Search

This paper qualitative examines a holistic framework for teaching in the digital era. The examination is based on teachers' perspectives of their career, that is, what core features can be said to characterise teacher's practice, across contexts, cultures and subjects. Semi-structured interviews of expert teachers, specifically from Australia, Europe and the Latin-America, are the main data source. The design process sought to examine teachers' approaches to their professional definition and their agency to enact this, against a theoretically validated framework. Results indicated the emergence of three defining categories based on the validation and synthesis of the relationships between six elements in the theoretical model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many long-enduring coastal cultures, there are stories – sometimes mythologized – about times when pieces of land became separated from mainlands by submergence, a process that created islands where none existed before. Using examples from northwest Europe and Australia, this paper argues that many such stories recall times, often millennia ago, when sea level in the aftermath of the Last Glaciation (last ice age) was rising and transforming coastal landscapes and their human uses in exactly the ways these stories describe. The possibility that these may have arisen from eyewitness accounts of these transformative processes, hitherto thought to be understandable only by scientific (palaeoenvironmental) reconstructions, should encourage more systematic investigations of such stories by scientists. It also suggests that science has traditionally underestimated the capacity of oral (pre-literate) cultures to acquire, encode and sustain their observations of memorable events with a high degree of replication fidelity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the definition of a European perspective on Digital Earth (DE), identify some actions that can contribute to raise the awareness of DE in the European context and thus strengthen the European contribution to the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE). The paper identifies opportunities and synergies with the current policy priorities in Europe (Europe 2020, Innovation Union and Digital Agenda) and highlights a number of key areas to advance the development of DE from a European perspective: (1) integrating scientific research into DE; (2) exploiting the Observation Web with human-centred sensing; and (3) governance, including the establishment of stronger linkages across the European landscape of funding streams and initiatives. The paper is offered also as a contribution to the development of this new vision of DE to be presented at the next International DE Conference in Perth, Australia, in August 2011. The global recognition of this new vision will then reinforce the European component and build a positive feedback loop for the further implementation of DE across the globe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is a core element in Richard Florida's popular theory on growth to be able to attract the creative class to a geographical area. But Florida is not very specific on which kind of amenities are important for attracting and keeping the creative class. The purpose of this paper is to analyse which kind of cultural activities the creative class is actually using. Which kind of cultural activities does the creative class use more intensively than other groups in society? This paper presents new empirical results on preferences for leisure and culture. Richard Florida's theory can be, and has been, criticised - especially on the issue of causality. The analyses presented in this paper show that being part of the creative class has an independent and significant role in explaining preferences for leisure and culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper draws on a comparative study of the growth of data and the changing governance of education in Europe. It looks at data and the 'making' of a European Education Policy Space, with a focus on 'policy brokers' in translating and mediating demands for data from the European Commission. It considers the ways in which such brokers use data production pressures from the Commission to justify policy directions in their national systems. The systems under consideration are Finland, Sweden, and England and Scotland. The paper focuses on the rise of Quality Assurance and Evaluation mechanisms and processes as providing the overarching rationale for data demands, both for accountability and performance improvement purposes. The theoretical resources that are drawn on to enable interpretation of the data are those that suggest a move from governing to governance and the use of comparison as a form of governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Disparities in access to health care also extend to the end-of-life care. Despite the general principle that palliative care is equitably available for all in need, it remains underutilised by certain groups in the community. Ethnic minorities, older people and patients with non-cancer diseases are found to be at a greatest risk for underutilisation of palliative care. Barriers to access palliative care by these groups in the community are complex and often overlapping. To overcome these barriers, there is a need to take action on many fronts. This paper discusses these barriers and provides an overview of the strategies that have been implemented to address these issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the representation of Tenberry, a Ngaiwong man from Moorundie on the Murray River in South Australia, and his significant place in the colonial discourse of European settlement and race relations over the first decades of settlement. From around 1845, when he made his first public appearance in the engraved frontispiece to Edward John Eyre's journals of exploration, his image was circulated through explorer's narratives, pioneer reminiscences, evangelical propaganda, the developing colonial art scene, scientific collections, and popular press accounts. Producing and circulating stereotypes such as 'King' Tenberry and his 'manly' and 'amiable' son Warrulan systematically defined Indigenous Australia for British colonists; with all the power, clarity and seeming truth of visual imagery, these allowed them to see Tenberry as guardian of tradition and the past, in counterpoint to visions