Doorway to research : Issues in the development of an interactive website for international graduate students

This paper describes results of a study evaluating the content, functionality and design features of an innovative online website called the Doorway to Research (http://rsc.acid.net.au/Main.aspx) , which was developed to support international graduate students studying at universities in Australia. First, the key features of the website are described. Second, the result of a pilot study involving 12 students and faculty members who tested key aspects of the design, content and functionality of the website and provided written and oral feedback base on task-based questions and focus group discussions are explored. Finally, recommendations for future development are presented. Results of the study indicate general student satisfaction with the website and its design, content and functionality, with specific areas identified for further development.

Scaffolding techniques : a teacher training for cooperative learning in Thailand primary education

In general, the benefits of using cooperative learning include academic achievement, communication skills, problem-solving, social skills and student motivation. Yet cooperative learning as a Western educational concept may be ineffective in a different learning system. The study aims to investigate scaffolding techniques for cooperative learning in Thailand primary education. The program was designed to foster Thai primary school teachers’ cooperative learning implementation that includes the basic tenets of cooperative learning and socio-cognitive based learning. Two teachers were invited to participate in this experimental teacher training program for one and a half weeks. Then the teachers implemented a cooperative learning in their mathematics class for six weeks. The data from teacher interview and classroom observation indicated that the both teachers are able to utilise questions to scaffold their students’ engagement in cooperative learning. This initiative study showed that difficulty or failure of implementing cooperative learning in Thailand education may not be derived from cultural difference. The paper discussed the techniques the participant teachers applied with proactive scaffolding, reactive scaffolding and scaffolding questions that can be used to facilitate the implementation of cooperative learning in Thai school.

Managing the project learning paradox : a set-theoretic approach toward project knowledge transfer

Managing project-based learning is becoming an increasingly important part of project management. This article presents a comparative case study of 12 cases of knowledge transfer between temporary inter-organizational projects and permanent parent organizations. Our set-theoretic analysis of these data yields two major findings. First, a high level of absorptive capacity of the project owner is a necessary condition for successful project knowledge transfer, which implies that the responsibility for knowledge transfer seems to in the first place lie with the project parent organization, not with the project manager. Second, none of the factors are sufficient by themselves. This implies that successful project knowledge transfer is a complex process always involving configurations of multiple factors. We link these implications with the view of projects as complex temporary organizational forms in which successful project managers need to cope with complexity by simultaneously paying attention to both relational and organizational processes.

Frock Paper Scissors [website]

Frock Paper Sissors (http://www.frockpaperscissors.com): curated web based fashion work. Research has focussed on creating a professional and ‘real world’ website (available in the international/public arena) while producing a high quality design and journalistic fashion medium. The hard copy Frock Paper Scissors magazine has been the focus of assessment in a Fashion and Style Journalism class for the last five years, and for the last three years, students from an Advanced Web Design class have been involved in the production of the accompanying web site, http://www.frockpapersissors.com. This project researches the ways in which synergies across design disciplines can be developed through student engagement on authentic design projects. The Frock Paper Scissors website is a curated collaboration of work from the Fashion,Journalism, Creative Industries and Communication Design discipline areas in the Creative Industries Faculty at Queensland University of Technology (QUT). Research focusses on how this authentic assessment task has been integrated into the two design (and communication)classes; discussing the different approaches taken by teaching staff, the challenges faced, and the ways in which student learning outcomes have been improved through interactions between design disciplines. The final curated work is a public/international website which successfully displays student work and engages students from different design (and creative industries) fields on an authentic design project within their studies.

An accessible method for teaching doctors about death certification

The World Health Organization recommends that data on mortality in its member countries are collected utilising the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death published in the instruction volume of the ICD-10. However, investment in health information processes necessary to promote the use of this certificate and improve mortality information is lacking in many countries. An appeal for support to make improvements has been launched through the Health Metrics Network’s MOVE-IT strategy (Monitoring of Vital Events – Information Technology) [World Health Organization, 2011]. Despite this international spotlight on the need for capture of mortality data and in the use of the ICD-10 to code the data reported on such certificates, there is little cohesion in the way that certifiers of deaths receive instruction in how to complete the death certificate, which is the main source document for mortality statistics. Complete and accurate documentation of the immediate, underlying and contributory causes of death of the decedent on the death certificate is a requirement to produce standardised statistical information and to the ability to produce cause-specific mortality statistics that can be compared between populations and across time. This paper reports on a research project conducted to determine the efficacy and accessibility of the certification module of the WHO’s newly-developed web based training tool for coders and certifiers of deaths. Involving a population of medical students from the Fiji School of Medicine and a pre and post research design, the study entailed completion of death certificates based on vignettes before and after access to the training tool. The ability of the participants to complete the death certificates and analysis of the completeness and specificity of the ICD-10 coding of the reported causes of death were used to measure the effect of the students’ learning from the training tool. The quality of death certificate completion was assessed using a Quality Index before and after the participants accessed the training tool. In addition, the views of the participants about accessibility and use of the training tool were elicited using a supplementary questionnaire. The results of the study demonstrated improvement in the ability of the participants to complete death certificates completely and accurately according to best practice. The training tool was viewed very positively and its implementation in the curriculum for medical students was encouraged. Participants also recommended that interactive discussions to examine the certification exercises would be an advantage.

