Revitalizing health for all : international Indigenous representative group. Learning from the experience of comprehensive primary health care in Aboriginal Australia — A commentary on three projects

This paper presents a regional commentary (hereafter ‘the commentary’) on the three Australian projects of the Teasdale-Corti Global Health Research Partnership Program. The three Australian projects are: Victorian Aboriginal Health Service Ltd (VAHS), Melbourne, Victoria—Forty Years of Comprehensive Primary Health Care; Central Australian Aboriginal Congress Inc. (Congress), Alice Springs, Northern Territory—Ingkintja, Male Health Program; and Urapuntja Health Service (UHS), Utopia, Northern Territory—Outstation Health Care. It highlights common themes and lessons in respect to the Revitalising Health for All project in the context of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health in Australia.

Open problems in the security of learning

Machine learning has become a valuable tool for detecting and preventing malicious activity. However, as more applications employ machine learning techniques in adversarial decision-making situations, increasingly powerful attacks become possible against machine learning systems. In this paper, we present three broad research directions towards the end of developing truly secure learning. First, we suggest that finding bounds on adversarial influence is important to understand the limits of what an attacker can and cannot do to a learning system. Second, we investigate the value of adversarial capabilities-the success of an attack depends largely on what types of information and influence the attacker has. Finally, we propose directions in technologies for secure learning and suggest lines of investigation into secure techniques for learning in adversarial environments. We intend this paper to foster discussion about the security of machine learning, and we believe that the research directions we propose represent the most important directions to pursue in the quest for secure learning.

Ensuring student success : the role of support services in improving the quality of the student learning experience

This paper is based on the premise that universities have an obligation to provide adequate student support services, such as learning assistance (that is, assistance with academic writing and other study skills) and that in order to be effective such services must be responsive to the wider policy and social implications of student attrition and retention. The paper outlines briefly some of the factors that have influenced the development of learning assistance practices in Australia and America. This is followed by an account of experiences at one Australian metropolitan university where learning assistance service provision shifted from a decentralised, faculty-based model to a centralised model of service delivery. This shift was in response to concerns about lack of quality and consistency in a support model dependent upon faculty resources yet a follow up study identified other problems in the centralised delivery of learning assistance services. These problems, clustered under the heading contextualised versus decontextualised learning assistance, include the relevance of generic learning assistance services to students struggling with specific course related demands; the apparent tensions between challenging students and assisting students at risk of failure; and variations in the level of collaboration between learning advisers and academic staff in supporting students in the learning environment. These problems are analysed using the theoretical modelling derived from the tools made available through cultural historical activity theory and expansive visibilisation (Engeström & Miettinen, 1999).

The association between playgroup participation, learning competence and social-emotional wellbeing for children aged 4-5 years in Australia

Data from Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children is used to examine the associations between playgroup participation and the outcomes for children aged 4 to 5 years. Controlling for a range of socio-economic and family characteristics, playgroup participation across the ages of 0-3 years was used to predict learning competence and social-emotional functioning outcomes at age 4-5 years. For learning competence, both boys and girls from disadvantaged families scored 3-4% higher if they attended playgroup when aged 0-1 and 2-3 years compared to boys and girls from disadvantaged families who did not attend playgroup. For social and emotional functioning, girls from disadvantaged families who attended playgroup when they were aged 0-1 and 2-3 years scored nearly 5% higher than those who did not attend. Demographic characteristics also showed that disadvantaged families were the families least likely to access these services. Despite data limitations, this study provides evidence that continued participation in playgroups is associated with better outcomes for children from disadvantaged families.

