New product development is a challenging process which plays a significant role for the rise of the competitiveness of a firm. This process benefits from cooperative relations in the supply network of the firm, such as the collaboration in buyer- supplier relations. The automotive industry presents a good example for studying buyer supplier relations. The positive effects of supplier involvement in product design and development process have been discussed intensely in the literature due to the exceptional success of OEMs &ndash / Original Equipment Manufacturers- in the Japanese automotive industry. This study analyzes the role of suppliers in the automotive sector, the buyer-supplier interface and relations, and new product development process specific to the automotive industry in order to highlight the outcomes of supplier involvement in product development process especially during the design phase. A descriptive questionnaire study on the Turkish automotive supplier industry was conducted. The questionnaire was completed by 25 supplier firms who are members of the Association of Turkish Automotive Parts &amp / Components Manufacturers (TAYSAD) and 5 OEM firms. The questionnaire results show that the level of supplier involvement in the product design phase is low compared to the other project phases such as introduction to the project, prototype production, pre-launch, and mass production. Following this preliminary study, two in-depth interviews were conducted with one OEM and one supplier representatives, and more detailed information on suppliers&rsquo / involvement in product design was gathered. Keywords: Supplier Involvement, Automotive Industry, Product Development, Collaborative Design

Schools in Queensland, Australia, are undergoing inclusive education reform, following the report of the Ministerial Taskforce on Inclusive Education (Students with Disabilities) in 2004. The State government’s responses to the taskforce report emphasise a commitment to social justice and equity so that all students can be included in ways that enable them to achieve their potential. Teacher aides are employed in schools as ancillary staff to support students with disabilities and learning difficulties. Their support roles in schools are emerging within an educational context in which assumptions about disability, difference and inclusion of students with disabilities and learning difficulties are changing. It is important to acknowledge teacher aides as support practitioners, and to understand their roles in relation to the inclusion of students with disabilities and learning difficulties as inclusive education reform continues. This study used a phenomenological approach to explore the lived experiences of teacher aides as they supported students with disabilities and learning difficulties in primary schools. Four key insights into the support roles of teacher aides in primary schools in Brisbane, Queensland emerged from the study: 1) teacher aides develop empathetic relationships with students that contribute significantly to the students’ sense of belonging within school communities; 2) lack of clear definition of roles and responsibilities for teacher aides has detrimental effects on inclusion of students; 3) collaborative planning and implementation of classroom learning and socialisation programs enhances inclusion; and 4) teacher aides learn about supporting students while on-the-job, and in consultation and collaboration with other members of the students’ support networks.

This is a participative case study of a self-facilitating, collaborative, women’s learning group. The group’s longevity afforded a unique opportunity to investigate, in depth, both what encouraged its members to join at its outset, and what has sustained the participation of its current members for thirteen years. Its longevity also provided an opportunity to explore the impact of sustained membership on the women in the group. These two components of the study are its most significant original contributions to the existing literature which does not appear to cover anything similar. The initial raison d’étre of the group was its members’ professional development and this forms a central strand of the investigation, along with identity and self-facilitation. A pragmatic research paradigm, the collaborative nature of the group and the writer’s dual role as both participant and researcher were all influential in the decision to use a participative approach. A range of methods, chosen by the participants, was utilised during the investigation which, whilst participatory, is not emancipatory research. This experimental divergence from how a participative approach is traditionally employed is offered for consideration by researchers who wish to work in a new way that minimises power in other, non-emancipatory situations. The findings support, contradict and add to the literature. The mutuality of longevity and the depth of discourse and learning experienced by group members is a particularly striking aspect of this study. As members of the group have aged, its focus has segued from professional development to encompass a much broader agenda: it has shifted from contributing to members’ professional identity to sustaining their perceptions of self as women who remain capable of complex, critical thinking as they move out of full-time work. The longevity of the group has also fostered deep attachments between group members, despite the differences between them: sustained membership of the group, in turn, provides sustenance for its members. The significance of grounding, ground rules and group composition are highlighted, as is the need to contemplate how members will leave a group during its formation. Alignment between participants in a group is identified as important for its continuation but not always possible. This research makes no claim to offer a definitive model for collaborative learning groups but, instead poses a series of questions for consideration by others who are interested in collaborative learning.

