Ann Monday

Focusing on SMTEs: Using Audience Response Technology to Refine a Research Project

This paper reports on the use of audience response technology to support a focus group session that was conducted as the first phase of a study exploring the use of ICTs in small to medium tourism enterprises (SMTEs) in the Australian States of South Australia and Victoria. A variety of large and small group support technology was considered before the audience response technology was adopted. The paper explores the way that such technologies can be used to successfully support research that utilises focus groups. Valuable lessons were learned from the first focus group session and the outcomes informed the subsequent semi-structured interviews.

A Strategy for Developing End-user Developers: 'I Thought I Hated Every Minute of It, But I Learnt Such a Lot'

A continuing challenge for university lecturers is to develop successful programs that challenge students whilst at the same time responding to a ‘customer’ driven market place. In 2000, two new courses were introduced into a business degree program as a result of feedback from past and present students and the business community. These courses aimed to explore the wider issues of end-users developing smallscale applications to support their role at work whilst possessing a limited skill set in applications development. In each year (2000 and 2001) a different approach was adopted. This paper reflects upon the teaching of these two courses over the two-year period, the responses of students to the different approaches and the extent to which the learning outcomes were achieved.