For Mom: Dying of Incurable Cancer

Quand tu chantes je chante avec toi liberté When you sing I sing with you my freedom Quand tu pleures je pleure aussi ta peine When you cry I cry with you in your pain Quand tu trembles je prie pour toi liberté When you tremble I pray for you my freedom Dans la joie ou les larmes je t'aime In joy or in tears I love you Souviens-toi de jours de ta misère You remember the days of your misery Mon pays tes bateaux étaient tes galères My country and your boats were mine too Quand tu chantes je chante avec toi liberté Et quand tu es absente j'espère And when you are absent I hope Qui-es-tu? Religion ou bien réalité Who are you? A religion or a kind reality Une idée de révolutionnaire Are you a revolutionary idea Moi je crois que tu es la seule vérité I myself believe you are one truth in my life La noblesse de notre humanité I myself believe you are the nobility of our humanity Je comprends qu'on meure pour te défendre I understand that you die in defense of your life Que l'on passe sa vie à t'attendre And that one spends life waiting for you Quand tu chantes je chante avec toi liberté Dans la joie ou les larmes je t'aime Les chansons de l'espoir ont ton nom et ta voix In the songs of hope are your name and your voice La chemin de l'histoire nous conduira vers toi The path of history leads us toward you liberté, liberté freedom (Verdi / Arr. A. Goraguer / P. Delanoë / C. Lemesle)

International Gallop

Glad to follow your digressions and I agreeably gallop ahead following your lead as I pick sandstone shards out of my flanks and hindquarters.

I agree with you regarding the need for improved personal and system/policy relationships building in the internationalizing of research systems and the effects of global integration of best practices. So far while it doesn't appear to be as effective as it could be I think you are correct that working with people from different countries, cultures and why not say disciplines is about the only way to realize what in and out group thinking or "group think" may be in its comforts, its limitations and how it influences our decisions.

As in your experiences with Singaporean students in Perth my own undergraduate school in Canada also had a large Asian and Singaporean student body while I was there with a regular annual Asian Banquet. One of my closest classmates from that period Mel Kheng from Upper Serangoon Road is about the most non-conformist I have yet to meet and is now probably somewhere between Orchard Road and Kangiqsualujjuaq in Northern Quebec with his sled dogs. He moves from job to job like a nomad. We pondered the means to cracking Dr. Eagles' codes of rhetoric considered appropriate to The Faerie Queene together in 16th century literature. He was the only Singaporean there at Acadia at the time not to follow the commerce stream.

I sometimes wonder if my absence from this program would be more welcome than my critical analysis? I do apologize for lengthy posts however I would willingly shorten my appraisals in our readings thus far if I were to find any greater examples of the questions I pose considering improvement. I agree the sphere of international collaboration may be more challenging than those found closer to home. But I do not lose hope in its benefits I think Australia's record of integration rates of international students is commendable not only as a source of income but also apparently as a source for new ideas and perspectives on old problems and possible solutions not only in the budgetary and income-based necessities of international education.

Aren't international collaborations also a means to finding equitable choices and contingency and rewards based incentives to motivate researchers which otherwise would never be explored? Why shouldn't this be a profit making enterprise at the same time as it is for the mind?

It is a paradox not only that some of the first cross-cultural research was used to fight and win wars in Japan (courtesy of Navaho Code Speak and Clyde Kluckhohn with the US Army) and an internal corporate audit of multinational subsidiaries by IBM as the world's premier global company (Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions). National researchers in Australia bemoan the loss of the tax payer generated income once more easily provided not only by corporations limited in scope and growth funds without growing internationally but now noticeably reduced due to globalized transnational migration of many formerly nation-based outsourced industrial productions.

Why have multinationals been able to fully utilize these principles of cross cultural management in the commercial sphere where most shareholders prevent much moral hazard from managerial influence through incentives while many Australian educational institutions appear to not only discourage commercial approaches to collaborative research as Cutler does but at the same time develop courses such as this?

