Efficiency of knowledge integration in enterprise systems implementation

Recent literature has emphasized the pivotal role of knowledge integration in Enterprise Systems (ES) success. This research-in-progress paper, building upon Knowledge Based Theory of the firm (KBT), examines the efficiency of knowledge integration in the context of ES implementation and identifies the factors contributing to its enhancement. The proposed model in this paper suggests that the efficiency of knowledge integration in an ES implementation process depends upon the level of common knowledge and the level of coordination in the ES adopting organization. It further suggests that the level of common knowledge can be enhanced by proper training, improving ES users’intrinsic and extrinsic motivations and business process modeling and the level of coordination can be improved by articulating a clear unified organizational goal for the ES adoption in the organization, forming a competent ES team, enhancing interdepartmental communication and the cross-functionality in the organization structure.

Validating a screening tool for mental health and substance use risk in an Indigenous prison population

Introduction and Aims: The Indigenous Risk Impact Screen (IRIS) is a validated culturally appropriate and widely used tool in the community for assessing substance use and mental disorder. This research aimed to assess the utility of this tool in an Indigenous prison population. Design and Methods: The study used data collected from a cross-sectional study of mental health among indigenous inmates in Queensland custodial centres (n=395, 84% male). Participants were administered a modified version of the IRIS, and ICD-10 diagnoses of substance use, depressive and anxiety disorders obtained using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). The concurrent validity of the modified IRIS was assessed against those of the CIDI. Results: 312 people screened as high risk for a substance use disorder and 179 were high risk for mental problems. 73% of males and 88% of females were diagnosed with a mental disorder. The IRIS was an effective screener for substance use disorders, with high sensitivity (Se) of 94% and low specificity (Sp) of 33%. The screener was less effective in identifying depression (Se 82%, Sp 59%) and anxiety (Se 68%, Sp 60%). Discussion: The IRIS is the first culturally appropriate screening instrument to be validated for the risk of drug and alcohol and mental disorder among Indigenous adults in custody. Conclusions: This study demonstrated that the IRIS is a valid tool for screening of alcohol and drug use risk among an incarcerated Indigenous population. The IRIS could offer an opportunity to improve the identification, treatment and health outcomes for incarcerated Indigenous adults.

Strategies for mentoring pedagogical knowledge

Fundamental for mentoring a preservice teacher is the mentor’s articulation of pedagogical knowledge, which in this research draws upon specific practices, viz: planning, timetabling lessons, preparation, teaching strategies, content knowledge, problem solving, questioning, classroom management, implementation, assessment, and viewpoints for teaching. Mentoring is haphazard; consequently mentors need a pedagogical knowledge framework and a repertoire of pedagogical knowledge strategies to guide a preservice teacher’s development. Yet, what are strategies for mentoring pedagogical knowledge practices? This qualitative research investigates mentoring strategies assigned to pedagogical knowledge from 27 experienced mentor teachers. Findings showed that there were multiple strategies that can be linked to specific pedagogical knowledge practices. For example, mentoring strategies associated with planning for teaching can include co-planning, verbally reflecting on planning with the mentee, and showing examples of the mentor teacher’s planning (e.g., teacher’s plans, school plans, district and state plans). This paper provides a bank of practical strategies for mentoring pedagogical knowledge practices to assist a preservice teacher’s development.

Combining elicited expert knowledge into Bayesian priors

Information that is elicited from experts can be treated as `data', so can be analysed using a Bayesian statistical model, to formulate a prior model. Typically methods for encoding a single expert's knowledge have been parametric, constrained by the extent of an expert's knowledge and energy regarding a target parameter. Interestingly these methods have often been deterministic, in that all elicited information is treated at `face value', without error. Here we sought a parametric and statistical approach for encoding assessments from multiple experts. Our recent work proposed and demonstrated the use of a flexible hierarchical model for this purpose. In contrast to previous mathematical approaches like linear or geometric pooling, our new approach accounts for several sources of variation: elicitation error, encoding error and expert diversity. Of interest are the practical, mathematical and philosophical interpretations of this form of hierarchical pooling (which is both statistical and parametric), and how it fits within the subjective Bayesian paradigm. Case studies from a bioassay and project management (on PhDs) are used to illustrate the approach.

The impact of 'doomed race' assumptions in the administration of Queensland's Indigenous population by the Chief Protectors of Aboriginals from 1897 to 1942

This thesis researched how the anthropological claims of the Aborigines as a 'doomed race' in the decades between 1850 and 1870 became embedded and manifested in pervasive ideologies forming the racist protectionist policies framed in Queensland's Aboriginals Protection and Restriction of the Sale of Opium Act - 1897. Administering the Act was the government appointed Chief Protector of Aboriginals. Conferred with extraordinary powers, Chief Protectors acted and made decisions on behalf of successive governments who displayed little interest in Aboriginal affairs. Amendments to the Act between 1897 and 1939 reflected personal agendas and attitudes towards Aborigines by respective Chief Protectors. Conclusively, the research outcomes show that the 'doomed race' theory became a subterfuge for governments to mask society's racial prejudice against Indigenous peoples and allowed governments to dispossess the Indigenous people of their traditional lands without question from white settlers.