This thesis examines how new maritime nations, which are engaged in the export of seafaring labour, need to respond to the demands of the international maritime industry. In particular, traditional maritime nations are calling for greater internationalisation of maritime education and training. The global labour market for seafarers, which is dominated by employers from traditional maritime nations, demands internationally minded graduates. China’s response to these demands for quality labour exports from new maritime nations is the subject of exploration in this thesis. Within the specific context of Maritime English teaching and learning, a significant opportunity for innovation and change is identified. The research took the form of an international collaborative education project in pursuit of the following question: What teaching and learning development opportunities are there for improving the communicative competence of Chinese Navigation officers? The author of this thesis, formally a seafarer, is a teaching practitioner in higher education in the UK. For the purposes of this thesis, the author became a visi ting researcher, and later a teaching practitioner, at the case maritime higher education institution in China. Becoming a member of the teaching staff at the host institution was a necessary step in order to establish and carry out teaching practitioner -led research as a member of a professional learning community. The aim of this professional learning community has been to collaborate on a Maritime English teaching development project. This development work has since continued beyond this PhD study into a commercially funded project, which demonstrates the necessity and timeliness of the research. This thesis sets out to report on the collaborative process of an international education development project as it was experienced. Research was carried out over a 15.5 month period spent in-situ at the case institution. The institution was selected as it is the most influential maritime university in China in terms of national maritime higher education policy reform, due it being under the direct authority of the Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China rather than the Ministry of Education, as is the case with other universities. The author had to work very hard to overcome a number of cultural issues to become accepted as a teaching practitioner in the research setting. Once accepted as a participant researcher, research-based professionalism founded on previous teacher training and experience allowed for a living theory approach to improving both own teaching practice and that of new-found colleagues. The outcomes of this PhD study are multiple: The ethnographic account of the development process in the form of this PhD thesis. The establishment of a professional learning community between teaching practitioners and continued research and development work. The local teaching and learning innovation in the form of a new content and language integrated syllabus for Maritime English teaching, suitable for Chinese learners at maritime higher education institutions. The continued collaboration between an industry stakeholder and the local teaching practitioners in the further development of a new Maritime English syllabus and accompanying teaching resources to ensure that it meets the needs of employers. As understanding grew of how Chinese maritime higher education institutions are preparing their students for employment in the global labour market for seafarers, the research objectives emerged while in-situ. The aim of the research centred on working with local teaching practitioners and industry stakeholders to improve the quality of maritime education graduates’ transferable skills, in terms of their intercultural communicative competence. The key feature of the study was to collaboratively identify teaching and learning development opportunities for improving the preparedness of Chinese maritime higher education graduates to work in a safety critical environment, where they will need to communicate effectively in English. The internationalisation of the Maritime English syllabus, and the wider Navigation curriculum, through content and language integrated learning and teaching is the main recommendation of this thesis. The evidence presented in this thesis has led to the conclusion that this curriculum intervention is necessary for improving the transferable skills of Chinese Maritime Higher Education graduates. The content and language integrated learning approach to teaching was found to offer Chinese maritime higher education institutions with a solution to boost intercultural communicative competence in meeting the demands of the international maritime industry for professionally skilled, and competent-in-English seafarers for labour export.

