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For health policies to be effective in practice, they need to be communicated and translated at strategic and operational levels and to be integrated into clinical practice. There is little empirical evidence to understand whether this happens and, if it does, whether it does so effectively. In the present study the views of professional healthcare staff from one service field (child mental health) are explored in order to ascertain their views on the translation of policy into practice through thematic analysis. Key themes of limited awareness, lack of strategic policies and problems in linking evidence carry implications for the development and strategies of policies. The interviews demonstrate that there is limited evidence that policies are being communicated as effectively as they could be, and we make recommendations on how these could be translated and implemented more effectively in the future.

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This paper explores a pilot project in which three VET teachers in an Australian dual-sector university trialled a scholarship framework by undertaking a small ethnographic inquiry into current practices in their respective industries. The framework defined a method for engaging with industry while simultaneously developing VET teacher capability in scholarly practice. The teachers were asked to reflect on their experience of engaging in a scholarly project and how new knowledge has been incorporated into their teaching and curriculum design. The reflections were analysed using the indicators of scholarly quality from the self-same framework, and the key enabling factors and benefits were identified. The claimed success of the pilot is traced primarily to having a framework that provided a logical guide for the planning and execution of the projects and institutional support in the form of mentoring and paid time release.

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This research was also presented at the 20th Australian Vocational Education and Training Research Association Conference in 2017. The conference paper is available in VOCEDplus at TD/TNC 129.168. Show less

Digital entrepreneurship has gained more attention in theory and practice in recent years. Among other forms of digital entrepreneurship education, MOOCs (massive open online courses) are one of the strongest trends and influence the content and flow of teaching and learning. The paper contributes to a better understanding of the necessary skills, opportunities and risks arising from the use of MOOCs as a new way of teaching entrepreneurship. It empirically examines challenges and drivers for the use of MOOCs as a novel pedagogical concept. The results show that a lack of self-discipline to complete a MOOC and a lack of interaction with others are the main obstacles compared to lectures with compulsory university attendance. However, the results also show that MOOCs are flexible in time and space and can thus facilitate the accessibility of education, especially entrepreneurial education.

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Plumbers have always had the responsibility of considering public health in their everyday work practices. With growth in population, the world becoming smaller through easier access to travel, and living in a multicultural world there is a growing need to understand more about managing water safety and security, safe sanitary practices and the prevention of disease spreading through our communities. Today's plumber has to understand the importance of their role in the community. Plumbing training has to stay connected to the global health issues and understand that their practices may affect our community and in turn may affect another community. Plumbing training has to include a high level practical skill, problem solving and critical understanding. Through this Fellowship opportunity, the Fellow investigated the possibility of redesigning plumbing training into an inclusive collaborative training model that will incite learning and increase the plumber's capacity to learn. Traditional plumbing training is extremely skills focussed. With new technologies becoming a major influence in plumbing design there is an even greater need to reconfigure and enhance plumbing training.

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In a global economy and a world of increasing polarisation and unsustainable development, learning is critical to change. With most of the world’s population in cities and the region increasingly the focus of measures to improve prospects, the learning region concept integrates the conflicting, diverse and complex issues of development. This thesis examines learning in networks and further develops the theory of the learning region through a case study in Melbourne, Australia. It begins with a case study of an industry network which was part of a research project – City Regions, Intelligent Territories, Innovation Competitiveness and Learning (CRITICAL). The CRITICAL research project examined learning processes in five cities and developed theory and tools to support learning regions. In this thesis the study of the industry network became the first step in a case study of the northern metropolitan regional economic development project. The study of the region demonstrated that there existed a strategic regional approach supporting local learning and action developed through projects based on local research and collaboration. The theories of ‘communities of practice’ and ‘architectures of learning’ (Wenger 1998) provided the conceptual framework for the case study and proved to be a novel way to discern how learning was supported. A key finding in this thesis was how learning in networks was supported and that this led to organisational change, innovation and learning across different sectors and organisations. Data was analysed using a typology of the learning region developed in the CRITICAL project and the region was found to have characteristics of a learning region although without wider connectivity across the city could only be considered a sub region. The study contributes to the body of work which demonstrates that the university can play a significant role in supporting the learning region and local engagement of key organisations, enterprises and government, and in the understanding of policy and programs to develop learning regions. The findings also contribute to innovation theory particularly with regard to networks and small to medium enterprises in manufacturing. Findings support the development of frameworks for urban regional development with the partnering of different levels of government to create new ways of operating and learning in the emerging mode of local governance partnerships and highlight the need to develop ways of measuring and understanding success or failure which capture the social, economic, cultural and environmental priorities of society.

