Microsoft Word - conts25-1.doc Australasian Journal of Educational Technology Volume 25, Number 1, 2009 ISSN 1449-5554 (online) Contents Editorial 25(1) ............................................................................................. iii-vii Learning fire investigation the clean way: The virtual experience .................... 1-13 Amanda Davies and Barney Dalgarno Breaking down online teaching: Innovation and resistance ............................... 14-29 John Hannon Usability and usefulness of eBooks on PPCs: How students’ opinions vary over time ............................................................................................... 30-44 Paul Lam, Shun Leung Lam, John Lam and Carmel McNaught Sharing quality resources for teaching and learning: A peer review model for the ALTC Exchange in Australia ..................................................... 45-59 Geraldine Lefoe, Robyn Philip, Meg O'Reilly and Dominique Parrish Peer review of learning and teaching: Harnessing collective intelligence to address emerging challenges .................................................... 60-79 Denise Wood and Martin Friedel Evaluating coursework in computer games degrees: Students and assessors as virtual characters ...................................................................... 80-100 Barry Ip, Martin Capey, Andrew Baker and John Carroll Learning about problem based learning: Student teachers integrating technology, pedagogy and content knowledge .............................................. 101-116 Hyo-Jeong So and Bosung Kim Bringing academics on board: Encouraging institution-wide diffusion of e-learning environments .......................................................................... 117-134 Dawn Birch and Bruce Burnett The Australasian Journal of Educational Technology (AJET) is a refereed research journal published 5-6 times per year by the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education (ascilite). AJET retired its printed version (ISSN 1449-3098) at the end of Volume 23, 2007, and from Volume 24, 2008, the journal is open access, online only (ISSN 1449-5554), and does not have paid subscriptions. © 2008 Authors retain copyright in their individual articles, whilst copyright in AJET as a compilation is retained by the publisher. Except for authors reproducing their own articles, no part of this journal may be reprinted or reproduced without permission. For further details, and for details on submission of manuscripts and open i i Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2009, 25(1) access to all issues of AJET published since the journal's foundation in 1985, please see http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ For editorial inquiries, contact the Editor, Associate Professor Catherine McLoughlin, School of Education (ACT), Australian Catholic University, PO Box 256, Dickson ACT 2602, Australia. Email: Catherine.McLoughlin@acu.edu.au, Tel: +61 2 6209 1100 Fax +61 2 6209 1185. For review process, production, website and business matters, contact the Production Editor, Dr Roger Atkinson, 5/202 Coode Street, Como WA 6152, Australia. Email: rjatkinson@bigpond.com, Tel: +61 8 9367 1133. Desktop publishing (PDF versions) and HTML by Roger Atkinson. AJET is managed by a committee nominated by ASCILITE. The AJET Management Committee comprises: Dr Mike Keppell, Charles Sturt University, ASCILITE Executive Ms Meg O'Reilly, Southern Cross University, ASCILITE Executive Assoc Prof Geoffrey Crisp, Uni of Adelaide, ASCILITE 2003 Convenor Dr Rob Phillips, Murdoch University, ASCILITE 2004 Convenor Professor Peter Goodyear, University of Sydney, ASCILITE 2006 Convenor Professor Ron Oliver, Edith Cowan University, AJET Editor 1997-2001 Assoc Prof Catherine McLoughlin (Editor), Australian Catholic University Dr Roger Atkinson (Production Editor) Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education http://www.ascilite.org.au/ Same places, different spaces Auckland, 6-9 December 2009 http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/auckland09/ Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2009, 25(1) iii Editorial Five Outstanding Paper Awards made at ascilite Melbourne 2008 Since the publication of AJET 16(1) in May 2000, we have commenced each volume with the Outstanding Paper Award recipients from the previous December's ascilite Conference. We are very pleased to extend this honour to five recipients of Outstanding Paper Awards, who were selected from the 144 full and concise papers accepted by the ascilite Melbourne 2008 Conference review process [1, 2, 3]. The Outstanding Paper Awards were selected according to reviewers' rankings [3], with a minor, moderating role adopted by the Conference's Program Committee. The recipients are arranged in alphabetical order for AJET 25(1) presentation. Amanda Davies and Barney Dalgarno from Charles