AARE NEWS No. 41 | October 2002 |
This year has been an exceptionally busy one for academics and universities. One dimension has been the intensification of our labour, a lived reality now 'legitimated' by the Productivity Commissions' report that indicates that Australian academics now face bigger classes (a rise from 14.3 : 1 student staff ration in 1993 to 19:1 in 1999, while US and Canadian ratios remain at 14.5:1 and 16:1 respectively). Faculties of Education on average have significantly higher staff : student ratios than other Faculties, except for Business Faculties which attract most international students, upon which university funding is now increasingly dependant. At the same time, Australian academics earn only median level salaries compared to similar developed economies in the OECD. The good will and commitment of academics has underpinned much of the capacity for the state to withdraw funding from higher education at the same time that academic work has expanded into multiple and varied tasks but with increased scrutiny. This good will may quickly dissipate in the near future as academics, the majority over 50 years of age, retire. The shortage of teachers will impact on the universities capacity to attract new academics into Faculties of Education when academic careers are being casualised (now 16%) and are not maintaining equivalent salary levels to teaching or other professions. This is the hidden crisis that has as yet not been addressed in the concern of government that assumes that raising the status and improving the quality of both teachers and academics can be achieved through teacher certification, quality assurance and professional standards.
A second aspect of our business has been that as an Association, we have responded to the Higher Education and the Crossroads paper, and the Teaching and Teacher Education Review. In these submissions, we supported any increased funding of higher education, but not, as the Vice Chancellors Committee, any further fee regulation and increase in student fees on the grounds of equity. Australian students already spend significant time earning their way, and the 'earner learner' does not gain the full benefits of their professional education while working 20 hours or more in casual work unrelated to their chosen profession. We have argued throughout that education as a field or practice and research has unique characteristics of diversification that have to be supported and not pushed into a narrow 'scientistic' model of teaching and learning or research. In particular, we put a strong case for recognition of the centrality of the role of the practicum and research based university-school partnerships as well as for dedicated funding for educational research as is provided for other industries by Commonwealth departments of health, welfare, primary industries.
Another significant factor to be concerned about apart from the reforms that will arise from the Crossroads papers is the development of National Priorities in Humanities and Social Sciences. Any prioritising of research monies as significant impact on the research that we do as well as the amount of funds that we have for ARC grants. Together, these initiatives will shape our individual and collective futures in education.
The year has also seen the development of productive relationships with the Australian Research Council and DEST. As an association, we have with other professional associations (teacher unions, subject associations etc) been involved on a Reference Group that has produced a Statement on Professional Standards for Teachers that will be presented to the MCEETYA Working Party on Professional Standards. We were also represented in research forum organised by the MCEETYA Working Party on ICT and Schools. There will be a seminar held by members of this working party at the AARE Conference in Brisbane.
The research training activities of AARE are also continuing to develop and grow. These operate in four distinct activities that are funded by the association
We have decided that an absence in Australian education research in what is an increasingly difficult academic publishing industry, particularly in Australia, are comprehensive reviews of a field. For this reason, we intend to produce an occasional issue of the Australian Educational Researcher that will review a particular field of educational literature/research. These Occasional Issues will be determined by application to the AARE executive of a proposal or by invitation. The usual refereeing processes and criteria for publication as laid down for AER will hold. We will publicise fuller details of this new area of publication in the near future.
The organization of the New Zealand conference in Auckland late November -early December 2003 is now underway. Put this in your diaries now as it has an exciting agenda. It costs no more for many to fly there than to fly to Perth and our dollar has added value there!
We encourage everyone, particularly new members of AARE who have joined for the Queensland conference, to fully participate in a range of activities that are relevant to the well being of AARE. These include
In conclusion, I have found this to be both an exciting and exhausting year. AARE is increasingly being recognised as the 'peak' national organization that represents the diverse voices of educational researchers. This is an important trend, one that is to be nourished and used strategically for both the organization but also for education more generally. But to do so requires a proactive membership that work in and beyond their disciplinary boundaries to maintain and enhance the strong educational research culture that exists in Australian universities.
