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Human nutrition is a growing field with an increasing job market and high demand for university study, yet graduates report feeling underprepared for and unaware of potential job opportunities. This scoping review aimed to identify employment initiatives used in undergraduate programs to support an evidence-based approach to the development of future initiatives for human nutrition courses. The scoping review following PRISMA-ScR criteria was initially conducted in October 2018 and updated in April 2020. Search terms were selected to identify studies that reported on employability or work-readiness embedded within the course curriculum for undergraduate students. Fourteen papers met the eligibility criteria. Papers included were from Australia (9), United Kingdom (2), United States (1), New Zealand (1) and Germany (1). Papers described initiatives fitting broad categories of placements, project-based industry collaboration, practice-based eLearning, mentoring and building graduate attributes. Placements were the most common type of initiative and project-based industry collaboration demonstrated the highest levels of student and employer satisfaction. The success of initiatives was often attributed to incorporating diverse approaches to real-world, problem-solving skills. Mentoring and eLearning were used to promote employability soft skills, while industry-based placements provided students with practical experience. Placement in specific workplace settings should be representative of the diverse job options for nutrition graduates. Human nutrition degrees should consider incorporating strategies that develop soft skills and project-based skills while exposing students to diverse workplace settings within industry.

Growth in online higher education offerings has been significant in recent years, with many Australian Universities launching programs to extend into new markets and meet the student demand for greater flexibility in delivery modes. Further, it is well understood that good support is an essential component to student success, satisfaction and retention. Despite this, orientation, including non-academic support, is often overlooked in online education systems. Therefore, the current study aimed to develop an orientation program to increase student preparedness and facilitate ongoing support, in addition to developing evidence-based best-practice strategies to support academic's when developing new online courses.

Course and subject development teams are increasingly seen in the tertiary online teaching environment and they face a unique set of challenges. The purpose of this study was to synthesise and share learnings of 12 academics involved in the development of subjects with an external partner for a new multidisciplinary online health science course at an Australian university, in order to improve ongoing development within the course and inform new course development. In this case study, thematic analysis of focus group discussions and qualitative survey data identified five key themes related to the development process: time management, setting expectations, communication, the development team, and ownership. Barriers to productive subject development included unrealistic timelines, unclear lines of communication, unmet or unrealistic expectations and lack of recognition of team members' expertise, and lack of support for genuine collaboration. Team-based development of an online course has the potential to be a rewarding experience for academics. In order for the benefits to be realised, approaches to development underpinned by a community-centred framework, observing core values such as collaboration, shared sense of purpose and expectations, would address a number of the issues identified in this study.

Objective: Social media analytics (SMA) has a track record in business research. The utilisation in nutrition research is unknown, despite social media being populated with real-time eating behaviours. This rapid review aimed to explore the use of SMA in nutrition research with the investigation of dietary behaviours.Design: The review was conducted according to rapid review guidelines by WHO and the National Collaborating Centre for Methods and Tools. Five databases of peer-reviewed, English language studies were searched using the keywords 'social media' in combination with 'data analytics' and 'food' or 'nutrition' and screened for those with general population health using SMA on public domain, social media data between 2014 and 2020.Results: The review identified 34 studies involving SMA in the investigation of dietary behaviours. Nutrition topics included population nutrition health investigations, alcohol consumption, dieting and eating out of the home behaviours. All studies involved content analysis with evidence of surveillance and engagement. Twitter was predominant with data sets in tens of millions. SMA tools were observed in data discovery, collection and preparation, but less so in data analysis. Approximately, a third of the studies involved interdisciplinary collaborations with health representation and only two studies involved nutrition disciplines. Less than a quarter of studies obtained formal human ethics approval.Conclusions: SMA in nutrition research with the investigation of dietary behaviours is emerging, nevertheless, if consideration is taken with technological capabilities and ethical integrity, the future shows promise at a broad population census level and as a scoping tool or complementary, triangulation instrument. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A national telephone survey of a representative sample of 1200 Australian adults was conducted in March 2002 in order to identify the factors of greatest concern to consumers in relation to the safety and quality of food, to measure recent trends in views about hazards in the food supply, to explore beliefs about the safety of additives and to discover whether consumers use food labels to check for ingredients of concern. Forty five percent of Australians responded that they were more concerned about the safety and quality of food than they were five years previously, while only 5% were less concerned. The most common potential hazards volunteered were additives and chemical residues (28%), followed by food processing/handling/freshness (21%), food hygiene or contamination (14%), and also genetic modification (14%). More than half of the respondents believe that additives and preservatives are harmful to your health and that many foods contain high levels of pesticides. A greater proportion of consumers claimed to be conscious of checking for additives, either general or specific, on food labels than for information on the salt or sugar content of products. Food regulators, journalists, the food industry and health professionals need to work together to correct misconceptions about the risks to health posed by common food additives and pesticide residues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]