A Survey of Current e-Business Development Practices in Australia

The Internet is a dynamic part of the business scene and there have been many examples of success and failures of e-commerce and e-business ventures. A survey was administered to asking questions about industries understanding of current e-business practices in Australia. The object of the survey was to provide a benchmark of current practice. The results of this survey could have a major impact on academic curricula. The survey was sent to 671 Australian Businesses and was addressed to the Chief Information Officer. Only twenty four usable questionnaires were returned and while it is accepted that this is a limited sample, disturbing trends have appeared with respect to the lack of strategic planning for information technology use particularly in medium sized businesses in Australia

The socio-economic effects of digital technologies on Australian academics and farmers

This thesis investigated the social and economic effects of digital technologies, and in particular information and communication technologies (ICTs), on the Australian academics and farmers in the context of an ongoing emphasis by the Australian government on the digital economy. I am motivated to conduct the research because politicians and scholars feel that the digital economy is a way ahead for improving the living standards of general Australians. Although a substantial research initiative has already been undertaken by previous researchers to examine the benefits of modern ICTs (information and communication technologies) in society, the extent of benefits (or problems) associated with the expansion of digital infrastructure facilities are yet to be estimated for at least two sectors of the economy – higher education and agriculture. In the given context of the Australian Government’s policy on the digital future, this thesis aims to study the effects of digital technologies, particularly ICTs, on academics and farmers in Australia. The direction of effects encompasses social and economic aspects only. I used three types of theories: affordance theory; Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) theory of reasoned action; and the theory of (research) production function. With regard to research methodology, I used qualitative, quantitative and a combination of both (i.e. mixed) research approaches. The data used in this study was drawn from two sources: – (i) a primary source and (ii) a secondary source. The source of the primary data was academic teaching staff members of the University of Southern Queensland, and the source of secondary data was the Australian Department of Agriculture. The thematic analysis showed that, because of the use of eLearning environments, the teaching academics at USQ perceived that their workload had increased. This was labelled as 'perceived increased workloads' in this study. From this study, three broad themes emerged. These themes were classified as temporal, pedagogical and technical limitations, and were attributed to the 'perceived workloads?' of the academics. This was the theoretical knowledge contribution of this thesis. Using factor analysis , I found evidence of both positive and negative attitudes of university academic staff members to ICTs. Next, using Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980; 2005) theory of reasoned action, a and cross-tabulation analysis, I found that the native-English language status of the academic had a statistically significant association with the variation of attitudes to ICTs. My non-parametric regression analysis also confirmed a statistically significant relationship between the language status of the teaching academics and the variations on their attitudes to ICTs. Further, Using primary survey data and regression analysis, I found a statistically significant relationship between the teaching academics’ use of the Internet per week and their research performances. Finally, using secondary data, the theory of production of microeconomics and regression analysis, I found the relationship between Australian farmers’ expenditure for telephone facilities (a variable of CTs) and their agricultural revenue. In this study, I found a statistically significant positive relationship between the farmers’ agricultural revenue and the farmers’ expenditure on their uses of telephones. The contributions of this research to existing knowledge are as follows. From the teaching academics’ perspective, the affordances of an eLearning environment encompass pedagogical, temporal and technological limitations that contributed to the teaching academics’ 'perceived workloads'? Secondly, the empirical research supports Ajzen and Fishbein’s (1980) theory regarding the relationship between the native language status of the academics, which is a social-demographic factor, and their attitudes to using ICTs. Thirdly, the empirical research supports the idea that the Internet is an important physical factor of the research production function. The contribution of the Internet is obvious because it represents a form of digital infrastructure facility. In the future, research should model a research (or knowledge) production function that incorporates the digital capital in the production function; otherwise, the study may generate biased results because of the endogeneity problem. Fourthly, and finally, I have found that telecommunication is an important physical factor of agricultural production, which means that, similarly to manufacturing and service sectors, the agricultural sector can reap benefits from the use of digital technologies, which has been so far largely unreported in the literature. The implications of digital futures lie in a number of government initiatives directed at the university and agricultural sectors of the economy. This includes overcoming the limitations encountered by academics and expanding the national broadband network infrastructure facilities to remote Australian regions

Distance, multimedia and web delivery in surveying and GIS courses at the University Of Southern Queensland