Jill Blackmore
President AARE
E-mail Jill at jillb@deakin.edu.au
On behalf of the convening committee for the AWE conference 'Think Future, Act Now', I would like to thank AARE and particularly Ruth and Peter Jeffery for placing AWE conference fliers in the AARE newsletter. The response from AARE members helped make this a memorable event. As a reciprocal measure, AARE brochures and conference information were placed in conference bags for participants and other items such as back issues of AER were distributed amongst our members.
Jan Edwards
On behalf of the 'Think Future Act Now' conference convening committee
AARE is pleased to announce that it will make available on line in real time two major presentation addresses by leading Australian educational researchers at the AARE 2002 Conference. Professor Allan Luke's Radford Lecture [the 25th Radford Lecture] and the 2002 AARE President's Address by Professor Jill Blackmore will be available via WebEx.
Professor Allan Luke will speak on
Educational Research, Schooling and State Policy.
Professor Jill Blackmore will speak on
Futures for Feminist Intellectuals in the Performative Postmodern University.
WebEx is an interactive on line real time meeting technology via the internet and telephone conferencing - world wide. People unable to travel to Brisbane to hear these two important addresses can obtain an internet login code and free telephone number to call so that they can see the speakers' slides, hear the speeches and ask questions at the time the auditorium audience is invited to do that.
The WebEx sessions are in real time [Brisbane Time Australian Eastern Standard Time - AEST]. The remote participants are on line at the same time the event is on in Brisbane Australia. The time of each address is 1630 AEST. Overseas colleagues will need to view at their local time equivalent of that time. Australians in States with Daylight Saving Time in December will need to view at their equivalent time to 1630 Brisbane Time [AEST].
Questions can be framed during the time of the presentations [in text on your computer] and will be relayed to the speaker and the on-site auditorium audience and the speaker in Brisbane at the proper time for questions. On the WebEx screen there will be a "Hands Up" symbol for remote participants to click when question time comes.
AARE is charging a nominal AUD$50 + GST for each login to each lecture. The lectures are 90 minutes. On line participants will need to login at least 15 minutes ahead of the start time of each session. Full details will be sent by email individually to each remote registrant ahead of the sessions.
AARE is encouraging receiving institutions to set up a group of participants at their end of each connection. Multiple audiences can be set up in a room at a receiving institution for each $50 login code. This will be an opportunity for some to set up participation sessions for groups of students. Likewise it will be an opportunity for government officials and teachers in schools to join in the debates about education without travel costs. Higher Education Institution management involved with Open and Distance Education or Flexible Learning will be able to assess this practical technology for real time inter-active tutorial use by viewing either or both of these sessions.
Alternately, individuals can view and participate from their desk at home or at work. If you wish you can continue with other activities while listening on a hands free phone and viewing the speakers' slides on your computer as they are projected.
Further information is no longer available.
There is a brochure distributed with AARE NEWS No. 41.
Contact Peter Jeffery pjeff@aare.edu.au for technical information. E-mail Peter
Since taking responsibility for editing the journal in Jan 2001 we have made the following changes.
We have also made the case to the Executive and in the Editorial pages of the journal itself that the AER should go on line and that access to it is free. We think this is the best way for the journal to serve the interests of its authors and readers, the Association and indeed the national and international profile of Australian educational research. We think it is the role of scholarly associations to lead the debate about scholarly electronic publishing and to model 'best practice' in this regard. We think it important for the Executive to keep this issue on the agenda and for members keep an open mind on the matter. Hopefully there will be a good attendance at the AGM in Brisbane where the matter will be very thoroughly canvassed.
The Postgraduate and Early Career Researcher Special Interest Group will meet officially for the first time in Brisbane. At this time we will welcome founding and new members, discuss the achievements to date and develop some directions for the future. A brochure has been developed that outlines the aims of the PG&ECR SIG. This brochure will be launched in Brisbane. Funds for this brochure have been made available from the annual grant provided by AARE to all special interest groups. The SIG has also obtained and email address to facilitate communication between members and prospective members. The conveners of the SIG are the postgraduate student representatives on the AARE Executive, currently Jan Edwards and John Cripps Clark. The email address is pgecr@aare.edu.au. E-mail
The PG & ECR has convened a panel in Brisbane to begin discussions around issues for postgraduates and early career researchers. The purpose of this panel is to begin a process whereby issues that effect postgraduates and early career researchers can be brought out into the open. Panel participants are all at different stages in their academic careers and therefore bring a variety of perspectives to the panel. Valerie Harwood and Brian Edwards are recent graduates and occupy different positions within the academy. Mary Lou Rasmussen is near submission, and Jan Edwards is a post-graduate student representative on AARE Executive and is writing her first draft. Terry Evans is an academic staff member at Deakin University involved in the Doctoral education programs. The panel will be chaired by Jill Blackmore, President of AARE.
