Formalising the Continuous/Discrete Modeling Step

Formally capturing the transition from a continuous model to a discrete model is investigated using model based refinement techniques. A very simple model for stopping (eg. of a train) is developed in both the continuous and discrete domains. The difference between the two is quantified using generic results from ODE theory, and these estimates can be compared with the exact solutions. Such results do not fit well into a conventional model based refinement framework; however they can be accommodated into a model based retrenchment. The retrenchment is described, and the way it can interface to refinement development on both the continuous and discrete sides is outlined. The approach is compared to what can be achieved using hybrid systems techniques.Comment: In Proceedings Refine 2011, arXiv:1106.348

Community, domain, practice: facilitator catch cry for revitalising learning and teaching through communities of practice

This Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) Teaching Fellowship 'Community, Domain, Practice: Facilitator catch cry for revitalising learning and teaching through communities of practice' contributes to ALTC's aim to advance learning and teaching in higher education through a program of activities designed to build the capacity of Facilitators of Communities of Practice at the University of Southern Queensland. Communities of practice (CoPs) are cited in higher education literature and ALTC applications as a successful way of building and sharing a scholarly approach to enhancing learning and teaching practice. This fellowship builds on the Teaching Fellow, Associate Professor Jacquie McDonald's, CoP leadership role at the University of Southern Queensland (USQ), where the first CoP started in 2006 to provide a space for academic staff to build a community, increase their knowledge and share learning and teaching practice. Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002) describe communities of practice as: Groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis. Over time... [t]hey become a community of practice (pp. 4-5). CoPs operate differently from institutionalised higher education work groups, as they are located in the immediate practice field, usually membership is voluntary, and the agenda and outcomes are member driven. The CoP Facilitator role differs from the familiar chairperson roles, so investigation of the complexity and different aspects of the role and development of activities and resources to support and grow the Facilitator role were the focus of the Fellowship. CoPs epitomise distributed leadership (Jones, Lefoe, Harvey & Ryland, 2012), and investigation of, and capacity building of leadership within CoPs contributes to this ALTC priority area. Aims and deliverables The Fellowship was designed to build on USQ CoP Facilitators and the Teaching Fellow's knowledge of USQ CoP processes to: • Identify of the key aspects of a USQ CoP Facilitator role • Increase the knowledge and capacity of existing USQ CoP Facilitators through workshops and resources • Establish a Facilitator CoP for the USQ Facilitators to share and grow their practice • Develop resources to provide a sustained Fellowship legacy • Engage with national and international CoP practitioners to develop and evaluate activities and resources for CoP Facilitators • Disseminate Fellowship knowledge and resources across the sector • Promote ALTC Fellowship activities across the sector The Teaching Fellowship was focused on building the capacity of USQ CoP Facilitators, so the majority of planned activities and resources have a USQ focus. A distributed leadership approach is a basic operating principal of how the Fellow engaged with, and continues to engage with, both academic and professional staff evolved in Communities of Practice (CoPs). An action research approach used qualitative date collected through semi structured interviews (2010) with fifteen USQ CoP facilitators to identify roles, experience and critical incidents. Grounded theory analysis of the interviews identified key features and issues of the role and a comparative analysis with USA data (2009) identify themes to inform subsequent workshop and resource design. Within the action research cycle, ongoing collaboration with the external evaluator and analysis of summative evaluation feedback informed the planned Fellowship activities. USQ CoP Facilitator capacity was built through these workshops, resources, the establishment of a community of practice for Facilitators and ongoing interaction with the Teaching Fellow. Dissemination The Fellow has engaged in round table discussions, seminars and workshops to both develop CoP Facilitator capacity and to disseminate activities to a wide audience. These included: • Engagement with senior management and CoP champions • Seminars, round table discussions and workshops • Refereed conference papers • ALTC sponsored Fellowship and Leadership forums • Media releases • Fellowship resources website The Fellowship web resources include links to the workshop resources, workshop videos and interview audios. The links to the contents page the Miami Facilitator's Handbook, distributed at the February 2011 two and half day facilitator workshop, Designing, Implementing, and Leading CoPs, provide a significant resource and Fellowship outcome. Additional Facilitator resources for establishing and sustaining CoPs are linked to the Phases and Key Issues of a Nurtured Higher Education CoP developed by Star & McDonald (accepted for publication). These resources provide CoP facilitators with ideas and practical resources at different CoP phases . Recommendations Significant changes are continuing to occur in the ways universities are governed and managed, moving to more corporate and business-like structures, with significant flow-on in terms of academic roles, their working arrangements and staff morale. Within this context, it is recommended to cultivate CoPs as a way of creating a bottom-up, member-driven approach to engage in generative dialogue around learning and teaching practice. Further research is recommended into both the practical aspects of growing and sustaining Higher Education CoPs, and the best approach for identifying and cultivating the leadership role of CoP facilitors. The ALTC Fellowships and leadership grants have generated many excellent resources and academics and institutional leaders are encouraged to make the time and rewards available to ensure their application across the sector. 'With communities of practice – I know I'm not alone.' University of Southern Queensland Community of Practice membe