I find there appears as much conflict of interest in this sphere of research commercialization as there is consensus. It is hard to fathom what the real debate is about given the numerous global business benchmarks available to prove that cross-cultural management is a viable industry. Emulation by research organisations should be a possible goal one perhaps requiring greater organisational transparency as has been the case in the multinational finance and accounting of the world's most innovative businesses. Without leadership in this area I fear the majority of strategic measures available in the business world may be useless in the academic one. While I agree that researchers should be encouraged to convene with international peers without resolving this prior issue it may mostly devolve into budget consuming meet and greet events without a proper system of rewards and incentives to collaboration?

I did read in the past that the improvements in the Australian higher educational research policy and systems of twenty and twenty-five years ago came about through forensic assessment of global competitor nations in the style of quality awards evaluation and teams of multidisciplinary researchers from Australia going abroad as small groups with specific tasks to perform and learn from their peers in competitor nations to inform policies and systems planning. Why not just do this again? Didn't it work in the past? I'm sure it wouldn't cost 3 billion dollars.

The Nags, the Snags and the Swags: Practice What You Preach!

As research organisations aim to become more 'international', how can we (researchers, research managers, employers) be sure that the relationships are more than just marriages of convenience?

Digressio

When I first arrived in Korea in 1996 it was anything but convenient. Certain adjustments needed to be made and mostly by me. Yours truly represents the approximately fewer than 3-5% percent of "foreigners" as we are termed here who remain beyond a one to two year term. Sometimes called "lifers" or "veterans" the hardest generalizations to bear are:

• couldn't get a job back in his own country ( true) never had a full-time or more than minimum wage job there in my life, left home at age 22 and left the country at 24.
• couldn't get a girlfriend only wants to bed as many Korean women as possible ( false) had a fiancée before coming here told me I was too honest about the place and decided to break it off haven't met a woman I loved like that since.
• only cares about money ( false) the highest paying job offer so far received was an unethical one and would have been about a quarter of a million dollars a year working for US Army Generals through BAE Systems as a social scientist in Iraq.
• doesn't care about his family ( false) travel home about every 18 months.

At the time I could have taken an on-call fisheries inspector position from a privately contracted formerly government department position in Canada if I had paid for the training. Like I said Korea has never been convenient but it has grown comfortable and what keeps me enlivened is continued learning. It became a more globalized nation especially after returning here again after three years in the desert while living in Abu Dhabi. I really got bored there with all of the holidays and few real duties other than showing up for work on time, lying around the office and collecting a pay check. UOW was the only winner on the block there in Dubai at the time years before "The Knowledge Village" when I attended the education fair in 2003. I was hungry for learning and there were few real other local choices. That remains the case. Most are not international or global by choice as it is now a matter of survival.

It is in this spirit that some observers (e.g. Kivinen, 2002; Newman, 2000) caution that concern with global competitiveness could lead higher education to easily lose sight of its traditional academic values such as social criticism, preparation for civic life, and the pursuit of curiousity driven learning and scholarship. (Kreber: 2009)

These values are not always a reality among Korean students and I sometimes feel I am introducing them to such foreign concepts for the first time. UOW studies were not a marriage of convenience either. I was beginning to realize that my mind was capable of and wanted to learn new things and that I should follow my interests. It took me over two years to find the job I have here in Korea today and it has been nearly a complete realization of the strategy it took for me to get here where I want to be. In the fourth year here I had succeeded in breaking a record for staying in one job more than three years and every day I continue to break that record which is unbelievable to me. I am where I belong which appears to be in a foreign country as it is what my work experience and training made me good at and I do not agree with much of what academia tells me I should or must be:

• couldn't do a research degree ( true) the one PhD who looked at my CV briefly for a research assistantship which would have paid the costs of remaining in Oz and studying further didn't even care to meet me face to face even on the recommendation of one of his peers
• doesn't want to give up his job ( true) if you spent ten years working and studying looking for this job you wouldn't leave it either it's a sweet little spot I call, "Dan's Workshop."
• doesn't have team spirit ( false) my team is over 160 members strong - I'm one of their leaders and I'm 99% happy.
• is a second rate student ( false) the academics who haven't taken a similar path know nothing about internationalization or globalization but market and kiss it's ass extremely well.