In Brisbane we hope anticipate that we will be able to celebrate the achievements to date and identify directions for the future.
Jan Edwards
The new 'motivation and learning' SIG will be launched at the 2002 annual AARE conference, with two symposia on Tuesday (WAT02522) and Wednesday (MAC02528) afternoons. We will also organise a SIG dinner for Tuesday evening - details forthcoming. Anyone interested in joining the SIG should have a look at our website accessible from the AARE homepage, and contact either of the convenors to join.
Helen Watt
Early childhood researchers will have a strong presence at the 2002 Conference with more than 40 papers on a wide range of topics to be presented in symposia or as stand-alone papers. Dr Gary Resnick, Senior Study Director for Westat [the research corporation that evaluates Head Start in the USA] will be the guest speaker at the SIG function late on the Monday afternoon. Everyone who would like to hear Gary's talk is most welcome to come along.
Jennifer Sumsion
If you'd like more information about existing SIGS, or if you are interested in establishing a new SIG, please contact Jennifer Sumsion at sigs@aare.edu.au E-mail
29 November - 3 December 2003
Hyatt Regency Hotel & the University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand
Theme: "Educational Research, Risks and Dilemmas"
Pre-conference workshops: Saturday 29 November
Conference: Sunday 30 November - Wednesday 3 December
Website: www.are2003.org.nz Link
Registration and Call for Papers commences February 2003, from the web site only.
More information will be provided at both AARE and NZARE national conferences in December 2002.
Childhood is a common theme in each of the four PhD abstracts in this issue. It is probably just as well. The interests of children - and their attendant costs - have the potential to run a poor second to those of shareholders of recently listed companies on the Australian Stock Exchange, which make their profits from operating childcare centres. With the demise of dotcoms and the slump of biotechs and telcos, companies providing early childhood education have recently emerged as 'glamour stocks'.
In such circumstances it is important that educators continue to emphasise leadership that advocates for children, that involves them in what is worth knowing and how, that recognises a range of influences on them, and gives consideration to social (not just economic) contexts of risk - as do the theses that follow. Of course, the latest phase in the marketization of Australian education is my framing. The theses are important in their own right and I extend my congratulations to the authors for their respective contributions. Still, I think there are possibilities in some of them for speaking back to the market and certainly for advancing the interests of children and their education.
Please continue to encourage education doctoral students in your faculties and departments to submit abstracts to me at trevor.gale@education.monash.edu.au
Trevor Gale
Executive Member
Dr Glenda Boyd (PhD), Edith Cowan University,
Early childhood teachers' perceptions of their leadership roles.
Early Childhood Educators need to exercise leadership skills in advocating for appropriate programs and curriculum for young children. A new model of Early Childhood Teacher Leadership was created to measure leadership skills, including leadership in advocating for young children, and tested in Phase One of the study. The model involved General Leadership, Communication, and Influences. Data was collected from 270 Early Childhood Teachers in Western Australia, using self-reports on ideal and real aspects of leadership obtained through a questionnaire. A Rasch measurement model computer program was used to create an interval level Scale of Early Childhood Teacher Leadership. The Rasch analysis supported the structure of the leadership model and indicated some improvements could be made. In Phase Two of the study, twenty early childhood teachers were interviewed for approximately one hour in regard to how they conceptualised their leadership roles, what factors enhanced or constrained their leadership, and what strategies they used to communicate their philosophy and pedagogy. The findings indicate that, as expected, teachers found it easier to hold higher ideal self-views for most aspects of leadership than to hold high real self-views. Teachers recognised the importance of leadership skills but experienced difficulty in enacting them. The Early Childhood Teachers reported various factors that helped or hindered them in fulfilling their leadership roles. The four global factors reported were 1) intrapersonal and interpersonal skills; 2) professional confidence; 3) others' understanding of and respect for early childhood education; and 4) time. The Early Childhood Teachers suggested strategies that could help them develop stronger leadership skills. The four main strategies suggested were 1) professional development addressing leadership and interpersonal and intrapersonal skills training; 2) inclusion of leadership skills training at pre-service levels of teacher education; 3) opportunities to collaborate with other staff; and 4) public promotion of early childhood education. The findings have implications for Early Childhood Teachers, administrators, teacher educators and for future research.
