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This paper presents and discusses an experiential learning‐based team‐based assignment, which makes extensive use of information and communication technology available in Blackboard. Student teams, composed of mature, post‐experience graduate students in a knowledge management class, were asked to perform a task requiring creativity and then to reflect on their individual and team experiences. Subjects were required to think about applying what they had learned to “real life” organizational settings. The results show that students find significant value in experiential learning processes. The findings also suggest students are able to apply knowledge management theories, which were taught in class lectures, to their team experiences and, further, to take the total learning experience combining theory and practice and usefully apply it to their work. Implications for experiential learning in the classroom and distance education are discussed.

In recent years, a number of what could be described as “educational rituals” have come under challenge in many New Zealand secondary schools. These rituals include school assemblies, the prefect system, and school uniforms. This article recounts a recent attempt on the part of a New Zealand secondary school to resolve a challenge to the tradition of compulsory school uniforms. The course of events contained many of the elements of participative decision making, and is none the less significant for having failed to bring about immediate change. The article also questions the validity of some assumptions which are implicit in much of the contemporary writing about educational decision making.

Aboriginal communities in Australia must have mapping information and technology to effectively and independently administer their land holdings and to define, evidence and thus protect their community and cultural identity. The purpose of this paper is to report on a pilot project that developed a customisable education programme to support Indigenous communities in the uptake of spatial mapping technologies to protect and manage cultural heritage in Victoria, Australia.

A training programme to support Wadawurrung capabilities in spatial mapping technologies was developed, delivered and evaluated. Concurrently, the system's database was indigenised by Wadawurrung cultural heritage workers. Types and numbers of culturally significant sites mapped using the technologies were collated. The impact of the training and technologies for students and the Wadawurrung community was gauged through participation levels and evaluations. The approach to indigenous spatial mapping projects is informed by postcolonial theories interrogating neo-colonialist cartographic practices.

Indigenous communities need to be resourced in the uptake of spatial mapping technologies and if universities are going to be involved in co-developing positive learning experiences that encourage the uptake of the technologies, they must have appropriate and respectful relationships with Aboriginal communities. Training programmes need to accommodate learners with diverse educational experiences and technological wherewithal.

Findings from the training evaluations are based on a small number of participants; however, they seem to be supported by literature.

The education model developed is customisable for any Indigenous community in Australia.

The social and political importance of spatial mapping technologies for Indigenous Australians is evident as is the need for educational providers to have appropriate and respectful relationships with Aboriginal communities to co-develop positive learning experiences that encourage the uptake of the technologies.

The Wadawurrung Dya Baap Ngobeeyt Cultural Heritage Mapping and Management Project developed practical strategies to build community capacity in Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Management and Protection. The educational programme developed supported learners to use technologies in cultural heritage management. Data were collected using community-developed fields for inclusion and culturally appropriate encryption of data.

Factors for successful workplace health promotion (WHP) are well described in the literature, but often sourced from evaluations of wellness programmes. Less well understood are the features of an organisation that contribute to employee health which are not part of a health promotion programme. The purpose of this paper is to inform policy on best practice principles and provide real life examples of health promotion in regional Victorian workplaces.

Individual case studies were conducted on three organisations, each with a health and wellbeing programme in place. In total, 42 employers and employees participated in a face to face interview. Interviews were transcribed verbatim and the qualitative data were thematically coded.

Employers and senior management had a greater focus on occupational health and safety than employees, who felt that mental/emotional health and happiness were the areas most benefited by a health promoting workplace. An organisational culture which supported the psychosocial needs of the employees emerged as a significant factor in employee's overall wellbeing. Respectful personal relationships, flexible work, supportive management and good communication were some of the key factors identified as creating a health promoting working environment.

Currently in Australia, the main focus of WHP programmes is physical health. Government workplace health policy and funding must expand to include psychosocial factors. Employers will require assistance to understand the benefits to their business of creating environments which support employee's mental and emotional health.