Learning multidimensional joint control of a robot using receding horizon locally weighted regression

In this paper we explore the ability of a recent model-based learning technique Receding Horizon Locally Weighted Regression (RH-LWR) useful for learning temporally dependent systems. In particular this paper investigates the application of RH-LWR to learn control of Multiple-input Multiple-output robot systems. RH-LWR is demonstrated through learning joint velocity and position control of a three Degree of Freedom (DoF) rigid body robot.

Stop lecturing me, I want to learn

Re-evaluation of pedagogical practice is driving learning design at Queensland University of Technology. One objective is to support approaches to increase student engagement and attendance in physical and virtual learning spaces through opportunities for active and problem-based learning. This paper provides an overview and preliminary evaluation of the pilot of one of these initiatives, the Open Web Lecture (OWL), a new web-based student response application that seamlessly integrates a virtual learning environment within a physical learning space.

Learning by design workshop

The Learning by Design Workshop Program 2010, a part of the Queensland Government Unlimited: Designing for the Asia Pacific Event Program, was a one-day professional development design thinking workshop run on October 9, 2011 at The Edge, State Library of Queensland for self-selected public and private secondary school teachers from the subject areas of Visual Art, Graphics and Industrial Technology and Design. Participants were drawn from a database of Brisbane and regional Queensland schools from the goDesign and Living City Workshop Programs. It aimed to generate leadership within schools for design-led education and creative thinking and give teachers a rare opportunity to work with professional designers to generate future strategies for design-based learning. Teachers were introduced to the concept of design thinking in education by international keynote speakers CJ Lim (Studio 8 Architects) and Jeb Brugmann (The Next Practice), national speaker Oliver Freeman (NevilleFreeman Agency) and three Queensland speakers, Alexander Loterztain, David Williams and Keith Holledge. Inspired by the Unlimited showcase exhibition Make Change: Design Thinking in Action and ‘Idea Starters’/teaching resources provided, teachers worked with a professional designer (from a discipline of architecture, interior design, industrial design, urban design, graphic design or landscape architecture) in ten random teams, to generate optimistic ideas for the Ideal City of tomorrow, each considering a theme – Food, Water, Transport, Ageing, Growth, Employment, Shelter, Health, Education and Energy. They then discussed how this process could be best activated and expanded on to build interest and knowledge in design thinking in the classroom. Assisted by illustrators, the teams prepared a visual presentation of their ideas and process from art materials provided. The workshop culminated in a video-taped interactive design charette to the larger group, which is intended to be utilised as a toolkit and praxis for teachers as part of the State Library of Queensland Design Minds Website Project.

Teachers' conceptions of how to engage students through inquiry learning : foundations for STEM

The advocacy for inquiry-based learning in contemporary curricula assumes the principle that students learn in their own way by drawing on direct experience fostered by the teacher. That students should be able to discover answers themselves through active engagement with new experiences was central to the thinking of eminent educators such as Pestalozzi, Dewey and Montessori. However, even after many years of research and practice, inquiry learning as a referent for teaching still struggles to find expression in the average teachers' pedagogy. This study drew on interview data from 20 primary teachers. A phenomenographic analysis revealed three conceptions of teaching that support inquiry learning in science in the primary years of schooling: (a) The Experience-centred conception where teachers focused on providing interesting sensory experiences to students; (b) The Problem-centred conception where teachers focused on challenging students with engaging problems; and (c) The Question-centred conception where teachers focused on helping students to ask and answer their own questions. Understanding teachers' conceptions of teaching has implications for both the enactment of inquiry teaching in the classroom as well as the uptake of new teaching behaviours during professional development, with enhanced outcomes for engaging students in STEM.