You have to try working zero job security teaching contracts for seven years straight abroad to learn more about why international business studies may be the most appropriate field in terms of your run of the mill ESL teacher who has taken a look at the industrialization of global education. In fact has been one of its insignificant cogs. Curiosity does have a place at the table of learning and so does boredom. Business is interesting to me. I consider what I do to be my business. The world is my market place. My students are my customers. I must work, earn and save money to retire hopefully not "penniless or without a pot to piss in." Unless a doctoral program is generous enough to remember that then forget about it - I don't want any more part-time jobs. Ever. I'd rather work overseas anywhere and forever on contracts than submit to miserly doctoral research program funding that doesn't pay me enough to live and work on to be creative and innovate.

When I relocated to Campus East in 2004 for my final semesters I took the last two semesters overload to save a semester of living costs and graduated in the top 5% of my cadre with a letter of recommendation for doctoral studies in 2009. I only found out I was in the top of my class five years later when I asked for that letter to apply for a doctoral scholarship that included 40,000 USD in annual living expenses as well as accommodation benefits in Switzerland to study Chinese international investments which is about what it would take to get me to do a doctoral study. Apparently a few others agree and beat me to it. I remain at my current post. I did realize Australians are different from other international students too. At least they were globalized enough to the point that half of the dining hall was 99% Australian whites and the other half was 99% mixed international students ~ mostly Asians and everything else. This was a big difference over UOWD which had (perhaps "has") large Iranian and Indian cadres. Most of those Iranians wouldn't be there if they had their choice either. Prior to 1979 they were the largest numbers of foreign students in the USA. In my classroom and Department of Commerce a handful of Australians there were mostly kind and helpful. I had very little time to be "pro-social" anyway. I am trying to say Australia - while making strides still has a long way to go.

The Nags, the Snags and the Swags: Practice What You Preach!

In agreement with Bartel the structure of a university culture allows or inhibits the facilitation of strategies to enhance internationalization. Look at those single digit percentages of either Australian or Canadian students for that matter hovering around 2-3% who ever engage ANY offshore studies or work experiences. They are similar in Korea as well.

I couldn't access the additional readings I think because my computer crashes so frequently I have failed to install an institutional journal access feature to read them without paying for them out of pocket. In fact jstor operates sporadically. But I did pick up Leask's Internationalization of Curriculum: Key challenges and strategies from 1999 for free from her staff page. Hope that'l l do?

Leask's Three Stages

On the first stage of putting policies into practice: I would love to see UniSA publishing for free access all of its social sciences and applied sciences research organizations annual reports beyond a general accounts of the entire university but putting policy into practice online including those from Dr. Dawson's Sleep Research Centre and Dr Babcock's Social Quality of Work Centre. So far I am not convinced that a research management student (such as me?) is adequately provisioned with the required material examples to well complete the final task assignment of this current course without more transparent accounting practices. So far I find several research organizations in Australia do not provide easy access to such resources including those managed by my former quality management lecturer. So far I can only surmise that they might be spending their research funds on similar " magicians and rabbits in hats" to the tune of 70,000 AUD as at a CSIRO conference in 2005 and that educators who would mark me on my budgets, informed and researched opinions would not penalize me because I do share their perspectives on accountability and transparency. Let's account. Let's apply that.

