AJET 18(1) McLoughlin and Atkinson (2002)

Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 2002, 18(1), iii-vii.

Editorial

New Editor and Board

After five years of providing distinguished academic leadership for AJET, Professor Ron Oliver has retired as Editor. Ron publicised AJET extensively amongst researchers, especially through his numerous appearances as a keynote speaker at Australian and international conferences. He redesigned the review process and directed AJET towards a position as a leading academic research journal, by his efforts in recruiting authors, cajoling reviewers, giving formative feedback to authors, and providing very fine examples in his own writing for AJET. We wish him all the best for his professorial duties and the continuation of his extensive research, teaching and keynote speaking activities.

AJET welcomes Associate Professor Catherine McLoughlin as Ron's successor in the Editor role. Catherine is a distinguished researcher with numerous articles published on educational technology related topics in AJET, conference proceedings and other journals. Her article "The implications of the research literature on learning styles for the design of instructional material" is AJET's most extensively accessed article (McLoughlin, 1999). Catherine's acceptance of the Editor position creates a timely link to a sister society, the Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia, where she is the current President (ODLAA, 2002).

AJET's managing societies have appointed a new Editorial Board. We welcome the new members nominated by ASCILITE: Carolyn Dowling, Mike Keppell and Lori Lockyer; and the new or continuing members nominated by ASET: Trish Andrews, Mary Jane Mahony and Elizabeth Stacey. The Board represents the managing societies and its main role is to manage AJET, although typically the Board members are also reviewers for AJET within their particular research specialisations. Day to day operations for AJET will be conducted by the Editor Catherine McLoughlin, concerned mainly with review processes and author development, and the Production Editor Roger Atkinson, concerned mainly with editing, production, website and the business manager role.

Retiring members of the Editorial Board - Cathy Gunn, Barry Harper, Clare McBeath, Sue McNamara and Rod Sims - are listed and thanked at the web page http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/about/board-members.html

During 2002 we will update our thank you list for persons who have undertaken the reviewing of AJET submissions. As with all other roles and positions in AJET, reviewers are volunteers and we are very grateful for their work in these times of perpetual overload for academics engaged in teaching and research.

New website

Since mid-1996 AJET's website has been provided by the Teaching and Learning Centre at Murdoch University, at the address http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/ajet/. In view of the likely retirement of the host cleo towards the end of 2002 or soon after, AJET requires a new home. We record our very appreciative gratitude for the pioneering opportunity provided by cleo and the TLC, commencing at a time when journal publication on the Web was a relatively untested novelty.

Our attempt to register the Internet domain ajet.org.au was rejected, on the grounds that AJET is not in itself an organisation, but is merely a subset of ASCILITE and ASET: "... ORG.AU domains are registered only to organisations, never for some purpose an organisation wishes to undertake." (hostmaster@munnari.oz.au, 2001). Whilst the rejection was consistent with org.au specifications (AUNIC, 2001), it does leave us with a dilemma over selecting one of the domains ascilite.org.au and aset.org.au for hosting AJET. The solution being implemented is the relocation of Vols 13-17 and subsequent volumes to http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/, and Vols 1-12 to http://www.aset.org.au/ajet/ (the domain aset.org.au is registered, but not at present hosted and activated). The relocation work is being undertaken by the Production Editor during March-July 2002.

At the time of preparing AJET 18(1), only Volumes 13-17 have been relocated. The next set of files to appear in the new locations will be this issue, 18(1), followed progressively by Volumes 1, 2, 3, etc. In order to give the best possible opportunity to update references and minimise the incidence of "URL not found..." errors, auto-redirects are being left on cleo and these should remain live until late 2002 or sometime in early 2003. The new URL for AJET will be submitted to a number of search engines and to key libraries, including the National Library of Australia and the Cunningham Library at ACER (Australian Council for Educational Research). The work for relocation includes html corrections, improvements to meta-tags, headers and footers, and updates or corrections, if warranted and feasible, for URLs cited in bibliographies, including all citations of AJET in AJET articles. However the body text of articles remains unchanged.

AJET is very grateful for the support provided by NetSpot Pty Ltd and its Managing Director, Allan Christie [http://www.netspot.com.au/], in the form of partial sponsorship for http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ With NetSpot's assistance we expect to develop new or improved services in access statistics and search facilities, including options to search across all volumes of AJET or across a selected range.