ICT for blended learning Queensland University of Technology, Australia

This report focuses on blended learning within the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) which is one of Australia’s largest public universities. Although the university in its current format was established in 1989, it contains several previous institutions that can be traced to the earliest forms of technical and teacher education in Queensland in the 19th century (Kyle et al., 1999). The focal point of the report is the experience of QUT’s Faculty of Education which was formed from the amalgamation of several teacher training colleges servicing pre-school and kindergarten, primary and secondary teacher education. While the broader university currently employs approximately 4,000 staff and has about 40,000 students, QUT’s Faculty of Education employs around 170 staff and has approximately 5,000 enrolled students. The Faculty of Education at QUT is the largest provider of pre-service teacher education in Australia and is one of the largest producers of educational research. A major theme of the Faculty of Education is its focus on education and research that provides teachers, schools and educational authorities with practical solutions to the multifaceted issues facing contemporary education.

The case for ICT work-integrated learning from graduates in the workplace

An online survey of recent ICT graduates in the workplace was carried out as part of a recent project funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council. The survey was concerned with the ICT curriculum in relation to workplace job requirements and university preparation for these requirements. The survey contained quantitative and qualitative components and findings from the former have been published (Koppi et al., 2009). This paper reports on a quantitative comparison of responses from graduates who had workplace experience and those who did not, and a qualitative analysis of text responses from all ICT graduates to open-ended questions concerning the curriculum and their perceived university preparation for the workplace. The overwhelming response from ICT graduates in the workplace was for more industry related learning. These industry relationships included industry involvement, workplace learning and business experience, up-to-date teaching and technologies, practical applications, and real-world activities. A closer relationship of academia and industry was strongly advocated by ICT graduates in the workplace.

Managing open incremental process innovation : absorptive capacity and distributed learning

In this conceptual article, we extend earlier work on Open Innovation and Absorptive Capacity. We suggest that the literature on Absorptive Capacity does not place sufficient emphasis on distributed knowledge and learning or on the application of innovative knowledge. To accomplish physical transformations, organisations need specific Innovative Capacities that extend beyond knowledge management. Accessive Capacity is the ability to collect, sort and analyse knowledge from both internal and external sources. Adaptive Capacity is needed to ensure that new pieces of equipment are suitable for the organisation's own purposes even though they may have been originally developed for other uses. Integrative Capacity makes it possible for a new or modified piece of equipment to be fitted into an existing production process with a minimum of inessential and expensive adjustment elsewhere in the process. These Innovative Capacities are controlled and coordinated by Innovative Management Capacity, a higher-order dynamic capability.

Learning in and beyond small business advisory programmes

The purpose of this paper is to analyse how participants learn in small business advisory programmes and to explore the impact of these learning programmes on the development of reflective learning dispositions in participants. The research involves two case studies of small business advisory programmes in Queensland, a state of Australia. One involves training in the use of GPS/GIS technology amongst rural SMEs and the other seeks to develop improved management and operational capabilities in regional and metropolitan manufacturing SMEs. Face to face semi-structured interviews were conducted throughout rural, regional and metropolitan Queensland with participants, trainers and senior executives in the administering organisations that ran the programmes. Learning in these programmes occurs through a combination of interaction with others and the adoption of practice-based and learner-centred processes. The impact of the programmes on participants includes the development of reflective learning dispositions, improved confidence in learning and appreciation of the value of new knowledge to their business. The research suggests that small business training programmes have the potential to affect the development of critical reflective learning dispositions in participants which is of fundamental importance to the development of a learning or knowledge economy.

Building community resilience – learning from the 2011 floods in Southeast Queensland, Australia

The year 2010 was the wettest year on record for Queensland, Australia and the wettest year since 1974 for Southeast Queensland. The extremely heavy rain in early January 2011 fell on the catchments of heavily saturated Brisbane and Stanley Rivers systems resulting in significant runoff which rapidly produced a widespread and devastating flood event. The area of inundation was equivalent to the total land area of France and Germany combined. Over 200,000 people were affected leaving 35 people dead and 9 missing. The damage bill was estimated at over $1B and cost to the economy at over $10B with over 30,000 homes and 6,000 business flooded and 86 towns and regional centres affected. The need to disburse disaster funding in a prompt manner to the affected population was paramount to facilitate individuals getting their lives back to some normality. However, the payout of insurance claims has proved to be a major area of community anger. The ongoing impasse in payment of insurance compensation is attributed to the nature and number of claims, confusing definition of flooding and the lack or accuracy of information needed to determine individually the properties affected and legitimacy of claims. Information was not readily available at the micro-level including, extent and type of inundation, flood heights at property level and cause of damage. Events during the aftermath highlighted widespread community misconceptions concerning the technical factors associated with the flood event and the impact of such on access to legitimate compensation and assistance. Individual and community wide concerns and frustration, anger and depression, have arisen resulting from delays in the timely settlement of insurance claims. Lessons learnt during the aftermath are presented in the context of their importance as a basis for inculcating communities impacted by the flood event with resilience for the future.

