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A graduate destination survey can provide a snap shot in time of a graduate's career progression and outcome. This paper will present the results of a Queensland University of Technology study exploring the employment outcomes of students who had completed a library and information science course from the Faculty of Information Technology between 2000 and 2008. Seventy-four graduates completed an online questionnaire administered in July 2009. The study found that 90% of the graduates surveyed were working and living in Queensland, with over three quarters living and working in Brisbane. Nearly 70% were working full-time, while only 1.4% indicating that they were unemployed and looking for work. Over 80% of the graduates identified themselves as working in "librarianship". This study is the first step in understanding the progression and destination of QUT's library and information science graduates. It is recommended that this survey becomes an ongoing initiative so that the results can be analysed and compared over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the stereotype of libraries as peaceful retreats, unacceptable behaviour is a reality that desk staff have to deal with. This paper outlines the results of two surveys conducted at Charles Darwin University Library to investigate the extent to which this is a problem in Australian academic libraries. The first survey went to CAUL (Council of Australian University Librarians) and the results made available via the CAUL website. As this survey was completed only by management, a second survey was conducted with front desk staff and via the Lending and Document Delivery Group of the Queensland University Libraries Office of Cooperation (QULOC). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The research project described in this paper was designed to explore the potential of a wiki to facilitate collaboration and to reduce the isolation of postgraduate students enrolled in a professional doctoral program at a Queensland university. It was also intended to foster a community of practice for reviewing and commenting on one another's work despite the small number of students and their disparate topics. The students were interviewed and surveyed at the beginning and during the face-to-face sessions of the course and their wikis were examined over the year to monitor, analyse and evaluate the extent to which the agency of the technology (wiki) mediated their development of scholarly skills. The study showed that students paradoxically eschewed use of the structured wiki and formed their own informal networks. This paper will contend that this paradox arose from a mismatch between the agency of technology and its intended purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities now have a lot to say about tertiary teaching. University policy, teaching units, and promotion criteria have a very specific understanding of good teaching within the academy. This case study of Queensland University of Technology (QUT) found that good teaching has two central features: it is necessarily student centred, and it is `innovative', a characteristic that, at QUT at least, is increasingly equated with the use of technology. This paper – based upon interviews with twenty-four QUT academics across three faculties (Education, Science, and Law), an analysis of QUT's teaching and learning policies, and some additional historical research – will suggest four things. First, that the concept of student centred learning, based on ideals of progressive education, is neither an historical inevitability nor theoretically unproblematic. Second, that irrespective of discipline, all lecturers espouse an underpinning `progressive' teaching philosophy, even though, in practice, teaching style appears to be determined primarily by subject-matter. Third, given that, in practice, the progressive model seems to suit some faculties and subject areas better than others (i.e. Education, as opposed to Science and Law) this has significant professional implications for the lecturers concerned. Finally, that rather than promoting a `progressive' pedagogy, the use of technology in teaching actually appears to reinforce traditional teaching techniques. Consequently, it is suggested that monolithic understandings of good teaching, when applied across the academy irrespective of context, are often inappropriate, ineffective and inequitous, and that universities need to think through their teaching policies and programmes more thoroughly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

First Person is a series of interviews with the first authors of a selection of papers published in Journal of Cell Science, helping early-career researchers promote themselves alongside their papers. Melisa Jovita Andrade is first author on 'RPA facilitates rescue of keratinocytes from UVB radiation damage through insulin-like growth factor-I signalling', published in JCS. Melisa Jovita is a joint PhD student in the lab of Professor K. Satyamoorthy at Manipal School of Life Sciences, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, Karnataka, India and Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, where her current research interests lie in understanding the cellular responses of skin cells to ultraviolet B radiation (UVBR) and the mechanistic pathways of cellular damage protection by growth factors in 2D and 3D photobiology human skin models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is widespread recognition that higher education institutions (HEIs) must actively support commencing students to ensure equity in access to the opportunities afforded by higher education. This role is particularly critical for students who because of educational, cultural or financial disadvantage or because they are members of social groups currently under-represented in higher education, may require additional transitional support to 'level the playing field.' The challenge faced by HEIs is to provide this 'support' in a way that is integrated into regular teaching and learning practices and reaches all commencing students. The Student Success Program (SSP) is an intervention in operation at the Queensland University of Technology (QUT) designed to identify and support those students deemed to be at risk of disengaging from their learning and their institution. Two sets of evidence of the impact of the SSP are presented: First, its expansion (a) from a one-faculty pilot project (Nelson et al. in Stud Learn Eval Innov Dev 6:1-15, ) to all faculties and (b) into a variety of applications mirroring the student life cycle; and second, an evaluation of the impact of the SSP on students exposed to it. The outcomes suggest that: the SSP is an example of good practice that can be successfully applied to a variety of learning contexts and student enrolment situations; and the impact of the intervention on student persistence is sustained for at least 12 months and positively influences student retention. It is claimed that the good practice evidenced by the SSP is dependent on its integration into the broader First Year Experience Program at QUT as an example of transition pedagogy in action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]