Sturt University authored Learning fire investigation the clean way: The virtual experience. As one reviewer stated, "This paper provides a clear summary of a well designed research project, producing useful findings on the effectiveness of virtual reality technology that could conceivably be extrapolated to similar applications in a number of tertiary education subjects". Breaking down online teaching: Innovation and resistance was submitted by John Hannon, La Trobe University. One reviewer characterised the paper as '… an interesting and important narrative focussing on innovations that don't work. This i s an important topic and there are not enough reports of this kind." Paul Lam, Shun Leung Lam, John Lam and Carmel McNaught from The Chinese University of Hong Kong wrote Usability and usefulness of eBooks on PPCs: How students’ opinions vary over t i m e . One reviewer wished to "… congratulate t h e researchers for reporting results that do not support the technology being studied - such research is very important to have in the body of knowledge to inform others". Sharing quality resources for teaching and learning: A peer review model for t h e ALTC Exchange in Australia was written by an inter-institutional team, Geraldine Lefoe (University of Wollongong), Robyn Philip (Charles Darwin University), Meg O'Reilly (Southern Cross University) and Dominique Parrish (University of Wollongong). Reviewer comments included the noting of "… important implications for practice in terms of its findings regarding new ways of recognising and valuing t h e scholarly role of peer review of learning and teaching resources". 30 Nov - 3 Dec 2008 at Deakin University Burwood Campus, Melbourne http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/ iv Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2009, 25(1) Denise Wood and Martin Friedel, University of South Australia, were authors of Peer review of learning and teaching: Harnessing collective intelligence to a d d r e s s emerging challenges. Reviewers commented particularly that the paper could "…extend current discourse, offering important points for reflection to practitioners, administrators and policy makers", and that it "… incorporates a high degree of flexibility and encourages a scholarly basis for the peer review process. It adopts a dynamic approach that allows criteria to be modified or new criteria to be added." Auckland, 6-9 December 2009 http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/auckland09/ ERIC indexing and abstracting AJET will soon be indexed and abstracted by ERIC [4]. During 5-9 February 2009 the Production Editor uploaded AJET's PDF files for Volumes 20-24, 2004-2008. A total of 20 issues, comprising 152 article files and 20 editorial and contents files, altogether 77.4 megabytes. Within a few weeks we expect AJET to appear in the list Journals indexed in ERIC [5]. As noted in Editorial 23(2) [6], our first approach to ERIC on behalf of AJET was in November 2000, so we are very pleased to report t h i s development to ascilite members and to our authors and readers generally. Sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences of the U.S. Department of Education, ERIC is familiar to several generations of educational researchers: ERIC is searched by over 3 million users each month. We are crawled by Google, and are also provided on the platforms of several major commercial database vendors: Ovid, ProQuest, SilverPlatter, OCLC, and Thomson Dialog. There is no cost to search the ERIC database, and no royalties are received. Furthermore, there is no cost to have publications indexed in ERIC. [7] The Student Experience Charles Darwin University Darwin, 6-9 July 2009 http://conference.herdsa.org.au/2009/ IM 34: Revisiting IM 13: A really venerable online archive In Idle Moment No. 13 [8], we commented upon the Royal Society's proclamation of i t s "back to 1665" online archive for its journals, in the context of pride in AJET's "back to 1985" online archive. The purpose for this revisiting is to obtain a quick check on t h e extent to which some of the major multinationals in scholarly journal publishing have followed suit, and to highlight the question, "Will very large online archives hasten the demise of printed versions of journals?" Table 1 presents a brief sample of developments, intended to be illustrative rather than comprehensive. The phrase "digitising backfile collections" is not an agreed or standardised description, but here we use it to describe the commonest practice, which is based upon recording an image file from a paper copy of each page of an article. The page images are combined into Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2009, 25(1) v a single file in PDF format, without the undertaking of any optical character recognition, except that bibliographic details and abstract usually are made