Family literacy practices and home literacy resources : an Australian pilot study

The combined impact of social class, cultural background and experience upon early literacy achievement in the first year of schooling is among the most durable questions in educational research. Links have been established between social class and achievement but literacy involves complex social and cognitive practices that are not necessarily reflected in the connections that have been made. The complexity of relationships between social class, cultural background and experience, and their impact on early literacy achievement have received little research attention. Recent refinements of the broad terms of social class or socioeconomic status have questioned the established links between social class and achievement. Nevertheless, it remains difficult to move beyond deficit and mismatch models of explaining and understanding the underperformance of children from lower socioeconomic and cultural minority groups when conventional measures are used. The data from an Australian pilot study reported here add to the increasing evidence that income is not necessarily related directly to home literacy resources or to how those resources are used. Further, the data show that the level of print resources in the home may not be a good indicator of the level of use of those resources.

Building and construction industries supply chain project (domestic) : report for Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science and Resources

The Commonwealth Department of Industry, Science and Resources is identifying best practice case study examples of supply chain management within the building and construction industry to illustrate the concepts, innovations and initiatives that are at work. The projects provide individual enterprises with examples of how to improve their performance, and the competitiveness of the industry as a whole.

Excess power circulation in distribution networks containing distributed energy resources

The presence of large number of single-phase distributed energy resources (DERs) can cause severe power quality problems in distribution networks. The DERs can be installed in random locations. This may cause the generation in a particular phase exceeds the load demand in that phase. Therefore the excess power in that phase will be fed back to the transmission network. To avoid this problem, the paper proposes the use of distribution static compensator (DSTATCOM) that needs to be connected at the first bus following a substation. When operated properly, the DSTATCOM can facilitate a set of balanced current flow from the substation, even when excess power is generated by DERs. The proposals are validated through extensive digital computer simulation studies using PSCAD and MATLAB.

Does occupational aggregation matter in determining the size of the gender wage gap?

The traditional decomposition of the gender wage gap distinguishes between a component attributable to gender differences in productivity-related characteristics and a residual component that is often taken as a measure of discrimination. This study of data from the 1989 Canadian Labour Market Activity Survey shows that when occupation is treated as a productivity-related characteristic, the proportion of the gender wage gap labeled explained increases with the number of occupational classifications distinguished. However, on the basis of evidence that occupational differences reflect the presence of barriers faced by women attempting to enter male-dominated occupations, the authors conclude that occupation should not be treated as a productivity-related characteristic; and in a decomposition of the gender wage gap that treats occupation as endogenously determined, they find that the level of occupational aggregation has little effect on the size of the "explained" component of the gap.

Enabling access to and re-use of publicly funded research data as Open Educational Resources : a strategy for overcoming the legal barriers to data access and re-use

Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials that have been released under an open licence that permits online access and re-use by others. The 2012 Paris OER Declaration encourages the open licensing of educational materials produced with public funds. Digital data and data sets produced as a result of scientific and non-scientific research are an increasingly important category of educational materials. This paper discusses the legal challenges presented when publicly funded research data is made available as OER, arising from intellectual property rights, confidentiality and information privacy laws, and the lack of a legal duty to ensure data quality. If these legal challenges are not understood, addressed and effectively managed, they may impede and restrict access to and re-use of research data. This paper identifies some of the legal challenges that need to be addressed and describes 10 proposed best practices which are recommended for adoption to so that publicly funded research data can be made available for access and re-use as OER.

International students using online information resources to learn : complex experience and learning needs

This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study which investigated 25 international students’ use of online information resources for study purposes at two Australian universities. Using an expanded critical incident approach, the study viewed international students through an information literacy lens, as information-using learners. The findings are presented in two complementary parts: as a word picture that describes their whole experience of using online information resources to learn; and as a tabulated set of critical findings that summarises their associated information literacy learning needs. The word picture shows international students’ resource use as a complex interplay of eight inter-related elements: students; information-learning environment; interactions (with online resources); strengths-challenges; learning-help; affective responses; reflective responses; cultural-linguistic dimensions. In using online resources, the international students experience an array of strengths and challenges, and an apparent information literacy imbalance between their more developed information skills and less developed critical information use. The critical findings about information literacy needs provide a framework for developing an inclusive informed learning approach that responds to international students’ complex information using experiences and needs. While the study is situated in Australia, the findings are of potential interest to educators, information professionals and researchers worldwide who seek to support learning in culturally diverse higher education contexts.

Engineering across cultures : new learning resources for intercultural competency in engineering

BACKGROUND The work described in this paper has emerged from an ALTC/OLT funded project, Exploring Intercultural Competency in Engineering. The project indentified many facets of culture and intercultural competence that go beyond a culture-as-nationality paradigm. It was clear from this work that resources were needed to help engineering educators introduce students to the complex issues of culture as they relate to engineering practice. A set of learning modules focussing on intercultural competence in engineering practice were developed early on in the project. Through the OLT project, these modules have been expanded into a range of resources covering various aspects of culture in engineering. Supporting the resources, an eBook detailing the ins and outs of intercultural competency has also been developed to assist engineering educators to embed opportunities for students to develop skills in unpacking and managing cross-cultural challenges in engineering practice. PURPOSE This paper describes the key principles behind the development of the learning modules, the areas they cover and the eBook developed to support the modules. The paper is intended as an introduction to the approaches and resources and extends an invitation to the community to draw from, and contribute to this initial work. DESIGN/METHOD A key aim of this project was to go beyond the culture-as-nationality approach adopted in much of the work around intercultural competency (Deardorff, 2011). The eBook explores different dimensions of culture such as workplace culture, culture’s influence on engineering design, and culture in the classroom. The authors describe how these connect to industry practice and explore what they mean for engineering education. The packaged learning modules described here have been developed as a matrix of approaches moving from familiar known methods through complicated activities relying to some extent on expert knowledge. Some modules draw on the concept of ‘complex un-order’ as described in the ‘Cynefin domains’ proposed by Kurtz and Snowden (2003). RESULTS Several of the modules included in the eBook have already been trialled at a variety of institutions. Feedback from staff has been reassuringly positive so far. Further trials are planned for second semester 2012, and version 1 of the eBook and learning modules, Engineering Across Cultures, is due to be released in late October 2012. CONCLUSIONS The Engineering Across Cultures eBook and learning modules provide a useful and ready to employ resource to help educators tackle the complex issue of intercultural competency in engineering education. The book is by no means exhaustive, and nor are the modules, they instead provide an accessible, engineering specific guide to bringing cultural issues into the engineering classroom.

Coping resources, coping strategies and adaptation to organisational change : direct or buffering effects?

This study examined the effects of personal and social resources, coping strategies and appraised stress on employees' levels of anxiety and depression. In relation to the effects of resources and coping strategies, two different models were tested. The main effects model proposes that, irrespective of the level of stress, coping resources and coping strategies have direct effects on well-being. In contrast, the buffering model predicts that the buffering effects of coping resources and strategies are only evident at high levels of stress. One hundred lawyers completed a structured self-administered questionnaire that measured their personal and social resources, use of problem-focused and emotion-focused coping strategies, and appraisals of the stressfulness of the situation. Results revealed generally strong support for the main effects model in the prediction of employee levels of anxiety and depression. Lower levels of anxiety were linked to judgements of lower levels of organizational change, greater self-confidence, greater internality of control beliefs and less use of emotion-focused coping strategies. Lower levels of depression in employees were also linked to judgements of lower levels of organizational change, greater use of resources and less appraised stress. There was only limited support for the buffering effects model. Due to the small size of the sample, the findings need to be explored further in other contexts.