Mobile phone etiquette: a cross-national comparison

As a social medium, mobile telephony permits ubiquitous communication. This has led to concerns about the intrusiveness of the medium, which in turn has seen the development of a social etiquette governing mobile phone use. This study of Australian and US tertiary students showed that there was widespread but not universal agreement that usage was inappropriate in places of worship, classrooms and libraries or while driving a car. Australians were more tolerant of mobile usage than Americans in most situations, apart from driving. SMS was more broadly tolerated, including in class and in cinemas.

The realm of the game geek : supporting creativity in an online community

This paper explores the importance of online communities designed to support the creativity of tertiary students enrolled in Computer Science studies. Online discussion forums provide university students with a supportive and nurturing environment and a community where they can share knowledge and ideas. The authors draw on findings derived from a study of first year Computer Science students enrolled in a Games Design and Development unit. Of particular interest is the ways in which the participants develop and control the environment in order to enhance their own creative expression.

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.

Minding your mobile manners : a cross-national comparison

Mobile phones offer a new marketing channel, but socially there are concerns about their intrusiveness. Marketers need to understand the social etiquettes governing their use in order to exploit their value. In addition, the use of mobiles whilst driving is the cause of car accidents and is illegal in some parts of the world. A study of 893 United States, Australian and Chinese tertiary students showed that there was widespread but not universal agreement that usage was inappropriate in places of worship, classrooms and libraries or while driving a car. Australian and Chinese students were more tolerant of mobile usage than Americans in most situations, apart from use while driving. The study showed a conflict between actual driving behaviour and views on the desirability of using mobiles while driving. The persistence of talking while driving should be a concern to those who promote road safety. Use of SMS was more broadly tolerated in class and in picture theatres than was speaking on a mobile phone. The use of inbound and outbound telemarketing is limited by the social etiquettes discovered. Further research into tolerable mobile behaviour in various public and private spaces is required in order to make best use of this marketing medium.

Teaching future Australian information systems professionals

Teaching Information Systems (IS) to Australian tertiary students has come increasing problematic with many of them relying on a face level approach to study. This will surely affect their understanding of IS material and in turn affect their effectiveness in the workplace. This paper examines the issues behind this trend and considers Problem Based Learning (PBL) as an aid to counteract it.

Using problem based learning to teach future Australian IS professionals

Teaching Information Systems (IS) to Australian tertiary students has become increasing problematic with many of them relying on a surface level approach to study. This will surely affect their understanding of IS material and in turn affect their effectiveness in the workplace.

This paper examines the issues behind this trend and considers Problem Based Learning (PBL) asan aid to counteract it.

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.

Proactive tools for combating plagiarism : an investigation

Academic integrity is an essential graduate attribute with ignorance of the problem of plagiarism in students’ work not being an option. This study resulted from increasing concern that the prevalence of plagiarism in assessment submitted by students is on the rise and shows no sign of abating. This study supports the provision of assessment designed to specifically focus student’s attention on improving their ability to both recognise plagiarism and avoid it in their written work. All students in both the investigated courses were invited to participate in a post-assessment, electronically-administered survey consisting of sixteen questions regarding the students’ experience regarding their assessment. This study was designed to achieve two purposes - to gain insight into whether providing tertiary students with extra feedback regarding their referencing improves their confidence with respect to referencing and reduces their propensity to plagiarise as well as to increase our understanding of what factors underlie student plagiarism. The results indicate that a considerable number of the students found the assessment of assistance with respect to improving their referencing confidence. In addition, a significant proportion of the students indicated that their understanding of what constitutes plagiarism and their confidence in avoiding plagiarism improved as a result of the assignment and its associated feedback.

Student learning orientations : are there differences between age and gender?

The increasing diversity and mobility of students have challenged universities, world over, to review educational courses and delivery to provide a more satisfying learning environment to students. The continuous improvement of the 'quality' of teaching and learning is one of the key goals of universities endeavouring to fulfil their obligations as learning institutions. Using a revised SPQ2F instrument (Biggs, 2003, Biggs and Leung, 2001), this exploratory study undertakes a comparative analysis of the age and gender differences in the learning orientations of two groups of tertiary students in an Australian University. The results indicate that there are no significant differences in the learning orientations of students but on average they seem to demonstrate deep learning than surface learning although they may differ in terms of the learning contexts.

Evaluating New Zealand sports stars as celebrity endorsers : intriguing results

Celebrity athlete endorsement of products and services has become prominent in the promotional mixes of New Zealand companies and organisations. For years advertisers and researchers have pondered how successful celebrity athlete endorsement really works. Most suggest some form of transfer of positive images takes place between celebrity and the product or service they are endorsing and source-credibility models have become the preferred research design. The overall objective of this research was to assist sport marketing managers and their advertising agencies in matching celebrities with products and services. An ancillary objective was to compare results obtained from multiple-item and single-item scales. An exploratory study with tertiary students was conducted, using both Ohanian’s (1990) 15 item source-credibility scale and two single-item measures to examine potential “endorsement fit” for four New Zealand sporting heroes. They were Bernice Mene (recently retired national netball team captain), Dean Barker (America’s Cup yachting defender’s helmsman), Mandy Smith (recently retired national women’s hockey team star) and Justin Marshall (All Black rugby’s most capped halfback), all of whom were adjudged by students as physically attractive sports stars. The product reported here against which these athletes were scored was an isotonic sports drink. Results were mixed; the Ohanian source-credibility scale yielded selection of different celebrity athletes to the single-item measures. The research results show that matching celebrities to products for potential endorsement opportunities is a complex issue, leaving scope for judgement and intuition alongside quantification. Still unresolved is the question of multiple-item measures versus single-item measures in advertising and service research.

