ICT and girls: the need for a large scale intervention programme

In recent years there have been fewer students enrolling into ICT courses and subsequently there has been a significant decline in ICT graduates. The decline in participation by females has been even greater than for males resulting in a further widening of the gender imbalance in this discipline. Much of the research indicates that it is the early years that influence children's decisions regarding career choice. For many girls, although
they are initially interested and engaged with IT in their early years of schooling, this fades as they reach middle and senior secondary school. Reasons for this decline in interest include the perceptions that, among other things, IT is ‘geeky’, male dominated and generally not a people focused career. There have been many initiatives to try and redress the problem however most are localised, poorly funded and depend very much on one key individual usually in schools. This paper briefly describes the outcomes of the Young Girls ICT project designed to encourage girls to continue with computing. The paper considers what the best options might be for encouraging more girls to continue to study computing.

The impact of learning in the workplace policy on differing ICT degrees

At Victoria University, the release of a new Learning in the Workplace and Community (LiWC) policy has been introduced to ensure that graduates are job and career ready. The policy underlines the importance of workplace contextual learning in all course deliveries and is scheduled for progressive implementation by 2010. For each degree, the policy mandates that a minimum of 25% of program content and assessment must be related to work integrated learning.

Compliance with the 25% shift poses significant challenges for its implementation upon all undergraduate programs since the policy is expected to impact upon program structures, unit deliveries, assessment practices, and course administrations. In particular, there has been an extensive review of existing approaches to learning and teaching in the programs that deliver information and communications technology (ICT) degrees across business and science faculties. This paper describes the current Bachelor of Science in Computer Science and Bachelor of Business in Information Systems programs identifying similarities and differences between the two offerings with respect to their learning in workplace components. It explores possible synergies between the two programs that could be capitalized upon to implement the LiWC policy and details the challenges to both faculties in mounting a coordinated response.

The importance of outreach programs to unblock the pipeline and broaden diversity in ICT education

There is a need for outreach programs to attract a diverse range of students to the computing discipline. The lack of qualified computing graduates to fill the growing number of computing vacancies is of concern to government and industry and there are few female students entering the computing pipeline at high school level. This paper presents three outreach programs that have the underlying assumption that students need to be reminded about the creativity and potential of computing so that it remains on the radar of their future career options. Each program instigated social and cultural change through a paradigm shift where girls moved from being ICT consumers to ICT creators. By exposing students to a wide variety of ICT activities and careers during secondary schooling, they were more likely to consider studying information systems, computer science or any other computing course at the university level. Results are presented showing student attitudinal changes as well as observed increases in enrolments at secondary school and university courses

University and employer expectations of new dietetic graduates

Objectives:  The first objective of this study was to identify the knowledge, skills and attributes (KSAs) that employers seek in newly graduated dietitians. The second objective was to compare the KSAs that employers seek in newly graduated dietitians to the Deakin University Graduate Attributes and to the Dieticians Association of Australia (DAA) Competencies in order to determine if there is a mismatch.

Methods:   Views were gathered from a combination of group and individual in-depth, semistructured interviews with 19 employers from a range of employment settings and sorted into an existing framework using the DAA Competencies and the Deakin University Graduate Attributes. Data from taped interviews were transcribed and sorted into a table of generic skills and a KSAs matrix.

Results: Employers sought graduates who had practical knowledge of dietetics and the workplace, Key skills sought included communication, interpersonal, work management and information technology skills. Key attributes sought were the ability to be a team player, to demonstrate some insight into one's own limitations, to demonstrate an appropriate level of initiative, and to be flexible and adaptable. There was a large overlap between the KSAs identified by employers as being important and those that have been identified by the DAA and Deakin University. However, there were some areas of mismatch. The University and employers valued information technological skills, whereas the DAA did not state these as a competency. The University and the industry employers were concerned about the global perspective, but the DAA and the clinical employers were not.

Conclusions: The results of this study show a large overlap between the KSAs valued by the profession, the University and the employers.

Individual and organisational factors influencing academics` decisions to pursue the scholarship and teaching of ICT

This paper focuses on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) academics' perceptions of factors that promote and inhibit their pursuit of scholarship in their teaching work. It identifies critical factors that influence academics' attitudes, orientations and behaviours in respect to the scholarship of teaching, and from these builds a framework for understanding the interaction between these factors. We have named this framework the Scholarship of Teaching Support Framework.

