Donna M. Velliaris’s research while affiliated with University of South Australia and other places

This descriptive chapter tackles the issue of ‘preventing' academic misconduct via effective assessment design. A dearth of literature is focused on ‘detecting' plagiarism, but assessment (re)design can help ‘prevent' the pervasiveness of ‘cheating' if tasks are relevant, authentic, real-world, educative, and career-focused from the outset. While contemporary society is demanding and complex, many educational assessment practices today remain unimpressively straightforward. Academic faculty are central to confronting cheating. In this chapter, the authors focus on a three-pillar system that empowers higher education institutions (HEIs) to better prevent malpractice rather than reacting to it afterwards. The aim of this chapter is to provide a descriptive investigation into why assessment is so important in the fight against academic misconduct, and a three-pillar approach to bolster assessment practices that will help minimize opportunities for students to engage in academic offences. Within this presentation are included author narratives that will help readers understand the many and varied ways tertiary-level students can challenge faculty assessment design.

For children raised in a primarily monocultural setting, where their passport or “home” and their residential or “host” countries are the same, the knowledge/skills developed in one area may be applied in the broader contexts of their lives in a gradually more complex and fulfilling manner. Some of the knowledge/skills learned by “cross-cultural children”, however, may be applied in a restricted range of settings and may be of limited use in “other” contexts of living. A prime example relates to “language” proficiency. This may be well developed in the particular language of one context (e.g., English), but not yet acquired in the language needed for a different context (e.g., Japanese). For this exploratory study, face-to-face interviews were conducted with “international parents” residing in Tokyo, Japan. Of the four themes that emerged from the qualitative data, this chapter is specifically focused on one—Language Socialisation—of cross-cultural child(ren).

This chapter is motivated by the fact that few studies have been made about the effects of one-on-one writing tutoring in English writing centers in Chinese universities. It intends to examine the effects through the evaluation of tutors' performance by students. A sample of 57 students responded to the questionnaires designed based on Kaplan's 7 EFL writing objectives proposed in his theory of contrastive rhetoric with minor revision, and 12 participated the structured in-depth interviews. Results demonstrate that tutors have achieved higher level of satisfaction in objectives of vocabulary and expressions (86%), sentence and grammar(85%), etc., but lower satisfaction level in those of awareness of audience(37%), discourse structure (34%), and rhetoric and writing knowledge (40%). The findings indicate no significant correlation between tutoring duration and students' improvement extent, yet a strong negative association between students' language proficiency and their improvement. Finally, some measures about enhancing tutoring effects are suggested.

Universities globally are increasingly seeking to improve the international mobility of their students. There are several latent benefits that accrue to a university whose faculty and/or students actively participate in international exchange programs. Essentially, this can lead to an increase in the capacity to develop international relationships, greater diversity in the student population with all the benefits that stem from diversity, opportunities for benchmarking against best practices, and the university's international reputation spreading on a global scale. Drawing on extant literature, this descriptive chapter reviews many and varied scholarly works to elicit a comprehensive range of ‘Push-Pull' factors or ‘a complex matrix of influences' that play a role in tertiary-level students' decision-making in relation to study abroad.

In today's competitive business environment, students need to build strategic communication skills to effectively manage business activities, and their ability to effectively communicate is central to them gaining and maintaining employment. Attributes considered desirable by employers include a good work ethic, a positive attitude, analytical skills, critical thinking and problem solving, initiative, leadership ability, maturity, self-motivated, teamwork skills, technological competence, and an overall willingness to learn. Significantly, in the associated literature, the ability to communicate well—verbally and in writing—is a quality that consistently appears near or at the ‘top' of the list of desired employability traits. With that in mind, this chapter is largely descriptive and examines the design, delivery, and effectiveness of a 2016 pilot project involving inclusion of Pearson's ‘MyWritingLab' (MWL) into one Australian School of Management's core-course titled ‘Professional Development in Business'.

The Eynesbury Institute of Business and Technology (EIBT) is one of a growing number of private providers partnering with universities to attract international students early in their commitment to tertiary studies. EIBT offers diploma programs that comprise the equivalent courses as the first-year of a Bachelor's degree in Business, Information Technology (IT), or Engineering at the destination Higher Education Institution (HEI). EIBT provides a period of academic acculturation for international students whose English proficiency and/or previous academic results are below direct entry requirements. In 2015, 200+ ‘new' students were required to complete a mandatory online questionnaire during orientation. First-person narrative data was derived from students' responses to the open-ended question: What is cheating and why is it wrong? The findings provide insight into their understandings, which has helped facilitate opportunities for faculty to mitigate opportunities for academic misconduct in the context of this Institute.

This descriptive chapter tackles the issue of ‘preventing' academic misconduct via effective assessment design. A dearth of literature is focused on ‘detecting' plagiarism, but assessment (re)design can help ‘prevent' the pervasiveness of ‘cheating' if tasks are relevant, authentic, real-world, educative, and career-focused from the outset. While contemporary society is demanding and complex, many educational assessment practices today remain unimpressively straightforward. Academic faculty are central to confronting cheating. In this chapter, the authors focus on a three-pillar system that empowers higher education institutions (HEIs) to better prevent malpractice rather than reacting to it afterwards. The aim of this chapter is to provide a descriptive investigation into why assessment is so important in the fight against academic misconduct, and a three-pillar approach to bolster assessment practices that will help minimize opportunities for students to engage in academic offences. Within this presentation are included author narratives that will help readers understand the many and varied ways tertiary-level students can challenge faculty assessment design.

To attract a growing number of international students, Higher Education (HE) institutions are striving to differentiate themselves from their competitors. The Eynesbury Institute of Business and Technology (EIBT) is part of a growing number of private providers partnering with universities to establish “pathway” programs. EIBT offers a Diploma of Business leading to either The University of Adelaide or the University of South Australia's degree programs in business-related fields. This chapter investigates EIBT students' own perceptions of “ethics” in a major assessment task embedded in a course titled “Business and Society”. The findings, taken from students' reflective papers, reveal their understanding(s) of ethical behaviour and are particularly relevant to contemporary debates surrounding how to improve educational attainment and ethical standards given the emerging importance of partner providers amidst rising numbers of international students seeking HE in Australia and abroad.

As a second chance for prospective students who do not meet initial Australian Higher Education (HE) entrance requirements, “pathway” providers attract (international) students early in their tertiary lifecycle to secure their destination. The pathway model that evolved in the 1980s-90s was developed to address the issue of attrition. This innovative model tailored a learning solution that enhanced student transition (i.e., cultural and social integration and academic support). Increasingly, “pathway” institutions offer valuable partnerships for the Australian HE sector, and it is beneficial to conduct research into this division to strengthen and improve the overall teaching and learning experience. There appears to be scant literature on pre-university pathway offerings within and beyond Australia; thus, the contents of this chapter explicates three diploma programs delivered at one particular institute during the period 2013-2015 in Australia.

Supply chains provide many challenges to organizations relating to ethical practices at all levels of the supply chain in an often non-transparent environment, with different operator values through different geographic and cultural locations. Considerations are discussed relating to the link between ethics and brand success, challenges and risk issues relating to ethical supply chains, the role of partnering with others in the supply chain, and the friend or foe consideration of NGOs. The importance and value of bodies such as the UN Global Compact and ACSI to comply with sustainability standards and achieve accreditation as a double benefit strategy for being a responsible organization, as well as enhancing brand, are highlighted. The values of certification and partnership networks are emphasized, with concluding reflections on how partnerships and strength in ethical supply chain are dependent on the need to have every link in the chain be ethical and transparent.