Riding the wave of open access : providing library research support for scholarly publishing literacy

Researchers are experiencing intense pressures to publish and increase research outputs. Recently many research funders have introduced policies and mandates related to open access, which have contributed to the increasing popularity of open access journals. Dubbed gold open access, open access journals offer researchers another publishing option. However, some publishers with questionable practices and journals of dubious quality have emerged exploiting the ‘author pays’ open access model and researchers' need to publish. Hence an ability to publish research outputs through the most appropriate outlet for a particular field is crucial for researchers in order to maximise the impact of their research. Notwithstanding the proliferation of open access journals, the literature indicates that some researchers may not have a full understanding of the operations, implications and issues around open access and other publishing issues. This understanding is known as scholarly publishing literacy. With knowledge of scholarly publishing and access to resources and tools, academic libraries and librarians are well-positioned to play an active role in providing support to researchers. This paper argues that scholarly publishing literacy should be treated as an extension of information literacy delivered through a broader research support framework. This paper presents a research librarian's perspective, and draws on literature and the author's practice to illustrate key points. Issues for further investigation are identified.

Exploring creativity support systems for the NE"X"T generation

This paper explores the implementation of a creativity support system for tertiary students studying games design and development at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. The students at the centre of this study are the ‘next’ generation of learners and are often called the net generation because of their pre-imposed affinity for all things ‘online’. The creativity support system for the games students is designed within a ‘whole’ systems context. Focusing on only one tool to augment a person’s creativity does not take into consideration social factors that are pertinent on a person ability to grow their creative behaviours. This study will present a set of factors that each creativity support system should employ to facilitate creative abilities within people, with particular focus on how social activities help to enhance creativity.

Exploring creativity support systems for the Ne"X"t generation

This paper explores the implementation of a creativity support system (CSS) for tertiary students studying Games Design and Development at Deakin University, Victoria, Australia. The students at the centre of this study are the ‘next’ generation of learners and are often called the Internet generation because of their pre-imposed for ‘online’ and being ‘connected’. The CSS for the games students is designed within a context that encompasses a ‘whole’ system, as focusing on only one component to augment a person’s creativity does not take into consideration the multitude of factors, for example social factors, that are pertinent on a person ability to grow their creative behaviours. This study will present a set of factors that each CSS should employ to facilitate creative abilities within people, with particular focus on how social activities help to enhance creativity.

Increasing professionalism of higher education managers and administrators : Focusing on research managers and administrators

The aim of this paper is to discuss the increasing professionalism of research managers and administrators. The paper firstly discusses recent changes to the research environment and follows with changes to research administration. Then follows with the discussion of the research method and research findings. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with research managers and administrators working in various Higher Education Institutions in the North West of England during the period from June to August 2005. Four interviewees were research managers and administrators working in research support and another four working in research students support areas. Two research support officers and two research student administrators have research backgrounds while the other two have administration background. The interview questions aim to seek the interviewees comments on the development of knowledge and skills that facilitate them to perform their role and the preference modes for delivering the professional development events. The interviewees working on different areas have different requirement on their knowledge requirement. The interviewees working in research student support area think it is important to develop their knowledge on their understanding of students needs. While, the interviewees working in research support suggested that it is important to be kept updated on changes to the research environment and relevant policies. The interviewees with different backgrounds have different skills training needs. Interviewees with research background suggested it is important to provide research skills training for colleagues who do not have research background. On the other hand, interviewees with administration background think their administration skills should be further enhanced. All interviewees prefer that professional development events be delivered in informal mode, such as conference and workshops.

The primary health professional education : current models and barriers to participation