During 2001 and 2002 a national project investigated teaching and learning initiatives in the major discipline of lCT in Australia's universities. As part of this project a mini-conference program was devised to elicit academics' perceptions of the factors influencing their teaching work and their participation in scholarly activities around this work. In total 83 ICT teachers from 29 universities participated in the mini-conference program. Attendees included staff members from a range of academic levels.

In discussions of aspects of the scholarship of teaching at the mini-conference participants referred to both attributes and responses of both university teachers and the university institutions. We have categorized these factors into those that relate to the individual academic (Individual domain) and those that relate to the tertiary institutional system (Organisational domain). Many contributions highlighted the interaction between these two domains.

Within the Individual domain, two key factors described by participants as affecting the pursuit of the scholarship of teaching were teachers' motivation towards, and their capabilities in, scholarly activities surrounding their teaching. Within the organizational domain two influential factors also emerged. These were the organizational support provided through allocation of resources and symbolic support reflected in an institution's systems, policies and processes.

Our findings indicate that both the Individual and Organizational domains contribute to university teachers' decisions to pursue (or not to pursue) the scholarship of teaching.

These two domains were seen by participants to interact within university environments to influence whether a particular environment is supportive or unsupportive in terms of the pursuit of the scholarship of teaching. Factors both from and within the individual and the organizational domains were seen to interact with each other forming a web of interrelated factors that appear to influence individuals' decisions to pursue, or not to pursue, the scholarship of teaching. From this complexity four theoretical extremes emerged providing the dimensions and components of the Scholarship of Teaching Support Framework.

We argue that responsive and innovative approaches to university teaching are best supported by academics undertaking scholarly activities around their teaching work, yet this article presents a picture of a university work environment where scholarly activities that focus on teaching and learning are seen as generally unsupported and unrewarded. This perception was identified as commonalities across a university system. Although some exceptions were noted, participants generally agreed that the organisational domain of Australian universities was largely unsupportive of the pursuit of the scholarship of teaching. Similarly, in general, university ICT teachers were not thought to have the backgrounds and capabilities necessary for pursuing the scholarship of teaching, such as familiarity with literature on teaching and learning and skills in educational evaluation. However, despite perceived inhibitors in universities' organisational culture and allocation of resources, and a perceived lack in individuals' skills, participants agreed that scholarly activities and innovation in university teaching and learning do take place, These are largely driven by the intrinsic motivation of individuals. It was recognised that further work is necessary to explore how motivation can be engendered and encouraged.

The Scholarship of Teaching Support Framework is a useful tool for examining how conducive a given university teaching context is to the scholarship of teaching and, therefore, can be used for review purposes within both research and policy contexts. Such tools will become increasingly important as policy changes begin to affect practices in how university teaching work is managed, supported and encouraged.

Striking a balance between ethics and ICT governance

Ethics and Information Communication Technology (ICT) Governance both have their place in today’s business organisations, but can their practical applications present an ethical ambiguity for the IT professional employed within the business organisation? The guidelines contained within various codes of ethics recommend principles regarding the ethical behaviour of individual IT professionals. In contrast, IT Governance as outlined in the new Australian Standard for Corporate Governance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides ICT governance advice for business. This paper explores the difference between these viewpoints.

On the fast track speeding nurses into the future: a two year Bachelor of Nursing for graduates of other disciplines

It has been suggested in nursing literature that a bachelor's degree should be the pre-requisite to professional nursing education and registration. The perceived advantages of graduates entering the nursing profession led faculty in the School of Nursing La Trobe University to introduce in 1997 an innovative two-year Bachelor of Nursing (BN) program, believed to be the first in Australia, for graduates of other disciplines. A problem-based learning (PBL) approach was selected to facilitate the teaching learning process. Data to evaluate the progress of the accelerated students were collected by examining their previous degree background, conducting a focus group discussion mid year and comparing the students' academic results with those completing the traditional three-year course. Findings indicate that students in the accelerated course were highly motivated but experienced significant stress. In part the stress emanated from the need to identify their own learning needs. However, despite their concerns most accelerated students scored at least as well both clinically and academically as traditional students. Moreover, in six of the seven final year subjects each group studied the accelerated students performed better.

The case for selective ICT outsourcing : it`s easier for "green field" sites

This paper examines published research on Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Outsourcing and uses this as a framework through which to examine the delivery of ICT services at the South West Alliance of Rural Hospitals, an environment not without challenges. Right from the beginning the CIO appointed to the Alliance decided to address these challenges by implementing a high speed telecommunications network to reduce the costs of data, voice and video communications within the Alliance. The emergence of the truly virtual health care network in Victoria’s South West supported by external service providers but managed by a small yet powerful central ICT team holds a number of useful lessons for the delivery of services in start up cooperative organizations, particularly regional, rural and remote (R3) organizations.