available also in HTML or XML format to enable search engine reading. Table 1: Some examples of "digitising backfile collections" Publisher Page heading URL and illustrative quotation Wiley- Blackwell Journal Backfiles http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/aboutus/backfileCollections.html? One of the largest archives of its kind issued by a single publisher, the complete Wiley-Blackwell backfile includes 13.6 million pages spanning three centuries of scientific discovery across 800+ titles. Our content is deep, with coverage extending to Volume 1, Issue 1, including issues dating back to the eighteenth century… ...Articles are presented as full-text PDFs that have been optimized for flexible searching, and enhanced to achieve exceptional print quality. Taylor & Francis Group Discover Past Brilliance: Uncover the Archives http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/librarians_pricing info_archives~db=all Taylor & Francis Group has embarked on a project to digitise its backfile collections back to Volume 1 Issue 1 by key subject area. … allow your library to strengthen its collections of scholarly information available to your researchers, whilst saving valuable shelf space and costs. Flexible pricing options are available to suit every budget…. Elsevier Elsevier Backfiles on ScienceDirect http://info.sciencedirect.com/content/journals/backfiles/ Imagine having the ability to search a historical archive of over eight million articles directly from your desktop, back to Volume 1, Issue 1. This is exactly what the Elsevier Backfiles on ScienceDirect program makes possible. The Backfiles up to 1994 contain 4.3 million articles. As from 1995 to present day there are an additional four million, a figure that is growing at approximately 300,000 journal articles per year. Emerald Emerald Backfiles http://info.emeraldinsight.com/products/backfiles/index.htm ?PHPSESSID=v6te333k3se85a269tbhhk3pg0& 60,000 articles, over 120 journals all the way back to Volume 1, Issue 1, direct from your desktop on one unified platform…. With a collection that dates back to the nineteenth century… The extended archive will help to fill collection gaps, reduce shelf space and provide access to articles that have never before been published electronically…. Over recent years we have seen a huge increase in the usage of articles online. This clearly highlights the changes in reader behaviour; content is chiefly accessed online rather than via hardcopy journals. CSIRO (no specific page found) CSIRO Publishing, the Australian representative in this sample, is a bit of a let down for Table 1 purposes. No illustrative quotations found, though there are 50-60 years of backfiles online for their flagship journals, for example AJAR 1(1), 1950: http://www.publish.csiro.au/nid/43/issue/1223.htm We especially liked Emerald's "Backfiles" page, for its invocation of Sir Winston Churchill, who is quoted, "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see" [9]. An intriguing quotation, but will Sir Winston's insight and Table 1 help us with the initial question about hastening the demise of printed versions of journals? Yes, very large online archives will help to do that, for reasons indicated in Table 1, which includes good marketing phrases, relevant for not only backfiles but also current and future issues. For example, "…directly from your desktop"; "…optimized for flexible searching"; "…saving valuable shelf space and costs"; and "…changes in reader behaviour; content is chiefly accessed online rather than via hardcopy journals." vi Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2009, 25(1) IM 35: Some new journals commencing in 2009 Table 2 presents another very brief survey, this concerned with trends in the startups for new academic journals. In spite of the global economic crisis, new journals continue to germinate. Table 2: Some new journals commencing in 2009 Journal name and URL Publisher and 1st issue Illustrative quotations Journal of Teaching and Learning for Graduate Employability (JTLGE). URL: Pending (at 17 Feb 2009). Curtin University of Technology http://www.curtin .edu.au/ First issue: Pending. Conference association: TL Forum. Open access, online only. The founding of this new journal was announced at Teaching and Learning Forum 2009, Curtin University of Technology, 29- 30 Jan. [http://otl.curtin.edu.au/tlf2009/]. "… a scholarly forum for the dissemination of research and exemplary evidence-based practice in higher education teaching and learning for graduate employability." Journal of Education, Informatics and Cybernetics (JEIC). http://www.journal eic.com/ International Institute of Informatics and Cybernetics. http://ww w.iiinfocybernetics.com/ First issue: 1(1), 2009. Conference association: EISTA. Open access, online only. "The Article Processing Charge (APC) is 50$ per page for all accepted papers, which is well below the APC range of $500-$3000, per article, of other publishers... (Details with regards to the costs and prices in journal publishing can be found in Waltham, 2005...