University entrance in Queensland : post World War II challenges to the influence of the University of Queensland

From its inception the University of Queensland determined the assessment procedures that governed its student selection; while initially this determination was absolute, after 1945 challenges to the university's influence resulted in significant gains in influence by other interested groups.

Story-telling and policy making : the construction of university entrance problems in Australia

This paper is a study of the politics of policy making within the context of Australian university entrance policy. It argues that policy making is more concerned with the social construction of policy problems than with their resolution and that in this respect the problem-solving image of policy making is flawed. Additionally, the paper explores the ways in which policy problems are constructed and how competing stories are resolved within policy making. The paper concludes that in this case such stories of university entrance were absorbed within the government's agenda for reform through the use of participative processes restricted to the consideration of best solutions rather than particular problems.

Current situation of practical work in secondary school biology (VCE biology) in Victoria state, Australia

In secondary school biology in Victoria State, Australia, practical work including laboratory exercises, fieldwork and other research activities is carried out more frequently than in Japanese senior high school biology. The authors examined the contents of the practical work and how often such practical work is carried out in some urban and rural secondary schools in Victoria. The topics of biology practical work were based on the VCE Biology Study Design which was published by the Victorian Board of Studies. Some of the activities continued for some weeks. Sometimes students went out from their school for fieldwork for a few days. The average number of practical work per credit was about 4. This number is consider ably larger than the value (2.3 per credit) which was reported on senior high schools in Osaka Prefecture. Why so often can the practical work be carried out? The main reason is that as well as the scores of ordinary paper tests, the evaluation of each practical work is taken into consideration at the entrance examination of universities and other tertiary education institutes in Victoria State.

A novel parallel algorithm for frequent itemsets mining in massive small files datasets

In big data analysis, frequent itemsets mining plays a key role in mining associations, correlations and causality. Since some traditional frequent itemsets mining algorithms are unable to handle massive small files datasets effectively, such as high memory cost, high I/O overhead, and low computing performance, we propose a novel parallel frequent itemsets mining algorithm based on the FP-Growth algorithm and discuss its applications in this paper. First, we introduce a small files processing strategy for massive small files datasets to compensate defects of low read-write speed and low processing efficiency in Hadoop. Moreover, we use MapReduce to redesign the FP-Growth algorithm for implementing parallel computing, thereby improving the overall performance of frequent itemsets mining. Finally, we apply the proposed algorithm to the association analysis of the data from the national college entrance examination and admission of China. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm is feasible and valid for a good speedup and a higher mining efficiency, and can meet the actual requirements of frequent itemsets mining for massive small files datasets. © 2014 ISSN 2185-2766.

An examination of the joint venture market entry option in China : a case study of an Australian company's international marketing experience in China

There is a widely held view in the literature that foreign companies looking to invest in the China market should opt for joint ventures rather than wholly foreign-owned enterprises for many reasons, ranging from a smaller capital commitment to utilising the market knowledge of local Chinese partners. This paper examines this issue in the light of the experience of the Foster's Brewing Group which established three joint ventures in China only to reject this form of market entry option within a few years. The paper looks at some of the reasons behind Foster's rejection of the joint venture option and proposes some key guidelines that foreign companies should follow if they are to successfully establish joint ventures in China.

Undergraduate pre-registration nursing education in Australia: a longitudinal examination of enrolment and completion numbers with a focus on students from rural and remote campus locations

Introduction: There is much evidence to indicate a shortage of Registered Nurses (RNs) in Australia and to suggest that the shortage may be more pronounced in rural and remote locations. Attracting RNs to work in rural and remote areas may not be as simple as increasing the intake of students into university undergraduate pre-registration nursing courses. There is some evidence indicating that student nurses may be more likely to enter the nursing workforce in rural and remote locations if they have existing associations with rural and remote areas and/or their undergraduate education provides opportunities to undertake supported placements in rural and remote settings. Two important difficulties have been associated with measuring outcomes in relation to rural and remote pre-registration nursing students. One is defining what constitutes a rural or remote location and the other is suspect data on the number of nursing students enrolled in, and completing, nursing courses. The aims of this study were to provide a longitudinal profile of the number of domestic students studying and completing undergraduate pre-registration nursing courses in Australia, with a particular emphasis on identifying those at rural and remote university campuses, and to compare results across States and Territories.
Method: This study presents the combined findings from two investigative reports. Data on undergraduate pre-registration nursing student numbers were collected via electronic survey instruments completed by staff at all Australian educational institutions offering undergraduate pre-registration nursing education programs in 2001 and 2002. Australian domestic students were the focus of this study. Data included the total number of domestic students enrolled in undergraduate pre-registration nursing courses in 2001 and 2002, the number of domestic students who successfully completed courses in 1999, 2000 and 2001, and estimates for the number expected to complete in 2002. Surveys were sent to course coordinators or other staff nominated by heads of divisions of nursing at each institution.
Results: There was a 100% response rate. Twenty-four rural and remote campus locations were identified using an adjusted form of the Rural, Remote and Metropolitan Areas (RRMA) classification system. The Australian Capital Territory and the Northern Territory did not have any rural or remote campus locations. In contrast, undergraduate pre-registration nursing in Tasmania was offered at a rural campus only (for the first 2 years). From 2001 to 2002, there was an increase of just over 5% in the total number of domestic students enrolled in undergraduate pre-registration nursing courses in Australia (2002 total = 22 811 students). Rural and remote location students accounted for slightly more than 25% of these students in 2001, and almost 27% in 2002. The States Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland had the highest percentage of students enrolled at rural and remote campus locations, greater than the Australian average for both years. In contrast, South Australia and Western Australia had less than 11% of students enrolled at rural and remote campus locations for each year. Total undergraduate pre-registration course completions increased by approximately 16% across Australia between 1999 (n = 4868) and 2002 (n = 5667), although for 2002, the figure was projected. Of these total course completions, the percentage of students completing at rural and remote campus locations increased from almost 23% to nearly 28% during the same period. Of the States/Territories with both metropolitan and rural/remote campus locations, only Victoria and Queensland had more than 25% of their total student completions consisting of students enrolled at rural and remote campus locations for each year. In contrast, South Australia and Western Australia had approximately 6% of student completions consisting of students enrolled at rural and remote campus locations in 1999, increasing to approximately 12% projected for 2002.
Conclusion: In this study, the authors attempted to improve the accuracy of data collection in relation to the number of domestic undergraduate pre-registration nursing students in Australia, which is representative of the potentially new Australian domestic RN workforce. There was a trend towards an increasing number of students being enrolled in undergraduate pre-registration nursing courses, and also toward an increasing number of course completions. From the perspective of the rural and remote RN workforce, the percentage of students enrolled and completing courses at rural and remote campus locations was found to be increasing. However, there may be some areas of concern for education and workforce planners in States and Territories that are providing a smaller percentage of their undergraduate pre-registration nursing courses in rural and remote areas. Several study limitations are discussed and suggestions made for future research.