Dr Robin Hall (PhD), University of Technology, Sydney,
Technological capability at an early age.
This thesis investigated early development of technological capability, not by exploring children's responses to teacher-led curriculum but by examining children's own technological narratives. This shift stemmed from three sources: culture's valuing of technological capability, and criticalness of early years in its establishment; education systems' struggle to nurture children's technological knowledge and skills and accumulating reports of children's technological capability. A two-part investigation evolved. Study One explored six children's responses to a question about audio-recorders posed by another child (Dean). Findings showed these children had little difficulty finding and pursuing personally and culturally significant questions. It also highlighted the difficulty of tracking individual children's ideas, constraints associated with school environments and the study's short duration. So, it was not able to judge conclusively whether learning had occurred. Dean's continuing interest in audio-recorders, and his mother's fortuitous phone call, provoked Study Two, exploring whether Dean could learn by pursuing his question at home, over a two-year period. Findings showed this child's ability to drive his own complex inquiry into information systems. Reporting findings as historical narrative and using Plato's Meno as analytical framework, I concluded: Dean's subject choice were attuned to current technological advance; his inquiry methods were diverse (exploring, designing, making, operating, explaining and understanding); and he had empirical, analogical and philosophical ways of knowing. Consideration of three issues hedged my account's integrity: the study's particular circumstances, my part in Dean's inquiry, Dean and his family's views of my interpretations. Furthermore, features of Dean's technological narrative resonated with the other six children's narratives. In our information age, such sustained single case study illuminates the feasibility and worth of giving children greater control of curriculum and locating learning close to families in real technological worlds. This investigation contributes an analytical framework for considering the educational significance of children's technological narratives and suggests ways teachers might nurture children's technological capability.
Dr Cathrine Neilsen-Hewett (PhD), Macquarie University,
Children's peer relationships and school adjustment: Looking beyond the classroom walls.
In examining links between children's peer relationships and school adjustment, researchers have focused on the classroom context as the main source of social influence. By comparison, only a handful of studies have investigated children's relationships in contexts beyond the school. While the significance of positive in-school peer relations for school adjustment has been well established in the research literature, the links between children's out-of-school experiences and their adjustment at school are mostly unknown. The goal of the present study was to provide a more comprehensive view of children's relationships and to explore links between in-school and out-of-school peer processes and children's adjustment at school. The study addresses four central research questions: 1) What are the relational and structural characteristics of children's in-school and out-of-school networks and how do these relate to children's perceptions and satisfaction with their network? 2) What are the characteristics of in-school and out-of-school best friendships, and how do they differ in relation to friendship closeness and context? 3) How are in-class peer acceptance, in-school and out-of-school best friendship closeness and in-school and out-of-school network size related to one another? and 4) What is the relationship between peer group acceptance, best friendship closeness, network size and school adjustment, and in particular, what aspects of out-of-school relationships have predictive links with children's adjustment at school? Participants were 728 third- through sixth-grade children from a relatively self-contained coastal community in New South Wales, Australia. A newly developed measure of children's friendships, The Friendship Network Activity (FNCA), was used to identify children's in-school and out-of-school networks, while in-class sociometric status was assessed through a peer rating scale. Measures of in-school and out-of-school best friendship closeness (i.e., very best, close, and peripheral) were determined through the FNCA. Children's perceptions of their network were examined through ratings of contextual importance and network satisfaction.
