Validation of the impact of Health Information Technology (I-HIT) scale : an international collaborative

In 2005, the Healthcare Information Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Nursing Informatics Community developed a survey to measure the impact of health information technology (HIT), the IHIT Scale, on the role of nurses and interdisciplinary communication in hospital settings. In 2007, nursing informatics colleagues from Australia, England, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Scotland and the United States formed a research collaborative to validate the IHIT across countries. All teams have completed construct and face validation in their countries. Five out of six teams have initiated reliability testing by practicing nurses. This paper reports the international collaborative’s validation of the IHIT Scale completed to date.

Research participation of individuals with dementia : decisional capacity, informed consent, and considerations for nurse investigators

Decisional capacity is a precious component of personhood and is progressively diminished in dementia. Conducting research with individuals with dementia demands a commitment to ensure the quest for knowledge does not overwhelm the rights of those it is intended to protect. The purposes of this article are to describe current understandings of the concept of decisional capacity, describe recent regulatory developments related to the consideration of additional protections for decisionally impaired adults, and provide recommendations for nurse investigators working with this vulnerable group.

Role of corporate governance in mitigating the selective disclosure of executive stock option information

We examine the nature and extent of statutory executive stock option (ESO) disclosures by Australian listed companies over the 2001 to 2004 period, and the influence of corporate governance mechanisms on these disclosures. Our results show a progressive increase in overall compliance from 2001 to 2004. However, despite the improved compliance, the results reveal managements’ continued reluctance to disclose more sensitive ESO information. Factors associated with good internal governance, including board independence, audit committee independence and effectiveness, and compensation committee independence and effectiveness are found to contribute to improved compliance. Similarly, certain external governance factors are associated with improved disclosure, including external auditor quality, shareholder activism (as proxied by companies identified as poor performers by the Australian Shareholders’ Association), and regulatory intervention.

Behavioural biases and information disclosure laws relating to residential property sales : narrowing the gap between existing laws and calls for future reforms

Market failures involving the sale of complex merchandise, such as residential property, financial products and credit, have principally been attributed to information asymmetries. Existing legislative and regulatory responses were developed having regard to consumer protection policies based on traditional economic theories that focus on the notion of the ‘rational consumer’. Governmental responses therefore seek to impose disclosure obligations on sellers of complex goods or products to ensure that consumers have sufficient information upon which to make a decision. Emergent research, based on behavioural economics, challenges traditional ideas and instead focuses on the actual behaviour of consumers. This approach suggests that consumers as a whole do not necessarily benefit from mandatory disclosure because some, if not most, consumers do not pay attention to the disclosed information before they make a decision to purchase. The need for consumer policies to take consumer characteristics and behaviour into account is being increasingly recognised by governments, and most recently in the policy framework suggested by the Australian Productivity Commission

Lifting the lifegiving dollar : case samples of creative practice in health and medical research philanthropy

This study aims to stimulate thought, debate and action for change on this question of more vigorous philanthropic funding of Australian health and medical research (HMR). It sharpens the argument with some facts and ideas about HMR funding from overseas sources. It also reports informed opinions from those working, giving and innovating in this area. It pinpoints the range of attitudes to HMR giving, both positive and negative. The study includes some aspects of Government funding as part of the equation, viewing Government as major HMR givers, with particular ability to partner, leverage and create incentives. Stimulating new philanthropy takes active outreach. The opportunity to build more dialogue between the HMR industry and the wider community is timely given the ‘licence to practice’ issues and questioned trust that applies currently somewhat both to science and to the charitable sector. This interest in improving HMR philanthropy also coincides with the launch last year by the Federal Government of Nonprofit Australia Limited (NAL), a group currently assessing infrastructure improvements to the charitable sector. History suggests no one will create this change if Research Australia does not. However, interest in change exists in various quarters. For Research Australia to successfully change the culture of Australian HMR giving, the process will drive the outcomes. Obviously stakeholder buy-in and partners will be needed and the ultimate blueprint for greater philanthropic HMR funding here will not be this document. Instead it will be the one that wears the handprint and ‘mindprint’ of the many architects and implementers interested in promoting HMR philanthropy, from philanthropists to nonprofit peaks to government policy arms. As the African proverb says, ‘If you want to go fast, go alone; but if you want to go far, go with others’.