[Abstract]: The University of Southern Queensland has been involved with the distance education of surveying courses for over 25 years. In recent times, staff of the Surveying and Land Information Discipline, and the University as a whole, have embarked on multimedia enhancement and web delivery of curricula. This paper examines some of the initiatives undertaken to enhance the delivery of educational materials and discusses some of the issues involved in the effective delivery of distance education materials. The significant experience in the delivery of traditional educational materials has proven to be an advantage in the repackaging and enhancement of teaching materials. Delivery of education to off-campus students requires a significant support infrastructure which is often not recognised by new entrants into the flexible delivery arena. Traditional support mechanisms such as phone, fax and standard media (eg. videos, audio tapes etc) are being replaced by email, ‘electronic’ discussion groups, CDs and internet resources. These enhancements, when developed professionally, require a significant commitment of resources and expertise and often require a team approach to their design and development. Access by off-campus students to internet services and affordable software packages also require careful consideration in the design and offering of distance education materials

A webometric analysis of Australian Universities using staff and size dependent web impact factors (WIF)

This study describes how search engines (SE) can be employed for automated, efficient data gathering for Webometric studies using predictable URLs. It then compares the usage of staffrelated Web Impact Factors (WIFs) to sizerelated impact factors for a ranking of Australian universities, showing that rankings based on staffrelated WIFs correlate much better with an established ranking from the Melbourne Institute than commonly used sizedependent WIFs. In fact sizedependent WIFs do not correlate with the Melbourne ranking at all. It also compares WIF data for Australian Universities provided by Smith (1999) for a longitudinal comparison of the WIF of Australian Universities over the last decade. It shows that sizedependent WIF values declined for most Australian universities over the last ten years, while staffdependent WIFs rose

Perceptions of e-commerce as an academic discipline in Australian universities

This paper presents findings from a study on perceptions of e-commerce as an academic discipline in Australian universities. The study examined Australian universities\u27 perceptions on whether e-commerce should be regarded as a business-oriented discipline or a technology-oriented discipline and further whether e-commerce should be considered as a distinctive discipline. Data was collected from official websites of all Australian universities and was categorized in accordance to award titles, host faculty and program structures. Findings showed that most Australian universities perceived e-commerce as a business-oriented discipline. However, there was no consensus on whether e-commerce should be considered as a distinctive discipline.<br /

A Prisoners\u27 Island: Teaching Australian Incarcerated Students in the Digital Age

While incarcerated students have always faced many obstacles to full and effective participation in university study, the global shift toward paperless e-learning environments has created new challenges for prisoners without direct internet access. Based on prison focus groups with Australian incarcerated students and direct participant observation while tutoring tertiary students within four Queensland correctional centres, this paper explores the obstacles and constraints faced by incarcerated students in light of the increasing digitisation of materials and methods in higher education. This paper also reviews the outcomes, limitations and challenges of recent Australian projects trialling new internet-independent technologies developed to improve access for incarcerated tertiary students. This paper argues that technology-centred approaches alone will not adequately address the challenges of access for incarcerated students unless such interventions are also informed by an understanding of the sociocultural nature of learning and teaching within correctional centres

An examination of social media's impact on the courts in Australia

In 2011, Joanne Fraill, a juror, was imprisoned for eight months because she chatted on Facebook with a co-accused from the trial that she participated in.1 Fraill’s case prompts questions about how social media affect courts, legal regulators and lawyers, as well as important legal principles. Those important legal principles are: (1) public confidence in the judiciary and the courts; (2) public confidence in the legal profession; (3) open justice; and (4) the right of an accused to a fair trial. This thesis offers an analysis and conclusions on those issues. It examines case law, legislation, academic articles and internet materials on social media. It is found that some Australian courts and legal regulators would benefit from doing more to adapt their procedures and rules to social media. The extent to which Australian courts and legal regulators adapt their procedures and rules to social media can have significant repercussions on the important legal principles considered. This thesis provides Australian courts, the judiciary, legal regulators and lawyers with information and recommendations about their social media use that may assist them. The author believes that this is the first scholarly work to consider the impact that social media has had upon all of these stakeholders, and the first scholarly work in this area to recommend appropriate actions to maintain or possibly increase confidence in the judiciary, the courts and the legal profession, improve open justice and ensure that accused receive fair trials, despite the possibility that jurors may use social media inappropriately