Learning approaches: examination type, discipline of study, and gender

A sample of 248 Australian university students participated in a study that investigated the influence of assessment type and discipline of study on students' learning approaches. Participants (93 psychology and 155 business students) responded to the Study Process Questionnaire in a context of preparation for a hypothetical examination. The hypothetical examination is in either a multiple-choice or an essay format. Results indicated that assessment type had no significant influence on how students approach their learning, while discipline did have significant influence on student learning.

Game geek's goss: linguistic creativity in young males within an online university forum (94/\/\3 933k’5 9055oneone)

In this paper the authors explore the use and adaptation of a language specifically developed for, and by, a community of young people who play computer games. Leet speak or 1337 5p34k, the language used by the participants in this study, incorporates symbols and numbers as substitutes for the letters contained in words. Described by the group as an ‘elite’ language or ‘leet speak’, the authors’ interest was captured by the derisive and ironic use of the language in an online forum for a tertiary first year unit of study. Rather than merely defining its participants within an elite cultural boundary, ‘leet speak’ is utilised ironically to unearth ‘wannabees’ (those seeking entrance and acceptance into the game world, generally 12 –16 year olds). Of particular fascination to the authors was that despite the clear self- demarcation of the group from the users of ‘leet speak’, and their insistence on its use solely by ‘newbs and wannabees’, the group continued to use the language to communicate with each other online. In this research, language defines the cultural group of games technology students in terms of the group’s continual subversion of the language’s very foundations whilst still using it to communicate. Perhaps most interesting was the group’s nonchalant admission that they perceived this to be the function of all languages ‘all languages are created purely for communication so dont [sic] have a cry about ppl been [sic] lazy’.

Will it work? an initial examination of the processes and outcomes of converting course materials to CD-ROMs

The Faculty of Business and Law at Deakin University (Victoria, Australia) decided to dispense of all printed post-graduate learning materials and replace them with CD-ROMs from the commencement of the 2006 academic year. In addition, CD-ROMs were developed for a limited
number of undergraduate units as part of a future delivery plan for this cohort of students. The following paper describes this project, the reasons underpinning it, and the processes the Faculty adopted to implement the project. The project is ongoing and part of a broader agenda for change
that will see an even greater application of electronic technology to teaching and learning within the Faculty. Although only initial findings and observations are possible at this stage, the project provides a basis for longitudinal reporting and, potentially, a guide for other institutions who may
be considering such a move. The paper reports on these observations and on those in the educational development arena and suggests that the Faculty will need to learn from these initial experiences and evaluate the project in greater depth to guarantee a smooth transition for all stakeholders.

A critical examination of ethical decision making models

This paper critically examines both the need for, and the use of, ethical decision making models (EDMMs). This paper suggests that EDMMs focus on arriving at the correct decision but ignore the action required to implement it and are therefore incomplete. In most “accounting” circumstances, finding the right decision is not what is required. Rather, a model which provides both a sound decision and, appropriate implementation would be more useful. In trying to establish a new/different EDDM that provides for this it is argued that a biblical model exists which addresses both decision making and action. This paper aims to encourage accounting ethics education to move beyond determining the right decision and focus on taking the right action.

An examination on the performance of MML causal induction

This paper presents an examination report on the performance of the improved MML based causal model discovery algorithm. In this paper, We firstly describe our improvement to the causal discovery algorithm which introduces a new encoding scheme for measuring the cost of describing the causal structure. Stiring function is also applied to further simplify the computational complexity and thus works more efficiently. It is followed by a detailed examination report on the performance of our improved discovery algorithm. The experimental results of the current version of the discovery system show that: (l) the current version is capable of discovering what discovered by previous system; (2) current system is capable of discovering more complicated causal networks with large number of variables; (3) the new version works more efficiently compared with the previous version in terms of time complexity.

Online versus postal data collection : a re-examination of the response differences using demographically matched data

Past research has identified differences between online and mail collected responses to the same survey, but differences in the demographics of respondents had also been noted making the cause of the variation unclear. In the research reported here, responses to the same questionnaire, delivered via mail and internet surveys, were demographically matched across a range of variables. This removed the impact of response differences caused by age, gender, type of product consumed and length of customer relationship. Across all the different question types and response scales, significant differences were still found between mail and online respondents, even when data were ipsatised. Notably, online respondents were far less likely to use the end-points of the scale, perhaps indicating issues with the online collection methodology. The conclusion is that the two methods of data collection can not be assumed to be directly inter-changeable, and that the method used can lead to different results if not managed carefully.