Learnings, case studies and guidelines for establishing shared and collaborative service delivery in the non-government sector: Evaluation of the Multi-Tenant Service Centre (MTSC) Pilots Project

This report presents learnings, case studies, guidelines and resources for non-government organisations that are planning to implement shared or collaborative arrangements with other agencies. It summarises results from an evaluation of the implementation phase of the Multi-Tenant Service Centre (MTSC) Pilots Project, which was completed in June 2008. This evaluation shows that developing and implementing shared and collaborative arrangements is a complex process that presents many risks, challenges and barriers to success, but can have many potential benefits for non government organisations. As this report makes clear, there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to this process. The MTSC Pilots Project was conducted by the Department of Communities (DoC), Queensland Government, as part of its Strengthening Non-Government Organisations strategy. The objective of the MTSC Pilots initiative was to co-locate separate service providers in an appropriately located centre, operating with effective and transparent management, which enabled service providers to improve client services. Three MTSC consortiums in Mackay, Caboolture and Toowoomba were selected as the pilots over a four year period from 2006 – 2010.

Making stories matter: Using participatory new media storytelling and evaluation to serve marginalised and regional communities

In this chapter, we draw on our experiences facilitating community storytelling workshops in regional Queensland in partnership with the Queensland branch of Oral History Association of Australia (OHAA Qld) in order to develop a best practice model for promoting creative approaches to recording oral narratives using digital tools, informed by creative writing practice and embedded evaluation (Klaebe 2012 & 2013). These experiences offer an insight into how creative approaches to training can facilitate the sharing and preservation of stories in regional communities.

Evaluation of knowledge management performance: An organic approach

Knowledge management (KM) strategy is the planned or actual coordination of a firm's major goals and learning in time; this coordination continually co-aligns the firm's knowledge-based resources with the environment. Based on the organic perspective of strategy, a KM performance evaluation approach should be able to 1) review the knowledge governance mechanisms and learning routines that underpin the KM strategy, as well as the performance outcomes driven by the strategy, and 2) predict the evolution of performance drivers and outcomes into the future to facilitate strategic planning. This study combined a survey study and a system dynamics (SD) simulation to demonstrate the transformation from a mechanistic to an organic perspective on KM strategy and performance evaluation. The survey study was conducted based on a sample of 143 construction contractors and used structural equation modeling (SEM) techniques to develop a KM performance index for reviewing the key elements that underpin KM strategy. The SD simulation predicted the development of KM strategy configurations and the evolution of KM performance over time. The organic KM performance evaluation approach demonstrated by this study has significant potential to improve the alignment of KM strategy within an increasingly dynamic business environment.

Bio-inspired plume tracking algorithm for UAVS

There is an increased interest on the use of UAVs for environmental research and to track bush fire plumes, volcanic plumes or pollutant sources. The aim of this paper is to describe the theory and results of a bio-inspired plume tracking algorithm. A memory based and gradient based approach, were developed and compared. A method for generating sparse plumes was also developed. Results indicate the ability of the algorithms to track plumes in 2D and 3D.

Reframe QUT's evaluation framework : a case study of planning, policy and positioning leading to educational best practice

Every university in Australia has a set of policies that guide the institution in its educational practices, however, the policies are often developed in isolation to each other. Now imagine a space where policies are evidence-based, refined annually, cohesively interrelated, and meet stakeholders’ needs. Is this happenstance or the result of good planning? Culturally, Queensland University of Technology (QUT) is a risk-averse institution that takes pride in its financial solvency and is always keen to know “how are we going?” With a twenty-year history of annual reporting that assures the quality of course performance through multiple lines of evidence, QUT’s Learning and Teaching Unit went one step further and strategically aligned a suite of policies that take into consideration the needs of their stakeholders, collaborate with other areas across the institution and use multiple lines of evidence to inform curriculum decision-making. In QUT’s experience, strategic planning can lead to policy that is designed to meet stakeholders’ needs, not manage them; where decision-making is supported by evidence, not rhetoric; where all feedback is incorporated, not ignored; and where policies are cohesively interrelated, not isolated. While many may call this ‘policy nirvana’, QUT has positioned itself to demonstrate good educational practice through Reframe, its evaluation framework. In this case, best practice was achieved through the application of a theory of change and a design-led logic model that allows for transition to other institutions with different cultural specificity. The evaluation approach follows Seldin’s (2003) notion to offer depth and breadth to the evaluation framework along with Berk’s (2005) concept of multiple lines of evidence. In summary, this paper offers university executives, academics, planning and quality staff an opportunity to understand the critical steps that lead to strategic planning and design of evidence-based educational policy that positions a university for best practice in learning and teaching.