Commitment to long term online availability

The importance we accord to maintaining long term online availability, free to the Internet, for AJET's archives has been reinforced by my reading from a recently published study funded by the Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers (Swan and Brown, 2002). This study investigated many aspects of authors' and readers' views on electronic communication of research publications, through an online questionnaire which attracted over 1200 responses. The summary results for the topic "Concerns about electronic journals" indicated the highest concerns for "Continuing access" and "long term archiving", both outranking other concerns which included "Inconvenience", "Non-standard interfaces", "Dead links" and "Licensing issues". The authors concluded that "Contributors set a high priority on long-term preservation of and access to journal content". The authors also concluded that "... the majority of authors want electronic journals to be free in future. While they are less clear who should pay for this, the largest group still seems to favour payment by the library in some way..."

The Swan and Brown (2002) study funded by the ALPSP appears to be essential reading for editors and publishers concerned with promoting the role of small scale electronic publishing by professional societies. I'm grateful to Colin Steele who cited it during a recent forum at Curtin University (for information on Colin's work, see http://anulib.anu.edu.au/about/steele/). Unfortunately, my attempt to follow up beyond the brief online summary for Swan and Brown (2002) has halted, for the time being, at this sticky point in an online order form (ALPSP, 2002):

first copy of 'AUTHORS and ELECTRONIC PUBLISHING: the ALPSP research study on authors' and readers' views of electronic research communication' at: UK£50.00 / US$100 (member's price), UK£100.00 / US$200 (non-member's price)

Wow! US$200 is a bit beyond the budget for AJET! Maybe some benefactor will offer an old fashioned hard copy inter-library loan....

Roger Atkinson
AJET Production Editor and Business Manager

A welcome to this issue from AJET's new Editor

Continuing a policy adopted in 1999 (Oliver, 2000; Atkinson, 2001), the first five of the eight articles in AJET's first issue for 2002 have been drawn from ASCILITE's December 2001 Conference at the University of Melbourne (Kennedy, Keppell, McNaught & Petrovic, 2001). These articles were selected through the Conference's editorial and review processes as especially outstanding, deserving additional recognition through publication in AJET. Most have been updated or revised for their special presentation in AJET. As with the 1999 and 2000 selections, these articles represent the peak of a vigorous research and development effort which constitutes, or should constitute, an essential element in the deployment of educational technologies. Many other research articles are available online in the ASCILITE 2001 Proceedings, and other conference proceedings published by ASCILITE and other societies (ASET, 2002).

In their article Designing real life cases to support authentic design activities, Bennet, Harper and Hedberg address the design and implementation of authentic activities for students in order to ensure engagement in real world tasks. Draper, Cargill and Cutts present an innovative aspect of electronic support for learning, in the role of enabling students to provide feedback to a lecturer, during lectures, to gain an evaluation of students' understanding. An important issue in their article Electronically enhanced classroom interaction is how to evaluate such interventions and make best use of the interactivity they generate.

Kennedy, Webster, Benson, James and Bailey introduce readers to the Monash portal, My.monash, and describe its pioneering role in an integrative approach to supporting teaching, learning and administration services. Lefoe, Gunn and Hedberg's article provides readers with Recommendations for teaching in a distributed learning environment, from the students' perspective. Their article presents an in depth study of an online development and takes a critical look at the implications for learners, with particular relevance for the roles of branch campuses and regional or rural study centres.

Again from the practitioners' perspective, O'Reilly and Newton investigate questions of appropriate pedagogy, assessment and online support in their article Interaction online: Above and beyond requirements of assessment. They draw attention to social networks within online course delivery and express some visions about humanising the online environment.

The five specially selected articles in this issue are followed by three other articles selected through our normal review and publication process. Canyon and Podger in Towards a new generation of simulation models in public health education review directions in modelling and simulation software and decision support systems, with particular reference to continuing education for public health professionals. Hedberg and Harper's Constructivist approaches to authoring examines the extent to which authoring tools for multimedia resources may constrain instructional designers to adopt a particular pedagogy. In developing their MediaPlant authoring environment, the authors sought flexibility for designers to select an appropriate pedagogical approach, with particular reference to facilitating the adoption of constructivist models.