Nascemos em uma sociedade analógica e passamos rapidamente para uma sociedade digital, onde a convivência ganha novas formas e a demanda profissional exige cada vez mais experiência. Nesta nova sociedade, o software se torna cada vez mais necessário, uma vez que se trata de uma programação necessária para o funcionamento da maioria das ferramentas hoje disponibilizadas. Surgem então, movimentos onde desenvolvedores trocam conhecimento e compartilham seus trabalhos por meio de comunidades virtuais. As comunidades atuais que se mostram voltadas ao idealismo do software livre, não se mostram preocupadas com o colaborador enquanto pessoa individual com necessidades financeiras, bem como a disponibilização de avisos legais numa linguagem acessível que orientem e esclareçam seus colaboradores e usuários quanto aos respectivos direitos e deveres. Além disso, há uma carência de software educacional acessível à grande massa, ou seja, geralmente são software proprietários com custo relativamente oneroso para algumas instituições, ou mesmo para o usuário final. Neste trabalho, foram realizadas entrevistas e pesquisa de doutrina, de comunidades existentes e respectivos modelos de negócios, a partir das quais foi gerada uma comparação qualitativa entre comunidades existentes. Este trabalho apresenta a proposta de um ambiente para a gestão de projetos de desenvolvimento colaborativo de software educacionais por meio de um modelo de remuneração pela distribuição de recursos obtidos na comunidade (por patrocínios, doações e ou microtarifação pelo serviço de download dos software), bem como a orientação sobre os aspectos legais no próprio ambiente, por meio de documentos e avisos legais durante a navegação do usuário. Busca-se incentivar a atuação de jovens talentos em computação e de profissionais de educação no desenvolvimento de software educacionais. Um protótipo do ambiente proposto foi implementado e disponibilizado para testes preliminares e respectiva avaliação. / We had born in an analog society and moved rapidly towards to a digital society, where the coexistence wins new ways and demand requires more professional experience. In this new society, the software becomes increasingly necessary, since this is a programming necessary for the functioning of most of the tools available today. There then emerge where developers exchange knowledge and share their work through virtual communities. The communities that are working today aimed to idealism of free software, and they are not worried about the users as an individual contributor, and the provision of legal notices in plain language that direct and clarify its employees and users about their rights and duties. Moreover, there is a lack of educational software available to the mass, which is usually proprietary software, with cost relatively costly for some institutions, or even to the end user. In this work, and interviews were conducted search of doctrine, communities and their existing business models, from which it was generated a qualitative comparison between existing communities. This paper presents a proposal for an environment for the management of development projects collaborative educational software through a model of remuneration for the distribution of funds obtained in the community (for sponsorships, donations and micro rate or by the service of software downloading) and such as guidance on the legal tool in itself, through documents and legal disclaimer during navigation of the user. Search is to encourage the performance of young talent in computing and professional education in the development of educational software. A prototype of the proposed environment has been implemented and made available for preliminary testing and its evaluation.

Nascemos em uma sociedade analógica e passamos rapidamente para uma sociedade digital, onde a convivência ganha novas formas e a demanda profissional exige cada vez mais experiência. Nesta nova sociedade, o software se torna cada vez mais necessário, uma vez que se trata de uma programação necessária para o funcionamento da maioria das ferramentas hoje disponibilizadas. Surgem então, movimentos onde desenvolvedores trocam conhecimento e compartilham seus trabalhos por meio de comunidades virtuais. As comunidades atuais que se mostram voltadas ao idealismo do software livre, não se mostram preocupadas com o colaborador enquanto pessoa individual com necessidades financeiras, bem como a disponibilização de avisos legais numa linguagem acessível que orientem e esclareçam seus colaboradores e usuários quanto aos respectivos direitos e deveres. Além disso, há uma carência de software educacional acessível à grande massa, ou seja, geralmente são software proprietários com custo relativamente oneroso para algumas instituições, ou mesmo para o usuário final. Neste trabalho, foram realizadas entrevistas e pesquisa de doutrina, de comunidades existentes e respectivos modelos de negócios, a partir das quais foi gerada uma comparação qualitativa entre comunidades existentes. Este trabalho apresenta a proposta de um ambiente para a gestão de projetos de desenvolvimento colaborativo de software educacionais por meio de um modelo de remuneração pela distribuição de recursos obtidos na comunidade (por patrocínios, doações e ou microtarifação pelo serviço de download dos software), bem como a orientação sobre os aspectos legais no próprio ambiente, por meio de documentos e avisos legais durante a navegação do usuário. Busca-se incentivar a atuação de jovens talentos em computação e de profissionais de educação no desenvolvimento de software educacionais. Um protótipo do ambiente proposto foi implementado e disponibilizado para testes preliminares e respectiva avaliação. / We had born in an analog society and moved rapidly towards to a digital society, where the coexistence wins new ways and demand requires more professional experience. In this new society, the software becomes increasingly necessary, since this is a programming necessary for the functioning of most of the tools available today. There then emerge where developers exchange knowledge and share their work through virtual communities. The communities that are working today aimed to idealism of free software, and they are not worried about the users as an individual contributor, and the provision of legal notices in plain language that direct and clarify its employees and users about their rights and duties. Moreover, there is a lack of educational software available to the mass, which is usually proprietary software, with cost relatively costly for some institutions, or even to the end user. In this work, and interviews were conducted search of doctrine, communities and their existing business models, from which it was generated a qualitative comparison between existing communities. This paper presents a proposal for an environment for the management of development projects collaborative educational software through a model of remuneration for the distribution of funds obtained in the community (for sponsorships, donations and micro rate or by the service of software downloading) and such as guidance on the legal tool in itself, through documents and legal disclaimer during navigation of the user. Search is to encourage the performance of young talent in computing and professional education in the development of educational software. A prototype of the proposed environment has been implemented and made available for preliminary testing and its evaluation.