Course evidence matrix : a collaborative evaluation using multiple lines of evidence

Welcome to the Evaluation of course matrix. This matrix is designed for highly qualified discipline experts to evaluate their course, major or unit in a systemic manner. The primary purpose of the Evaluation of course matrix is to provide a tool that a group of academic staff at universities can collaboratively review the assessment within a course, major or unit annually. The annual review will result in you being ready for an external curricula review at any point in time. This tool is designed for use in a workshop format with one, two or more academic staff, and will lead to an action plan for implementation. I hope you find this tool useful in your assessment review.

Examination of the properties of IMRT and VMAT beams and evaluation against pre-treatment quality assurance results

This study aimed to provide a detailed evaluation and comparison of a range of modulated beam evaluation metrics, in terms of their correlation with QA testing results and their variation between treatment sites, for a large number of treatments. Ten metrics including the modulation index (MI), fluence map complexity (FMC), modulation complexity score (MCS), mean aperture displacement (MAD) and small aperture score (SAS) were evaluated for 546 beams from 122 IMRT and VMAT treatment plans targeting the anus, rectum, endometrium, brain, head and neck and prostate. The calculated sets of metrics were evaluated in terms of their relationships to each other and their correlation with the results of electronic portal imaging based quality assurance (QA) evaluations of the treatment beams. Evaluation of the MI, MAD and SAS suggested that beams used in treatments of the anus, rectum, head and neck were more complex than the prostate and brain treatment beams. Seven of the ten beam complexity metrics were found to be strongly correlated with the results from QA testing of the IMRT beams (p < 0.00008). For example, Values of SAS (with MLC apertures narrower than 10 mm defined as “small”) less than 0.2 also identified QA passing IMRT beams with 100% specificity. However, few of the metrics are correlated with the results from QA testing of the VMAT beams, whether they were evaluated as whole 360◦ arcs or as 60◦ sub-arcs. Select evaluation of beam complexity metrics (at least MI, MCS and SAS) is therefore recommended, as an intermediate step in the IMRT QA chain. Such evaluation may also be useful as a means of periodically reviewing VMAT planning or optimiser performance.

A stakeholder process evaluation of a social marketing walking intervention targeting children

One quarter of Australian children are overweight or obese (ABS, 2010), putting them at increased risk of physical and psychological health problems (Reilly et al., 2003). Overweight and obesity in childhood tends to persist into adulthood and is associated with premature death and morbidity (Reilly & Kelly, 2011). Increases in Australian children’s weight have coincided with declines in active transportation, such as walking, to school (Salmon et al., 2005). To address this problem, the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth), which is an independent statutory authority which advises government and contributes to promoting good health in Victoria (VicHealth, 2014), developed the Walk to School program. Walk to School aims to encourage primary school children in Victoria to walk to and from school more often. Walking to school is a low cost and effective means of reducing excess weight (Rosenberg et al., 2006) that can be easily integrated into daily routine (Brophy et al., 2011). The purpose of this paper is to present the results of the stakeholder process evaluation of Walk to School 2013, which forms part of a broader outcome evaluation that is currently in field. Although there is an emphasis on outcome evaluation of programs, process evaluation can be equally important in determining program success (Saunders et al., 2005). Further, process evaluation to assess program delivery and utilization is explicitly recommended by two social marketing frameworks (see Lefebvre et al., 1988; Walsh et al., 1993).

