Developing professional expertise in the knowledge economy: integrating industry-based learning with the academic curriculum in the field of information technology

In response to the forces of globalization, organizations have had to adapt and even transform themselves. Universities have had to recognize the value of practical working knowledge developed in workplace settings, and promote the value of academic forms of knowledge making to the practical concerns of everyday learning. This paper presents a contemporary case of a designed professional curriculum in the field of information technology that situates workplace learning as a central element in the education of students. Key integrative dimensions are considered along with an analysis of the perspectives of teaching staff and students on the educational experience. (Asia-Pacific Journal of Cooperative Education, 2004, 5(2), 1-11)

Developing and rewarding advanced teaching expertise in higher education - a different approach

The Australian university sector is undergoing a major change, with a significant increase in the emphasis on quality teaching and learning. This change is being driven by the national government. The paper asks if the correct response to this change of emphasis should be a change in the attitude to the appropriate mix of research and teaching skills within an institution, and within individual staff of the institution. The same question could be asked of how to better develop teaching expertise in many higher education sectors globally. It is proposed that to create excellent teaching and learning within an institution may better be achieved by allowing staff to become experts in a narrow field of teaching rather than
generalists across the basics of teaching. The creation of a Community of Experts in teaching parallels the process of creating a Community of Experts in Research and can bring similar benefits in the teaching area to what it does in the research area.

Socio-ethical issues for expertise location from electronic mail

Knowledge workers frequently lack sufficient expertise to perform work effectively. This paper describes a recently developed expertise locator system based on automated key-phrase identification of experts from electronic mail (e-mail) messages. The paper provides an analysis of the key socio-ethical challenges involved in the implementation and use of the e-mail expertise locator system. Findings include a set of complex socio-ethical challenges, and their managerial and theoretical implications are discussed. The paper highlights possible sensitivities of employees with respect to their potential identification by the system as domain experts. It also highlights the potential for employee misuse of e-mail expertise locator systems, which must be carefully managed to reduce the risks involved.

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.

Teenage technological experts : Bourdieu and the performance of expertise

This thesis explores the construction of technological expertise amongst a heterogenous group of New Zealand teenagers, specifically in regard to their home computer use, which for many of them is their primary site of leisure. This thesis explores the field in which these teenagers are positioned, and explains the practice constituting that field. In this field, the trajectories towards expertise are explained including the time, experimentation, and pleasure evident in their praxis. The qualitative study involved observations and interviews with eight teenagers aged 13 – 17. Five boys and three girls participated and each attended one of various secondary schools located within a provincial city in New Zealand. All of the participants considered themselves to be technological experts, and their peers and/or their family supported this comprehension. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu’s socio-cultural theories, the capital (cultural, economic, social) and habitus of the teenagers are described (habitus being what makes them who they are, and continues to define who they are in the future). Chapter five centres on explaining the field the teenagers have positioned themselves in, namely the field of out-of-school leisure and home computer use. It also explores the construction and performance of technological expertise within the field. Chapter six examines traditional views of schooling and expertise, and contrasts these views with what the teenagers think about their learning and expertise. This gap is specifically explained with regard to differences between the concepts and value of learning, expertise, and technology, and how they are recognised and valued differently between generations. Chapter seven explores the praxis that the participants exhibit, which is arguably misrecognized by those whose interests are in the established order (e.g. institutional, societal structures). The field they are placed in is arguably part of the broader field of education, yet the findings suggest their capital is misrecognized by digital newcomers, and therefore not legitimated. This thesis concludes that the gap between teenager and adult understandings of expertise is exacerbated in the digital world in which the teenagers position themselves. Their schooling is mainly positioned in the print culture of previous generations and consequently, in the lives of these teenagers, schooling has had little influence on the development of their technological expertise. Additionally, gender has had little impact in their development of expertise; therefore stereotypical notions of female underachievement as computer experts are contested.

The methodology of students-as-researchers : valuing and using experience and expertise to develop methods

Students in England are increasingly involved in consultation and governance of schools. Some are also involved in researching their own learning, how they are taught, the kinds of curriculum on offer, and school policies and practices. In this article, we suggest that this could be seen as a form of “standpoint research”. We suggest that one way standpoint can be exercised is via the construction of experience-based research tools. We exemplify this through a student research project in which photo-elicitation and verbal scenarios based in students' understandings of their school did not produce an “authentic” and homogenised voice, but rather multiple perspectives of the classroom and wider school.

Youth as an artefact of expertise : problematizing the practice of youth studies in an age of uncertainty

At the start of the 21st century the Liberal democracies, including Australia, are characterized by profound social, economic and cultural transformations. Community, policy and academic discourse is marked by widespread adult anxieties about today’s young people. Representations of youth in the institutional domain of ‘youth studies’ can be conceived as artefacts of the activities of diverse forms of expertise. This paper will focus on the institutionalized processes of abstraction which construct these truths, and the roles played by these processes of abstraction in the restless problematization of ‘youth’ as the object of countless competing and complementary governmental programmes. There has been, in recent years, increased debate about how to do youth studies and how to represent youth. The paper will argue that any rethinking or reassessment of the modes of representing youth ought to take some account of the institutional and abstract nature of these processes of representation, and of the implication of these processes in the regulation of populations of young people; populations which are rendered knowable in all their diversity only through these processes of representation.

Exploring barriers in expertise seeking : why don't they ask an expert?

This paper reports findings from a research project that explores reasons why some employees prefer to seek expertise to resolve work-related problems from direct colleagues rather than designated internal experts. Several studies suggest that while an expert generally provides a higher quality solution in a shorter time, workers tend to ask friendly or proximate colleagues to help with knowledge-based problems at work. Prior research provides only fragmented insights into understanding the barriers to asking a designated internal expert for help at work. To address this gap, we asked post-graduate students enrolled in a knowledge management subject at a large Australian university to share their perspectives in an online discussion forum. Content analysis of the collected perspectives enabled identification of twenty-one factors that may limit the seeking of expertise from a designated internal expert. The factors are grouped in four categories: environment, accessibility, communication and personality. In addition one context variable is described, determining the extent to which the barriers are influential in a specific situation. By synthesising the results, we have proposed two models of expertise-seeking barriers. A literature review helps validate the barriers identified by the study. Key theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.