Learning how to be responsive to public policy issues affecting SSSI members

Human survival depends on human ingenuity in using resources at hand to sustain human life. The historical record – in wrings and archaeological artefacts – provides evidence of the growth and collapse of political organisations and societies. In the institutions of Western civilisation, some traditions have endured over millennia where the roles of monarchs and public officials have been organised in perpetual succession. These roles were developed as conventions in the British Parliament after 1295 and provided the models of corporate governance in both public and private enterprise that have been continuously refined to the present day. In 2011, the Queensland Parliament legislated to introduce a new and more open system of scrutiny of legislation through a system of portfolio-based parliamentary committees. The committees began to function more actively in July 2012 and have inviting submissions from stakeholders and experts in a structured way to consider the government’s priorities in its legislative programme. The questions now are whether the Surveying and Spatial Sciences can respond expertly to address the terms of reference and meet the timetables of the various parliamentary committees. This paper discusses some of the more important and urgent issues that deserve debate that the profession needs to address in becoming more responsive to matters of public policy.

Learning and assessment in Australia

Camp Kilda (CK) is regarded as being a quality early childhood center, and has many features you would typically expect to see in settings across Australia. The children are busily engaged in hands-on activity, playing indoors and outdoors, in the sandpit, under the shade of a big mango tree. The learning environment is planned to offer a variety of activities, including dramatic play, climbing equipment, balls, painting, drawing, clay, books, blocks, writing materials, scissors, manipulative materials. The children are free to access all the materials, and they play either individually or in small groups. The teachers encourage and stimulate the children’s learning, through interactions and thoughtful planning. Learning and assessment at CK is embedded within the cultural and social contexts of the children and their community. Children’s learning is made visible through a rich variety of strategies, including recorded observations, work samples, photographs, and other artifacts. Parents are actively encouraged to build on these “stories” of their children. Planning is based around the teachers’ analysis of the information they gather daily as they interact with the children and their families.

Strategies for gaining and maintaining academic support for the institutional open access repository

The impact of research can be measured by use or citation count. The more widely available that research outputs are; the more likely they are to be used, and the higher the impact. Making the author-manuscript version of research outputs freely available via the institutional repository greatly increases the availability of research outputs and can increase the impact. QUT ePrints, the open access institutional repository of research outputs at Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, was established in 2003 and is managed by the QUT Library. The repository now contains over 39,000 records. More than 21,000 of these records have full-text copies attached as result of continuous effort to maintain momentum and encourage academic engagement. The full-text deposit rate has continued to increase over time and, in 2012 (August, at the time of writing), 88% of the records for works published in 2012 provide access to a full-text copy. Achieving success has required a long term approach to collaboration, open access advocacy, repository promotion, support for the deposit process, and ongoing system development. This paper discusses the various approaches adopted by QUT Library, in collaboration with other areas of the University, to achieve success. Approaches include mainstreaming the repository via having it report to the University Research and Innovation Committee; regular provision of deposit rate data to faculties; championing key academic supporters; and holding promotional competitions and events such as during Open Access Week. Support and training is provided via regular deposit workshops with academics and faculty research support groups and via the provision of online self-help information. Recent system developments have included the integration of citation data (from Scopus and Web of Science) and the development of a statistical reporting system which incentivise engagement.