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The scope of institutional research (IR) undertaken in Australasian universities is progressively expanding. A traditional focus on student life cycle elements such as enrolment, retention and satisfaction has been complemented for some years now by other areas of focus including research performance and community engagement. More recently, university rankings and national policy-driven topics such as academic standards have joined the agenda. In Australia, performance-based funding for student outcomes has been introduced, to be joined by deregulation of the student market from 2012. In New Zealand, the reform agenda is more progressed in some respects, with the introduction of student demand-driven funding in the 1990s. Reasons for this broadening IR agenda in both countries include increased competitive pressures within the higher education sector, increased external scrutiny of institutions by regulators, funding bodies and rating agencies, and the development of more comprehensive performance indicator frameworks, both within institutions and by governments. At first pass, this menu of research topics and drivers might suggest that IR in Australasia has indeed "come of age". While this is clearly the case in terms of relevance, it is contestable whether this is also the case in terms of maturity and capacity: it is in this regard that practitioners risk "coming unstuck" (a reference to the theme of the AAIR 2010 Forum). This article explores these issues drawing on the experiences of two Australasian universities, one from each side of the Tasman Sea. The authors suggest that three types of factors--structural, process and cultural--influence the ability of institutions to maintain a sustainable and effective IR function and to undertake proactive analysis. They conclude that there is a range of tools now available to practitioners and leaders to allow their institutions to adjust to the new realities of the higher education sector. These tools point to a sustainable operating model for the future, focused on supporting strategic agenda-setting rather than conducting historical analysis. [This paper was first presented at the Annual Conference of the Australasian Association for Institutional Research, "Has institutional research come of age in Australia?," in Geelong, 10-12 November 2010.]

Academic standards and performance outcomes are a major focus of the current Cycle 2 Australian Universities Quality Agency (AUQA) audits. AUQA has clearly stated that universities will need to provide "evidence of setting, maintaining, and reviewing institutional academic standards and outcomes" (2010, p. 27). To do this, universities will need to have accurate and extensive data and analysis and will need to show how such data are used to drive improvement in standards across the institution. At the same time, the government's response to the Bradley review encourages and provides opportunity for universities to grow and diversify. However, the Hon Julia Gillard, Minister for Education, has explicitly stated that "if we have equity targets we must have quality targets" (2009, p. 1), and so while growth is expected, academic standards must not be compromised. Admission policies, programs and entry requirements will therefore play a growing role in meeting these objectives. Monash recruits students from a diverse range of educational and social backgrounds. The university has eight campuses, including two overseas and one in regional Australia, and a student population of which more than a third are international. Within this context, it is essential that admission standards are equitable and lead to comparable academic performance of students from a vast range of entry pathways. The Office of Planning & Quality at Monash University has therefore developed an extensive suite of processes for data collection, preparation and analysis to inform admissions-related decision-making. This article will outline the work undertaken to collect, prepare and disseminate a detailed set of admissions data that identifies the entry pathways and academic outcomes of the university's bachelor students. The resulting analytic work is also outlined and the statistical techniques used to assess equivalences between different qualifications are described. Finally, the use of this analysis by senior management to inform decision-making is also discussed. [This paper was first presented at the Annual Conference of the Australasian Association for Institutional Research, "Has institutional research come of age in Australia?," in Geelong, 10-12 November 2010.]

In this paper, a model and tool is proposed to assist universities and other mission-based organisations to ascertain systematically the optimal portfolio of projects, in any year, meeting the organisations risk tolerances and available funds. The model and tool presented build on previous work on university operations and decision support systems with an added robust process element to the task of reviewing projects that form part of a budget. In addition, the model and tool enable review of risk and return and assists universities and other organisations to determine the optimal mix of projects within a portfolio that provides the greatest financial return and the greatest contribution to the organisations mission. While the paper utilises key academic concepts, it has been created for practical use either inside or outside the budget cycle to assist decision-makers at universities and mission-based organisations. The aim has been to present in a manner to appeal to those with broad finance and accounting skills and to those with a more theoretical understanding of statistics.

The construction industry is contributing to the sustainability agenda through numerous strategies to improve energy efficiency in the design, materials, and operating conditions of buildings. However, this is only one driver of change in the construction sector. This article, which takes Australia as a case study, shows that many other drivers are also important. Among them are the growing importance of building information management systems, and the trend towards the factory manufacturing of components and onsite assembly in construction. Rather than see these as competing drivers of green construction, the article argues that the emphasis on soft skills in these drivers can be used, within the training context, to reinforce the sustainability and green skills agenda.