Second stage - staff development: It's really hard to teach old dogs new tricks and Australia's research and university teaching crowd surely classifies as mostly "old dog" with fewer than 20% under the age of 35. I realize that "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink." However the most demanding and most rewarding instructors I had at UOW were first generation non-white immigrants. With those instructors if I challenged their beliefs and opinions on the final exam with contrary but also researched opinions and beliefs I was rewarded. That should be the measure in Australian international education and research in my opinion but too often it is not. I can only surmise that not enough researchers and educators there have had to work or live abroad to grow or prosper as a minority not by choice but through necessity, to have to adapt one's perspectives to those which are at times radically different or to define tolerance as a willingness to amicably agree that inequalities and injustices exist and occur across all cultures due to the advantages or the disadvantages of being born a generation too early or a generation too late. That some really do have fewer opportunities than others or natural gifts at birth still striving to succeed excel and relate and that the barriers of distance, religion, social caste, nationality, cultural values, language and income should not be a barrier to learning. ,As Robyn Wilkes former coordinator of Campus East once mentioned to me, "twenty years ago we were a lot kinder to each other." I have the tendency to agree.

Third Stage - Changing Teaching Practice: Most classes at UOW were crammed full with 70 or more students, three hours lectures twice a day with upwards of 250 slides in each. The process was industrial and good teachers took more than a glance at well prepared work before they assigned grades. One of them would even re-read and note how many minutes he spent reading the paper marked upon the graded paper itself. That way he could dissect as many contentious areas as possible to justify his grade and provide the necessary feedback which must be constructive rather than destructive to be effective. Namely when teaching adults there is a need to provide the path to improvement. It must be apparent. Otherwise it may simply be the case of, "I didn't like your argument." And that is never enough.

Bartel M. (2003) " Internationalization of Universities: A University Culture-Based Framework," Higher Education, Volume 45, No. 1 (Jan., 2003), pp. 43-70.

Kreber, C (2009) " Different Perspectives on Internationalization in Higher Education," New Directions for Teaching and Learning, No. 118, Summer 2009.

Leask B. (1999) Internationalization of the Curriculum: Key challenges and strategies, UniSA/IDP.

Grants, Scholarships for Higher Research in Korea and Asia

Grants, Scholarships for Higher Research in Korea and Asia

KOREA (INTERNATIONAL APPLICANTS)

1. Studying in Korea from A to Z.

2. Korea's National Institute for International Education.

ASIA & WORLD (INTERNATIONAL APPLICANTS)

3. Grant Opportunities . (from Payap University, Thailand)

4. Grants, Scholarships and Fellowships (from Open Society Foundations/Soros)

FOR CANADIANS STUDYING ABROAD

5. Funding Opportunities for Studying Abroad. (from Canadian Society for International Health)

Collaboration Success Equals More Social Scientists?

After hearing from Rob and Drew, what major challenges stand out in forming productive collaborative research relationships?

Collaboration Success Equals More Social Scientists?

Dr. Dawson’s remarks upon his initial cynical views of collaboration were bridged successfully only when engaging with a particular unnamed networked and skilled relationship developer who assisted him in developing talents for collocating people across organisations whereby trust and social capital could be nourished. Then projects could be increased in scope, scale and budget all substantially. This person was not a scientist. His example correlates even to the physical separation of the arts and sciences discernable in my own undergraduate studies in Canada at Acadia University. Each discipline appears to undermine the relevancy and accessibility of the other but like yin and yang intellectual capacities arte possibly best served by skills in both fields.

Coldly Dawson also explains that successful collaboration should not feel like (revenge?) or a, “one night stand.” His management of a CRC grant was assisted not only by the university clustering director but also his tenure as CRC engagement group leader where he experienced new challenges and explained, “tall poppy phenomena” can develop when and if funding and grants allocations become too concentrated to one CRC project stream. He also identified the benefits of long-term funding in providing a safety net to allow good science to take place where there might otherwise be “Taylorist perspectives” or “clip board amnesia.”

His preference for a diversity of income streams as operational insurance includes participation in more than one CRC at a time if possible and a problematic engagement with the social sciences perhaps proving a critical area of future improvement necessary to see greater institutional collaborations in future as recommended by O’Kane’s report. Favourite quotes: Neither government nor industry wants to pay you to tell them they are a bunch of bastards.” or “We don’t need independent biological observers who pass judgment from the heavens.” In contrast to the heavens as an expatriate abroad the pay may be extremely poor in peaceful heaven as well. I prefer an exciting hell?