Introduction
Continuing Education (CE) for health professionals is a life-long process which endeavours to update or enhance knowledge, refine skills, reinforce professional values and support the delivery of professional practice. It plays a pivotal role in the maintenance of professional competence and in the past decade participation in CE has become an expectation of, rather than an option for, practising health professionals. The time and resources required from organisers and participants in
CE and the need to ensure practical outcomes justifies a review of current models being used for its delivery. This entails an understanding of the purpose of CE, a consideration of how it should be delivered, and the role played by assessment in achieving the goals of CE.
Aim of Report
The overall aim of this study is to identify important considerations and subsequently make recommendations for the development of an ideal model(s) of CE for community pharmacy.
Goals of Report
1. Define CE and its role.
2. Identify and assess current CE delivery models.
3. Examine the current status of continuing education and registration requirements for pharmacists.
4. Identify barriers to participation in CE.
5. Identify components and considerations for developing a model of CE delivery.
Methods
The following methods were employed for this project:
1. Literature review
A number of electronic databases were systematically searched in order to profile current trends and concepts in CE. CE structures currently in use were investigated by directly accessing the websites of appropriate associations.
2. Stakeholder interviews
A series of semi-structured interviews were completed with stakeholders from CE delivery organisations across a range of professions including pharmacy.
3. Community pharmacy focus groups
A series of focus group teleconferences were held with groups of pharmacists thought to have distinct CE needs: experienced pharmacists (qualified more than 5 years), recently-qualified pharmacists (5 years or less), rural/remote pharmacists, and pharmacists with specialist training
needs (such as Home Medication Reviews). These focus groups asked about participants’ experiences and opinions in relation to many aspects of CE including its delivery and its assessment.

Strategic review of enhancements and culture-based fisheries

Enhancements are interventions in the life cycle of common-pool aquatic resources. Enhancement technologies include culture-based fisheries, habitat modifications, fertilization, feeding and elimination of predators/competitors. Enhancements are estimated to yield about two million mt per year, mostly from culture-based fisheries in fresh waters where they account for some 20 percent of capture, or 10 percent of combined capture and culture production. Marine enhancements are still at an experimental stage, but some have reached commercial production. Enhancements use limited external feed and energy inputs, and can provide very high returns for labour and capital input. Moreover, enhancement initiatives can facilitate institutional change and a more active management of aquatic resources, leading to increased productivity, conservation and wider social benefits. Enhancements may help to maintain population abundance, community structure and ecosystem functioning in the face of heavy exploitation and/or environmental degradation. Negative environmental impacts may arise from ecological and genetic interactions between enhanced and wild stocks. Many enhancements have not realised their full potential because of a failure to address specific institutional, technological, management and research requirements emanating from two key characteristics. Firstly, enhancement involves investment in common-pool resources and can only be sustained under institutional arrangements that allow regulation of use and a flow of benefits to those who bear the costs of enhancement. Secondly, interventions are limited to certain aspects of the life cycle of stocks, and outcomes are strongly dependent on natural conditions beyond management control. Hence, management must be adapted to local conditions to be effective, and certain conditions may preclude successful enhancement altogether. Governments have a major role to play in facilitating enhancement initiatives through the establishment of conducive institutional arrangements, appropriate research support, and the management of environmental and other impacts on and from enhancements.

Source-based filtering scheme against DDOS attacks

IP address spoofing is employed by a lot of DDoS attack tools. Most of the current research on DDoS attack packet filtering depends on cooperation among routers, which is hard to achieve in real campaigns. Therefore, in the paper, we propose a novel filtering scheme based on source information in this paper to defend against various source IP address spoofing. The proposed method works independently at the potential victim side, and accumulates the source information of its clients, for instance, source IP addresses, hops from the server during attacks free period. When a DDoS attack alarm is raised, we can filter out the attack packets based on the accumulated knowledge of the legitimate clients. We divide the source IP addresses into n(1 ≤ n ≤ 32) segments in our proposed algorithm; as a result, we can therefore release the challenge storage and speed up the procedure of information retrieval. The system which is proposed by us and the experiments indicated that the proposed method works effectively and efficiently.

The influence of Sport Education on student motivation in physical education

Background: Physical educators are faced with trying to provide motivating and enjoyable experiences in physical education. Sport Education is an instructional model that aims to provide positive motivational sport experiences by simulating the features of authentic sport. Research support for Sport Education is positive, however, the effects on student motivation and the motivational climate are not well understood.

Purpose: To investigate the influence of the Sport Education model on student motivation (intrinsic/extrinsic motivation, goal orientations, and perceived motivational climate) in secondary physical education.

Setting: Six classes were selected according to teacher and class availability in the sports of soccer, hockey, and football codes in a co-educational government school.

Participants: Participants were 115 (male = 97, female = 18) Year-8 students (aged 13-14 years), in a Sport Education condition (n = 41) and a Traditional condition (n = 74).

