Using a Capstone E-portfolio to encourage integration across a degree program

The Bachelor of Business Program in Faculty of Business at the University of Technology Sydney has been undergoing a review process over the last twelve months..

SOS: A tool to support assessment practice across degree courses

Reviews of degree programs often reveal a lack of a suitable structure to ensure the appropriate distribution and weighting of students’ assessment experiences across the program. In an attempt to address this issue, the Subject Overview Spreadsheet (SOS) was developed to support staff in designing their assessments and monitoring practice across each year of a degree program. The tool is designed to be used initially by subject coordinators designing their modules, to ensure that all assessment aligns with learning objectives and meets faculty and university policies. SOS then collates information for related sets of subjects – for example, all first-year core subjects within a degree program or all compulsory subjects within a major – and produces a series of tables so that teaching teams across subjects can view the types, weightings and distributions of the assessments. These tables can be used to identify gaps or overloading in the subject assessment design, so that modifications can be made to provide a suitable balance for students. This process has proven very effective with large programs with multiple majors. Data is then forwarded to the accreditation committee to monitor assessment and assurance of learning across the program. It also facilitates reviews of the impact of any proposed changes in subject assessment design

Catalyst nanoparticle growth dynamics and their influence on product morphology in a CVD process for continuous carbon nanotube synthesis

Extrapolating the properties of individual CNTs into macro-scale CNT materials using a continuous and cost effective process offers enormous potential for a variety of applications. The floating catalyst chemical vapor deposition (FCCVD) method discussed in this paper bridges the gap between generating nano- and macro-scale CNT material and has already been adopted by industry for exploitation. A deep understanding of the phenomena occurring within the FCCVD reactor is thereby key to producing the desired CNT product and successfully scaling up the process further. This paper correlates information on decomposition of reactants, axial catalyst nanoparticle dynamics and the morphology of the resultant CNTs and shows how these are strongly related to the temperature and chemical availability within the reactor. For the first time, in-situ measurements of catalyst particle size distributions coupled with reactant decomposition profiles and a detailed axial SEM study of formed CNT materials reveal specific domains that have important implications for scale-up. A novel observation is the formation, disappearance and reformation of catalyst nanoparticles along the reactor axis, caused by their evaporation and re-condensation and mapping of different CNT morphologies as a result of this process.The authors thank Qflo Ltd for providing funding towards this research, C. Hoecker additionally thanks Churchill College Cambridge for financial support, M. Bajada gratefully acknowledges financial support through the 'Master it! Scholarship Scheme'.This is the accepted manuscript. The final version is available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.carbon.2015.09.05

Redesigning a food supply chain for environmental sustainability – An analysis of resource use and recovery

© 2019 Elsevier Ltd Food supply will need to increase by around 70% from its current levels in order to meet the world population growth of 9.6 billion by 2050. Food waste is the biggest challenge in global food security, wherein approximately 20–30% of food waste occurs in the post-harvest stage of the food supply chain (FSC) in developing countries. This food waste generates significant negative environmental effects in addition to the unnecessary usage (and wastage) of resources consumed in producing the wasted food. Whilst India is the major producer and exporter of many agricultural crops, there is a lack of research that evaluates the environmental impact of the Indian FSCs. The environmental impact of the same product varies according to the resources consumed and so it is important that the environmental impact of individual supply chains be considered. Also, there is a lack of studies that uses the result of environmental impact assessment to identify the operational and resource inefficiencies in FSC and develop a framework for sustainable FSC. Thus, this study aims to identify operational and resource inefficiencies present in FSC through environmental impact assessment and propose a framework for redesigning the FSC to improve environmental sustainability. Life cycle assessment approach is used for assessing the environmental impact. This framework has been applied to a mango food supply chain

Development of Management Capability Scores

Peer Reviewerd Federal Government Publicatio

The effects of competition on management practices in New Zealand–a study of manufacturing firms