It is easy to agree with Dr. Dawson on these points. However good quality management decisions are often difficult to make without high level executive agreement that certain “biological observers” may have the right “rock of eye” or qualities of observation and criticism which do make sound organisational or strategic sense even when or if that observer does or does not possess the correct disciplinary credentials as Dawson has previously noted. A recurring theme is a dearth of managerial training. The social sciences produce many graduates who more often than not fail to progress in career paths which correlate with their particular studies probably willing to be cherry-picked on the road to heaven in their velvet-lined ditches. Why would most of the world’s business teaching faculties for example, not include a majority of social science refugees if this were not so? While slow speaking and slow learning may be the prevue of the convention renting jet-set I am not convinced that commercial project collaborations benefit any more than political junkets do in generating better trade relations among nations or collaborators. It is perhaps a Reaganesque trickle down philosophy that does not trickle far from the revenue stream.

On the other hand Dr. Lewis provides the bootstrap learning curve which more closely shapes my own progressive learning path and perhaps the ticket to greater collaboration. Everyone may need to learn and listen more? Quite simply learn what they already do not appear to know? He details the bitter realities of needing to constantly reshape the vision and mission of his organisation (SARDI) as well as hiring and firing based on grants approvals with the whimsical budgetary constraints of a “Stalag 17” mentality. He rearranges the deck chairs on the Titanic to inform real working and future employment conditions in his nine research centres which dominates the conversation whereby participants are given the opportunity to assist in shaping the direction of the organisation and hopefully generate more revenue streams less reliant upon government handouts or Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard. In his facilitator approach taking ownership of the collaboration efforts requires a reworking and revalidation of mission and vision every four to six years as well as deconstruction of what he terms, “The Republic of Science” approach whereby researchers must shift towards an IP and commercial data confidentiality mindset more aligned with business than traditional knowledge generation to survive budgetary shortfalls. For example just as he described that commercialisation as a concept was not well established even a decade ago neither were the opportunities for specialized learning or teaching even in the field of international business English itself spun from general English as a second language programs where I currently reside gaining an income to finance learning about what it takes to rework an organisation into something which might generate a similar self-sustaining income based on its own research. He details pragmatic approaches shared by both social and pure scientists.

Lewis’s focus is on strategic plans which show consistency in scope between partners as well as a need for “equal partnership” among them which would inform Dawson’s view to avoid “cringing” between disciplines as well regarding social science and pure science as two essential wings in the exemplary exercise necessary for both avian and profitable flight (to the heavens where none may be barred entry or called out as bastards?). Simply strategic mission and vision are a couple of applied social science inventions. Shared intellectual capacities, scope of credibility and capabilities need to exist as well. Both speakers insist on a shared language among collaborators. He lists the difficulties of collaboration as they reside in the necessary qualities of strategic planning. For example, strong business models are necessary as without them all is lost, an ability to track what capabilities exist at present and with poor budget or finance options could be quickly gone or eaten up by operational constraints, being able to agree what end goals will be and how they will be achieved or shared, all objectives when absent, will ensure destruction in terms of collaboration efforts regardless of discipline.

Lewis explores that without these internal systems in place from the onset no collaboration project will ever take successful flight out of a research organisation and bolsters this with examples of his own successful case study: Root Disease Testing Service a product with a profitable market which necessitated development of its own technology contracting consultancy. In it he details that researchers need remain part of the negotiating team as they can often answer essential and critical questions related to product development under his R*T*D*I*C scientific product plan: Research, Development ,Transfer , Innovation: representing change in the industry and community. While he admits little to no management training over his career it would be a continued fatal flaw to say that the most economical and best model for researchers to follow would be to learn as you go. This would be costly in terms of gut reaction where few funding agencies might aspire to attribute best practices to that. While both research managers appear to do so a little extra bootstrapping might go a long way towards better refining their attributes and duties to their talents. Under such terms one must return to Dawson’s claims that a managerialist preoccupation may come to dominate an otherwise fine researcher. Return to Lewis to find an entire culture of change must be undertaken internally for research organisations to better grow commercial gains. Would you even be given a car to drive without passing a basic license exam? What about administering 9 billion in commercial funding projects over twenty years?