The scholarship of teaching: risky business in ICT education

The idea of the scholarship of teaching was reinvigorated twelve years ago by Boyer's (1990) book, Scholarship reconsidered: Priorities of the professoriate. Since then a considerable body of literature has developed, discussing what the scholarship of teaching might look like, why it is desirable and how it might be encouraged. The scholarship of teaching has been described as including the activities involved in designing, implementing and evaluating teaching and learning, and associated dissemination activities. Over the last few years there has been a resurgence of interest in the role that scholarship might play in the promotion, recognition and reward of good university teaching.

This paper draws on qualitative data that were collected as part of a national study of the major university discipline of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to generate a framework for describing the context of university teaching and for examining how conducive this context is to the scholarship of teaching. The framework comprises two domains: that of the individual educator and that of the organisational environment in which the educator works. The paper highlights the importance of, and interaction between, these domains, and the role they play in promoting or discouraging the scholarship of teaching.

An experiment using ICT to investigate pure voting power

We present an experiment to evaluate the accuracy of power indices by measuring the political power embodied in blocks of votes per se. The experiment incorporates several players interacting in lCT chat rooms under supervision. The chat rooms and the selection process reduce or eliminate other political forces leaving logroIIing as the primary political force.

Employer requirements of economics graduates and the implications for undergraduate economics programs

In recent years there has been considerable debate about the general decline in the number of students undertaking bachelor degrees and majors in economics. The discussion has stemmed mainly from a supply-side perspective of the economics education market. The goal of this paper is to add another dimension to the debate and report the results of a survey of employers of economics graduates. Drawing on the extensive customer services literature it is argued that a market oriented, or demand-side analysis is also an important component in redressing low student enrolments and retention. A first step in adopting a market oriented approach is to determine the skills required of the economics graduates entering the jobs market. With the support of The Economics Society of Au~tralia, twenty-nine public and private sector employers were surveyed in 2002. The aim of the survey was to establish the demand for economics graduates with bachelor and honours degrees, the skills and knowledge required of these graduates, and the performance of such graduates. The study found that economic knowledge and skill were important to employers. However, the skills rated most important by employers were the more general or 'generic' skills of clear writing, data analysis, interpersonal skills and a practical problem-solving orientation. While graduates generally performed satisfactorily in relation to the economic skills required by employers, this was not the case for generic skills. The result of the survey findings have some significant implications for the content and teaching of undergraduate economics programs. This paper outlines these implications and also discusses areas for future research It is argued that such research should aim to utilize both the demand and supplyside perspectives with the development of more precise definitions and measurement of the economic skills required by the various stakeholders in the economics education market.

Challenges in designing culturally-adaptive ICT-based learning environments

This paper argues that two of the major problems facing local courseware developers and educators in creating culturally-sensitive lCT-based learning environments are the difficulties of representing cultural artefacts in courseware and of having a model of 'culture' that can be implemented in lCT-based systems. A developing learning-object model is presented; one that can be adopted to address aspects of this problem by providing a systematic way to approach implementing and representing cultural artefacts in courseware. This also provides a basis for some aspects of computer-based cultural preservation initiatives. While this approach may have higher short term development costs, the potential long term cultural benefits to the society far outweigh short term considerations.

Communities of enterprise: SMEs, ICT and regional development

Many regional economies have pursued a strategy of stimulating the development of regional clusters. Such clusters typically include small and medium enterprises (SMEs) as a core component of those economies. Effective cluster development in that context depends on SMEs sharing knowledge and generating innovation. ICT networks can be an important resource for this sharing and innovation. This paper proposes the concept of ‘Communities of Enterprise’ to conceptualise the relationships and communication patterns used in cluster development. This concept builds on theoretical understandings of information systems, clustering and regional development. The value creation potential of Communities of Enterprise, supported by ICTs is substantial, but only when the socioeconomic elements of regional clusters are understood. The Community of Enterprise approach addresses the fact that without an industry focus it can be difficult to engage and link SMEs from different industries, although this is where the greatest potential for value creation in regional clusters is to be found. This paper concludes by considering the relevance of Communities of Enterprise for understanding and researching eCluster development in the Australian regional context.