Should we still lecture? Reconsidering pedagogical approaches to promote student engagement, challenging the traditional lecture

The dynamic interplay between existing learning frameworks: people, pedagogy, learning spaces and technology is challenging the traditional lecture. A paradigm is emerging from the correlation of change amongst these elements, offering new possibilities for improving the quality of the learning experience. For many universities, the design of physical learning spaces has been the focal point for blending technology and flexible learning spaces to promote learning and teaching. As the pace of technological change intensifies, affording new opportunities for engaging learners, pedagogical practice in higher education is not comparatively evolving. The resulting disparity is an opportunity for the reconsideration of pedagogical practice for increased student engagement in physical learning spaces as an opportunity for active learning. This interplay between students, staff and technology is challenging the value for students in attending physical learning spaces such as the traditional lecture. Why should students attend for classes devoted to content delivery when streaming and web technologies afford more flexible learning opportunities? Should we still lecture? Reconsideration of pedagogy is driving learning design at Queensland University of Technology, seeking new approaches affording increased student engagement via active learning experiences within large lectures. This paper provides an overview and an evaluation of one of these initiatives, Open Web Lecture (OWL), an experimental web based student response application developed by Queensland University of Technology. OWL seamlessly integrates a virtual learning environment within physical learning spaces, fostering active learning opportunities. This paper will evaluate the pilot of this initiative through consideration of effectiveness in increasing student engagement through the affordance of web enabled active learning opportunities in physical learning spaces.

Should we still lecture? Reconsidering pedagogical approaches to promote student engagement, challenging the traditional lecture

The dynamic interplay between existing learning frameworks: people, pedagogy, learning spaces and technology is challenging the traditional lecture. A paradigm is emerging from the correlation of change amongst these elements, offering new possibilities for improving the quality of the learning experience. For many universities, the design of physical learning spaces has been the focal point for blending technology and flexible learning spaces to promote learning and teaching. As the pace of technological change intensifies, affording new opportunities for engaging learners, pedagogical practice in higher education is not comparatively evolving. The resulting disparity is an opportunity for the reconsideration of pedagogical practice for increased student engagement in physical learning spaces as an opportunity for active learning. This interplay between students, staff and technology is challenging the value for students in attending physical learning spaces such as the traditional lecture. Why should students attend for classes devoted to content delivery when streaming and web technologies afford more flexible learning opportunities? Should we still lecture? Reconsideration of pedagogy is driving learning design at Queensland University of Technology, seeking new approaches affording increased student engagement via active learning experiences within large lectures. This paper provides an overview and an evaluation of one of these initiatives, Open Web Lecture (OWL), an experimental web based student response application developed by Queensland University of Technology. OWL seamlessly integrates a virtual learning environment within physical learning spaces, fostering active learning opportunities. This paper will evaluate the pilot of this initiative through consideration of effectiveness in increasing student engagement through the affordance of web enabled active learning opportunities in physical learning spaces.

Challenges of Measuring Learning Outcomes for Property Students Engaged in Work Integrated Learning

Work integrated learning (WIL) or professional practice units are recognised as providing learning experiences that help students make successful transitions to professional practice. These units require students to engage in learning in the workplace; to reflect on this learning; and to integrate it with learning at university. However, an analysis of a recent cohort of property economics students at a large urban university provides evidence that there is great variation in work based learning experiences undertaken and that this impacts on students’capacity to respond to assessment tasks which involve critiquing these experiences in the form of reflective reports. This paper highlights the need to recognise the diversity of work based experiences; the impact this has on learning outcomes; and to find more effective and equitable ways of measuring these outcomes. The paper briefly discusses assessing learning outcomes in WIL and then describes the model of WIL in the Faculty of Built Environment and Engineering at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT). The paper elaborates on the diversity of students’ experiences and backgrounds including variations in the length of work experience, placement opportunities and conditions of employment.For example, the analysis shows that students with limited work experience often have difficulty critiquing this work experience and producing high level reflective reports. On the other hand students with extensive, discipline relevant work experience can be frustrated by assessment requirements that do not take their experience into account. Added to this the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) has restricted both part time and full time placement opportunities for some students. These factors affect students’ capacity to a) secure a relevant work experience, b) reflect critically on the work experiences and c) appreciate the impact the overall experience can have on their learning outcomes and future professional opportunities. Our investigation highlights some of the challenges faced in implementing effective and equitable approaches across diverse student cohorts. We suggest that increased flexibility in assessment requirements and increased feedback from industry may help address these challenges.

