Social Procurement: Promoting the sustainability of NPOs through the transformation of economic, social and cultural capital

Social procurement provides a key source of income for the Third Sector, and is vital for the sustainability of many nonprofit organisations. Social procurement involves the exchange of economic capital from one organisation, typically government (although for-profit and non-profit organisations can also purchase), with a nonprofit organisations in order to deliver other forms of. It is this transformation of economic capital into other forms of capital (cultural, human, social) in the social procurement process, which is the focus of this paper. Four case studies, which are representative of the four main types of social procurement, will be examined in order to trace how economic capital is transformed into other types of capital in each of these cases. In so doing, the paper will advance our understanding of social procurement theoretically, and lead to a wider discussion about the role of social procurement in ensuring the sustainability of nonprofit organisations, and the civil societies in which they operate.

Complex learning through cognitively demanding tasks

The world’s increasing complexity, competitiveness, interconnectivity, and dependence on technology generate new challenges for nations and individuals that cannot be met by “continuing education as usual” (The National Academies, 2009). With the proliferation of complex systems have come new technologies for communication, collaboration, and conceptualization. These technologies have led to significant changes in the forms of mathematical thinking that are required beyond the classroom. This paper argues for the need to incorporate future-oriented understandings and competencies within the mathematics curriculum, through intellectually stimulating activities that draw upon multidisciplinary content and contexts. The paper also argues for greater recognition of children’s learning potential, as increasingly complex learners capable of dealing with cognitively demanding tasks.

Learning as identity and practice through involvement in online moderation

For teachers working in a standards-based assessment system, professional conversations through organised social moderation meetings are a vital element. This qualitative research investigated the learning that occurred as a result of online moderation discussions. Findings illustrate how participating in social moderation meetings in an online context can support teachers to understand themselves as assessors, and can provide opportunities for teachers to imagine possibilities for their teaching that move beyond the moderation practice.

Looking through the corridor : Malaysia and the MSC

As part of a development plan-in-progress spanning a total of 25 years(1996 to 2020), Malaysia’s Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) provides a unique opportunity to witness a brief and microcosmic unfolding of the reciprocally formative process between society and technology that Lewis Mumford lays out in exhaustive detail in Technics and Civilization (Mumford, 1963). The interlocking of national imagining, destiny and progress with a specific group of technologies, information and communication technologies(ICT) is, in itself, worthy of interest. However, what renders the MSC doubly remarkable is its introduction in Malaysia, one of the most well established of contemporary ethnocracies. This chapter reads the development and implementation of the MSC as the text through which the association between nation and ethnicity is examined. Broadly speaking I argue here that the MSC inflects the imagining(s) of Malaysia at two levels. At the first level where the MSC is understood to be the insertion of a new policy into Malaysia’s pre existent ethnocratic climate, I contend the MSC inflects the nation through its incongruence with prevalent conditions. At the second level, where the MSC is viewed through the position of its Chinese populace, I suggest that the MSC inflects Malaysia (perhaps to a lesser degree) through the re-emphasis it lends to issues of transnationalism and belonging for the Malaysian Chinese.

Free convection heat transfer through coupled thermal boundary layers in a partitioned triangular enclosure

A numerical investigation has been carried out for the coupled thermal boundary layers on both sides of a partition placed in an isosceles triangular enclosure along its middle symmetric line. The working fluid is considered as air which is initially quiescent. A sudden temperature difference between two zones of the enclosure has been imposed to trigger the natural convection. It is anticipated from the numerical simulations that the coupled thermal boundary layers development adjacent to the partition undergoes three distinct stages; namely an initial stage, a transitional stage and a steady state stage. Time dependent features of the coupled thermal boundary layers as well as the overall natural convection flow in the partitioned enclosure have been discussed and compared with the non-partitioned enclosure. Moreover, heat transfer as a form of local and overall average Nusselt number through the coupled thermal boundary layers and the inclined walls is also examined. The details results will be discussed in the full paper.

Growing local participation through long term design

Our research explores the design of networked technologies to facilitate local suburban communications and to encourage people to engage with their local community. While there are many investigations of interaction designs for networked technologies, most research utilises small exercises, workshops or other short-term studies to investigate interaction designs. However, we have found these short-term methods to be ineffective in the context of understanding local community interaction. Moreover we find that people are resistant to putting their time into workshops and exercises, understandably so because these are academic practices, not local community practices. Our contribution is to detail a long term embedded design approach in which we interact with the community over the long term in the course of normal community goings-on with an evolving exploratory prototype. This paper discusses the embedded approach to working in the wild for extended field research.

Influencing the experience of people in urban public places through mobile mediated interactions

This paper introduces our research on influencing the experience of people in urban public places through mobile mediated interactions. Information and communication technology (ICT) devices are sometimes used to create personal space while in public. ICT devices could also be utilised to digitally augment the urban space with non-privacy sensitive data enabling mobile mediated interactions in an anonymous way between collocated strangers. We present what motivates the research on digital augmentations and mobile mediated interactions between unknown urban dwellers, define the research problem that drives this study and why it is significant research in the field of pervasive social networking. The paper illustrates three design interventions enabling social pervasive content sharing and employing pervasive presence, awareness and anonymous social user interaction in urban public places. The paper concludes with an outlook and summarises the research effort.