Heteroglossia : a space for developing critical language awareness?

This paper reports on research into the challenges of implementing a critical writing pedagogy within a teacher education program in Australia. Participants in this study are student teachers enrolled in a compulsory subject, ‘Language and Literacy in Secondary School’, a subject requiring them to develop a knowledge of the role of language and literacy across the secondary school curriculum and to show personal proficiency in literacy (this is dictated by state government specifications of graduate outcomes for teacher education programs). To develop an understanding of the way that language has shaped their lives, students write a narrative about their early literacy experiences – a task which they all find very challenging, especially in comparison with the formal writing of other university subjects. Rather than simply reminiscing about their early childhood, they are encouraged to juxtapose voices from the past and the present, and to combine a range of texts within their writing. They thereby create a heteroglossic text (Bakhtin, 1981) that stretches their repertoires as language users and enables them to develop a socially critical awareness of language and literacy, including the literacy practices in which they engage as university students. Later in the semester they revisit these accounts of their early literacy experiences, and (in a separate piece of writing) endeavour to place these accounts within the contexts of theories and debates they have encountered in the course of completing this unit.

The students’ writing provides a small window on how they are experiencing their tertiary education, including the managerial controls that are currently shaping university curriculum and pedagogy. Their writing also raises questions as to extent to which tertiary students are actually able to formulate a critical language awareness that will subsequently inform their professional practice as secondary teachers.

Teacher education and critical inquiry : the use of activity theory in exploring alternative understandings of language and literacy

This paper explores the challenges of espousing a critical pedagogy within the managerial climate that presently shapes teacher education. It argues that current discourses of professionalism are incommensurate with a view of literacy as social practice and that they disregard complex semiotic ecologies in which both school and university students operate. Graduate teachers are constructed as the ‘providers’ of decontextualised literacy skills to school students whose existing communication networks are ignored. Rejecting this narrow view of professional practice, we draw on activity theory to analyse the social configuration of tertiary students’ identities and the textual resources that mediate their professional learning. This kind of research is needed to reveal the contradictions within and between activity systems in which tertiary students participate as well as to construct possible solutions to the contradictions identified.

Beyond cliché – reclaiming the concept of sustainability

In closing his 2008 Myer Lecture, the scientist and environmentalist Dr Tim Flannery said that this century will be defined by the search for sustainability. How perilous therefore that nowadays there is so much overuse of the word 'sustainability' that it has become a cliche. Today's tertiary students studying architecture and energy-related subjects are so exposed to this linguistic devaluation that most of them appear to have accepted the vagueness of the term and are on their way to becoming the next generation of misusers. This paper presents a case study of an attempt to sharpen up the debate with some university students from these particular disciplines. A model of the four principles of sustainable development that has been found to be particularly useful is described. The students in question were challenged to think about the meaning of some of the words ascribed to new buildings and about the implications of the four principles to energy supply systems.

Emergence of creativity in learning via social technologies

Creativity is an elusive skill desired by many. Debates on 'What is Creativity' and how it can best be nurtured and supported had resurgence in the 1950's after Guildford's address to the American Psychology Association about the positive benefits of creativity. Since then creativity has been investigated in many forms and within many disciplines. Of note is that creativity is apparent within four components: the person, the process, the product and the environment. On some level creativity is assessed within one of the four components of creativity: person, process, product or environment. In this study creativity and the environment is under investigation, with a number of factors presented that allow creativity to be supported. This paper explores the role of creativity within the education of tertiary students studying Games Design and Development (within an IT discipline) from an Australian University. Particularly this paper focuses on how social factors, such as purpose built collaborative environments and virtual communities, aid in the creative pursuits of the students.

Making connections with nature : bridging the theory-practice gap in outdoor and environmental education

In this paper I describe my experience in attempting to assist tertiary students connect with the natural environment through outdoor and environmental education experiences. The paper addresses research conducted with students undertaking an outdoor and environmental education degree and focuses on the pedagogical methods employed in this context. I argue that outdoor and environmental education practitioners may benefit from moving away from a mode of teaching based upon 'generic' methods and look instead to a more local, specific and contextual form of education. By describing an outdoor and environmental education journey in a local, 'ordinary' place and students' experiences in unearthing the stories embedded in this place, I aim to provide some practical strategies to engage young people in a direct and meaningful way. The intention is to broaden the pedagogical possibilities related to facilitating experiences in natural environments and thus contribute to bridging the rhetoric/reality gap in outdoor education.