Designing contemporary learning environments for excellence in public relations

Universities are striving to enhance the quality of the educational experience in the professions in response to external and internal pressures. The professional field of public relations (PR) is not immune to these forces. Previously, enhancements were often pursued through particular initiatives relating to curriculum, pedagogical or assessment redesign at the unit level. While such initiatives are valuable we argue for a strategic, integrated, programmatic approach. This requires the design of learning environments, with integrated virtual and physical dimensions, based on a relevant and meaningful curriculum, and student-centred approaches to learning. These learning environments enable quality learning in fields like public relations with diverse student cohorts studying on- and off-campus. The challenges involved in designing what we term ‘contemporary learning environments’ are illuminated through a case study of Deakin University’s Public Relations Program. Over the last three years redesigning PR online has led to changed curriculum, and pedagogical and assessment practices. We conclude by suggesting that a commitment to continuous quality improvement will be required to ensure the program’s learning environment remains relevant to the needs of students studying in the field.

Developing graduate knowledge and skills for the world of work: The case of the translation curriculum in Vietnam

National and global challenges have given rise to the need to prepare Vietnamese graduates for effective adaptation to the increasingly changing professional field, their community, their society and the globalised world. The tertiary education curriculum thus needs to take into account the employment market, socio-cultural demands and students’ individual needs in order to develop highly educated populations for the world of work and for the current knowledge economy.

Based on a case study of the translation curriculum in a B.A. (Bachelors of Arts) language program, this paper addresses the mismatch between the demands of the translation employment market and the curriculum within the context of Vietnamese tertiary education. It raises a number of important issues related to the tensions between the centralised curriculum, learner-centred education, the actual demands of the employment market as well as the issue of capacity building in response to the socialist-oriented market economy and the changing workplace context in Vietnam. Implications are drawn not only for the translation curriculum, but also for the reform of the Vietnamese tertiary education curriculum as a whole, in order to enhance graduate employability.

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)

Educating for professional capability in the field of information technology: integrating industry-based learning with the academic curriculum

In response to the forces of globalisation, societies and organisations have had to adapt and even proactively transform themselves. Universities, as knowledge-based organisations, have recognised that there are now many other important sites of knowledge construction and use. The apparent monopoly over valued forms of knowledge making and knowledge certification is disappearing. Universities have had to recognise the value of practical working knowledge developed in workplace settings beyond university domains, and promote the value of academic forms of knowledge making to the practical concerns of everyday learning. It is within this broader systems view that professional curriculum development undertaken by universities needs to be examined.

University educational planning responds to these external forces in ways that are drawing together formal academic capability/competence and practice-based capability/competence. Both forms of academic and practice-based knowledge and knowing are being equally valued and related one to the other. University planning in turn gives impetus to the development of new forms of professional education curricula. 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 Information Technology (IT)/Information Systems (IS) professionals.

The key dimensions of the learning environment of Deakin University’s BIT (Hons) program are considered with a view to identifying areas of strong integration between the worlds of academic and workplace learning from the perspectives of major stakeholders. The dynamic interplay between forms of theorising and practising is seen as critical in educating students for professional capability in their chosen field. From this analysis, an applied research agenda, relating to desired forms of professional learning in higher education, is outlined, with specific reference to the information and communication technology professions.

Influence of field position and phase of play on the physical demands of match-play in professional rugby league forwards

This article describes the utilisation of an unsupervised machine learning technique and statistical approaches (e.g., the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test) that assist cycling experts in the crucial decision-making processes for athlete selection, training, and strategic planning in the track cycling Omnium. The Omnium is a multi-event competition that will be included in the summer Olympic Games for the first time in 2012. Presently, selectors and cycling coaches make decisions based on experience and intuition. They rarely have access to objective data. We analysed both the old five-event (first raced internationally in 2007) and new six-event (first raced internationally in 2011) Omniums and found that the addition of the elimination race component to the Omnium has, contrary to expectations, not favoured track endurance riders. We analysed the Omnium data and also determined the inter-relationships between different individual events as well as between those events and the final standings of riders. In further analysis, we found that there is no maximum ranking (poorest performance) in each individual event that riders can afford whilst still winning a medal. We also found the required times for riders to finish the timed components that are necessary for medal winning. The results of this study consider the scoring system of the Omnium and inform decision-making toward successful participation in future major Omnium competitions.