Lewis, R. (2001) Commercialisation Delivering to Market Seeking a New Paradigm Executive Director South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI)

The CRC equals The Spanish Armada?

What do you think are the potential disadvantages of collaboration for both the national innovation system and individual organizations?

The CRC equals The Spanish Armada?

First of all, as the range and scope of collaboration in Australia's National Innovation System (NIS) has only increased over the last twenty years the stakes have only grown larger in terms of opportunities, risks and gains. When researchers were isolated in their small enclaves and monastic-like laboratories or cells dabbling away in pure research and/or silos, writing crabbed, indecipherable notes in lab books and otherwise taking few phone calls or conference presentations while publishing into their obscure and dusty journals their rambling over their musings and mumblings were without "visions of sugar plums."

Fewer IP derived riches were in their heads illustrating poor choices for research vision and hence perhaps impacted upon fewer individuals frittering away the public weal and perhaps resulted in lower or insignificant absolute economic losses.

Now as a result of improvements in depth and breadth of the national research sector through integration any grand but poor policy decisions will affect and cost more researchers on the innovation vision and mission front than ever before.

While collectively an Australian research armada may forward the interests of innovation and global competitiveness as well as increasing commercial returns there remains as example in hubris the most famous armada in history namely The Spanish Armada which failed miserably in its mission due to poor strategic leadership decisions on the part of its Commander Alonso Pérez de Guzmán y de Zúñiga-Sotomayor, the 7th Duke of Medina Sidonia who lost most of his fleet by foolishly sailing into the voracious belly of a great storm.

Australia' s NIS is one that seems fraught with similar needs for improvement and thus attracts the attention of policy reports which seem to make endless, repetitive overlapping recommendations for change management including those we have reviewed so far. In our bible of sorts Powering Ideas may simply be establishing the legacy of Senator Kim Carr in line with that of Felipe II otherwise known as the King of Spain who bankrupted his nation in efforts to reign over colonial and continental competitors. As well as having far too many choicesPowering Ideas may be just as bad as having too few of them resulting in complacent inaction and ineptitude at the Admiralty Office in terms of collaboration efforts thus far. So goes the worst cases of ineffective collaboration. Its real costs may grow greater than its future worth.

O' Kane in Collaborating to a Purpose: Review of the Cooperative Research Centres Program (2008) highlights the issues and problems present in the current management of collaborative research in Australia to suggest it is barely a functioning prospect. Chiefly one weakness is that even with a twenty year record of collaboration programs on the books report only minute percentages of universities or businesses and firms in Australia having actually participated in CRC programs to date. 570 business collaborations represent roughly 3% of Australia's total eligible pool while 2% of Australia's universities represent about one of Australia's 47 institutions at any given time. Any real business plan would need to show increases in at least 10-15% of net profits or in the case of CRC perhaps business, university or commercial enterprise participation rates of growth as return for seed funding or incubator approval.

Next evidence of a shift from broad goals early in the program's inception to end-user or customer driven research at present appears to have resulted in a pull versus push scenario reminiscent in the current revolution in global industrial production. This whereby retail product and service organizations are becoming better skilled at determining market driven innovation than designers and researchers may be.

The push-pull shift may also represent itself as an intergenerational difference in research priorities whereby the current originators of knowledge and information soundly reject future commercial, customer or societal needs due to: stricter focus on commercialisation itself, tighter data management requirements, more elaborate milestone constraints, and inflexible IP and profit sharing needs. Collaborating to a Purpose reports that even while good corporate governance is now standard in the management of CRC projects where in the past it was not there remains evidence of lack of general knowledge in university or institutional and even commercial enterprise research as to how to actually develop and profit through the commercial research projects so far conducted.

This conclusion comes after seeing twenty years of program (mis?)-management and nearly a total of 9 billion AUD in tax payer funded CRC projects as perhaps an abominable disadvantage to collaboration efforts. If no one knows how to do it then why have they spent 9 billion dollars trying?