Communities of practice : building organisational capability through an undergraduate assurance of learning program

This study explores academic perceptions of organizational capability and culture following a project to develop a quality assurance of learning program in a business school. In the project a community of practice structure was established to include academics in the development of an embedded, direct assurance of learning program affecting more than 5000 undergraduate students and 250 academics from nine different disciplines across four discipline based departments. The primary outcome from the newly developed and implemented assurance of learning program was the five year accreditation of the business school’s programs by two international accrediting bodies, EQUIS and AACSB. This study explores a different outcome, namely perceptions of organizational culture and individual capabilities as academics worked together in teaching teams and communities. This study uses a survey and interviews with academics involved, through a retrospective panel design consisting of an experimental group and a control group. Results offer insights into communities of practice as a means of encouraging new individual and organizational capability and strategic culture adaptation.

Professional growth through working together : a study of reciprocal benefits for teacher and education advisor through classroom based professional development

Teacher professional development provided by education advisors as one-off, centrally offered sessions does not always result in change in teacher knowledge, beliefs, attitudes or practice in the classroom. As the mathematics education advisor in this study, I set out to investigate a particular method of professional development so as to influence change in a practising classroom teacher’s knowledge and practices. The particular method of professional development utilised in this study was based on several principles of effective teacher professional development and saw me working regularly in a classroom with the classroom teacher as well as providing ongoing support for her for a full school year. The intention was to document the effects of this particular method of professional development in terms of the classroom teacher’s and my professional growth to provide insights for others working as education advisors. The professional development for the classroom teacher consisted of two components. The first was the co-operative development and implementation of a mental computation instructional program for the Year 3 class. The second component was the provision of ongoing support for the classroom teacher by the education advisor. The design of the professional development and the mental computation instructional program were progressively refined throughout the year. The education advisor fulfilled multiple roles in the study as teacher in the classroom, teacher educator working with the classroom teacher and researcher. Examples of the professional growth of the classroom teacher and the education advisor which occurred as sequences of changes (growth networks, Hollingsworth, 1999) in the domains of the professional world of the classroom teacher and education advisor were drawn from the large body of data collected through regular face-to-face and email communications between the classroom teacher and the education advisor as well as from transcripts of a structured interview. The Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (Clarke & Hollingsworth, 2002; Hollingsworth, 1999) was used to summarise and represent each example of the classroom teacher’s professional growth. A modified version of this model was used to summarise and represent the professional growth of the education advisor. This study confirmed that the method of professional development utilised could lead to significant teacher professional growth related directly to her work in the classroom. Using the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth to summarise and represent the classroom teacher’s professional growth and the modified version for my professional growth assisted with the recognition of examples of how we both changed. This model has potential to be used more widely by education advisors when preparing, implementing, evaluating and following-up on planned teacher professional development activities. The mental computation instructional program developed and trialled in the study was shown to be a successful way of sequencing and managing the teaching of mental computation strategies and related number sense understandings to Year 3 students. This study was conducted in one classroom, with one teacher in one school. The strength of this study was the depth of teacher support provided made possible by the particular method of the professional development, and the depth of analysis of the process. In another school, or with another teacher, this might not have been as successful. While I set out to change my practice as an education advisor I did not expect the depth of learning I experienced in terms of my knowledge, beliefs, attitudes and practices as an educator of teachers. This study has changed the way in which I plan to work as an education advisor in the future.

Transferring knowledge through peer-reviewed assessment : the creation of a community of practice and the threats to its survival

While it is generally accepted in the learning and teaching literature that assessment is the single biggest influence on how students approach their learning, assessment methods within higher education are generally conservative and inflexible. Constrained by policy and accreditation requirements and the need for the explicit articulation of assessment standards for public accountability purposes, assessment tasks can fail to engage students or reflect the tasks students will face in the world of practice. Innovative assessment design can simultaneously deliver program objectives and active learning through a knowledge transfer process which increases student participation. This social constructivist view highlights that acquiring an understanding of assessment processes, criteria and standards needs active student participation. Within this context, a peer-assessed, weekly, assessment task was introduced in the first “serious” accounting subject offered as part of an undergraduate degree. The positive outcomes of this assessment innovation was that student failure rates declined 15%, tutorial participation increased fourfold, tutorial engagement increased six-fold and there was a 100% approval rating for the retention of the assessment task. In contributing to the core conference theme of “seismic” shifts within higher education, in stark contrast to the positive student response, staff-related issues of assessment conservatism and the necessity of meeting increasing research commitments, threatened the assessment task’s survival. These opposing forces to change have the potential to weaken the ability of higher education assessment arrangements to adequately serve either a new generation of students or the sector's community stakeholders.

