Melting ‘Snow’ and Shifting ‘Cultures’: The Strategic Repositioning of Australian Universities' Research and Development

The original C P Snow analysis of intellectual traditions ("the two cultures") highlighted very different world views and ways of proceeding for scientists and non‐scientists and critiqued both cultures for their failure to respond to the challenges of industrialisation and to intersect intellectually. Strong parallels can be drawn with academe today: while new linkages between science and technology have occurred, there has been little intersection with and recognition of the Humanities and Social Sciences and the roles they can play in producing “creative chances” for Australia's strategic development, or of the value of the two cultures “intersecting” in new ways. The future for technological innovation and international competitiveness for Australia lies in melting “Snow” and dissolving the stand‐off between the two “cultures”.     

The marketing audit: a new perspective on library services and products

A marketing audit enables a library to look at audiences, services, and products with a structured approach. The audit can be used to assess operations and to provide a framework for ongoing decision making, evaluation, and long-range planning. An approach to the audit process is presented and its application is demonstrated in a case study featuring the American Hospital Association Resource Center.     

Interdisciplinary scholarly collaboration in data-intensive,public-funded,international digital humanities project work

The information practices of collaborative interdisciplinary researchers, especially in distributed environments, remain understudied. Embracing the naturalistic paradigm, this qualitative case study relies upon semi-structured interviews, snowball sampling, and grounded analysis. Based on interviews with 53 participants from 11 Digging Into Data 3 (DID3, 2014-2016) projects, this study examines the working practices of scholars (library and information science professionals, humanists, and computer scientists) engaging in collaborative, international, data-intensive, publicly-funded interdisciplinary research. Benefits of such work include avoiding redundancy, exploding disciplinary silos, and more ambitious, larger-scale outputs. Challenges and lessons learned center on innovation, flexibility, and failure, translation, intermediaries, divisions of labor and delegation of responsibilities and tasks, conflict resolution, technology, outputs and publication, and timeframe, sustainability, and infrastructure.     

An exploration of teacher's use of iPads for students with learning support needs

This project explored how iPads were being used in a range of K‐12 schools to support the learning of students with a range of learning support needs. Groups of teachers (and other professionals) from the USA, Canada, Australia and the UK were invited to complete an online survey focused on the use of iPads in their classrooms, perspectives of their skill level, and how their school and school districts support the use of iPads. The survey focused on iPad use in classrooms (curriculum and skills); teachers’ skill levels; whether iPads are addressed in the Individualised Education Program (IEP); the systemic support for the iPads; and the perceived benefits and barriers. The results reveal that respondents are using iPads across many areas of the curriculum, which affirms the research in the emerging literature base. However, there are teacher reported differences in the manner and scope of iPad use in the classrooms and also the integration of the iPad in the IEP. The research also highlights variability in reported skill level for the iPad and an increased need for enhanced systemic support, such as training, funding, technical support and administrative support for the use of the iPad as a pedagogical tool.     

The coming and going: the work of educational developers when admission criteria and desired outcomes change simultaneously

Higher education is facing a conundrum relevant to the field of educational development: expectations regarding entrance criteria and graduation attributes are changing simultaneously. Biggs' model of constructive alignment can be used to analyze the challenges presented by these shifts in expectation and help educational developers understand their pedagogical implications. In the present article, an expanded model is proposed in which entrance requirements are added to Biggs' original conceptualization. In so doing, the length of the “learning journey” – from entrance to outcomes – can be charted. When entrance requirements and graduate attributes change simultaneously, higher education must accommodate learning journeys of varying lengths and nature. Moving targets such as these can engender a sense of frustration, if not helplessness, for academic staff responsible for curricular and pedagogical enhancement. However, rather than responding with a sense of helplessness, the educational developer should see these shifts as a real opportunity to support the implementation of a broader range of student-centred teaching/learning activities. Recommendations related to educational development consultations are offered.