Beyond the fashionable : strategic planning for critical information literacy education

The challenge for all educators is to fuse the learning of information literacy to an academic education in such a way that the outcome is systematic and sustainable learning for students. This challenge can be answered through long-term commitment to information literacy education bound to organisation-wide, renewable strategic planning and driven through systemic reform. This chapter seeks to explore the two sides of reforming information literacy education in an academic environment. Specifically, it will examine how one Australian university has undertaken the implementation of a rigorous strategic, systemic approach to information literacy learning and teaching.

Willingness to buy GM food products : the role of uncertainty orientation, consumer risk perceptions and information search in consumers from Australia

Genetically modified (GM) food products are the source of much controversy and in the context of consumer behaviour, the way in which consumers perceive such food products is of paramount importance both theoretically and practically. Despite this, relatively little research has focused on GM food products from a consumer perspective, and as such, this study seeks to better understand what effects consumer willingness to buy GM food products in Australian consumers.

Evidence-based practice : information professionals' experience of information literacy in the workplace

Evidence-based practice is increasingly being recognised as an important issue in a range of professional contexts including education, nursing, occupational therapy and librarianship. Many of these professions have observed a relationship or interface between evidence-based practice and information literacy. Using a phenomenographic approach this research explores variation in the how library and information professionals are experiencing evidence-based practice as part of their professional work. The findings of the research provide a basis for arguing that evidence-based practice represents the professional's enactment of information literacy in the workplace.

Representation and learning of visual information for pose recognition

Recovering position from sensor information is an important problem in mobile robotics, known as localisation. Localisation requires a map or some other description of the environment to provide the robot with a context to interpret sensor data. The mobile robot system under discussion is using an artificial neural representation of position. Building a geometrical map of the environment with a single camera and artificial neural networks is difficult. Instead it would be simpler to learn position as a function of the visual input. Usually when learning images, an intermediate representation is employed. An appropriate starting point for biologically plausible image representation is the complex cells of the visual cortex, which have invariance properties that appear useful for localisation. The effectiveness for localisation of two different complex cell models are evaluated. Finally the ability of a simple neural network with single shot learning to recognise these representations and localise a robot is examined.

Vulnerability of axially loaded columns subjected to transverse impact loads

Increased industrialisation has brought to the forefront the susceptibility of concrete columns in both buildings and bridges to vehicle impacts. Accurate vulnerability assessments are crucial in the design process due to possible catastrophic nature of the failures that can cause. This paper reports on research undertaken to investigate the impact capacity of the columns of low to medium raised building designed according to Australian Standards. Numerical simulation techniques were used in the process and validation was done by using experimental results published in the literature. The investigation thus far has confirmed that vulnerability of typical columns in five story buildings located in urban areas to medium velocity car impacts and hence these columns need to be re-designed (if possible) or retrofitted. In addition, accuracy of the simplified method presented in EN 1991 to quantify the impact damage was scrutinised. A simplified concept to assess the damage due to all collisions modes was introduced. The research information will be extended to generate a common data base to assess the vulnerability of columns in urban areas against new generation of vehicles.

Building climate change resilience and adaptive capacity in Australia’s community sector using social media and technology innovation

Public and private sector organisations worldwide are putting strategies in place to manage the commercial and operational risks of climate change. However, community organisations are lagging behind in their understanding and preparedness, despite them being among the most exposed to the effects of climate change impacts and regulation. This poster presents a proposal for a multidisciplinary study that addresses this issue by developing, testing and applying a novel climate risk assessment methodology that is tailored to the needs of Australia’s community sector and its clients. Strategies to mitigate risks and build resilience and adaptive capacity will be identified including new opportunities afforded by urban informatics, social media, and technologies of scale making.