Dr Maureen Owen (PhD), Macquarie University,
Children's pedestrian risk and opportunity in a disadvantaged community
This thesis presents an exploratory investigation of family-based risk and protective factors that are associated with childhood pedestrian injury. Its heuristic nature resulted from the finding at the beginning of the project that family risk factors associated with elevated rates of childhood pedestrian injury were readily identifiable but that an interpretation of how these risk factors led to injury outcomes had not been well explored. Three related aims guided the thesis. The first was to investigate within families protective and educational roadside processes that mediate injury risk. The second was to identify ways in which family support networks contributed to children's roadside protection and opportunity. The third was to address the implication of the findings for road safety interventions and to consider how well current initiatives fit the needs of children and families. Statistical data relating to childhood pedestrian shows that the rate of traffic-related injury among child pedestrians makes this the second leading cause of injury death in Australia and New South Wales. (This information is presented early in the study as justification for the general focus of the study, and has provided the rationale both for road safety research and for road safety education programs and engineering interventions as discussed in Chapter 1). An ecological framework was developed for the study and it is this approach that allowed the social contexts of pedestrian risk and opportunity to be explored, providing a richer understanding of the characteristics that have been typically associated with injury risk. The literature on pathways and support networks is also drawn upon in this study to give additional insights into ways in which the concept of injury risk can be explored (see Chapter 2). The paired-neighbourhood design that was used in the current study required that two adjoining neighbourhoods be identified that had experienced contrasting rates of childhood pedestrian injury over the last five years but that shared similar social and economic risk characteristics for pedestrian injury.
I am director for an international conference for physical education, International Conference: Teaching Sport and Physical Education for Understanding to be held at The University of Melbourne in December 2003. I present regularly in the HPE SIG at AARE and have set the conference date a week after AARE 2003 in Auckland so that overseas delegates may attend AARE en route to the Melbourne conference, December 11-14. I have encouraged this on the web site and in the announcement and call for papers and will provide a link to the 2003 AARE conference.
Would it be possible to have a link to the Melbourne conference included on the AARE web-site for next year? The web-site is:
www.conferences.unimelb.edu.au/sport Link
Richard Light
[Member of AARE]
The Brisbane Conference is the culmination of almost two years of planning by a large group of people, and it is clear already that it will be a great success. The conference committee has noted the number and quality of papers proposed for the conference, the high level of registrations from within Australia and internationally, the interest from diverse groups including local teachers, and the highly entertaining social program that has been arranged.
Of course these are uncertain and troubling times for us as educators and researchers. When we chose the theme of the conference (Problematic Futures: Educational Research in an Era of Uncertainty) we obviously did not foresee the tragic events in Bali, and the deep sense of loss and insecurity felt by many people. This terrible event combined with the threat of war and terrorism, and the on-going plight of refugee families and children, present a sobering backdrop to our deliberations, and challenge us as educators to consider what we can do to address these issues. No doubt, the keynote speakers will reflect on these events and the theme of problematic futures and uncertainty.
The academic program is anchored by six keynote speakers, beginning with Professor Roger Saljo and Professor Allan Luke (Radford Lecture) on the Monday; followed by Dr Sheldon Shaeffer from UNESCO on Tuesday, Chris Sarra and Professor Jill Blackmore on Wednesday, and Professor Lois Weis on Thursday. For the keynotes of Allan Luke and Jill Blackmore we are also providing worldwide access through the technology of WebEx. This is a new initiative for AARE that Peter Jeffery has organised. There are interesting possibilities for us to expand the use of such technologies in bringing the conference to researchers around the world, and alternatively to bring to the conference keynote speakers who may not be able to attend in person.
A large program of papers and symposia has been scheduled. However, we have organised the program so that special events such as the Radford Lecture, the AARE forum and the Presidential Address, occur immediately after afternoon tea. This timetabling allows plenty of time to socialise as well as time to join in plenary sessions and events.
The committee has been assisted greatly by our local UQ organiser, Sally Brown, who has dealt with a myriad of small details and crises during the year and who can be thanked for proposing the air-conditioning that you will experience in the venue for morning and afternoon tea, lunch and around the registration desk. Considerable thought and effort has been expended to anticipate the needs of delegates - so we are anticipating a very enjoyable and worthwhile conference experience.
So on behalf of the hard-working conference committee, the conference organisers - Peter Ruth and Wendy (Jeffery), and Sally Brown let me welcome you to Brisbane for the AARE 2002 annual conference.
Peter Renshaw
Professor of Education
School of Education and Professional Studies
Griffith University
This Radford address will take up three key questions facing education in Australia and in other OECD countries which though closely connected, are often taken up in isolation. First, what shape should a strong and equitable state education system take in response the emergence of semiotic economies and cultures? Second, what agendas for the productive uses of state power and for the reformation of state schooling are on offer from both traditional positivist and critical interpretative educational research? Third, what are the possible productive tensions and alliances between state policy formation and university-based scholars and teacher educators?