This paper investigates the users and uses of a centralised customer relationship management (CRM) system at a regional Australian university to improve the understanding of the staff experience of interacting with this customised technology. How and why the software is used by a cross section of university departments is explored through interviews and a review of student profiles. Findings emphasise the value CRM systems can provide to institutions in improving organisational responsiveness, decision-making, risk-management, inter-departmental communication and referrals and student progress. Issues and recommendations that staff identify include the need for wide integration across the institution, training improvements and institution or system-specific weaknesses and possible solutions.

This paper examines the global policy convergence toward high-stakes testing in schools and the use of test results to "steer at a distance", particularly as it applies to policy-makers' promise to improve teacher quality. Using Deleuze's three syntheses of time in the context of the Australian policy blueprint Quality Education, this paper argues that using test scores to discipline teaching repeats the past habit of policy-making as continuing the problem of the unaccountable teacher. This results in local policy-making enfolding test scores in a pure past where the teacher-as-problem is resolved through the use of data from testing to deliver accountability and transparency. This use of the database returns a digitised form of inspection that is a repetition of the habit of teacher-as-problem. While dystopian possibilities are available through the database, in what Deleuze refers to as a control society, for us the challenge is to consider policy-making as a step into an unknown future, to engage with producing policy that is not grounded on the unconscious interiority of solving the teacher problem, but of imagining new ways of conceiving the relationship between policy-making and teaching.

Lifeline Australia Inc. provides a free 24-hour telephone counselling and referral service to all Australians. The trained telephone counsellors of the service record information on many of their calls in Lifeline's Client Service Management Information System (CSMIS). This paper presents a descriptive summary of a national CSMIS data set, which was compiled during a 3-month period in 2003. The CSMIS data provided a clear national profile of the callers to the service. The results of this study support the hypothesis that callers are generally seeking social support from the service. The discussion explores the implications of this finding for Lifeline and other generalist counselling and referral services and their capacity to offer suicide intervention to the community. (Contains 2 figures and 2 tables.)

This evaluation-research feasibility study piloted the creation of a technology-mediated managed learning environment (MLE) involving the implementation of one of a new generation of instructionally driven management information systems (IMISs). The system, and supporting information and communications technology (ICT) was employed to support collaborative approaches to practicum supervision in a "borderless" manner. The generation and utilization of information by student teachers and their supervisors was monitored and evaluated in order to ascertain how teaching competence development and reflective practice could enhance professional decision-making in information-rich settings involving the use of IMIS technology. Patterns of communication across the triad of the university tutor-supervisor, school-based cooperating teacher and student teacher were investigated using a multi-site case study involving two schools and one university. The efficacy of the instructional information management system in supporting evidence-based practice by student teachers, and those who supervised them was also evaluated. (Contains 1 figure and 4 notes.)

FARM Cheque is a system that integrates technical and farm management advice to provide detailed accounting information to farmers. The program has recordkeeping, software, advisory, and database components. (SK)

The use of the institutional research function in higher education institutions in Australia is discussed. The importance of this function for active and long-range planning and information gathering is emphasized, and the organization of the information system--centralized or decentralized--is considered. (MSE)