Measures: At pre- and post-test, all participants completed three questionnaires: the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory, the Task and Ego Orientation in Sport Questionnaire, and the Perceived Motivational Climate in Sport Questionnaire.

Intervention: Participants completed either a Sport Education condition or a Traditional condition for one double period (100 minutes) one day per week for 10 weeks (Sport Education condition) or for five weeks (Traditional condition). The Sport Education condition incorporated six distinctive features: seasons, affiliation, formal competition, record keeping, festivity, and a culminating event. The Traditional condition used whole-group instruction led by the teacher.

Research design: The study used a non-equivalent control group design with pre- and post-test procedures. The independent variable was teaching condition and the dependent variable was student motivation (assessed by intrinsic motivation, goal orientations, and motivational climate). The groups were already established and selected for convenience purposes.

Data collection and analysis: Participants completed pre-test measures and then participated in their pre-established classes. Post-test measures were completed in the last class in each condition. A reliability analysis on measures was conducted using Cronach's alphas. A pre-test manipulation check was performed to check for any initial differences in motivation. To compare the difference in changes between conditions on motivation, a series of 2 times 2 repeated measures analyses of variance were conducted. A comparison of the relationship between motivation measures was conducted using Pearson's product moment correlation coefficients.

Findings: There was a significant difference between the conditions on changes in perceived competence, task orientation, and mastery climate, with the Traditional condition decreasing significantly from pre- to post-test compared with the Sport Education condition. There were no significant differences on interest/enjoyment, effort/importance, pressure/tension, ego orientation, or performance climate. A mastery climate was positively related to task orientation and intrinsic motivation and a performance climate was related to ego orientation.

Conclusions: The Sport Education condition was more successful in maintaining high levels of intrinsic motivation, task orientation, and mastery climate than the Traditional condition. That is, the Traditional condition was associated with a decrease in adaptive aspects of motivation for students, whereas the Sport Education condition maintained existing levels of motivation.