Until recently, the dominant conceptions of human learning and development in research have been firmly grounded in a Cartesian world view where minds are kept apart from objects. This dualist assumption implies that objects are passive and essentially external to human thinking. However, this invisibility of artefacts in our interpretations of learning and development represents a pre-theoretical assumption that is untenable. Physical tools should be conceived as externalisations of human knowledge, and as intimately linked to the development of intellectual skills among individuals as well as collectives. Artefacts transform and discipline human reasoning, and this is a challenge to current metaphors of learning and development in research as well as in schools.
For good or bad, education is increasingly seen - at least in the developing world - as the panacea for a host of ills: conflict and terrorism, poverty and pandemics, disempowerment and dictatorships. These ills are both exacerbated by, and result in a variety of, social, cultural, and economic uncertainties. This leads in turn to even greater expectations concerning the power of education to solve the problems of the world - and even greater challenges for educational researchers. The question, therefore, is what kinds of educational research needs to be done - in terms of both issues and methods - in the context of, and in order to help resolve, the uncertainties and risks facing the world today. What do we as educational researchers needs to look at - at the level of individual learner, classroom and school, national system, and global networks - and how, to help education meet the ever increasing expectations placed on it?
In l985, as part of a larger year long ethnographic investigation of white working class students in a high school located in a de-industrialized area the United States I interviewed 51 members of the junior class at what I call Freeway High. Students were specifically probed as to their plans for the future, desires regarding home/family life, and attitudes toward schooling in general. Working Class Without Work: High School Students in a Deindustrializing Economy (Routledge,l990) probes the identity formation processes among white working class male and female students in relation to the school, economy, and family of origin, capturing the complex relations among schooling, human agency, and the formation of collective consciousness within a radically changing economic and social context. Young women exhibited a glimmer of critique regarding traditional gender roles in working class families and young men appeared ripe for new right consciousness given their strident racism and male dominant stance in an economy that offers them little. I also suggest that the school, through its internal sorting mechanisms, disciplinary technologies, and messages distributed through both the formal and informal, or "hidden" curriculum, contributes to the outcomes. Fifteen years later I interviewed these same students, following their lives through an intense set of in-depth retrospective interviews. While we have a number of excellent school based ethnographies as well as ethnographies of workplace life, few studies actually follow students over a long period of time to capture the ways in which they have been able to actualize, or not, their dreams. This talk will follow the young men and women we first met in l985, winding our way, with them, into the terrain of the work force, family life, and general American culture at the turn of the century. The white working class in 2002 is not, by any stretch of the imagination, what it was in the l970s. The students I worked with knew this in l987. But, whatever happened to them? And, by implication, whatever happened to the white working class? Addressing theoretical, empirical and methodological issues associated with this study, I pick up where theorists such as Paul Willis, Andre Gorz, Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis left off.
Cherbourg State School is an Aboriginal community school located 300 km north west of Brisbane. Like many Indigenous schools it has faced many challenges in the past. In the last four years the school staff team have instigated some dramatic changes under the direction of the school's first Aboriginal principal. Since 1999 attendance has improved by 94% [absenteeism has been drastically reduced], and literacy levels have been improved by 45%.
The school aim is to generate academic outcomes comparable to other schools and develop within students a strong and positive sense of what it means to be Aboriginal in today's society. When children leave Cherbourg State School they want to be Strong and Smart!
Is the idea of the liberal university dead, has the post modern university any chance of being emancipatory, has the theory practice divide merely collapsed in an era of 'new knowledge work', or has the university just become one aspect of market state and global capitalism. Knowledge based economies simultaneously locate universities as central to the commodification and management of knowledge while the legitimacy of the university and the academic as knowledge producers is challenged by post modernist, feminist, postcolonial and indigenous claims within a wider trend towards the 'democratisation of knowledge' and a new educational instrumentalism and opportunism. What becomes of the educational researcher, and indeed for their professional organizations, in this changing socio political and economic scenario? Is our role one of policy service or policy critique, technical expert or public intellectual? In particular what place is there for feminist public intellectuals in a socalled era of post feminism and public-/private convergence? The paper draws on recent debates around the nature of knowledge based societies, trends in relations between policy and educational research, and draws upon feminist and critical perspectives to mount a case for the importance of the postmodern university and the public intellectual.