Illuminative evaluation as a method applied to Australian Government policy borrowing and implementation in higher education

Any government deciding to invoke widespread change in its higher education sector through implementation of new policies impacts on every institution and all staff and students, often in both the time taken up and the heightened emotions caused. The central phenomenon that this study addresses is the process and consequences of policy changes in higher education in Australia. The aim of this article is to record the research design through the perspective (evaluation research), theoretical framework (program evaluation) and methods (content analysis, descriptive statistical analysis and bibliometric analysis) applied to the investigation of the 2003 federal government higher education reform package. This approach allows both the intended and unintended consequences arising from the policy implementation of three national initiatives focused on learning and teaching in higher education in Australia to surface. As a result, this program evaluation, also known in some disciplines as policy implementation analysis, will demonstrate the applicability of illuminative evaluation as a methodology and reinforce how program evaluation will assist and advise future government reform and policy implementation, and will serve as a legacy for future evaluative research.Any government deciding to invoke widespread change in its higher education sector through implementation of new policies impacts on every institution and all staff and students, often in both the time taken up and the heightened emotions caused. The central phenomenon that this study addresses is the process and consequences of policy changes in higher education in Australia. The aim of this article is to record the research design through the perspective (evaluation research), theoretical framework (program evaluation) and methods (content analysis, descriptive statistical analysis and bibliometric analysis) applied to the investigation of the 2003 federal government higher education reform package. This approach allows both the intended and unintended consequences arising from the policy implementation of three national initiatives focused on learning and teaching in higher education in Australia to surface. As a result, this program evaluation, also known in some disciplines as policy implementation analysis, will demonstrate the applicability of illuminative evaluation as a methodology and reinforce how program evaluation will assist and advise future government reform and policy implementation, and will serve as a legacy for future evaluative research.

An improved robust field weakening algorithm for direct torque controlled synchronous reluctance motor drives

This paper presents an improved field weakening algorithm for synchronous reluctance motor (RSMs) drives. The proposed algorithm is robust to the variations in the machine d- and q-axes inductances. The transition between the maximum torque per ampere (MTPA), current and voltage limits as well as the maximum torque per flux (MTPF) trajectories is smooth. The proposed technique is combined with the direct torque control method to attain a high performance drive in the field weakening region. Simulation and experimental results are supplemented to verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

A model-framed evaluation of elephant effects on tree and fire dynamics in African savannas

There is a concern that high densities of elephants in southern Africa could lead to the overall reduction of other forms of biodiversity. We present a grid-based model of elephant-savanna dynamics, which differs from previous elephant-vegetation models by accounting for woody plant demographics, tree-grass interactions, stochastic environmental variables (fire and rainfall), and spatial contagion of fire and tree recruitment. The model projects changes in height structure and spatial pattern of trees over periods of centuries. The vegetation component of the model produces long-term tree-grass coexistence, and the emergent fire frequencies match those reported for southern African savannas. Including elephants in the savanna model had the expected effect of reducing woody plant cover, mainly via increased adult tree mortality, although at an elephant density of 1.0 elephant/km2, woody plants still persisted for over a century. We tested three different scenarios in addition to our default assumptions. (1) Reducing mortality of adult trees after elephant use, mimicking a more browsing-tolerant tree species, mitigated the detrimental effect of elephants on the woody population. (2) Coupling germination success (increased seedling recruitment) to elephant browsing further increased tree persistence, and (3) a faster growing woody component allowed some woody plant persistence for at least a century at a density of 3 elephants/km2. Quantitative models of the kind presented here provide a valuable tool for exploring the consequences of management decisions involving the manipulation of elephant population densities. © 2005 by the Ecological Society of America.

A modified Density-Based Scanning Algorithm with Noise for spatial travel pattern analysis from Smart Card AFC data

Smart Card Automated Fare Collection (AFC) data has been extensively exploited to understand passenger behavior, passenger segment, trip purpose and improve transit planning through spatial travel pattern analysis. The literature has been evolving from simple to more sophisticated methods such as from aggregated to individual travel pattern analysis, and from stop-to-stop to flexible stop aggregation. However, the issue of high computing complexity has limited these methods in practical applications. This paper proposes a new algorithm named Weighted Stop Density Based Scanning Algorithm with Noise (WS-DBSCAN) based on the classical Density Based Scanning Algorithm with Noise (DBSCAN) algorithm to detect and update the daily changes in travel pattern. WS-DBSCAN converts the classical quadratic computation complexity DBSCAN to a problem of sub-quadratic complexity. The numerical experiment using the real AFC data in South East Queensland, Australia shows that the algorithm costs only 0.45% in computation time compared to the classical DBSCAN, but provides the same clustering results.