Knowledge transfer through dual degree programs between Australian and Indonesian universities : a case study

While dual degree programs (DDPs) between Australian and Indonesian universities are expected to facilitate knowledge transfer (KT) between the partnering universities, little is known about how and what KT process taking place within DDP partnerships. Using an inter-organisational KT framework, this study investigated Indonesian universities’ rationales and outcomes of establishing DDPs and mechanisms facilitating knowledge transfer between Australian and Indonesian universities. Two Indonesian universities along with their common Australian partner university participated in this case study. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 27 key university officers and pertinent university documents provided the main data. Both data sources were thematically analysed to identify emerging patterns. The findings suggest that Indonesian universities prioritised developing capacity to improve their international recognition more than the Australian partner. Consequently, the DDPs benefited the Indonesian universities through capacity development made possible by KT from the Australian DDP partners. KT processes occurred in DDP partnerships, particularly through curriculum collaboration, but they were more limited for the managerial area. Factors enabling the KT included both technology-aided and face-to-face communication, intention to acquire knowledge from the partners, capitalising on the unequal power relations to advance KT opportunities, and knowledge management system. The findings of this study suggest the importance of prioritising capacity development in DDP partnerships to enable KT, executing the KT stages to ensure institutionalisation of acquired knowledge into the university’s systems and policies, and maintaining financial sustainability of the DDPs to reach mutually beneficial outcomes between Australian and Indonesian universities.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in Australia, education and health literacy

Health literacy is a vital tool to build health knowledge and enable empowerment in health decision making at a community and individual level. There are different views of what constitutes health literacy with the most inclusive addressing broadly the skills and competencies required “to seek out, comprehend, evaluate, and use health information and concepts to make informed choices, reduce health risks, and increase quality of life” (Zarcadoolas 2005). Poor health literacy has been shown to impact health seeking behaviour, access and awareness to preventive health.

Mapping semantic knowledge for unsupervised text categorisation

Text categorisation is challenging, due to the complex structure with heterogeneous, changing topics in documents. The performance of text categorisation relies on the quality of samples, effectiveness of document features, and the topic coverage of categories, depending on the employing strategies; supervised or unsupervised; single labelled or multi-labelled. Attempting to deal with these reliability issues in text categorisation, we propose an unsupervised multi-labelled text categorisation approach that maps the local knowledge in documents to global knowledge in a world ontology to optimise categorisation result. The conceptual framework of the approach consists of three modules; pattern mining for feature extraction; feature-subject mapping for categorisation; concept generalisation for optimised categorisation. The approach has been promisingly evaluated by compared with typical text categorisation methods, based on the ground truth encoded by human experts.

Analyzing and defining information requirements of knowledge intensive construction management tasks on BIM

With the increasing popularity and adoption of building information modeling (BIM), the amount of digital information available about a building is overwhelming. Enormous challenges remain however in identifying meaningful and required information from a complex BIM model to support a particular construction management (CM) task. Detailed specifications of information required by different construction domains and expressive and easy-to-use BIM reasoning mechanisms are seen as an important means in addressing these challenges. This paper analyzes some of the characteristics and requirements of component-specific construction knowledge in relation to the current work practice and BIM-based applications. It is argued that domain ontologies and information extraction approaches, such as queries could significantly bring much needed support for knowledge sharing and integration of information between design, construction and facility management.

Indigenous/digital heterogeneities : an actor-network-theory approach

This thesis analysed the theoretical and ontological issues of previous scholarship concerning information technology and indigenous people. As an alternative, the thesis used the framework of actor-network-theory, especially through historiographical and ethnographic techniques. The thesis revealed an assemblage of indigenous/digital enactments striving for relevance and avoiding obsolescence. It also recognised heterogeneities- including user-ambivalences, oscillations, noise, non-coherences and disruptions - as part of the milieu of the daily digital lives of indigenous people. By taking heterogeneities into account, the thesis ensured that the data “speaks for itself” and that social inquiry is not overtaken by ideology and ontology.

Maintaining shared knowledge of acquaintance : methods people use to establish who knows whom

Acquaintance is a fundamental determinant of how people behave when interacting with one another. This article focuses on how this type of personal knowledge is an important consideration for people as social actors. Studying naturally-occurring social encounters, I describe how speakers use particular references to convey whether a recipient should be able to recognise a non-present third party. On some occasions, however, the presumption of recognisability or non-recognisability that underpins the use of a particular reference proves questionable. By exploring how recipients can challenge reference forms, and thereby reject claims of either recognisability or non-recognisability, I explain how people establish and maintain a shared understanding of who knows whom. I conclude by discussing motivations for this behaviour, and thereby contribute to understanding the commonsense reasoning that underpins orderly conduct in this aspect of social encounters.

Indigenous health: Embracing and enacting the spirit of change. Opening keynote address

In speaking at the Cardiac Society this morning, I am conscious of this year’s 60th Anniversary. It is 60 years since motivated and impassioned people travelled to form the organisation that became the Cardiac Society. They started an organisation and a movement of sorts which was joined by many others over the years and which brings us to this room on this morning. This started in 1952. What were you doing in 1952? Where you just born and for some of you were? Others here were not born and may be your parents hadn’t even met yet. I want you to gain a sense of this time, of 60 years ago.