The dinner for the Brisbane conference is to be held at The Club House, St Lucia Golf Links, which gives spectacular views of the rolling fairways and bushland beyond. The 'old' section of the Club House was originally part of a homestead called "Hillstone", built by local sugar producer and entrepreneur William Dart in the 1880s. The dinner ($75 per person) includes entertainment and dancing. Numbers are limited so book early for a great night! The venue has a limited capacity, so be sure to book early. 250 TICKETS WILL BE PRINTED - NO MORE
!March 20-21-22 of 2003
AMRITSAR, INDIA
Khalsa College of Education, Amritsar 143 002, India
Punjab State Chapter of All India Association for Educational Research
Contact Address
Email address dhillonjas2002@yahoo.co.uk E-mail
Please hand your FINAL VERSION disk and 2 hard copies fully labelled with PAPERCODE & NAME to: Ruth Jeffery [or her representative] at AARE Office Services Desk or Conference Registration Desk. Please label your work with your PAPERCODE & NAME. The required file format for submission is a MS Word document with all diagrams and figures embedded. SEE THE WEBSITE ON HOW TO PUBLISH TO FIND FORMATTING RULES WHICH MUST BE FOLLOWED. NB: REFERENCES IN ENDNOTES WILL DISAPPEAR IN HTML.
It is important that material submitted on disk [floppy or CD] for publication by AARE in its Conference Proceedings CD and/or Conference Papers Collection On line on the AARE web site be universally readable. It should not be created using propriety software that is not commonly available, lest every potential user is compelled to acquire that propriety software in order to read the material or abandon the attempt at reading the work.
Among other variations, we have had a CD submitted with sound files that only one referee was able to 'read'. We have had Cyrillic fonts that had to accompany the files so that they would display correctly on people's machines. We also have had a unique word processing package that was unknown and unusable by most people. This year we have a presenter proposing Macromedia Director 8.0 as a format for presentation and perhaps submission.
To overcome problems in processing and to ensure that dissemination of research is quick and efficient for all users, AARE publishes papers on its web site in two formats. These use software that is accessible free of charge world wide and will operate on computers which are not necessarily the latest powerful models. We publish in HTML and Adobe PDF. The former can be read using a number of free Internet Browsers and the software to read the PDF is provided free by Adobe. PDF is used because it works on many computers and printers and can be read on screens, with graphical integrity preserved. Both of these support documents [although readers and printers may find html's lack of page control annoying to say the least - hence the pdf option].
There is a difference between what is acceptable as presentation software and documentation of an "academic paper". For the on line and the Cd collections of papers AARE requires documents. For presentation purposes authors may use just about anything from a white-board to 3D multi-media provided the conference venue can support it.
MSPowerPoint has freely available "reader" software and thus is acceptable if the work is presented in that format. However it will not print out as an "academic paper" for users and is therefore not advisable as a submission format. PDF slide shows are also acceptable for presentations because the "reader" software for them is an Internet Browser [such as Internet Explorer or Netscape]. But they do not print out as 'academic papers" either. Macromedia Director has freely available reader software [Macromedia Shockwave Player] but will also not print out as an "academic paper" in the usually accepted manner.
The safest format is the one designed for the Internet - HTML and its derivatives. This is subject to WC3 Consortium agreements to allow world wide usability and despite some abuse of the agreed conventions, is still widely viable. [See comment above regarding page control limitations for printing].
AARE prefers "academic papers" that are to be read as traditional linear text to be submitted initially to us in MSWord because we can use MSWord to quickly and automatically convert the submitted document [.doc] to html. Likewise we can quickly and accurately convert to Adobe PDF [.pdf] from MSWord. MSWord is very widely available in the educational institutions of members, and most people use it to create their papers. Styles and expertise in word processing vary widely but the basic software is fairly universal.