The meaning of professional excellence for private practitioners in occupational therapy

OT AUSTRALIA's Accredited Occupational Therapist Program is promoted using the message 'Assuring professional excellence'. It is widely assumed that professional excellence is understood. Yet, this concept encompasses complex themes, including competence and clinical reasoning. In this paper, the meaning of professional excellence is examined by investigating the perspectives of private practitioners. Private practitioners were chosen as they represent the diversity of the occupational therapy field, and may pre-empt trends within broader practice. Sixteen key informants were interviewed to obtain their perspectives on professional excellence. Common themes that arose from the findings include the significance of experience in practice, and the importance of understanding one's limitations in knowledge and expertise. Findings are discussed in relation to OT AUSTRALIA's aim to assure standards of practice.

Relating on-field performance to paid football club membership

An empirical investigation based on seven years’ data for a professional football league finds that on-field performance bears little relation to the number of paid members or season ticket holders for the clubs.

Touch it, feel it and experience it: developing professional IS skills using interview-style experiential simulations

The IS education field has made increasing use of computerised experiential simulations, but few attempts have been made to create an authentic learning environment that combines and balances elements of video-based computer simulation with real-life learning activities. This paper explores the design principles used to develop a CD-ROM simulation where learners use interviewing skills to elicit system requirements from simulated employees in an authentic context. The employees are videoed actors who converse with each other and with learners within a dynamic interaction model. The paper also describes how we combined this simulation with other teaching approaches such as in-class discussions, student team work, formal presentations, etc.

The Impact of on-field success in attracting sport sponsorship

The focus of this research is to identify the perceptions that professional sports club managers have about the impact that on-field success has on the attractiveness of a sport organisation to a prospective sponsor. From a series of semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted with the sponsorship/marketing managers from seven Melbourne based Australian Football League (AFL) clubs, an analysis of the importance of on-field success as a precursor for sponsorship was determined. The interview schedule consisted of four phases and concluded with a scale to rate the relative importance of on-field performance. The results indicated that AFL Club Managers believe that the onfield performance of the team does have an impact, but it is largely associated with the media coverage that this on-field success provides. They also identified that in the sport of AFL on-field success is largely controlled by the AFL governing organisation.

Development of a professional practice audit questionnaire for mental health nursing in Aotearoa/New Zealand

This paper reports the three-stage development of a professional practice audit questionnaire for mental health nursing in Aotearoa/New Zealand. In Study 1, clinical indicator statements (n = 99) generated from focus group data, which were considered to be unobservable in the nursing documentation in consumer case notes, were included in a three-round Delphi process. Consensus of ratings occurred for the mental health nurse and academic participants (n = 7) on 83 clinical indicator statements. In Study 2, the clinical indicator statements (n = 67) that met importance and consensus criteria were incorporated into a questionnaire, which was piloted at a New Zealand mental health service. The questionnaire was then modified for use in a national field study. In Study 3, the national field study, registered mental health nurses (n = 422) from 11 New Zealand District Health Board mental health services completed the questionnaire. Five categories of nursing practice were identified: professional and evidence-based practice; consumer focus and reflective practice; professional development and integration; ethically and legally safe practice; and culturally safe practice. Analyses revealed little difference in the perceptions of nurses from different backgrounds regarding the regularity of the nursing practices. Further research is needed to calibrate the scores on each clinical indicator statement with behaviour in clinical practice.

Professional artists in Vietnam : intellectual property rights, economic and cultural sustainability

The article outlines the legal context for Vietnamese artists that is not discussed in other literature, including the scarcity of data on the art market, the reasons for failure to enforce intellectual property (IP) rights and legal contracts, and the rapid growth of private-sector art dealing that makes an examination of the legal context so essential. The author's field research in Vietnam since 2003 is linked to analyses of Vietnam's art market and to civil codes and other international agreements that determine professional artists’ IP rights. This illustrates the reasons why IP rights have not been enforced or arbitrated in Vietnam. The author includes a discussion of the importance of enforcing IP law for the maintenance of artists’ incomes and careers, the development of a national art market, and for innovation and cultural sustainability in Vietnam.

Professional standards for physical education teachers' professional development : technology for performance?