Identifying, building and sustaining leadership capacity for communities of practice in higher education

Executive summary The Leadership project LE10-1734, ‘Identifying, building and sustaining leadership capacity for communities of practice in higher education’, used an iterative, reflective, action learning approach to identify and address the leadership needs and challenges for those facilitating learning and teaching communities of practice (CoPs). CoPs are increasingly established in higher education to provide opportunities for staff to form a peer learning community and to allocate dedicated time to build knowledge of learning and teaching and to share their practice, ultimately leading to improvement and innovation. An analysis of the academic literature identified confusion around the understanding of CoPs, a dearth of literature specifically on higher education, and a gap regarding the leadership role within CoPs. The leadership role within CoPs can be challenging as the CoP may have an uneasy fit within the context of higher education institutions. Often CoPs are not aligned with formal structures, and the leadership role/s within CoPs can differ significantly from those of the familiar ‘corporate’ roles of committee chair, department head or unit/course leader. Often CoP members will be from different disciplines and may include both professional and academic staff. The dynamics of collaboration within such diversity will require significant leadership skill to manage personalities and power dynamics, cultivate a supportive receptive context and provide outcomes useful for both members and institutions. Thus, for this project, the ‘leadership’ role in the CoP is designated the ‘facilitator.’ The project team’s action research methodology is detailed in Chapter 2 of this report. Data to inform a leadership needs analysis were obtained through a literature review, a broad quantitative survey of the higher education sector, as well as from in-depth qualitative investigation with key informants. The triangulation of these sources, plus input from the reference group and evaluator, provided a deep understanding of the leadership needs and challenges for those facilitating learning and teaching CoPs in higher education. Data identified most CoPs are situated within university faculties among practitioners and are, therefore, close to where student learning takes place. In evaluating how best to support and develop capability for facilitators of CoPs in the Australian context, the project team concluded that “[r]esearch … indicates that there is no one definitive set of ‘traits’ or ‘behaviours’ that characterises leaders” and there are many diverse types of successful leader with a range of qualities, skills and attributes (Jameson 2008, p. 9). Therefore, the project’s methodology highlighted a need to engage strongly with the target end users to identify their needs; this featured throughout the project. To facilitate this approach, early, continuous engagement with a stakeholder network of individuals in Australia and overseas known to facilitate or be interested in facilitating CoPs, ensured strong involvement in the project by stakeholders. Additionally, the project team developed linkages with a number of groups working in the same area overseas and with other OLT projects in Australia. Through the stakeholder network, and other interested groups, a targeted survey and in-depth interviews informed a needs analysis for CoP facilitators in the sector, which led into development of resources from the project. These resources were derived after a comprehensive literature review, survey and interviews, as depicted in Figure 2 below, as well as engagement with the stakeholder network. A rich set of Australian, higher education-specific resources designed explicitly for those who facilitate higher education communities of practice is the key outcome of the project. Based on feedback from the project survey, interviews and the stakeholder network, the resources were developed as a ’just in time, just for me‘ integrated online package aimed at disciplinary academics who were found to be the key facilitators of CoPs in the Australian setting. The resources are framed and constructed around the development phases through which CoPs typically move, as shown in Figure 3 below. Figure 2: Identifying CoP leadership needs for development and capacity building: A triangulated/iterative approach Figure 3: Phases of Communities of Practice The introductory explanations to the resources note that the need for particular skills may be more pronounced in some phases of the CoP than others and, also, that each facilitator has a separate development journey, and, thus, completes a self-audit to assess their development needs. For each phase of CoP development, there are key leadership skills, capabilities or competencies that are needed to contribute to successful leadership by the facilitator. The resources, therefore, cover a range of skills, capabilities and competencies, in each phase of CoP development. Each individual resource is constructed to be short and sharp and to stand alone, but sits within the overall framework outlined above. These resources have been tested and reviewed with target academics at Australian-based conferences and workshops and are available for free distribution via the project website . The independent evaluation of the project highlighted that the project team displayed significant strengths including a tight project design, joint leadership, a strong approach to working together that worked with the team’s strengths and the continuous engagement model through the stakeholder network. The evaluator concludes that these strengths ensured the project stayed on time and on budget to produce excellent outcomes. In particular, the project demonstrated clear value through the identification of and engagement with end users, its articulation of the strengths and use of the CoP approach in higher education, and ultimately, through its contribution to the development of CoP facilitators.