We do not want persons submitting documents to supply them already converted to html and pdf because if there are errors in those submissions we can't rectify them without a great deal of individual attention to the files. [We are dealing with some 600 - 700 files submitted and we expect full cooperation so that we do not have to read every document/file looking for and fixing problems]. This relates also to the creation software because AARE and its service providers cannot be expected to own every set of propriety software written so that we can use it to fix files. Even with standardisation on MSWord as a submission format there can be problems if people do not follow instructions [published by AARE on its web site at http://www.aare.edu.au/howto.htm -- especially with endnotes used for references [they disappear on conversion to HTML], use of tabs [not able to convert to html], and figures and graphics [which need to be done appropriately or they disappear].
It is the presenter/author's responsibility to check the accuracy of their word processing and their submission format to make sure that it will function for all of the world. The use of esoteric software or presentation software for "academic papers" could make the work unreadable and hence of no value in building the pool of education research knowledge.
"Academic papers" must be submitted as MSWord documents. [See http://www.aare.edu.au/howto.htm ]
Presentations can be made using whatever.
Peter Jeffery
AARE Executive Member
Aims:
| 1. To reform processes for post-graduate issues, such as election to Executive, travel grants etc. | |||||
| Objectives | How | Who | Resources | When | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.1 | To establish regular meetings throughout the year by teleconference. | JCC | 2002 | ||
| 1.2 | To develop a listserv to facilitate regular and effective communication between SIG members | PG Rep | 2003 | ||
| 1.3 | To investigate the support and resources provided to postgraduate education research students across institutions with a view to providing information to students to facilitate improved services and support within their own institutions | JCC | 2002 | ||
| 1.4 | To investigate the support issues affecting early career researchers with an aim to facilitate improved services and support within their own institutions | PG Rep | PG & ECR SIG | 2003 | |
| 1.5 | To identify 'who' are the post-graduate and early career researchers members of AARE | JCC & JE | 2002 | ||
| 2.1 | To ensure effective representation of the interests of post-graduate student and early career researcher members at AARE Executive | JE & JCC | 2002 | ||
| 2.2 | To investigate ways of increasing post-graduate and early career researcher membership of AARE. | JE & JCC | 2002 | ||
| 3.1 | To provide and improve opportunities for social contact for SIG members at the Annual Conference | JE & JCC | 2002 | ||
| 3.2 | To provide input into the programming of post-graduate and early career researcher papers in the Annual Conference | JE & JCC | 2002 | ||
| 3.3 | To work with AARE Executive to provide relevant training workshops targeted at the interests and needs of post-graduate students and early career researchers | JE & JCC | 2002 | ||
| 3.4 | To hold an Annual General Meeting of the SIG at the Annual Conference. | JE | 2002 | ||
| 4.1 | To consult with members and develop a formal mechanism for nomination and election of post-graduate student representative to the AARE executive | JCC & JE | 2002 | ||
| 4.2 | To promote specific projects as suggested by members to AARE Executive | JCC & JE | 2002 | ||
| 5.1 | To work with the AER Journal Committee to propose a 'Special Issue' for Post-graduate and early career researchers. | JE | 2002 | ||
Stuart Hughes at ACER Library has reported that he has finished indexing [in Australian Education Index] all the 2001 AARE conference papers. Further he says
ACER offers AARE papers as part of the EdResearch Online searchable database. See below for the statistics on AARE's server which holds members' papers.
This shows the overall heavy usage of the AARE web site since the service started on AARE domain name. Members should remember that AARE web site was hosted under Swinburne University for several years. No statistics are available for that period.
(Figures in parentheses refer to the 7 days to 02-Oct-2002 02:00).
| Successful requests | 2,058,170 (36,246) |
| Average successful requests per day | 2,236 (5,177) |
| Successful requests for pages | 1,254,395 (20,894) |
| Average successful requests for pages per day | 1,363 (2,984) |
| Failed requests | 514,840 (7,154) |
| Redirected requests | 1,920 (60) |
| Distinct files requested | 6,346 (4,315) |
| Distinct hosts served | 224,592 (5,865) |
| Corrupt logfile lines | 3 |
| Data transferred | 83.461 Gbytes (1.445 Gbytes) |
| Average data transferred per day | 92.865 Mbytes (211.441 Mbytes) |
Listing directories with at least 0.01% of the traffic, sorted by the amount of traffic. This shows that users of AARE web site are going to the site for members' papers mainly, followed by Conference and miscellaneous information on association events.
| Requests | %bytes | directory |
|---|
If members want to know whether their papers have been accessed they should go to Statistics and search for their papercode.