This study took a qualitative approach to an area dominated by quantitative biomedical programme evaluations. It revealed new information about what employees really feel is impacting their health at work.

Aarhus Kommunes Biblioteker (Teknisk Bibliotek), Ingerslevs Plads 7, Aarhus, Denmark. Representative: V. NEDERGAARD PEDERSEN (Librarian).

The paper reports on findings of research into the institutional and individual influences on engaging in professional development (PD), reflecting on how PD might be made available in ways which could support quality in e‐learning.

The paper presents findings of a research project exploring factors influencing engagement in e‐learning PD within New Zealand tertiary education institutions. The research comprised an online survey of 408 individuals in three polytechnics and two universities and 40 qualitative interviews ascertaining beliefs, experiences and practices of staff regarding e‐learning PD.

The survey and interviews suggest there are numerous factors which both help and hinder quality of engagement in e‐learning PD. Most PD engaged in by staff is informal. Engagement in formal PD is influenced by organisational structure, co‐ordination, poorly developed and/or implemented e‐learning policy, differences in managerial support, and individual beliefs and time allocation.

The research is conducted in a small number of tertiary institutions and may not be applicable to private or work‐based training organisations.

Understanding impacts and influences on individual uptake and experiences of PD provides insights into the sorts of institutional practices and policies likely to improve quality in e‐learning and in e‐learning PD.

By focussing on staff experiences, this paper provides important insights into practical considerations informing the development of e‐learning quality enhancement and assurance strategies.

It has often been said that a great part of the strength of Aslib lies in the fact that it brings together those whose experience has been gained in many widely differing fields but who have a common interest in the means by which information may be collected and disseminated to the greatest advantage. Lists of its members have, therefore, a more than ordinary value since they present, in miniature, a cross‐section of institutions and individuals who share this special interest.

The purpose of this paper is to bring together the history of war, the universities and the professions. It examines the case of dentistry in New South Wales, detailing its divided pre-war politics, the role of the university, the formation and work of the Dental Corps during the First World War, and the process of professionalization in the 1920s.

The paper draws on documentary and archival sources including those of the University of Sydney, contemporary newspapers, annual reports and publication of various dental associations, and on secondary sources.

The paper argues that both the war and the university were central to the professionalization of dentistry in New South Wales. The war transformed the expertise of dentists, shifted their social status and cemented their relationship with the university.

This study is the first to examine dentistry in the context of the histories of war, universities and professionalization. It highlights the need to re-evaluate the changing place of the professions in interwar Australia in the light both of the First World War and of the university’s involvement in it.

This article investigates Departmental representations of allies and enemies, especially in the Pacific Ocean, during the Great War. The first section provides an overview of the Department’s principal instruments “the School Paper and Education Gazette” in communicating representations as well as expected views and behaviours with regard to Empire, allies and enemies. The second section explores the Department’s positioning of Germany in the Pacific Ocean and in relation to Australia; the third looks at France; and both focus on children’s responses to the reporting. The final section investigates representations of New Zealand including those within the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps legend that the Department chose to acknowledge.

This paper focuses on the donation in 1888 of a Sèvres Vase to the Education Department of Victoria after the International Exhibition in Melbourne. Using the vase as its focus the paper reflects on what this donation may be able to tell us about the impact, primarily on education, of a series of International Exhibitions held both in Australia and internationally between 1851 and 1900. The life of the Sèvres vase highlights the potential of the Exhibitions for the exchange of ideas internationally, the influence of the International Exhibition movement on education and the links between a 19th-century gift and the teaching of Art in 1930s Melbourne.

The paper examines one object in relation to education in its wider historical context through a reading of the archival records relating to the Melbourne Teacher’s Training College and Melbourne High School.

The influence of the educational exhibits of the 1888 Centennial International Exhibition held in Melbourne are shown to have had an impact on the design of the Melbourne Teachers Training College.

This paper provides a new and original perspective on the Melbourne Teachers Training College and its foundation through its library and museum collections.