Jennifer Curtin's article WebCT and online tutorials: New possibilities provides a case study in online community building to complete this issue of AJET. Conducting tutorial functions online can re-position teachers into facilitator roles and her article provides a reflective account of a developmental journey in this direction.

Catherine McLoughlin
AJET Editor

References

ALPSP (Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers) (2002). Order form for Swan and Brown (2002), Authors and Electronic Publishing. [viewed 6 May 2002] http://www.alpsp.org/form/aepform.htm

ASET (2002). Proceedings available online. A brief listing for some Australian and New Zealand professional society conferences in the past decade. http://cleo.murdoch.edu.au/gen/aset/confs/conf-procs.html

Atkinson, R. J. (2001). Editorial. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 17(1), iii-vi. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet17/editorial17-1.html

AUNIC (Australian Network Information Centre) (2002). AUNIC Registration Services. [viewed 4 Apr 2002] http://www.aunic.net/org-au.html

hostmaster@munnari.oz.au (2001). Email to atkinson@cleo.murdoch.edu.au, dated Sun, 22 Jul 2001 23:11:03

Kennedy, G., Keppell, M., McNaught, C. & Petrovic, T. (Eds) (2001). Meeting at the Crossroads. Proceedings of the 18th Annual Conference of the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education. Melbourne: Biomedical Multimedia Unit, The University of Melbourne. http://www.medfac.unimelb.edu.au/Ascilite2001/pubs/index.html

McLoughlin, C. (1999). The implications of the research literature on learning styles for the design of instructional material. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 15(3), 222-241. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet15/mcloughlin.html

ODLAA (2002). http://www.odlaa.org/

Oliver, R. (2000). Editorial. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 16(1), iii-vi. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet16/editorial16-1.html

Swan, A. and Brown, S. (2002). Authors and Electronic Publishing: The ALPSP research study on authors' and readers' views of electronic research communication. Association of Learned and Professional Society Publishers. [viewed 6 May 2002] http://www.alpsp.org/pub5.htm, http://www.alpsp.org/pub5.pdf, http://www.alpsp.org/aepfore.pdf

Conferences advertised in AJET 18(1)

ASET 2002
http://www.global-ed.com/aset2002/
ASET's next national conference will be held in Melbourne, 7-10 July 2002

ASCILITE 2002
http://www.unitec.ac.nz/ascilite/
hosted by Unitec, Auckland, New Zealand
8-11 December 2001

The Australian Journal of Educational Technology is a refereed research journal published three times per year jointly by the Australasian Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education and the Australian Society for Educational Technology. For details on submission of manuscripts, subscriptions and access to the AJET online archives, please see:

http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet.html

or for manuscript submission contact the Editor, Associate Professor Catherine McLoughlin, School of Education (ACT), Australian Catholic University, PO Box 256, Dickson ACT 2602, Australia. Email: C.McLoughlin@signadou.acu.edu.au, Tel: +61 2 6209 1100 Fax +61 2 6209 1185, or for subscriptions contact the Production Editor, Dr Roger Atkinson, 5/202 Coode Street, Como WA 6152, Australia. Email: rjatkinson@bigpond.com, Tel: +61 8 9367 1133. Members of ASET, ASCILITE and ISPI (Vic) receive AJET as a part of their membership benefits.

AJET is managed by an Editorial Board nominated by ASCILITE and ASET. The 2002 Editorial Board comprises:

Catherine McLoughlin (Editor), Australian Catholic University
Roger Atkinson (Production Editor)
Trish Andrews, University of Queensland
Carolyn Dowling, Australian Catholic University
Mike Keppell, University of Melbourne
Lori Lockyer, University of Wollongong
Mary Jane Mahony, University of Sydney
Elizabeth Stacey, Deakin University

Copyright in individual articles contained in Australian Journal of Educational Technology is vested in each of the authors in respect of his or her contributions. Copyright in AJET is vested in ASET (1985-86), AJET Publications (1987-1996), and ASET and ASCILITE (from 1997).

HTML Editor: Roger Atkinson [ rjatkinson@bigpond.com]
This URL: http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet18/editorial18-1.html
Created 17 May 2002. Last revised 27 Aug 2002.
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