Current dementia research in Australia : a report from the Alzheimer's Australia 15th National Conference

The Alzheimer’s Australia 15th National Conference held on 14–17 May 2013 in Hobart (Tasmania, Australia) attracted a wide range of attendees, including people living with dementia, family caregivers, health professionals and researchers. The conference theme, The Tiles of Life Coloring the Future, invoking a vision of a better future for those affected by dementia, had seven subthemes: liberation, rehabilitation, leisure,service, creativity, wellbeing and research.

New directions for digital video creation in the classroom : spatiality, embodiment, and creativity

This column features a conversation (via email, image sharing, and Facetime) that took place over several months between two international theorists of digital filmmaking from schools in two countries—Professors Jason Ranker (Portland State University, Oregon, United States) and Kathy Mills (Queensland University of Technology, Australia). The authors discuss emerging ways of thinking about video making, sharing tips and anecdotes from classroom experience to inspire teachers to explore with adolescents the meaning potentials of digital video creation. The authors briefly discuss their previous work in this area, and then move into a discussion of how the material spaces in which students create videos profoundly shape the films' meanings and significance. The article ends with a discussion of how students can take up creative new directions, pushing the boundaries of the potentials of classroom video making and uncovering profound uses of the medium.

Postcards from somewhere : ‘marginal’ cultural production, creativity and community

This paper focuses on a case study of local postcard production in a rural community in Western Australia. Drawing on in-depth interviews with key producers of these postcards, the analysis presented explores perceptions of and contexts for the emergence of this production, in turn examining the notion of ‘creativity’ articulated and privileged by this cultural work. Connections are identified between the making of postcards, the broader historical field of local cultural work and the construction of community. This, in turn, forms the basis for consideration of the role and relativity of ‘marginality’.

iPads in the Early Years : Developing Literacy and Creativity

Digital devices like smart phones and tablet computers are becoming commonplace in young children’s lives for play, entertainment, learning and communication. Recently, there has been a great deal of focus on the educational potential of devices like iPads in both formal and informal educational settings. There is now an abundance of educational ‘apps’ available to children, parents, and kindergarten and pre-school teachers that claim to enhance children’s early literacy and numeracy development and creativity. To date, though, there has been very little formal investigation of the educational potential of these devices. This book discusses the impact on children’s learning when iPads were introduced in three very different kindergartens in Brisbane, Australia. Chapters outline how researchers worked with pre-school teachers and parents to explore how iPads can assist with letter and word recognition, the development of oral literacy and talk around play. The book also considers the possibilities for using iPads for creativity and arts education through photography, storytelling, drawing, music creation and audio recording.

Copyright and creativity: An ongoing debate in the creative industries

This paper critically analyzes the divergent perspectives on how copyright and intellectual property laws impact creativity, innovation, and the creative industries. One perspective defines the creative industries based on copyright as the means by which revenues are generated from innovation and the dissemination of new ideas. At the same time, it has been argued that copyright and intellectual property regimes fetter creativity and innovation, and that this has become even more marked in the context of digital media convergence and the networked global creative economy. These issues have resonated in debates around the creative industries, particularly since the initial DCMS mapping study in the UK in 1998 defined creative industries as combining individual creativity and exploitable forms of intellectual property. The issue of competing claims for the relationship between copyright and the creative industries has also arisen in Australia, with a report by the Australian Law Reform Commission entitled Copyright and the Digital Economy. This paper will consider the competing claims surrounding copyright and the creative industries, and the implications for policy-makers internationally.

The fight for fair use in Australia: Copyright law in an age of cloud computing

Fair Use Week has celebrated the evolution and development of the defence of fair use under copyright law in the United States. As Krista Cox noted, ‘As a flexible doctrine, fair use can adapt to evolving technologies and new situations that may arise, and its long history demonstrates its importance in promoting access to information, future innovation, and creativity.’ While the defence of fair use has flourished in the United States, the adoption of the defence of fair use in other jurisdictions has often been stymied. Professor Peter Jaszi has reflected: ‘We can only wonder (with some bemusement) why some of our most important foreign competitors, like the European Union, haven’t figured out that fair use is, to a great extent, the “secret sauce” of U.S. cultural competitiveness.’ Jurisdictions such as Australia have been at a dismal disadvantage, because they lack the freedoms and flexibilities of the defence of fair use.

Games production in Australia : Adapting to precariousness

In this chapter, we pay full attention to the structural conditions and human cost of precarious labor in a particular local instance of the games industry. But at the same time, we attempt to shift the debate on precarity from the existential (the creative individual attracted to industries promising autonomy and meaningful work and finding only casualization, no work/life balance, and poor management) and the totalizing (all work under regimes of neoliberal hypercapitalism is increasingly characterized by precarity; indeed a whole new class—the precariat1—is posited as emerging) to a focus on analysis for actionable reform.

A f/oxymoron? : Women, creativity and the suburbs

Donald Horne famously wrote, ‘Australia was born urban and quickly grew suburban’ (1964), an observation that carries a weight of assumptions about suburban living. Historically, the Australian suburbs have been regarded as places of retreat, family life and female activity, and subsequently as a place where not much of interest happens. By contrast, a city's central areas are seen as more dynamic spaces and, with recent creative city thinking and planning, as potential powerhouses of innovation and creativity. This article challenges assumptions about suburban living as passive places of retreat through an examination of women in the creative workforce who are living and working in the suburbs. It draws on historical accounts of creative suburban activity and a research project that mapped and investigated the experience of creative workers in the outer suburbs of Brisbane and Melbourne. The study finds that there is much creative work occurring in suburban localities, but this is not as unusual as might be expected.

Understanding problem solving in requirements engineering : debating creativity with IS practitioners

RE is well-recognised as a creative problem solving activity by the systems development community. However, while substantial research has been conducted and knowledge gained about creativity in the general psychology of problem solving, creativity as it applies to RE remains a relatively unexplored area - one that has neither been comprehensively studied, nor highly recognised, as a research topic of importance. This paper attempts to address the above mentioned gap by presenting findings from a recent focus group study of creativity in RE as perceived by a group of RE practitioners. We provide a conceptual framework for understanding creativity in RE, which may be of use to requirements engineers attempting to enable more creative approaches and results, as well as adding to the existing, limited body of research in this area.

The new arts leader: the Australia Council and cultural policy change

One consequence of the development of cultural policy has been a demand for more creative leadership in arts organisations. This article provides a case study of how leadership of the Australia Council changed from the 1970s to the beginning of the 21st century. It argues that changes to the way in which Australia Council chairs approached their role was shaped by, and contributed to, the trend towards constructing the arts as an industry. Part of this change sees the Australia Council subjected to aspects of reform, which were widely endorsed by the Australian public sector. The article identifies three styles of leadership exhibited by the chairs over the period: visionary, statesman and reformer, in three phases of the Council's history. It examines the political and social imperatives shaping these leadership styles.

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.

Newbs vs. geeks : encouraging creativity in an online learning community

This article explores the development and creative practices of an online  community within an Australian university. The authors argue that creativity can be enhanced and supported by the development and implementation of purpose-specific learning environments, such as an online learning community. Within such a community the participants are exposed to a number of requisite elements designed to support the exploration of their own learning process and the development of creativity. The following study discusses the establishment of such a community and the social, cultural and learning practices of the student participants.

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.