E-learning : aging workforce versus technology-savvy generation

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide description and analysis of how a traditional industry is currently using e-learning, and to identify how the potential of e-learning can be realised whilst acknowledging the technological divide between younger and older workers. Design/methodology/approach – An exploratory qualitative methodology was employed to analyse three key questions: How is the Australian rail industry currently using e-learning? Are there age-related issues with the current use of e-learning in the rail industry? How could e-learning be used in future to engage different generations of learners in the rail industry? Data were collected in five case organisations from across the Australian rail industry. Findings – Of the rail organisations interviewed, none believed they were using e-learning to its full potential. The younger, more technologically literate employees are not having their expectations met and therefore retention of younger workers has become an issue. The challenge for learning and development practitioners is balancing the preferences of an aging workforce with these younger, more “technology-savvy”, learners and the findings highlight some potential ways to begin addressing this balance. Practical implications – The findings identified the potential for organisations (even those in a traditional industry such as rail) to better utilise e-learning to attract and retain younger workers but also warns against making assumptions about technological competency based on age. Originality/value – Data were gathered across an industry, and thus this paper takes an industry approach to considering the potential age-related issues with e-learning and the ways it may be used to meet the needs of different generations in the workplace.

Multimodal and monomodal discourses of marketization in higher education : power, ideology, and the absence of the image

The ubiquity of multimodality in hypermedia environments is undeniable. Bezemer and Kress (2008) have argued that writing has been displaced by image as the central mode for representation. Given the current technical affordances of digital technology and user-friendly interfaces that enable the ease of multimodal design, the conspicuous absence of images in certain domains of cyberspace is deserving of critical analysis. In this presentation, I examine the politics of discourses implicit within hypertextual spaces, drawing textual examples from a higher education website. I critically examine the role of writing and other modes of production used in what Fairclough (1993) refers to as discourses of marketisation in higher education, tracing four pervasive discourses of teaching and learning in the current economy: i) materialization, ii) personalization, iii) technologisation, and iv) commodification (Fairclough, 1999). Each of these arguments is supported by the critical analysis of multimodal texts. The first is a podcast highlighting the new architectonic features of a university learning space. The second is a podcast and transcript of a university Open Day interview with prospective students. The third is a time-lapse video showing the construction of a new science and engineering precinct. These three multimodal texts contrast a final web-based text that exhibits a predominance of writing and the powerful absence or silencing of the image. I connect the weightiness of words and the function of monomodality in the commodification of discourses, and its resistance to the multimodal affordances of web-based technologies, and how this is used to establish particular sets of subject positions and ideologies through which readers are constrained to occupy. Applying principles of critical language study by theorists that include Fairclough, Kress, Lemke, and others whose semiotic analysis of texts focuses on the connections between language, power, and ideology, I demonstrate how the denial of image and the privileging of written words in the multimodality of cyberspace is an ideological effect to accentuate the dominance of the institution.

Putting the Repository First: Implementing a Repository to RIS Workflow for QUT ePrints

As one of the first institutional repositories in Australia and the first in the world to have an institution-wide deposit mandate, QUT ePrints has great ‘brand recognition’ within the University (Queensland University of Technology) and beyond. The repository is managed by the library but, over the years, the Library’s repository team has worked closely with other departments (especially the Office of Research and IT Services) to ensure that QUT ePrints was embedded into the business processes and systems our academics use regularly. For example, the repository is the source of the publication information which displays on each academic’s Staff Profile page. The repository pulls in citation data from Scopus and Web of Science and displays the data in the publications records. Researchers can monitor their citations at a glance via the repository ‘View’ which displays all their publications. A trend in recent years has been to populate institutional repositories with publication details imported from the University’s research information system (RIS). The main advantage of the RIS to Repository workflow is that it requires little input from the academics as the publication details are often imported into the RIS from publisher databases. Sadly, this is also its main disadvantage. Generally, only the metadata is imported from the RIS and the lack of engagement by the academics results in very low proportions of records with open access full-texts. Consequently, while we could see the value of integrating the two systems, we were determined to make the repository the entry point for publication data. In 2011, the University funded a project to convert a number of paper-based processes into web-based workflows. This included a workflow to replace the paper forms academics used to complete to report new publications (which were later used by the data entry staff to input the details into the RIS). Publication details and full-text files are uploaded to the repository (by the academics or their nominees). Each night, the repository (QUT ePrints) pushes the metadata for new publications into a holding table. The data is checked by Office of Research staff the next day and then ‘imported’ into the RIS. Publication details (including the repository URLs) are pushed from the RIS to the Staff Profiles system. Previously, academics were required to supply the Office of research with photocopies of their publication (for verification/auditing purposes). The repository is now the source of verification information. Library staff verify the accuracy of the publication details and, where applicable, the peer review status of the work. The verification metadata is included in the information passed to the Office of Research. The RIS at QUT comprises two separate systems built on an Oracle database; a proprietary product (ResearchMaster) plus a locally produced system known as RAD (Research Activity Database). The repository platform is EPrints which is built on a MySQL database. This partly explains why the data is passed from one system to the other via a holding table. The new workflow went live in early April 2012. Tests of the technical integration have all been successful. At the end of the first 12 months, the impact of the new workflow on the proportion of full-texts deposited will be evaluated.