[10]; see also [11, 12])" Copyright: Assignment not stated. International Journal of Vocational and Technical Education. http://www.a cademicjournals.org/IJVTE Journal of Educational Administration and Policy Studies. http://www.aca demicjournals.org/JEAPS Academic Journals. http://www.academic journals.org/ First issues: Pending - April 2009. Conference or society associations: None stated. Open access, online only. "Authors are required to pay a $550 handling fee..." (http://www.academicjour nals.org/jeaps/Instruction.htm, http://ww w.academicjournals.org/ijvte/Instruction.htm) Copyright: "...if and when the manuscript is accepted for publication, the authors agree to automatic transfer of the copyright to the publisher" Effective Education. http://www.tandf.co.uk/jo urnals/titles/19415532.asp Routledge. First issue: Pending - 2009. Conference or society associations: None stated. Publication frequency: 2 issues per year. Access: "Institutional (print + online)… US$256.00" "Effective Education is an international, peer-reviewed journal that seeks to play a leading role in shaping the field of research into the effectiveness of educational programs, interventions and differing types of provision. Education is defined broadly, including formal and informal education and covering all stages of the lifespan from early childhood through to higher and adult education…." A number of interesting trends or potential trends are suggested by Table 2's d a t a , though keeping in mind that the sample size is small, and as usual, is illustrative rather than comprehensive. Firstly, open access, online only, is becoming more prominent, slowly but surely, perhaps with increased emphasis upon fees being paid by authors. However, large multinational publishers such as Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group) continue to issue some new journals, though their income generation i s becoming increasingly dependent upon newer services such as pay per view [11]. Secondly, we may guess that scholarly and professional societies may become less important as a source of new journals [11]; if anything we may guess at a trend towards more transfers of society journals to commercial publishers, or some amalgamations of small society journals into a larger society's suite of publications. Roger Atkinson and Catherine McLoughlin AJET Production Editor and AJET Editor Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 2009, 25(1) vii Endnotes 1. ascilite Melbourne 2008. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/ (for the list of all Awards announced at the Conference, see http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/awards.htm) 2. Specifications for full and concise papers are given at http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/cfpcategories.htm 3. Review criteria for papers and advice to reviewers are given at http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/cfpreviewing.htm http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/melbourne08/cfpreviewers.htm 4. ERIC (Educational Resources Information Center, USA). http://www.eric.ed.gov/ 5. Journals indexed in ERIC. http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb= true&_pageLabel=JournalPage&logoutLink=false 6. AJET Editorial 23(2). Idle moment No. 18: ERIC. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet23/editorial23-2.html 7. Email from ERIC to AJET, 12 January 2009. 8. AJET Editorial 22(4). Idle Moment No. 13: A really venerable online archive. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet22/editorial22-4.html 9. ThinkExist.com. Winston Churchill quotes. http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_farther _backward_you_can_look-the_farther/150145.html 10. Waltham, M. (2005). JISC: Learned society open access business models. Mary Waltham Publishing, Princeton, NJ [verified 17 Feb 2009] http://www.marywaltham.com/JISCReport.pdf 11. Waltham, M., Hey. T. & Lynch, C. (2006). How is scholarly communication changing as a result of the Web? Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers Future Watch Committee, White Paper 1. http://www.marywaltham.com/ScholarCommChangeALPSP.pdf 12. Waltham, M. (2008). What do society and association members really want? Learned Publishing, 21, 7-14. [available http://www.marywaltham.com/WhatDoSociety.pdf] "In dreams begins responsibility": Choices, evidence, and change Manchester, UK, 8-10 September 2009 http://www.alt.ac.uk/altc2009/ Innovate, Collaborate & Sustain 3-6 May 2009, Perth http://www.caudit.edu.au/ educauseaustralasia09/ Same places, different spaces Auckland, 6-9 December 2009 http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/auckland09/