Educational Policy and Open Educational Practice in Australian Higher Education

Open Educational Policy has become increasingly the subject of government attention globally, primarily with a focus on reducing educational costs for tax payers. Parallel to, yet rarely convergent with, these initiatives is an espoused sector-wide commitment to broadening participation in higher education, especially for students of low socio-economic backgrounds. Criticism of both open education and social inclusion policy highlights a deficiency in both the metrics used by policy-makers and the maturity of conceptual understanding applied to both notions. This chapter explores the possibilities afforded to social inclusion in universities by open education, and the case for an integrated approach to educational policy that recognizes the impact of a multi-causal foundation on the broader educational ecosystem

Country Reputation and Corporate Reputation in e-Government Context: A Mixed Method Study of UAE

The academic study of country reputation is still relatively limited and new. This doctoral research investigates the impact of country reputation and corporate reputation in the e-government context in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The transformational approach adopted by the UAE government and their leadership specifies the future directions through their vision and strategic objectives to assure the country’s competitiveness among other countries around the world. The ultimate vision and goal of the country is to leverage the well-being and happiness of its citizens through government services in different government fields including e-government services. Thus, this research investigates the effect of country and corporate reputation on customer loyalty, customer happiness and overall happiness thorough the quality of the e-government services provided. A mixed method approach was used in this research starting with an exploratory study using qualitative methodology (Phase 1) by conducting interviews and a focus group. This was followed by a quantitative study (Phase 2) using structural equation modeling for the data collected through questionnaires. In phase 1 of the research design, the sample consisted of twelve decision makers in government organizations (including ministries and managers). In addition, seven customers who used e-government services were asked about their perceptions about country and corporate reputation and customers’ outcomes

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse