model of service delivery is reviewed and discussed in the context of current theories of offender rehabilitation and reintegration. These are then used to discuss the way in which services for this group of offenders might best be conceptualized.

Professional paradoxes : context for development of beginning teacher identity and knowledges

It is anticipated that the current workforce of teachers in Victoria, Australia will retire within the next 5-15 years. The paradox for teachers at the career entry point is that while they are expected to quickly assume responsibility for education in this state, beginning teachers are reporting dissatisfaction with teaching and describing it as an ‘unprofessional’ profession. Drawing from recently commissioned research for the Victorian Institute of Teaching, a study of sixty beginning teachers and a micro study of the ‘internship’ experience of teacher educators, this paper explores the consequences of what counts as professional knowledge. By problematising identity issues for beginning teachers it is hoped that greater understanding of the complexities of their realities is revealed. The aspirations for the (re) generation of a profession are entangled in discordant displacement of meanings of what it is to become a teacher. What do ‘othering’ and power(less) positions of beginning teachers mean for the immediate future of the profession? What then are the implications for school contexts, colleague support and pre-service teacher education?

Toward ease of discovery, selection and use of clusters within a cloud

While the emergence of clouds had lead to a significant paradigm shift in business and research, cloud computing is still in its infancy. Specifically, there is no effective publication and discovery service nor are cloud services easy to use. This paper presents a new technology for offering ease of discovery, selection and use of clusters hosted within clouds. By improving these services, cloud clusters become easily accessible to all clients, software services to noncomputing human user.

A technology to expose a cluster as a service in a cloud

Clouds refer to computational resources (in particular, clusters) that are accessible as scalable, on demand, pay-as- you-go services provided in the Internet. However, clouds are in their infancy and lack a high level abstraction. Specifically, there is no effective discovery and selection service for clusters and offer little to no ease of use for clients. Here we show a technology that exposes clusters as Web services in the form of a Cluster as a Service for publishing via WSDL, discovering, selecting and using clusters.

Service innovation in Australia : a preliminary exploration of the Cinderella sector

Service innovation is of increasing importance in the Australian economy, yet it remains a largely neglected area of study. Recent studies overseas have shown that services are becoming more engaged with innovation, and that service innovation is complex and multi-dimensional. Official R&D and business innovation statistics in Australia are examined, and they reveal that service providers across all service industries in Australia are performing R&D and are actively innovating, a finding that is consonant with the overseas studies. However, innovation performance varies across and within service industries, reflecting differences in the nature and structure of those industries. A clear need for further research is identified, both to provide a clearer understanding of the nature of service innovation and to provide a basis for practical recommendations.

Ins and outs of discovery layers: EDS and Encore

Deakin University Library offers a number of search and discovery tools to its user communities: a web scale discovery product, a faceted display catalogue and a traditional catalogue. The presentation provides an overview of the challenges the Library has faced in its attempt to offer a seamless, comprehensive search and discovery service, that facilitates the finding of information resources. The information literacy and research skill levels of the University’s various cohort groups are considered, as well as the important role metadata plays in leading users to the resources they want.