Background: Electronic medical record (EMR) systems provide timely access to clinical information and have been shown to improve medication safety. However, EMRs can also create opportunities for error, including system-related errors or errors that were unlikely or not possible with the use of paper medication charts. This study aimed to determine the detection and mitigation strategies adopted by a health district in Australia to target system-related errors and to explore stakeholder views on strategies needed to curb future system-related errors from emerging. Methods: A qualitative descriptive study design was used comprising semi-structured interviews. Data were collected from three hospitals within a health district in Sydney, Australia, between September 2020 and May 2021. Interviews were conducted with EMR users and other key stakeholders (e.g. clinical informatics team members). Participants were asked to reflect on how system-related errors changed over time, and to describe approaches taken by their organisation to detect and mitigate these errors. Thematic analysis was conducted iteratively using a general inductive approach, where codes were assigned as themes emerged from the data. Results: Interviews were conducted with 25 stakeholders. Participants reported that most system-related errors were detected by front-line clinicians. Following error detection, clinicians either reported system-related errors directly to the clinical informatics team or submitted reports to the incident information management system. System-related errors were also reported to be detected via reports run within the EMR, or during organisational processes such as incident investigations or system enhancement projects. EMR redesign was the main approach described by participants for mitigating system-related errors, however other strategies, like regular user education and minimising the use of hybrid systems, were also reported. Conclusions: Initial detection of system-related errors relies heavily on front-line clinicians, however other organisational strategies that are proactive and layered can improve the systemic detection, investigation, and management of errors. Together with EMR design changes, complementary error mitigation strategies, including targeted staff education, can support safe EMR use and development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditional approaches to system management are not suited to highly uncertain conditions. Hard system approaches with a top‐down management approach are often used to manage well‐defined systems that are not easily able to cope with uncertainty. Soft system approaches of the with bottom‐up or participative style may cause a lack of conformance to industry standards. Few studies have investigated these approaches within the context of COVID‐19 pandemic. Therefore, this paper aims to use the philosophy of Total Systems Intervention to investigate the applicability of an integrated management approach to cope with the uncertainty of COVID‐19. Three different countries from Europe, Oceania and Asia are selected as typical case studies to clarify the strengths and weaknesses of differing management approaches. The case studies demonstrate that using an integrated management approach can potentially assist decision‐makers to deal with crises and conclusively reveal the superiority of the integrated approach, independent of cultural milieu. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What is known and objective: Australian hospitals have undergone a transformation with both a review and expansion of traditional roles of healthcare professionals and the implementation of an ieMR. The implementation of an ieMR brings large scale organizational change within the health system especially for staff with direct patient contact. This is changing the future of healthcare and the roles of healthcare professionals. There is minimal research on the impact of these electronic systems on the people and processes required to realise the improvements in patient care such as therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) and the role of the pharmacist within the TDM process. The literature has discussed the use of computerised programs to assist with the interpretation of results and calculating of doses but the impact of an ieMR on the TDM process has not been discussed. This study undertook a retrospective analysis at an Australian tertiary hospital to investigate the impact of a digital hospital system on TDM within the facility. Methods: A 2‐year retrospective audit was conducted on TDM at an Australian Tertiary Hospital. The periods were 2016 (a paper‐based hospital) and 2018 (ieMR). Patients were identified using the pathology database. Patients were excluded if under the age of 18, in an outpatient setting or the emergency department. Progress notes, medication charts, ieMR and other relevant pathology were reviewed. They were assessed for appropriateness of the timing of collection, compliance to recommended TDM guidelines, and pharmacist documentation. Results and Discussion: A total of 2926 observations were included in the analysis. There was as similar percentage of appropriately collected samples between the paper‐based system (2016) and the digital hospital system (2018) with 59% and 58% respectively. Results of logistic regression analysis models show the effect of year was not significant with regards to TDM for either a sample being appropriate or the dose adjustment being appropriate. Samples for TDM were more likely to be appropriate if the pharmacist had documented advice but less likely with regards to appropriate dose adjustment. This study considered the effect of introducing a hospital wide digital system on TDM processes. Overall, the results indicate no difference between the paper‐based system and ieMR for appropriate samples and doses adjustments. What is new and conclusion: To our knowledge, this is the first study of this kind looking at the impact of a digital hospital system on TDM. The introduction of a digital hospital system does not appear to have made improvement on the effective use of TDM. Inappropriate sampling as seen in this study can lead to ineffective clinical management of patients, inefficient use of time, and waste of financial resources. Further work is required to incorporate specific guidance and recommendations within the digital system to optimize TDM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Case-based learning (CBL) approaches are critical to the education of tomorrow's executives and managers. CBL instigates critical discussion, draws out relevant experiences from students, encourages questioning of accepted practices, and creates dialogue between theory and practice. There is unfortunately a lack of quality teaching resources to support CBL in information security management (ISM). In this paper, we address this need by developing, refining, and evaluating a teaching case of a hypothetical firm that suffers a catastrophic incident of intellectual property (IP) theft. Protecting IP is both complex and expensive as it involves developing enterprise-wide security mechanisms for the people, process, and technology dimensions of organizations. We drew the plot, narrative, characterization, dilemmas, and conflict from two landmark legal cases to focus on the three key areas of organizational security as defined by the joint task force on cybersecurity education—risk management, planning and strategy, and policy and governance. Our case was used to teach information security to Management Information Systems students enrolled in a Master's Degree at the University of Melbourne, Australia. We subsequently developed a survey instrument to measure the utility of the teaching instrument for teaching. Survey data collected across 2 consecutive years indicated that students strongly agreed that the teaching case was relevant, realistic, engaging, challenging, and instructional. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: In this study, the authors explore the boundaryless careers of faculty and adopt the intelligent career framework to examine success factors for academic careers. Design/methodology/approach: The authors conducted a field study of 36 researchers in the management information systems field from 22 institutions in the US, Australia and Canada. The authors selected the participants representing four strata of researchers: luminaries (high expertise status and high citizenship behavior), experts (high expertise status but low leadership roles), statesmen (low expertise status but high leadership) and journeymen (low expertise status and low leadership). Data regarding the participants' experience of social relationships and social resources as well as entrepreneurial motivations were collected and analyzed. Findings: Results show that faculty who "know-why", "know-how", and "know with whom" possess socially valued resources and are successful in advancing their careers. They establish high social status and exercise power within their networks to mobilize resources that promote their careers. On the other hand, faculty who fall short of these competencies impose social closure on themselves and do not strive to exploit resources available through their contacts. The study advances a number of theoretical propositions to guide future research on boundaryless intelligent careers. Social implications: Social relationships and social resources do not substitute individual competence, leadership and entrepreneurial motivations; individuals need to develop competence valued by their professional communities and exploit available opportunities and assume leadership roles in order to effectively establish instrumental relationships and mobilize social resources to achieve career advancement. Originality/value: In this study, we attempt to extend career development research through an examination of the bidirectional relationship between know-why, know-how and know-who in academia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective. Hospital emergency departments (ED) in Australia and internationally have been experiencing increased demand, resulting in reduced hospital quality, impaired access and adverse health outcomes. Effective evaluation of new ED service models and their effect on outcomes is reliant on baseline measures of the staffing configuration and organisational characteristics of the EDs being studied. The aim of the present study was to comprehensively measure these variables in Australian EDs. Methods. Australian hospital EDs with 24-h medical and nursing cover were identified and invited to participate in the study. Telephone interviews were conducted with nursing or medical department managers to collect data related to hospital characteristics, ED workforce and training and ED service and operational models. Results. Surveys were completed in87%of the population sample (n = 135). Metropolitan EDs were significantly more likely to retain higher full-time equivalents (FTEs) in several medical (staff specialist, registrar, resident and intern) and nursing (nurse practitioner (NP), nurse educator, nurse unit manager and registered nurse) positions. NPs were employed by 52% of Australian EDs overall, but this ranged from 40% to 75% depending on jurisdiction. The most commonly used operational models were FastTrack teams (72% of EDs), short-stay/observational unit (59%) and patient liaison models for aged care (84%) and mental health (61%). EDs that employed NPs were significantly more likely to use FastTrack (P = 0.002). Allied health services most frequently available within these EDs were radiology (60%), social work (69%), physiotherapy (70%) and pharmacy (65%). Conclusions. The present study has established a baseline measure of the staffing configuration and organisational characteristics of Australian EDs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes a decision model designed to help the Centrelink branch of the Australian Government Department of Human Services target investments in case coordination for high-need customers. The model uses a technique called multiple criteria analysis to score the investment priority of more than 1,000 geographic regions across Australia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Electronic prescribing is now the norm in many countries. We wished to find out if clinical software systems used by general practitioners in Australia include features (functional capabilities and other characteristics) that facilitate improved patient safety and care, with a focus on quality use of medicines. Methods: Seven clinical software systems used in general practice were evaluated. Fifty software features that were previously rated as likely to have a high impact on safety and/or quality of care in general practice were tested and are reported here. Results: The range of results for the implementation of 50 features across the 7 clinical software systems was as follows: 17-31 features (34-62%) were fully implemented, 9-13 (18-26%) partially implemented, and 9-20 (18-40%) not implemented. Key findings included: Access to evidence based drug and therapeutic information was limited. Decision support for prescribing was available but varied markedly between systems. During prescribing there was potential for medicine mis-selection in some systems, and linking a medicine with its indication was optional. The definition of 'current medicines' versus 'past medicines' was not always clear. There were limited resources for patients, and some medicines lists for patients were suboptimal. Results were provided to the software vendors, who were keen to improve their systems. Conclusions: The clinical systems tested lack some of the features expected to support patient safety and quality of care. Standards and certification for clinical software would ensure that safety features are present and that there is a minimum level of clinical functionality that clinicians could expect to find in any system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper seeks to examine the link between Knowledge Management (KM) and Quality Management (QM) with a particular focus on the role of a Quality Culture. The authors propose that as Knowledge Management reaches its maturity in terms of acceptance as an important part of doing business in the modern world, that quality will again become the mantra of successful companies. This time, however, quality will not only be defined in terms of the properties of the product and/or services that the organisation provides, but in a more holistic manner that is subject to rapid change and shifting customer preferences. This increasingly dynamic knowledge-driven environment will require companies to pay close adherence to quality in order to satisfy demand and stay ahead of the competition. A national survey of 1000 quality certified organisations in Australia was distributed with a 23% response rate. The survey asked questions pertaining to the organisations' use of Knowledge Management, their quality culture, as well as their quality performance measures. As a result of an analysis of the data, the authors suggest that, in order to survive in such a dynamic environment, organisations will have to embrace Knowledge Management as a fundamental component of delivery of a quality culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]