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The Higher Education - Business and Community Interaction (HE-BCI) Survey is in its tenth year and is an essential source of information on knowledge exchange (KE) in the UK. The exchange of knowledge described here takes place between higher education institutions (HEIs) and the wider world of business and the community. Data reported in this survey provide valuable intelligence for higher education (HE) senior managers, knowledge exchange practitioners and policy makers. The report also provides an in-depth commentary on the extent of, and trends in, knowledge exchange activity in the UK. This report builds on previously published HE-BCI surveys, the most recent of which analysed 2008-09 data and was published in June 2010 ('Higher Education - Business and Community Interaction Survey: 2008-09', HEFCE 2010/14) In this latest survey, the second to be carried out by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) as part of the formal Finance Statistics Record, HEIs provided data for academic year 2009-10. Data regarding strategy and infrastructure (which are not numeric or financial) will be for the end of the academic year (July 2010).

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Urban gardens are spreading in many cities across Europe, with community gardening being a fundamental form of urban agriculture. While the literature reveals the essential role that community gardens can play in terms of learning and education, no studies have investigated the training needs for participants in community gardens to ensure their successful development. The goal of this article is to evaluate the training requirements of urban community gardens to ensure their successful implementation and their contribution to sustainability in European cities. Two questionnaires of users' needs analysis were designed and implemented in Berlin, Bologna, Budapest, and Cartagena. The results unveiled the need to re-enforce the training in the formation and community building phases of community gardens towards ensuring the creation of an engaged gardening community to maintain activity, particularly for top-down activities (e.g., research-related gardens). Users claimed their need for being trained on crop management skills (e.g., maintenance, bed preparation, organic practices) and on communication skills to further disseminate their activity, thereby increasing the potential for citizen engagement. Such requirements could be overcome with the creation of urban gardens networks, where experiences and knowledge are shared among practitioners. Policy recommendations are provided based on the outputs of this study.

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The author’s research looks at organisational knowledge, both tacit and explicit, and the types of knowledge that lecturers need to be more effective in their roles. The research also examines knowledge transfer in the author’s organisation and how such knowledge can be used to inform and support vocational education and training (VET) lecturers. Focus groups were conducted with 93 lecturers, of whom 83 also participated in a survey questionnaire. The research found that lecturers had difficulty finding relevant organisation knowledge and often went to other colleagues for information. In relation to the types of knowledge they require, lecturers are interested in accessing examples of good practice. Lecturers want the opportunity for clear information about, and discussions around, work practices. For new lecturers, knowing where to find information and having greater guidance and better induction processes are also important.

As part of the National Centre for Vocational Education Research (NCVER) Building Researcher Capacity Scheme, a community of practice scholarship program has been created to encourage a culture of research in vocational education and training (VET) organisations. With the guidance of an experienced mentor, VET practitioners without any formal research experience undertake their own work-based research project. The scholarship also provides participants with an opportunity to have their research peer-reviewed and released by NCVER in VOCEDplus. Show less

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to discuss conditions for workplace learning (WPL) in relation to temporary agency staffing (TAS), focusing on temporary and regular nurses' experiences of social relations. Design/methodology/approach: Data were gathered using qualitative semi-structured interviews with five agency nurses and five regular nurses. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Findings: Similarities and differences regarding conditions for WPL among 'temps' and 'regulars' emerged, pointing towards both challenges and opportunities for WPL on various levels. Moreover, although challenges stood out, the context of professional work provides certain opportunities for WPL through, for example, knowledge sharing among nurses.

Research limitations/implications: Results are valid for the interviewees' experiences of WPL conditions. However, the findings may also have currency in other but similar workplaces and employment circumstances. Practical implications: Client organisations and temporary work agencies could benefit from developing management and HR strategies aimed at strengthening the opportunities for WPL, related to professional work, to ensure that these opportunities are leveraged fully. Originality/value: This study adopts a WPL perspective on TAS in the context of professional work, which is still rare.

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In a desire to more comprehensively understand the personal contributions of individual workers to their learning at work and to more fully account for the complexities that define these contributions, this chapter argues that the relational interdependece that constitutes workers, learning and work may be best conceptualised as negotiation. Within this negotiation, individual workers' participative practices may be seen as transacted through their agentic conduct and control of their engagement within them. The agency of the individual worker becomes the focus of action that initiates and sustains the negotiation of worker, learning and work. Learning as mediating practice may then be understood as a transaction, an exchange of value that enacts the personal value of the capacities, interests and priorities of the individual worker. Doing so, offers a means of overcoming the inaccurate separation of worker and work that characterises sociocultural models of learning based in conceptions of co-participation as interactivity.

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