Celina Pascoe

Australian academic use of the Internet: implications for university administrators

Reports on the first‐ever nationwide quantitative survey of academic staff use of the Internet. After briefly noting reasons for adopting a mailed‐out survey, the article discusses some of the results obtained. These include daily use of e‐mail, access to the Internet via remote dial‐in services and technical support provided to academics. More than one‐third of respondents seem in need of more training in Net use and time limitations and lack of training are typical barriers to effective use. The study concludes with opportunities for further research at both national and international levels and discusses possible implications for university administrators. The full report of the study is published as Academics Online (Auslib Press, Adelaide, 1998). The research team also included Edna Sharpe of the Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service.

Australian academic use of the Internet

It is widely assumed ‐ and frequently asserted ‐ that university communication practices are being radically transformed by the introduction of electronic communication. Explores the introduction of Internet access in a single university, the University of Canberra, located in the capital city of Australia. The prime objective was to identify the frequency and type of use that academic staff were making of the Internet during 1995, with supplementary objectives being to record perceptions of users toward the Internet, and barriers to its effective use. The principal finding is not unexpected: academics were making very varied use of the Internet. Some staff were utilizing some facilities on a daily basis; others were yet to begin exploring this new communication medium. A particular surprise was that at the time of this survey the Internet was being used very little for teaching.

Yet Another Role for Job Satisfaction and Work Motivation - Enabler of Knowledge Creation and Knowledge Sharing

This paper describes a continuing study which uses a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research methods to identify factors which facilitate organizational and other types of collaborative learning. In this study, such learning is termed ‘social learning’, and refers to those factors which enable the sharing of knowledge and practice, and which foster generative learning. This paper’s specific focus is on the roles played by job satisfaction and morale in collaborative learning. The study to date has undertaken research in three settings: a tactical headquarters, a single service strategic headquarters; and a joint services strategic headquarters. The study’s long term aim is to develop architectures to support the development of organizational and information systems that enhance organizational learning and facilitate knowledge management.

Team Building as a Foundation for Knowledge Management: Findings from Research into Social Learning in the Australian Defence Organisation

This paper describes findings from a four-year research study which used a mixture of qualitative and quantitative research methods to identify factors that facilitate social learning and collaborative knowledge development. Social learning includes those factors which enable transmission of knowledge and practice and which foster generative learning. This papers specific focus is on the facilitators of team building that support knowledge sharing and knowledge development.

Working and learning together: social learning in the Australian Defence Organisation

This paper reports on the methodologies used and the findings of the research done by the Enterprise Social Learning Architecture (ESLA) Task into learning processes occurring in two diverse environments within the Australian Defence Organisation, tactical and strategic. The research focused on identifying factors that enable and facilitate social learning and these factors are discussed in view of the preliminary architecture proposed by the research team and in view of the socio-technical environment within which people work and learn. The paper concludes by suggesting that the development of information systems requires a multidisciplinary approach and needs an understanding of the cultural issues prevalent in work environments.

Aspects of collaborative social learning in the Australian Defence Force

The Enterprise Social Learning Architectures (ESLA) is investigating collaborative social learning within the Australian Defence Organisation (ADO). Processes that help to understand social learning within the strategic environment of the ADO are described. Although the paper deals with the defence environment, the findings can be generalised to other organisational settings, as it deals with understanding the issues inherent in building sustainable and adaptive learning organisations.

The Communication Audit: Tried And True, But Now Let’S Use It For Something New – Examining Organisational Knowledge Sharing

AbstractThis paper reports research on the role of communication in knowledge management, examined through the lens of communication climate. The research is being undertaken in a major public sector organisation, on a longitudinal basis over 2003 and 2004. The organisation wishes to shift its culture to one characterised by internal information sharing, and to this end it has undertaken a three-year knowledge management initiative that comprises an integrated suite of formal and informal knowledge sharing activities. The present paper provides results of the first survey of the organisation’s communication climate, and they suggest that communication audits can be used to gauge whether knowledge and information sharing are occurring by providing data on two antecedents to such sharing: perceptions of other organisational members’ openness to the receiving as well as the sending aspects of sharing.