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The world’s urban population is rapidly growing, now exceeding its rural population, and is expected to reach 70% of the world’s total by 2050. Research in environmental psychology increasingly supports the Biophilia Hypothesis which holds that our connection with Nature is innate. Thus, how do we maintain a human connection to Nature in an increasingly urbanising world? This paper is based on current research work and explores the boundary between built and natural environments, specifically how visual connectivity to Nature affects how people use social spaces, compared to spatial connectivity. Case study work is being undertaken at Arcosanti urban laboratory in the Arizona desert. Arcosanti construction began in 1970 to test Paolo Soleri’s Arcology Theory which proposes, in opposition to sprawling cities, a new form of urban setting which is compact with tightly restricted horizontal growth, leaving the surrounding natural environment as undeveloped “wilderness”. Through development of a Space/Nature Syntax methodology applied within a uniquely compact urban form, this research attempts to understand how designing to maintain the instinctive bond with Nature can affect social interaction and inform future design choices within built environments. This paper describes the development of, and basis for, the Space/Nature Syntax methodology, presents initial findings achieved through its recent application at Arcosanti, and outlines future work. Initial analysis indicates that visual connectivity to Nature is a significant influence on certain types of social interactions when compared to spatial connectivity, although more research is needed to verify the level of significance.

Alcohol use by adults at school events and alcohol promotion through school fundraising activities is common, but little is known about secondary school parents' attitudes towards these practices. Parental attitudes may influence principals' decision-making on this topic, particularly in jurisdictions where education department guidance is limited. This study explored parents' attitudes towards the consumption or promotion of alcohol in schools or at school events.

Parents (n = 298) from five non-government secondary schools in Western Australia completed an online survey and provided responses relating to the promotion and availability of alcohol through their child's school.

This sample of parents were evenly divided in support of alcohol consumption or support of schools as alcohol-free zones. Parents reporting higher alcohol consumption were more supportive of alcohol promotion and use through schools, and those with higher education supported use of alcohol for school fundraising. Almost 20% of parents were neutral on several measures indicating they could be swayed by social pressure. Engaging parents is an ongoing challenge for school principals and alcohol may play a part in engagement activities. The results from this small, exploratory study suggest even engaged parents may have very differing views on alcohol use in schools.

Education departments are encouraged to explore these issues carefully and introduce changes incrementally to assist decision-making and minimise potential parent disengagement.

This paper addresses a knowledge gap about parents' attitudes towards alcohol in secondary schools. These findings can support those involved in the development of school alcohol policies.

A unifying theme apparent at this year's Symposium was the need for balance when lifting the veil of bank secrecy: (1) the need to protect civil liberties versus the need to fight crime; (2) the bank's need to balance its role as policeman while furthering its commercial objectives; (3) the necessity of weighing international cooperation against the awareness that individual nations jealously guard their own legislative regime; (4) the dichotomy of technology that serves both to protect and penetrate secrecy; (5) the balance required when investigating crimes.

Phishing is still a very popular and effective security threat, and it takes, on average, more than a day to detect new phish websites. Protection by purely technical means is hampered by this vulnerability window. During this window, users need to act to protect themselves. To support users in doing so, the paper aims to propose to first make users aware of the need to consult the address bar. Moreover, the authors propose to prune URL displayed in the address bar. The authors report on an evaluation of this proposal.

The paper opted for an online study with 411 participants, judging 16 websites – all with authentic design: half with legitimate and half with phish URLs. The authors applied four popular widely used types of URL manipulation techniques. The authors conducted a within-subject and between-subject study with participants randomly assigned to one of two groups (domain highlighting or pruning). The authors then tested both proposals using a repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance.

The analysis shows a significant improvement in terms of phish detection after providing the hint to check the address bar. Furthermore, the analysis shows a significant improvement in terms of phish detection after the hint to check the address bar for uninitiated participants in the pruning group, as compared to those in the highlighting group.

Because of the chosen research approach, the research results may lack generalisability. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to test the proposed propositions further.

