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1 – 10 of over 1000Sydney Austin, Ahad Bandealy and Elizabeth Cawley
The purpose of this paper is to highlight current utilizations of advanced technology within the digital mental health platform Keel Mind.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight current utilizations of advanced technology within the digital mental health platform Keel Mind.
Design/methodology/approach
Keel Mind, based out of Ontario, Canada is a therapeutic delivery platform that dually functions to train clinicians and deliver virtual therapy to clients.
Findings
From personalizing client and therapist matching to using natural language processing (NLP) and artificial intelligence (AI)-driven features Keel Mind supports clinician decision-making to meet the growing mental health needs of the population. Keel Mind functions to provide accessible service, efficiently train high-quality clinicians and enhance clinical outcomes for clients. In a preliminary study within post-secondary students from Ontario, Canada, 90.1% of clients reported liking the platform, and 83.4% reported that they experienced positive mental health outcomes as a result of using Keel Mind.
Practical implications
Keel Mind is a leader within the rapidly developing field of telepsychology and aims to promote positive mental health outcomes worldwide.
Originality/value
This digital showcase is the first published piece of work highlighting the technological capabilities of Keel Mind as a digital therapeutic platform. The intention of this work is to highlight current uses of digital technology within the field of therapeutic practice and to promote technological growth within the field.
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George Denny-Smith and Martin Loosemore
The purpose of this paper is to explore the barriers to entry for Indigenous businesses into the Australian construction industry.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to explore the barriers to entry for Indigenous businesses into the Australian construction industry.
Design/methodology/approach
A national survey was conducted with 33 Indigenous businesses operating in the Australian construction industry.
Findings
The findings show that Indigenous enterprises face similar challenges to many small non-Indigenous enterprises wishing to enter the industry. These include adjusting to unique construction industry cultures and practices, breaking into existing business networks and building social capital and being under-cut by industry incumbents and competitors when tendering for projects. These barriers are similar to those faced by other non-Indigenous social enterprises, although Indigenous enterprises do appear to experience relatively greater difficulty in starting-up their businesses and in securing sufficient capital, finance and assistance to enable them to scale-up and tender for normal work packages at a competitive price.
Research limitations/implications
The results are limited to Australian Indigenous businesses. The survey does not allow a comparison of non-Indigenous and Indigenous businesses, although comparison of results with existing non-Indigenous research into small to medium-sized firms in construction does allow some tentative insights. These need to be explored further.
Practical implications
These results indicate that there are significant barriers to be addressed within the Australian construction industry if government indigenous procurement policies are to achieve their stated aims of increasing the number of Indigenous firms in the industry. The results also have important implications for Indigenous businesses and for non-Indigenous firms operating in the Australian construction industry.
Social implications
This is an important gap in knowledge to address if countries like Australia are to redress the significant inequalities in income and health suffered by Indigenous populations.
Originality/value
In countries like Australia, with significant Indigenous populations, governments are seeking to address persistent disadvantage by using new social procurement initiatives to create quasi construction markets for Indigenous enterprises to participate in the construction industry. While there is an emerging body of research into the barriers facing mainstream small to medium-sized enterprises and, to a lesser extent, social enterprises in construction, the barriers to entry facing Indigenous construction enterprises have been largely ignored.
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Ann E. Fleming, Lisa Petheram and Natasha Stacey
The purpose of this study is to explore Australian Indigenous women’s customary use of marine resources and views on aquaculture as a development opportunity. The value…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to explore Australian Indigenous women’s customary use of marine resources and views on aquaculture as a development opportunity. The value participants placed on economic, social and cultural outcomes were explored, as were benefit sharing, governance and business considerations.
Design/methodology/approach
Using a form of action research, workshops were conducted with a focus group of Indigenous women and interviews with men and women living on a remote island off northern Australia. Multimedia materials and a game were used to elicit a deeper understanding and facilitate discussion.
Findings
Women preferred aquaculture options respectful of culture and accommodating cultural and family obligations, that engage young adults in meaningful work, improve access to sea country and provide local foods and support economic development. Participants placed significant dependence on their governance body to support businesses and expressed disparate views on profit sharing. Women continue to engage in customary harvesting and fishing but various limitations impact on this.
Research limitations/implications
Conclusions based on one case study need to be confirmed in other communities. Future research should include a broader representation of youth and strategies to improve people’s understanding of aquaculture operations and business management.
Social implications
This research improves our understanding of Indigenous women’s preferred economic development pathways and their advocacy role within the community. These findings are relevant for policy-makers, businesses, other Indigenous communities and researchers.
Originality/value
This paper seeks to recognise and integrate Indigenous women’s economic and cultural aspirations within development policy. Such a place-based, gender-based consultative process is generally lacking in the Australian Indigenous policy arena.
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Despite Australia’s history as an exemplary migrant nation, there are gaps in the literature and a lack of explicit conceptualisation of either “migrants” or “migration” in the…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite Australia’s history as an exemplary migrant nation, there are gaps in the literature and a lack of explicit conceptualisation of either “migrants” or “migration” in the Australian historiography of schooling. The purpose of this paper is to seek out traces of migration history that nevertheless exist in the historiography, despite the apparent silences.
Design/methodology/approach
Two foundational yet semi-forgotten twentieth-century historical monographs are re-interpreted to support a rethinking of the relationship between migration and settler colonialism in the history and historiography of Australian schooling.
Findings
These texts, from their different school system (state/Catholic) orientations, are, it is argued, replete with accounts of migration despite their apparent gaps, if read closely. Within them, nineteenth-century British migrants are represented as essentially entitled constituents of the protonation. This is a very different framing from twentieth century histories of migrants as minority or “other”.
Originality/value
Instead of an academic reading practice that dismisses and simply supersedes old work, this paper proposes that fresh engagements with texts from the past can yield new insights into the connections between migration, schooling and colonialism. It argues that the historiography of Australian schooling should not simply be expanded to include or encompass the stories of “migrants” within a “minority studies” framework, although there is plenty of useful work yet to be accomplished in that area, but should be re-examined as having been about migration all along.
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Abdullah Al-Yami and Muizz O. Sanni-Anibire
Although there is a boom in the construction industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), it is yet to fully adopt building information modeling (BIM), which has received a lot…
Abstract
Purpose
Although there is a boom in the construction industry in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), it is yet to fully adopt building information modeling (BIM), which has received a lot of attention in the US, UK and Australian construction industries. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to provide the current state of the art in BIM implementation in Saudi Arabia, as well as perceived benefits and barriers through a case study.
Design/methodology/approach
A broad overview of BIM, the construction industry in KSA and the research and implementation of BIM in KSA was presented in this study. The research further established the perceived benefits and barriers of BIM implementation through a case study of a local AEC firm. A questionnaire survey was used to obtain lessons learned from the BIM team of the pilot project and was further analyzed using the RII approach.
Findings
The study’s findings include the lack of policy initiatives in KSA to enforce BIM in the construction industry, as well as the lack of sufficient research in the domain of BIM in KSA. Furthermore, the case study also revealed that the most important benefit of BIM adoption is “detection of inter-disciplinary conflicts in the drawings to reduce error, maintain design intent, control quality and speed up communication,” whereas the most important barrier is “the need for re-engineering many construction projects for successful transition towards BIM.”
Originality/value
The study provides a background for enhanced research towards the implementation of BIM in Saudi Arabia and also demonstrates the potential benefits and barriers in BIM implementation.
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Julie Stubbs, Sophie Russell, Eileen Baldry, David Brown, Chris Cunneen and Melanie Schwartz