O' Kane reports that the CRC has become progressively less attractive to many key participants such as CISRO and the almost oneuniversity institution that comes and goes perhaps changing its name as many times as a Greek freighter in the process. Collaborating to a Purpose details the disadvantages of collaboration itself more concretely than idle conjecture or pure fiction ever could. Frequent disagreement and renegotiation of IP rights and profits sharing among "so-called" collaborators delay contractual agreements and is described as a key factor impeding the process of innovation and transfer of ideas itself which is one of the defined goals of the CRC.

Furthermore while evidence of benefit to the taxpayer is noted to be a net financial return it seems while ponderous at the same time utterly preposterous that no precise calculation of that figure is easily or currently available. Where then is the good corporate governance so described? Due to the current disadvantages and apparent lack of competent or transparent financial management present at CRC, O'Kane makes eight remedial recommendations to that body where effectiveness and efficiency of meeting innovation goals are questioned and at the same time exclaiming that new funding to keep this armada afloat is needed as Mother Hubbard's Cupboard is now thread bare and the dogs of the CRC are now without future bones. So far it appears the CRC embodies the disadvantages of collaboration at the same time trumpeting this to be its purpose?

Cool Clock

Poodwaddle.com

IB Lecturer Position at GSU

Position Announcement Institute of International Business (IIB) J. Mack Robinson College of Business Georgia State University Atlanta, GA GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY invites applications for one or more non-tenure track lecturer positions effective Fall semester 2011. Candidates must have a master’s (or higher) degree in international business or related field, demonstrated high-level classroom performance in international business in an AACSB-accredited business program, and practitioner experience in international business, preferably with international entrepreneurship experience. Positions include undergraduate and/or graduate teaching as well as community and business outreach. Salaries are competitive; positions are contingent on budget approval. Send letter of application, curriculum vitae, and evidence of classroom performance to search committee chair at iib@gsu.edu or IIB, Robinson College of Business, Georgia State University, P.O. Box 3989, Atlanta, GA 30302-3989. Preference given to applications received by October 30, 2010. Georgia State University is an equal opportunity educational institution/affirmative action employer.

Avoiding Scurvy: Crewing the Research Ship?

In the era of ERA, what are the major implications for crewing the research organization ship?

After listening to Dr. Dawson one comes away with a few interesting quotes, "its nice to have a ragtag bunch of pirates which can do many different things" or," a desire for people who are interesting with curiosity in topics (he cares about)" and that "many strong discipline researchers are really bad listeners." So some emphasis rests on multi-disciplinary skill-sets at the UniSA Sleep Research Centre. Dr. Pocock's brief interview underscored a desire for an increasing publishing ratio requirement among researchers and a minimum of four published articles per year per head with at least 20% of the total in top ranked journals. A brief description of a few HR related blunders included a rough dismissal process for one and another researcher let go due to a desire to research without publishing. Both Research Centre Managers seek to see results from funded research initiatives.

These coincide with the overall ERA quality assessment system being tested at ARC and leading indicators from the 2009 ERA Trial appear to focus heavily upon the output and quality of research crew members contribute to the pool of new knowledge creation. The quality of research crews in Australia are being measured according to several indicators:

1. Rate of publication: in ranked journals and refereed conference publications.

2. Rate of citation analysis: relative citation impact, distribution of publications & papers.

3. Total volume: of published and research outputs.

4. HERDC Research Outcomes: Total value of grants, including research income and ratios in comparison with discipline.

5. Esteem Ranking: Editorial positions on highly ranked journals, prestigious reference works, events, fellowship awards, competitive prizes, etc.