Rethinking a learning environment strategy

I have committed a significant period of time (in my case five years) to the purpose development of learning environments, with the belief that it would improve the self-actualisation and self-motivation of students and teachers alike. I consider it important to record and measure performance as we progressed toward such an outcome. Education researchers and practitioners alike, in the higher (university/tertiary) education systems, are seeking among new challenges to engage students and teachers in learning (James, 2001). However, studies to date show a confusing landscape littered with a multiplicity of interpretations and terms, successes and failures. As the discipline leader of the Information Technology, Systems and Multimedia (ITSM) Discipline, Swinburne University of Technology, Lilydale, I found myself struggling with this paradigm. I also found myself being torn between what presents as pragmatic student learning behaviour and the learner-centred teaching ideal reflected in the Swinburne Lilydale mission statement. The research reported in this folio reflects my theory and practice as discipline leader of the ITSM Discipline and the resulting learning environment evolution during the period 1997/8 to 2003. The study adds to the material evidence of extant research through firstly, a meta analysis of the learning environment implemented by the ITSM Discipline as recorded in peer reviewed and published papers; and secondly, a content analysis of student learning approaches, conducted on data reported from a survey of ‘learning skills inventory’ originally conducted by the ITSM Discipline staff in 2002. In 1997 information and communication technologies (ICT) were beginning to provide plausible means for electronic distribution of learning materials on a flexible and repeatable basis, and to provide answers to the imperative of learning materials distribution relating to an ITSM Discipline new course to begin in 1998. A very short time frame of three months was available prior to teaching the course. The ITSM Discipline learning environment development was an evolutionary process I began in 1997/8 initially from the requirement to publish print-based learning guide materials for the new ITSM Discipline subjects. Learning materials and student-to-teacher reciprocal communication would then be delivered and distributed online as virtual learning guides and virtual lectures, over distance as well as maintaining classroom-based instruction design. Virtual here is used to describe the use of ICT and Internet-based approaches. No longer would it be necessary for students to attend classes simply to access lecture content, or fear missing out on vital information. Assumptions I made as discipline leader for the ITSM Discipline included, firstly, that learning should be an active enterprise for the students, teachers and society; secondly, that each student comes to a learning environment with different learning expectations, learning skills and learning styles; and thirdly, that the provision of a holistic learning environment would encourage students to be self-actualising and self-motivated. Considerable reading of research and publications, as outlined in this folio, supported the update of these assumptions relative to teaching and learning. ITSM Discipline staff were required to quickly and naturally change their teaching styles and communication of values to engage with the emergent ITSM Discipline learning environment and pedagogy, and each new teaching situation. From a student perspective such assumptions meant students needed to move from reliance upon teaching and prescriptive transmission of information to a self-motivated and more self-actualising and reflective set of strategies for learning. In constructing this folio, after the introductory chaperts, there are two distinct component parts; • firstly, a Descriptive Meta analysis (Chapter Three) that draws together several of my peer reviewed professional writings and observations that document the progression of the ITSM Discipline learning environment evolution during the period 1997/8 to 2003. As the learning environment designer and discipline leader, my observations and published papers provide insight into the considerations that are required when providing an active, flexible and multi-modal learning environment for students and teachers; and • secondly, a Dissertation (Chapter Four), as a content analysis of a learning skills inventory data collection, collected by the ITSM Discipline in the 2002 Swinburne Lilydale academic year, where students were encouraged to complete reflective journal entries via the ITSM Discipline virtual learning guide subject web-site. That data collection included all students in a majority of subjects supported by the ITSM Discipline for both semesters one and two 2002. The original purpose of the journal entries was to have students reflectively involved in assessing their learning skills and approaches to learning. Such perceptions were tested using a well-known metric, the ‘learning skills inventory’ (Knowles, 1975), augmented with a short reflective learning approach narrative. The journal entries were used by teaching staff originally and then made available to researchers as a desensitised data in 2003 for statistical and content analysis relative to student learning skills and approaches. The findings of my research support a view of the student and teacher enculturation as utilitarian, dependent and pragmatically self-motivated. This, I argue, shows little sign of abatement in the early part of the 21st Century. My observation suggests that this is also independent of the pedagogical and educational philosophy debate or practice as currently presented. As much as the self-actualising, self-motivated learning environment can be justified philosophically, the findings observed from this research, reported in this folio, cannot. Part of the reason for this originates from the debate by educational researchers as to the relative merits of liberal and vocational philosophies for education combined with the recent introduction of information and communication technologies, and commodification of higher education. Challenging students to be participative and active learners, as proposed by educationalists Meyers and Jones (1993), i.e. self-motivated and self-actualising learners, has proved to be problematic. This, I will argue, will require a change to a variable/s (not yet identified) of higher education enculturation on multiple fronts, by students, teachers and society in order to bridge the gap. This research indicates that tertiary educators and educational researchers should stop thinking simplistically of constructivist and/or technology-enabled approaches, students learning choices and teachers teaching choices. Based on my research I argue for a far more holistic set of explanations of student and staff expectations and behaviour, and therefore pedagogy that supports those expectations.

Is psychotherapy a vector for isolation and anomie?

A key traditional question the client learns in the conventional psychotherapies is ‘Am I getting what I want?’. But can this question incite a mindset that does not align with the ‘give and take’ essence of sustainable everyday relations? Is it possible that the psychotherapies—if these practices can be bundled together—might teach clients to become more self-centred and relationally illiterate? MARK FURLONG suggests that well-intentioned practitioners can inadvertently de-empathise, ignore or even disrupt their clients’ intimate networks. Findings from his research support the proposition that the action of the mainstream therapies tends to undermine the service users’ prospects for sustainable personal relationships. Exceptions were found in the specialist settings of paediatric and aged care, and in narrative and family therapy practice.

Context-aware meta search engine for distributed web service

The ubiquity of the Internet and Web has led to the emergency of several Web search engines with varying capabilities. A weakness of existing search engines is the very extensive amount of hits that they can produce. Moreover, only a small number of web users actually know how to utilize the true power of Web search engines. Therefore, there is a need for searching infrastructure to help ease and guide the searching efforts of web users toward their desired objectives. In this paper, we propose a context-based meta-search engine and discuss its implementation on top of the actual Google.com search engine. The proposed meta-search engine benefits the user the most when the user does not know what exact document he or she is looking for. Comparison of the context-based meta-search engine with both Google and Guided Google shows that the results returned by context-based meta-search engine is much more intuitive and accurate than the results returned by both Google and Guided Google.