Information security management curriculum development : an Australian example

The development of Information Security as a discipline has only occurred in recent years. Currently Information Security topics are widely taught at tertiary institutions but these topics are taught from a technical perspective and in other cases from a business perspective.

This paper discusses the development of a new security curriculum within Australia and how Australian tertiary institutions responded to that curriculum, the paper also puts forwards a framework that assists in curriculum development.

International and culturally inclusive curricula-an engineering management unit audit case study

SEB421 Strategic Issues in Engineering is a final-year engineering management study unit at Deakin University in which the enrolled student population has grown to include significant numbers of international students. Given this change, it was considered timely to conduct a review of the unit, with regard to principles of international and culturally inclusive curricula. Despite the historically white Anglo-Saxon male culture of engineering education in Australia, there are a wide range of international and cultural aspects related to engineering education. A review of the literature reveals a diversity of interpretations of 'internationalisation' and 'cultural inclusiveness'. From a pragmatic perspective, it is noted that organisational policy can provide guidance for academic staff seeking to make courses more inclusive. From a review of the literature and relevant university policies, a list of 'international and culturally inclusive curricula' guidelines for engineering management education was developed. Comparing a prior audit of SEB421 with these guidelines revealed progress on international and culturally inclusive curricula, but identified opportunities for improvement. The guidelines were applied to the curriculum/syllabus, content/study materials, conduct and assessment of the unit, to identify further opportunities for improvement. A plan for improvement of the unit and an associated timetable for this work were developed. It was noted that some changes can be made immediately, while others are contingent upon the timetable imposed by university systems. It was further noted that issues of change within a single study unit intersect with wider issues of program curriculum, and, while pilot activities can provide a start, eventually the wider issue of international and culturally inclusive curricula across the entire undergraduate engineering program needs to be considered.

Unfixing knowledges : queering the literacy curriculum

In the literacy classroom, students have few opportunities to use their literacy practices to contest narratives of race, class, gender and sexuality. Instead, extensive time is spent completing literacy activities associated with what “good” readers and writers do. Students’ literacy practices are often formulaic, repetitive, and serve classroom management strategies producing a mythic narrative of good literacy teaching. This paper introduces a queer literacy curriculum that poses pedagogy as a series of questions: What does being taught, what does knowledge do to students? How does knowledge become understood in the relationship between teacher/text and student? (Lusted, 1986) It emphasizes developing critical analyses of heterosexism, heteronormativity and normativity with the goal of helping students understand binary categories are not givens, rather social constructions we are often forced to perform (Butler, 1990) through available discourses. The paper highlights an interruption into the literacy curriculum where, through collective memory work, students investigated, analysed and contested the usually-not-noticed ways a small understanding of heterosexuality has come to structure their lives.

Curriculum history of business computing in Victorian tertiary institutions from 1960-1985

Fifty years ago there were no stored-program electronic computers in the world. Even thirty years ago a computer was something that few organisations could afford, and few people could use. Suddenly, in the 1960s and 70s, everything changed and computers began to become accessible. Today* the need for education in Business Computing is generally acknowledged, with each of Victoria's seven universities offering courses of this type. What happened to promote the extremely rapid adoption of such courses is the subject of this thesis. I will argue that although Computer Science began in Australia's universities of the 1950s, courses in Business Computing commenced in the 1960s due to the requirement of the Commonwealth Government for computing professionals to fulfil its growing administrative needs. The Commonwealth developed Programmer-in-Training courses were later devolved to the new Colleges of Advanced Education. The movement of several key figures from the Commonwealth Public Service to take up positions in Victorian CAEs was significant, and the courses they subsequently developed became the model for many future courses in Business Computing. The reluctance of the universities to become involved in what they saw as little more than vocational training, opened the way for the CAEs to develop this curriculum area.

Are adolescents from a forest community well-informed about forest management?

The indigenous community of San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro in Mexico has been engaged in a successful Community Forest Enterprise employing sustainable management practices since 1981. These environmental practices do not seem to be reflected in the educational programmes developed at school. In this study, the environmental knowledge and interest of 102 students at high-school (15 to 18 years old) towards forestry management were analysed. The association between their knowledge and interests in environmental issues was also estimated. These analyses examine their interest in forest management as potential employment and the effect of the educational system on environmental learning. A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was used. Results showed that environmental concepts were poorly understood despite their inclusion in the curriculum. Adolescents did not envisage working in the forest in the future because they showed no interest in forest activities. Educational implications and strategies to encourage adolescents to become involved in community forest management are crucial for conservation.

Design and delivery of undergraduate IT security management course

Information technology has become the core tool of business organisations’. External and internal threats as well as legal, regulatory and contractual compliance requirements are all combining to make effective information security a key information technology management challenges. This paper describes an undergraduate information technology security management course that provides comprehensive knowledge and skills necessary to manage both strategic and operational aspects of information security. The course covers a broad range of managerial topics in information technology security and makes use of a number of security tools and techniques to complement the theory taught. In this paper, we describe our approach, our experiences and lessons learned for teaching information technology security management course. The paper details the content of the course and outlines how it is taught and assessed.