Labouring for leisure? Achieving work-life balance through compressed working weeks

Flexible work practices spreading work times across the entire week have reduced the time to engage in leisure activities and for some have compounded the problem of a lack of defined break between work weeks. This study examines time spent outside of the workplace through a multiple case study of working time and leisure in the construction industry. A framework of synchronous leisure is used to examine the interplay of work and non-work arrangements. The effects of changing work arrangements to deliver a longer break between working weeks and the consequent impact on leisure activities are analysed. Interviews and focus groups across four construction sites revealed that while leisure is important to relieve fatigue and overwork, a work schedule allowing a long break between working weeks, specifically on a weekend, enables workers to achieve synchronous time, particularly with family, and improves work-life balance satisfaction. It was found that a well-defined break across a weekend also offers the opportunity to synchronize schedules with others to spend time away on short breaks.

Cellulosic ethanol from sugarcane bagasse in Australia : exploring industry feasibility through systems analysis, techno-economic assessment and pilot plant development

Overcoming many of the constraints to early stage investment in biofuels production from sugarcane bagasse in Australia requires an understanding of the complex technical, economic and systemic challenges associated with the transition of established sugar industry structures from single product agri-businesses to new diversified multi-product biorefineries. While positive investment decisions in new infrastructure requires technically feasible solutions and the attainment of project economic investment thresholds, many other systemic factors will influence the investment decision. These factors include the interrelationships between feedstock availability and energy use, competing product alternatives, technology acceptance and perceptions of project uncertainty and risk. This thesis explores the feasibility of a new cellulosic ethanol industry in Australia based on the large sugarcane fibre (bagasse) resource available. The research explores industry feasibility from multiple angles including the challenges of integrating ethanol production into an established sugarcane processing system, scoping the economic drivers and key variables relating to bioethanol projects and considering the impact of emerging technologies in improving industry feasibility. The opportunities available from pilot scale technology demonstration are also addressed. Systems analysis techniques are used to explore the interrelationships between the existing sugarcane industry and the developing cellulosic biofuels industry. This analysis has resulted in the development of a conceptual framework for a bagassebased cellulosic ethanol industry in Australia and uses this framework to assess the uncertainty in key project factors and investment risk. The analysis showed that the fundamental issue affecting investment in a cellulosic ethanol industry from sugarcane in Australia is the uncertainty in the future price of ethanol and government support that reduces the risks associated with early stage investment is likely to be necessary to promote commercialisation of this novel technology. Comprehensive techno-economic models have been developed and used to assess the potential quantum of ethanol production from sugarcane in Australia, to assess the feasibility of a soda-based biorefinery at the Racecourse Sugar Mill in Mackay, Queensland and to assess the feasibility of reducing the cost of production of fermentable sugars from the in-planta expression of cellulases in sugarcane in Australia. These assessments show that ethanol from sugarcane in Australia has the potential to make a significant contribution to reducing Australia’s transportation fuel requirements from fossil fuels and that economically viable projects exist depending upon assumptions relating to product price, ethanol taxation arrangements and greenhouse gas emission reduction incentives. The conceptual design and development of a novel pilot scale cellulosic ethanol research and development facility is also reported in this thesis. The establishment of this facility enables the technical and economic feasibility of new technologies to be assessed in a multi-partner, collaborative environment. As a key outcome of this work, this study has delivered a facility that will enable novel cellulosic ethanol technologies to be assessed in a low investment risk environment, reducing the potential risks associated with early stage investment in commercial projects and hence promoting more rapid technology uptake. While the study has focussed on an exploration of the feasibility of a commercial cellulosic ethanol industry from sugarcane in Australia, many of the same key issues will be of relevance to other sugarcane industries throughout the world seeking diversification of revenue through the implementation of novel cellulosic ethanol technologies.

Transferring knowledge through peer-reviewed assessment : the creation of a community of practice and the threats to its survival

While it is generally accepted in the learning and teaching literature that assessment is the single biggest influence on how students approach their learning, assessment methods within higher education are generally conservative and inflexible. Constrained by policy and accreditation requirements and the need for the explicit articulation of assessment standards for public accountability purposes, assessment tasks can fail to engage students or reflect the tasks students will face in the world of practice. Innovative assessment design can simultaneously deliver program objectives and active learning through a knowledge transfer process which increases student participation. This social constructivist view highlights that acquiring an understanding of assessment processes, criteria and standards needs active student participation. Within this context, a peer-assessed, weekly, assessment task was introduced in the first “serious” accounting subject offered as part of an undergraduate degree. The positive outcomes of this assessment innovation was that student failure rates declined 15%, tutorial participation increased fourfold, tutorial engagement increased six-fold and there was a 100% approval rating for the retention of the assessment task. In contributing to the core conference theme of “seismic” shifts within higher education, in stark contrast to the positive student response, staff-related issues of assessment conservatism and the necessity of meeting increasing research commitments, threatened the assessment task’s survival. These opposing forces to change have the potential to weaken the ability of higher education assessment arrangements to adequately serve either a new generation of students or the sector's community stakeholders.