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Competition is a key factor in driving performance improvements across a range of firm activities including reductions in costs, increasing the levels of productivity, promoting entrepreneurial efforts, fostering innovation, driving better management practices, and exercising strategic managerial decisions. The questions of how and why competitive market forces influence management practices are the focus of this paper. Using data on management practices from 152 New Zealand manufacturing firms, and competition data obtained for various industries of the NZ economy, we examine the association between different dimensions of competition and management practices. Notably, we find little or no association between better management practices and competition when utilising simpler measures of competition, namely the number of competitors, industry concentration measured by HHI and the price-cost margin are used. However, using a more refined measure of competition, competition intensity characterised by profit elasticity, has a positive and significant association with the quality of management practices adopted by firms

From compliance to collaboration: critically reflecting on the process of embedding an Indigenous Graduate Attribute in an undergraduate business program.

Calls for Australian universities to embed Indigenous content into curriculum are more than a decade old yet this work remains largely incomplete. Institutional commitments made at senior level to achieve these outcomes can lack direction, guidance, and support at the coalface. Using a critical reflection methodology this paper outlines the approach undertaken by a group of Indigenous and non-Indigenous academics to embed a contextualised Indigenous graduate attribute into a traditional undergraduate business degree with multiple majors. The results indicate that collaborative approaches based on relationships and trust and supported with clear guidelines and processes can achieve positive outcomes. A focus on professional capabilities can enhance non-Indigenous staff confidence to teach this content and allay concerns about misappropriation of Indigenous Knowledges

Exploring the potential for timed cities in Malta : the case of Paola

With ever-increasing interest in the Timed City concept and active mobility-related initiatives that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, several cities in the developed Western world have engaged in projects to move towards sustainable mobility. Malta is a car-dependent small Island State with the highest population density in the European Union. Its transport planning policy, leading to ever-increasing car dependency, is having serious detrimental impacts on environmental, social and economic aspects. The archipelago’s urban environment and demographics provide an ideal context for studying the Timed City concept. This research therefore tests the applicability of the Timed City concept to the Maltese context. A mixed method case study methodology is adopted using GIS and PGIS. Paola, a dense urban locality in Malta of over 9000 inhabitants and spanning 2.5 km2, was chosen. Relevant datasets are mapped out in GIS using ArcGIS Desktop 10.8. Qualitative research to gauge the user perspective using PGIS is ongoing. This paper presents the spatial analysis of the quantitative GIS data and discusses the findings in relation to the current literature. Ultimately, the data indicate undiscovered potential for the Timed City concept to be successfully adapted to such urban contexts, while identifying specific areas requiring improvement and concluding with suggestions for policy intervention and future research.peer-reviewe

Developing sustainability learning in business school curricula–productive boundary objects and participatory processes

© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. Sustainability learning is holistic and complex as it draws on diverse disciplines and can be interpreted differently within individual pedagogies. Embedding sustainability across and within business schools relies on developing suitable boundary objects. These may include representations such as models, frameworks or classificatory schemes that are malleable enough to be adapted for use within the disparate disciplines and pedagogies, yet durable enough to be recognisable and to maintain consistency across them. Boundary objects thus allow the sharing of ways of knowing or practice across various social boundaries. This paper outlines how participatory curriculum development processes can enable sustainability to be embedded in a business school curriculum. Distinct phases of the process were marked by different ways of knowing, as disciplinary-specific academics developed and embedded sustainability into and across curricula. Boundary objects were both outcomes and productive facilitators of this process. They acted as catalysts and attracted ongoing processes of dialogue, debate and meaning-making between these academics. The institutional context provided enabling conditions to legitimize outcomes from the participatory process. The process may be replicable in other business schools by the use of boundary objects

Strategic management in Australian firms

Australian Government EDAN Research Working paper 3/2018 published by the Office of the Chief Economist, DIIS Canberra, Dec 2018, see https://www.industry.gov.au/data-and-publications/staff-research-papers/strategic-management-in-australian-firm