Judgement, reflexivitiy and interdisiciplinarity : reframing construction management education

A core skill of the construction management professional is decision making. Disciplinary content knowledge provides the basis for effective decision making, but is largely insufficient in contexts where projects demand a responsive and flexible approach to scenarios as they evolve and change. As Beckett and Hager suggest, ‘professional practice requires a much richer set of phenomena – a capacity to make judgements, sensitivity to intuition and an awareness of the purposes of the actions are all involved ‘(2002: 12). This paper begins by exploring judgement to develop a conceptual model for initiating and developing decision making skills for construction management professionals. The capacity to respond to change in a structured and self aware manner is examined through the concept of reflexivity, a concept borrowed from sociology. Reflexivity is an individual’s capacity to be aware, responsive and adaptability to constant changing and evolving environments. Coupled with this is the challenge for all built environment professionals in the need to integrate knowledge and processes from various specialist knowledge domains, particularly design domains. The conceptual model is then refined by synthesising concepts from interdisciplinary research.

The aim of this paper is to describe a framework to analyse and review current undergraduate and postgraduate coursework programs offerings from Deakin University in the School of Architecture and Building. Following Boud and Falchikov (2007) this framework starts with practice, that is, the actual ‘doing’ of construction management as the basis for shaping curriculum development.

Piecing together the puzzle of graduate employment : factors that shape the graduate work expectations of human resource management students

Providing graduates with a set of skills and attributes relevant to their future employment remains a key topic in both higher education policy and research. This paper reports findings from a pilot study of human resource management (HRM) students' perceptions of the graduate work experience. Specifically, it focuses on how these perceptions are shaped, driven by a concern for the uncertainty - and even fear - expressed by the study's participants in relation to their future workplace experiences. The influences of three key factors in shaping participants' expectations are discussed: the graduate recruitment experience, previous work experiences and 'graduate work folklore' from the stories of family and friends. With these influences not always providing students with a realistic picture of their future work experience, we conclude that educators need to improve the opportunities for practical experience and industry knowledge through work placements, stronger links with industry and increased exposure to the practicalities of work within the curriculum.

Teaching soft issues in strategic management with films : arguments and suggestions

Strategic matters are extraordinarily complex and involve many different and interlinked processes and influences. This makes the subject difficult for students lacking managerial experience as they are unaware of the intricacy of the problems being discussed. Strategy requires not just a theoretical understanding of the subject, but also a practical feel for business and organisation. We argue that films can help the instructor because they offer elaborate multidimensional and multi-layered contexts which mirror the reality of business. Moreover, their powerful narratives aid the retention of ideas and encourage engagement with issues. To illustrate the appropriateness of films in teaching strategic management, we review the strategy curriculum, highlight some of the teaching difficulties and show how using films could help students’ learning.

Dual sector education : Tafe and higher education collaborate in construction management

Curriculum collaboration between TAFE (vocational college) and universities in Australia has had a chequered history. Attempts to collaborate on curriculum development and delivery have mostly been at the margins of articulation and educational pathways. This study examines a pilot project in dual sector construction management education conducted at RMIT University over a two year period. The study demonstrates the challenges with mutual curriculum development between TAFE and higher education in Australia, and demonstrates the methods utilised to overcome these challenges. The results of the projects reveal that the benefits to students in hands-on experiences, theoretical knowledge gained and practical demonstrations were invaluable and worthy of ongoing research and development. The paper also raises critical questions about flexibility and mobility in educational institutions in Australia.

The best of both worlds – how vocational education can enhance university studies in construction management

Australian post-compulsory vocational or technical education and higher education (university) has traditionally been delivered separately. Attempts to collaborate on curriculum development and delivery have mostly been at the margins of articulation and educational pathways. This study examines a pilot project in construction management education conducted at RMIT University over a two-year period. The study demonstrates the challenges with mutual curriculum development between vocational and higher education in Australia and demonstrates the methods utilised to overcome these challenges. The results of the project reveal that the benefits to students in hands-on experiences, theoretical knowledge gained and practical demonstrations were invaluable and worthy of ongoing research and development. The article also raises critical questions about flexibility and mobility in educational institutions in Australia.

Blogs bother me : social media, journalism and the curriculum

This paper grew out of the authors’ interest in updating the journalism curriculum at AUT (Aukland University of Technology) to better reflect the impact of online media, including social media, on the work of journalists. The challenge for journalism educators is to remain relevant in rapidly changing news and education environments. Our study suggests that while the vast majority of students have some engagement with social media, particularly social networking, and are aware that it can be a powerful tool for journalists, they are still not entirely comfortable with its techniques and they are not experimenting with social media as a production platform as much as we first thought. In short, it appears that they do not have command of professional fluency with social media tools. In response to these findings we have begun to introduce some social media tools and processes directly into the units we teach, in particular: digital story-telling techniques; the use of Twitter and location-based applications; encouraging the ethical use of Facebook etc. for sourcing stories and talent for interviews; podcasting, soundslides and video for the Web, Dreamweaver, InDesign and PHP-based content management systems. We do not see the work to date as the end-point of the changes that we know are necessary, but we are acutely aware of the limitations (structural, institutional and financial) that suggest we should continue with this small-steps approach for the foreseeable future.

Environmental sustainability awareness and academic curriculum improvements: the case of a business and law faculty in an Australian university

Climate change, global warming, rising sea levels, ice cap melting, carbon taxes and trading schemes etc. are all major environmental issues that confront the modern world. Universities are now trying to ensure that their students graduate with an understanding of environmental sustainability regardless of their field of expertise.