This paper confirms the efficacy of URL pruning and of prompting users to consult the address bar for phish detection.

This paper introduces a classification for URL manipulation techniques used by phishers. We also provide evidence that drawing people’s attention to the address bar makes them more likely to spot phish websites, but does not impair their ability to identify authentic websites.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the factors affecting employees’ overall acceptance, satisfaction and future use of e-learning, specifically exploring the impact that age has on the intended future use of e-learning relative to the other potential predictors.

The project developed an online survey and invited employees of one Australian rail organisation to participate. Questions were structured around the factors that affect acceptance and future use of e-learning. Statistical analysis was used.

The findings from the study suggest that, despite the often espoused stereotype, age is not a significant factor impacting either future use intentions or satisfaction with e-learning. In contrast, three variables were found to be useful predictors of intention for future use of organisational e-learning; low complexity, authenticity and technical support.

The study did not consider other moderating effects related to demographic data other than age, such as educational experience. Further, the case presented is a single organisation and therefore is not necessarily representative of other industries. Future studies should adopt a mixed methods approach.

This study has emphasised that attention needs to be focussed on factors over which organisations have control when adopting and using e-learning. Employee age should not be seen as an obstacle to e-learning implementation, rather attention needs to turn to effective and user-friendly e-learning interventions along with sufficient technology support.

Perceptions within industry and indeed in some literature, suggest that employee age stereotypes still exist in relation to technology uptake. This research has demonstrated that this stereotype is an erroneous assumption and emphasised the importance of other factors.

This chapter provides an overview of the development of a USDE SLP-funded leadership preparation partnership between a local school division and our university. We specifically describe our efforts to cultivate an authentic and purposeful partnership that would allow us to move beyond the limitations of the traditional leadership preparation programs that have been so widely criticized in the literature. This chapter describes the research and development efforts which involved iterative cycles of design, implementation, reflection, and redesign that helped to identify problems of practice and develop meaningful solutions to these identified areas of need. We also discuss four key elements of effective university–school partnerships that grew out of our efforts to build and refine an effective partnership.

This paper outlines the development of an online learner support tool “Early Days” and the information it subsequently provided into one aspect of the early experiences of students in the case study university. Analysis is based on two years of data that considered the extent of students’ social integration and emerging changes in the nature of their social experiences. Findings indicate that the majority of students enjoy the social side of higher education and feel they have settled into the university, but conversely they are not gaining this social experience through traditional social activities such as clubs and societies. Whilst the data offers a picture of one university, other higher education institutions may be interested in considering whether the changes are replicated in their own institutions. The current trend by the National Union of Students to move away from alcohol‐based events suggests that this may be the case. The paper raises the need for further research into the the changing nature of students’ social experience within university and suggests one challenge may be to consider the role of universities in providing students with a blended and positive social experience in the future.

Despite the social, educational and therapeutic benefits of book clubs, little is known about which books participants are likely to have read. In response, the purpose of this paper is to investigate the public bookshelves of those that have joined a group within the Goodreads social network site.

Books listed as read by members of 50 large English-language Goodreads groups – with a genre focus or other theme – were compiled by author and title.

Recent and youth-oriented fiction dominate the 50 books most read by book club members, whilst almost half are works of literature frequently taught at the secondary and postsecondary level (literary classics). Whilst J.K. Rowling is almost ubiquitous (at least 63 per cent as frequently listed as other authors in any group, including groups for other genres), most authors, including Shakespeare (15 per cent), Goulding (6 per cent) and Hemmingway (9 per cent), are little read by some groups. Nor are individual recent literary prize winners or works in languages other than English frequently read.

Although these results are derived from a single popular website, knowing more about what book club members are likely to have read should help participants, organisers and moderators. For example, recent literary prize winners might be a good choice, given that few members may have read them.

This is the first large scale study of book group members’ reading patterns. Whilst typical reading is likely to vary by group theme and average age, there seems to be a mainly female canon of about 14 authors and 19 books that Goodreads book club members are likely to have read.