of Warrulan's future, whose 'capacity for improvement,' once removed from his people, gave settlers cause for hope. As these images travelled from Moorundie to the centres of Empire, they mapped a global visual economy that told the colonisers' story of progress, displacing the Indigenous people in imagined but powerful ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper starts by emphasising that final year engineering projects are regarded important in the training and education of professional engineers in Australia and Europe. The sources of projects available to students were also mentioned. Some Australian universities insist on individual projects but some not, each with their own reasons. However, it can be argued that all European universities run individual projects. In most cases, whether it is in Australia or Europe, the total load for final year engineering projects is about 6.25% of the load of engineering programmes. Assessment methods were also described. They were all different whether in Australia or Europe but not very significant. It was discovered that literature reviews, oral presentations and written reports or dissertations were important elements in the assessment schemes. Many university staff, in both continents, encouraged students to publish their work in international conferences and journals if the originality of the projects was high. It can be argued that the individual project is most effective in learning outcome; however, the cost involved is also very high and its sustainability in smaller universities in Australia is in doubt. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many parts of the world, higher education is viewed as a prime 'motor' for the development of a knowledge-based economy. Under the banner of this 'new economy', higher education policies, programmes and practices have been increasingly co-opted and shaped by wider geo-strategic political and economic interests. This paper explores three, interlinked, higher education policy spaces - in Europe, the United States, and Australia. It explores how the growing range of educational initiatives at the European level has affected - both directly and indirectly - American and Australian policymaking in higher education. The European higher education project, which is increasingly perceived as having some significance to the global economy, has set off a series of dynamic reactions in both Australia and the United States, which is leading to multiple new logics and new imaginaries about the global higher education landscape. Through this, a more integrated and relational global system of higher education is emerging. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The universal goal of medical education is to train excellent physicians, able to maintain the health of individuals and communities. The route to achieving this goal has shifted over time. This paper describes the absolutes and ambiguities of philosophical vision, responsiveness to stakeholders, curriculum content and delivery, and assessment of trainees and training programs across much of the developed world. Description: Traditional medical education is content focused and organized by organ systems. Newer curricula, informed by current learning theories, emphasize a competencies based approach, with clinical scenarios at the centre of teaching and assessment of students. Associated with this is a shift from the in-depth knowledge of the specialist to a 'what must a generalist know' approach. These models are explored as are options for curriculum delivery, input from governments, students, the public and faculty, and methods and importance of accreditation. Conclusion: The goals and the process of training physicians to achieve these exhibit numerous commonalities across time and place throughout the developed world while still allowing for cultural or national adaptations. All models and content aim for minimum basic knowledge, while emphasizing communication skills, cultural awareness and professionalism amongst future physicians. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While identity has long been a prominent focus of education, and religious education, in Europe and Britain, little explicit attention has been given to it in Australia, even though its importance as an educational goal is implied. This paper reports on a project concerned with 'education in identity' which attempted to address this imbalance. A generic notion of education in identity is developed, underpinned by a conceptualisation of identity and of what constitutes identity health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The practice of deliberately concealing garments within the structure of buildings is described. These finds provide a means of exploring how space was conceived and experienced in the past, and how these deliberately hidden garments mediated, and continue to mediate, the relationship between people and the spaces they occupied, and may continue to occupy. The Deliberately Concealed Garments Project was set up in 1998 to locate, document and analyze garments found hidden within buildings. Concealments have preserved many textiles in the UK, mainland Europe, Australia and North America. The significance of these caches rests not only in the finds themselves, as rare items of dress, but also because of what they reveal about perceptions of built space. The concealments are believed to serve a protective function, not against the weather or immodesty, but against incoming malevolent forces. As apotropaic (evil-averting) agents they protect from within rather than as outer coverings or internal divisions. The paper discusses how garments concealed within buildings transform space through the work of metaphor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article announces the launching of the "Education for Chemical Engineers" (ECE), an online journal from the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE), with the aim of becoming the principal international journal for chemical, process and biomolecular engineering education. ECE has been declared the official journal of the European Federation of Chemical Engineering. Doctor David Shallcross of the University of Melbourne, Australia, is the editor of the journal supported by an international editorial board. The journal has already established a global subscriber base and published papers from Europe, Australasia, and North America.