6. Rate of applied results: Patents, designs, or commercial outcome (as applicable).

Appendix 1: ERA Indicator Principles (19 December 2008)

Both Drs. Dawson and Pocock emphasize that researchers with curiosity and good social skills are desirable and both also indicated a certain reluctance to fall back entirely on the forensic assessment measures of the ERA in populating their own crews while maintaining some minimum annual results. Dr. Dawson cautions against a strategic management system more useful in developing a corporate "factory of knowledge" model which is ruthless and possibly the antithesis to research cooperation and collaboration necessary to increase quality. Pocock indicates a resistance to growth model which would also be challenging under a strict ERA principle in strategically selecting the best crew members for a research ship.

Perhaps the ERA may reflect upon the "soft skills" evaluative needs of crew members when and if a Myers & Briggs style assessment is inclusive in the quantitative assessment of quality for example bringing forth the rankings of intellectual assets versus liabilities of the researchers in social settings, if teaching then their students' assessments, supervisors, editors, collaborators, if curious then rate of curiosity, if social then rate of social interaction, if listening then aptitude for listening, etc. Due to the extreme difficulty in measuring these qualities or expressing them in quantitative values it appears certain qualities remain unmeasurable and outside the scope of the ERA assessment.

The Ethical Management of Data

Discuss what the management of data means in practice – for institutions, groups, individual researchers (including students), research partners and/or research participants.

Institutions: “Must and should” are described as compliance-based requirements in Part A and Part B of the Australian Code as it’s a stronger interpretation of what to include in the institutional code described as requiring several secretarial revisions and several committee reviews over three years and three months at UniSA Research and Innovation Services prior to being disseminated to the university research community in online format. Dr. Hochman explained that as the Code is broad in general principles and practice the institution needs to bring it to a procedural and “user friendly” scale on the institutional level. Interestingly Dr. Hockman revealed that as of the time of the interview there were no national audits of compliance which while of concern to the administration of ARC/NHRC grants there also remain no national misconduct investigation committees leaving a lot of the auditing to Research Ethics Committees at the institutional level.

Is it possible TEQSA might evolve to include a national ethical misconduct investigative branch?

Clarity before cash: Steve Matchett The Australian August 18, 2010

Groups: Need to be aware and in compliance with the necessary documents and guidelines, terms of mutual collaboration, and cooperation expected of them in the institution. Hockman mentions his own department, and in various disciplines, institutional staff, students all need to be aware of and in compliance with the Code through the university institutional code of research practice. Part of his role is providing updates on the latest changes to code compliance as well as evaluation of compliance.

Individual Researchers: Examples were given regarding terms of authorship forms which need to be submitted prior to publications to prevent post-publication disputes over authorship. He also gave evidence of streamlining repeated shared authorship processes and made the distinction that the Code does in fact differentiate between requirements made of institutions and individual researchers. He pointed out the importance of financial accountability to research integrity and the need for skilled grants applications which lead to approval.

Research Partners: Both Dr. Ferguson and Dr. Hockman shared examples of the collaboration relationships and necessary research partnership agreements processes that have been streamlined into short and standard two page partnership agreements (on a trial – has it become standard yet?) for low contention projects which allows the start time to quickly align with funding and approval processes rather than requiring six months of review and negotiation to complete while waiting to begin perhaps a three year grant funded research plan. At the same time more contentious projects could still be begun with rejoinders/amendments and addenda to complete the remaining points of the agreement at a later date allowing the research cycle to begin earlier.

Research Participants: He explained that some processes being introduced to many groups and researchers for the first time would benefit from online modular courses in research integrity and was hoping to set some up in the near future based on best practices among some US universities. Dr Hockman also explained the role of Human Research Ethics Committees and the streamlining of their proposals reviews and applications for research approval with a “Griffith Model” defining three levels of risk management: negligible/low /or great risk of ethical non-compliance with the Codes terms or the National Statement on Ethics. Research showed that as little as 15-20% of all research ethics approvals required committee based reviews so an online questionnaire type application was developed to streamline and speed up the approvals process for projects with negligible or low risk of unethical terms of research. Due to the process being researcher managed Dr. Hockman stated that spot checks and random audits mitigated the risk that research ethics approval applicants might misrepresent the ethics of their proposed research. In short all of this to ensure that participants are engaging in ethical research integrity.