Background: The widespread and diverse models of professional standards for teaching raise questions with respect to the need to provide teachers with a pathway for continuing professional development balanced with the public nature of surveillance and accountability that may accompany standards. Ways of understanding technologies of power in relation to standards for
teaching gives us a new language and, in turn, new questions about the standards agenda in the physical education profession.
Purpose: To analyse how one health and physical education (HPE) teacher worked with Education Queensland’s (EQ) professional standards for teaching within the broader context of teacher professional development and renewal.
Participants and setting: An experienced HPE teacher working in an urban secondary school was the ‘case’ for this article. Tim was the only experienced HPE teacher within the larger pilot study of 220 selected teachers from the volunteer pool across the state.
Data collection: The case-study data comprised two in-depth interviews conducted by the first author, field notes from workshops (first author), teacher diaries and work samples, notes from focus groups of which Tim was a member, and electronic communications with peers by Tim
during the course of the evaluation.
Findings: Tim was supportive of the teaching standards while they did not have a strong evaluative dimension associated with technologies of power. He found the self-regulation associated with his reflective practices professionally rewarding rather than being formalised within a prescribed
professional development framework.
Conclusion: Tim’s positive response to the professional standards for teaching was typical of the broader pilot cohort. The concept of governmentality provided a useful framework to help map how the standards for teaching were received, regardless of teacher specialisation or experience.
We suggest that it is not until the standards regimes are talked about within the discourses of
power (e.g. codification for career progression, certification for professional development imperatives) that we can understand patterns of acceptance and resistance by teachers to policies
that seek to shape their performance.

Examination of the "all hazards" approach to disaster management as applied to field disaster management and pre-hospital care in Australia

Disasters, emergencies, incidents, and major incidents - they all come back to the same thing regardless of what they are called. The common denominator is that there is loss of life, injury to people and animals and damage and destruction of property. The management of such events relies on four phases: 1. Prevention 2. Preparation 3. Response 4. Recovery Each of these phases is managed in a different way and often by different teams. Here, concentration has been given to phases 2 and 3, with particular emphasis on phase 3, Response. The words used to describe such events are often related to legislation. The terminology is detailed later. However, whatever the description, whenever prevention is not possible, or fails, then the need is to respond. Response is always better when the responders are prepared. Training is a major part of response preparation and this book is designed to assist those in the health industry who need to be ready when something happens. One of the training packages for responders is the Major Incident Medical Management and Support (MIMMS) Course and this work was designed to supplement the manual prepared by Hodgetts and Macway-Jones(87) in the UK. Included is what the health services responder, who may be sent to an event in which the main concern is trauma, should know. Concentration is on the initial response and does not deal in any detail with hospital reaction, the public health aspects, or the mental health support that provides psychological help to victims and responders, and which are also essential parts of disaster management. People, in times of disaster, have always been quick to offer assistance. It is now well recognised however, that the 'enthusiastic amateur', whilst being a well meaning volunteer, isn't always what is needed. All too often such people have made things worse and have sometimes ended up as victims themselves. There is a place now for volunteers and there probably always will be. The big difference is that these people must be well informed, well trained and well practiced if they are to be effective. Fortunately such people and organisations do exist. Without the work of the St John Ambulance, the State Emergency Service, the Rural Fire Service the Red Cross and the Volunteer Rescue Association, to mention only a few, our response to disasters would be far less effective. There is a strong history of individuals being available to help the community in times of crisis. Mostly these people were volunteers but there has also always been the need for a core of professional support. In the recent past, professional support mechanisms have been developed from lessons learned, particularly to situations that need a rapid and well organised response. As lessons are learned from an analysis of events, philosophy and methods have changed. Our present system is not perfect and perhaps never will be. The need for an 'all-hazards approach' makes detailed planning very difficult and so there will probably always be criticisms about the way an event was handled. Hindsight is a wonderful thing, provided we learn from it. That means that this text is certainly not the 'last word' and revisions as we learn from experience will be inevitable. Because the author works primarily in New South Wales, many of the explanations and examples are specific to that state. In Australia disaster response is a State, rather than a Commonwealth, responsibility and consequently, and inevitably, there are differences in management between the states and territories within Australia. With the influence of Emergency Management Australia, these differences are being reduced. This means that across state and territory boundaries, assistance is common and interstate teams can be deployed and assimilated into the response rapidly, safely, effectively and with minimum explanation. This text sets out to increase the understanding of what is required, what is in place and how the processes of response are managed. By way of introduction and background, examples are given of those situations that have occurred, or could happen. Man Made Disasters has been divided into two distinct sections. Those which are related to structures or transport and those related directly to people. The first section, Chapter 3, includes: • Transport accidents involving land, rail, sea or air vehicles. • Collapse of buildings for reasons other than earthquakes or storms. • Industrial accidents, including the release of hazardous substances and nuclear events. A second section dealing with the consequences of the direct actions of people is separated as Chapter 4, entitled 'People Disasters'. Included are: • Crowd incidents involving sports and entertainment venues. • Terrorism From Chapter 4 on, the emphasis is on the Response phase and deals with organisation and response techniques in detail. Finally there is a section on terminology and abbreviations. An appendix details a typical disaster pack content. War, the greatest of all man made disasters is not considered in this text.