Coordinated research support services at Queensland University of Technology, Australia

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a large multidisciplinary university located in Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. QUT is increasing its research focus and is developing its research support services. It has adopted a model of collaboration between the Library, High Performance Computing and Research Support (HPC) and more broadly with Information Technology Services (ITS). Research support services provided by the Library include the provision of information resources and discovery services, bibliographic management software, assistance with publishing (publishing strategies, identifying high impact journals, dealing with publishers and the peer review process), citation analysis and calculating authors’ H Index. Research data management services are being developed by the Library and HPC working in collaboration. The HPC group within ITS supports research computing infrastructure, research development and engagement activities, researcher consultation, high speed computation and data storage systems , 2D/ 3D (immersive) visualisation tools, parallelisation and optimization of research codes, statistics/ data modeling training and support (both qualitative and quantitative) and support for the university’s central Access Grid collaboration facility. Development and engagement activities include participation in research grants and papers, student supervision and internships and the sponsorship, incubation and adoption of new computing technologies for research. ITS also provides other services that support research including ICT training, research infrastructure (networking, data storage, federated access and authorization, virtualization) and corporate systems for research administration. Seminars and workshops are offered to increase awareness and uptake of new and existing services. A series of online surveys on eResearch practices and skills and a number of focus groups was conducted to better inform the development of research support services. Progress towards the provision of research support is described within the context organizational frameworks; resourcing; infrastructure; integration; collaboration; change management; engagement; awareness and skills; new services; and leadership. Challenges to be addressed include the need to redeploy existing operational resources toward new research support services, supporting a rapidly growing research profile across the university, the growing need for the use and support of IT in research programs, finding capacity to address the diverse research support needs across the disciplines, operationalising new research support services following their implementation in project mode, embedding new specialist staff roles, cross-skilling Liaison Librarians, and ensuring continued collaboration between stakeholders.

Libr@ries : changing information space and practice

This volume examines the social, cultural, and political implications of the shift from traditional forms of print-based libraries to the delivery of online information in educational contexts. Despite the central role of libraries in literacy and learning, research of them has, in the main, remained isolated within the disciplinary boundaries of information and library science. By contrast, this book problematizes and thereby mainstreams the field. It brings together scholars from a wide range of academic fields to explore the dislodging of library discourse from its longstanding apolitical, modernist paradigm. Collectively, the authors interrogate the presuppositions of current library practice and examine how library as place and library as space blend together in ways that may be both complementary and contradictory. Seeking a suitable term to designate this rapidly evolving and much contested development, the editors devised the word “libr@ary,” and use the term arobase to signify the conditions of formation of new libraries within contexts of space, knowledge, and capital.

Rethinking health planning : a framework for organising information to underpin collaborative health planning

The field of collaborative health planning faces significant challenges created by the narrow focus of the available information, the absence of a framework to organise that information and the lack of systems to make information accessible and guide decision-making. These challenges have been magnified by the rise of the ‘healthy communities movement’, as a result of which, there have been more frequent calls for localised, collaborative and evidence-driven health related decision-making. This paper discusses the role of decision support systems as a mechanism to facilitate collaborative health decision-making. The paper presents a potential information management framework to underpin a health decision support system and describes the participatory process that is currently being used to create an online tool for health planners using geographic information systems. The need for a comprehensive information management framework to guide the process of planning for healthy communities has been emphasised. The paper also underlines the critical importance of the proposed framework not only in forcing planners to engage with the entire range of health determinants, but also in providing sufficient flexibility to allow exploration of the local setting-based determinants of health.

A rights management approach to securing data distribution in coalitions

As network capacity has increased over the past decade, individuals and organisations have found it increasingly appealing to make use of remote services in the form of service-oriented architectures and cloud computing services. Data processed by remote services, however, is no longer under the direct control of the individual or organisation that provided the data, leaving data owners at risk of data theft or misuse. This paper describes a model by which data owners can control the distribution and use of their data throughout a dynamic coalition of service providers using digital rights management technology. Our model allows a data owner to establish the trustworthiness of every member of a coalition employed to process data, and to communicate a machine-enforceable usage policy to every such member.