A One Health Evaluation of the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance

Rooted in the recognition that emerging infectious diseases occur at the interface of human, animal, and ecosystem health, the Southern African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance (SACIDS) initiative aims to promote a trans-sectoral approach to address better infectious disease risk management in five countries of the Southern African Development Community. Nine years after SACIDS’ inception, this study aimed to evaluate the program by applying a One Health (OH) evaluation framework developed by the Network for Evaluation of One Health (NEOH). The evaluation included a description of the context and the initiative, illustration of the theory of change, identification of outputs and outcomes, and assessment of the One Healthness. The latter is the sum of characteristics that defines an integrated approach and includes OH thinking, OH planning, OH working, sharing infrastructure, learning infrastructure, and systemic organization. The protocols made available by NEOH were used to develop data collection protocols and identify the study design. The framework relies on a mixed methods approach by combining a descriptive and qualitative assessment with a semi-quantitative evaluation (scoring). Data for the analysis were gathered during a document review, in group and individual interviews and in an online survey. Operational aspects (i.e., OH thinking, planning, and working) were found to be balanced overall with the highest score in the planning dimension, whereas the infrastructure (learning infrastructure, systemic organization, and sharing infrastructure) was high for the first two dimensions, but low for sharing. The OH index calculated was 0.359, and the OH ratio calculated was 1.495. The program was praised for its great innovative energy in a difficult landscape dominated by poor infrastructure and its ability to create awareness for OH and enthuse people for the concept; training of people and networking. Shortcomings were identified regarding the balance of contributions, funds and activities across member countries in the South, lack of data sharing, unequal allocation of resources, top-down management structures, and limited horizontal collaboration. Despite these challenges, SACIDS is perceived to be an effective agent in tackling infectious diseases in an integrated manner

Knowledge Transfer Needs and Methods

INE/AUTC 12.3

Leadership: professional communities of leadership practice in post-compulsory education

Summary: This is a paper that reviews and outlines the academic basis behind leadership in the post-compulsory setting. Description: Leadership has been for some years a key area of strategic and operational importance in the UK post-compulsory sector - this publication aims to addresss some of the issues surrounding this topic. It discusses theories and definitions of leadership, leader professionalism and post-compulsory education. A collaborative model of professional leadership is recommended, informed by authentic, democratic dialogue with practitioners. Coalitions that foster professional networking and collaborative leadership can be creatively developed through the establishment of intentionally designed communities of leadership practice. The CAMEL (Collaborative Approaches to the Management of e-Learning) JISC infoNet HEFCE/LGM-funded model for communities of practice is discussed as one model which provides a useful template for the development of shared knowledge through professional communities of practice in collaborative leadership. It is argued that this provides a helpful way of enabling and supporting leaders to advance their understanding and ‘know how' in leadership practices in a sector currently facing significant challenges from demanding external targets and continuous monitoring in an ‘audit culture’. The publication also and gives examples of good practice and many references and links for information

Exploring practice and participation in transition to postgraduate social science study

This project aims to understand the processes of inclusion and transition into postgraduate education. Whilst there has been a research focus on transitions in schools and transitions to undergraduate study, postgraduate study has largely been ignored. This project includes the voices of both staff and students in generating data that has enabled the formulation of practical recommendations to HEIs surrounding the design of postgraduate learning environments and, importantly, recommendations for students and staff for managing learning and ensuring inclusion

Common adversaries form alliances: modelling complex networks via anti-transitivity

Anti-transitivity captures the notion that enemies of enemies are friends, and arises naturally in the study of adversaries in social networks and in the study of conflicting nation states or organizations. We present a simplified, evolutionary model for anti-transitivity influencing link formation in complex networks, and analyze the model's network dynamics. The Iterated Local Anti-Transitivity (or ILAT) model creates anti-clone nodes in each time-step, and joins anti-clones to the parent node's non-neighbor set. The graphs generated by ILAT exhibit familiar properties of complex networks such as densification, short distances (bounded by absolute constants), and bad spectral expansion. We determine the cop and domination number for graphs generated by ILAT, and finish with an analysis of their clustering coefficients. We interpret these results within the context of real-world complex networks and present open problems

A Companion Guide to Analyzing and Projecting Occupational Trends

This report is intended to complement Future Labour Supply and Demand 101: A Guide to Analysing and Predicting Occupational Trends, a technical document commissioned by the Forum of Labour Market Ministers (FLMM) Labour Market Information Working Group (LMIWG) with the aim of achieving greater consistency and coordination in labour supply and demand modeling in Canada. In conjunction with the technical document, this companion guide will assist stakeholders in making informed decisions regarding the occupational modeling needs of their organizations.labour supply, labour demand, modeling, occupation