Investigation of the effects of microcomputers on the work of professional accountants

Information technology research over the past two decades suggests that the installation and use of computers fundamentally affects the structure and function of organisations and, m particular, the workers in these organizations. Following the release of the IBM Personal Computer in 1982, microcomputers have become an integral part of most work environments. The accounting services industry, in particular, has felt the impact of this ‘microcomputer revolution’. In Big Six accounting firms, there is almost one microcomputer for each professional accountant employed, Notwithstanding this, little research has been done on the effect of microcomputers on the work outcomes of professional accountants working in these firms. This study addresses this issue. It assesses, in an organisational setting, how accountant’ perceptions of ease of use and usefulness of microcomputers act on their computer anxieties, microcomputer attitudes and use to affect their job satisfaction and job performance. The research also examines how different types of human-computer interfaces affect the relationships between accountants' beliefs about microcomputer utility and ease of use, computer anxiety, microcomputer attitudes and microcomputer use. To attain this research objective, a conceptual model was first developed, The model indicates that work outcomes (job satisfaction and job performance) of professional accountants using microcomputers are influenced by users' perceptions of ease of use and usefulness of microcomputers via paths through (a) the level of computer anxiety experienced by users, (b) the general attitude of users toward using microcomputers, and (c) the extent to which microcomputers are used by individuals. Empirically testable propositions were derived from the model to test the postulated relationships between these constructs. The study also tested whether or not users of different human-computer interfaces reacted differently to the perceptions and anxieties they hold about microcomputers and their use in the workplace. It was argued that users of graphical interfaces, because of the characteristics of those interfaces, react differently to their perceptions and anxieties about microcomputers compared with users of command-line (or textual-based) interfaces. A passive-observational study in a field setting was used to test the model and the research propositions. Data was collected from 164 professional accountants working in a Big Six accounting firm in a metropolitan city in Australia. Structural equation modelling techniques were used to test the, hypothesised causal relationships between the components comprising the general research model. Path analysis and ordinary least squares regression was used to estimate the parameters of the model and analyse the data obtained. Multisample analysis (or stacked model analysis) using EQS was used to test the fit of the model to the data of the different human-computer interface groups and to estimate the parameters for the paths in those different groups. The results show that the research model is a good description of the data. The job satisfaction of professional accountants is directly affected by their attitude toward using microcomputers and by microcomputer use itself. However, job performance appears to be only directly affected by microcomputer attitudes. Microcomputer use does not directly affect job performance. Along with perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness, computer anxiety is shown to be an important determinant of attitudes toward using microcomputers - higher levels of computer anxiety negatively affect attitudes toward using microcomputers. Conversely, higher levels of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness heighten individuals' positive attitudes toward using microcomputers. Perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness also indirectly affect microcomputer attitudes through their effect on computer anxiety. The results show that higher levels of perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness result in lower levels of computer anxiety. A surprising result from the study is that while perceived ease of use is shown to directly affect the level of microcomputer usage, perceived usefulness and attitude toward using microcomputers does not. The results of the multisample analysis confirm that the research model fits the stacked model and that the stacked model is a significantly better fit if specific parameters are allowed to vary between the two human-computer interface user groups. In general, these results confirm that an interaction exists between the type of human-computer interface (the variable providing the grouping) and the other variables in the model The results show a clear difference between the two groups in the way in which perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness affect microcomputer attitude. In the case of users of command-line interfaces, these variables appear to affect microcomputer attitude via an intervening variable, computer anxiety, whereas in the graphical interface user group the effect occurs directly. Related to this, the results show that perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness have a significant direct effect on computer anxiety in command-line interface users, but no effect at all for graphical interface users. Of the two exogenous variables only perceived ease of use, and that in the case of the command-line interface users, has a direct significant effect on extent of use of microcomputers. In summary, the research has contributed to the development of a theory of individual adjustment to information technology in the workplace. It identifies certain perceptions, anxieties and attitudes about microcomputers and shows how they may affect work outcomes such as job satisfaction and job performance. It also shows that microcomputer-interface types have a differential effect on some of the hypothesised relationships represented in the general model. Future replication studies could sample a broader cross-section of the microcomputer user community. Finally, the results should help Big Six accounting firms to maximise the benefits of microcomputer use by making them aware of how working with microcomputers affects job satisfaction and job performance.