Martin Cake

Universities have a long tradition of sharing information and knowledge, through books, journals and conferences. Recently, various 'open' initiatives have emerged to extend this sharing to teaching materials, in what we broadly call Open Education. This presentation will unpack some of the concepts involved in Open Education, including Open Content, (an overarching term encompassing Open Educational Resources, OER; Open Textbooks; and Open Courseware), and Open Courses. We will discuss various elements of open content, exploring their emerging use at Murdoch University. Apart from some human factors, the major barriers to the use and production of open content are: •Intellectual property (IP) legislation and regulations, which assert the University's ownership of IP embodied in teaching materials, and impede the ability of staff to freely share content. •Transnational education (TNE) business models, in which the University licenses access to the content of a unit to another entity. The presentation will discuss the use of Creative Commons licensing to protect the rights of both the university and the individual creator, while still allowing use and repurposing by others. It will also explore the idea of licensing certification for passing a unit rather than licensing access to content. It will then turn to the concept of Open Courses, which complement open content by adding learning tasks and teacher support, either implicitly or explicitly. The conversation will continue with a critique of the evolving, and much-hyped, Massively Open Online Course (MOOC) concept, analysing the pros and cons of open access to a largely teacher-free learning environment from a pedagogical perspective and the nature of students who might successfully engage with it. The presentation will conclude with an analysis of the institutional factors involved in contributing to Open Education. We argue that a considered approach to Open Education can provide benefits to students, staff and the institution, but that a wholesale adoption of the MOOC approach may be costly, with insufficient return on investment.

Characterising the metabolic response to an intervention can be challenging due to the large inter-subject variation. Because traditional chemometric approaches such as OPLS -DA do not take into account the paired data structure in these studies, we have adopted multivariate paired data analysis (MVPDA) to enhance the recovery of metabolic biomarkers from sheep subjected to surgically-induced osteoarthritis (OA). Sheep underwent one of three types of surgical procedure (sham (control), meniscal destabilisation, MD or anterior cruciate ligament transaction, ACLT), and for every animal a serum sample was collected prior to being operated on and at sacrifice. 1D 1H NMR spectra were acquired from each sample at 800 MHz. Results from traditional chemometric techniques (PCA, OPLS-DA) were compared and contrasted with MVPDA, which displayed enhanced classification and interpretability. MVPDA showed all types of surgical procedure were associated with elevated lactate and deceased TMAO/betaine. Serum from sheep that underwent ACLT was additionally characterised by elevated branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs) and decreased histidine, consistent with previous findings. There was no observable change in BCAAs for the MD cohort indicating that different OA subtypes were associated with unique metabolic fingerprints. This study reinforces the utility of MVPDA for datasets with a paired structure, and offers new insights into the metabolic consequences of OA.

The aims of this study were to investigate the impact of carcase estimated breeding values on carcase size and lean meat yield of lambs and to determine whether nutrition alters these responses. Selection for high estimated breeding values for growth increased carcase size by as much as 4 kg in lambs fed a high plane of nutrition. On a low plane of nutrition, this effect was reduced by 60%, highlighting the importance of nutrition for realizing the potential of this trait. Selection for estimated breeding values for muscling reduced total carcase fatness by 3% in lambs fed at a low plane of nutrition and by 10% in lambs fed at a high plane of nutrition, resulting in an increase in lean meat yield and improved economic returns for sales based on a lean-meat-yield grid. Selecting for estimated breeding values for low fat depth reduced total carcase fatness by 4%; this effect was the same whether lambs were maintained on high or low planes of nutrition. Other aspects of meat quality maybe influenced by using sires selected for muscling. Meat tenderness may be reduced due to greater connective tissue content, but it is likely that this can be controlled by concurrent selection for growth. Juiciness and flavour may be reduced due to reduced intramuscular fat content, but this can be attenuated by nutritional practices and, in the longer term, by alleviating the negative selection for fatness. Selection for a combination of muscling and growth estimated breeding values in terminal sires is an excellent way to increase both carcase size and lean meat yield of lambs - and to provide greater returns for producers.

Animal maturity is an important concept in the meat industry, with emphasis on producing less mature (i.e. “physiologically younger”) animals with superior carcase characteristics such as greater tenderness and lower fatness. Unfortunately the concept of ‘maturity’ remains poorly defined. Where specified, ‘maturity’ usually refers to some proportion or index expressed relative to the mature state, in which the animal is in anatomical and/or compositional equilibrium. However indices of maturity referenced to body weight or composition (e.g. muscle:bone ratio) are problematic for assessing genotypic effects in modern prime lamb production, where terminal sires may be selected for specific compositional traits such as rapid muscle growth or low body fat. In such cases it may be preferable to define other indices such as skeletal maturity, by staging development in relation to longitudinal bone growth and mineral maturation.

The red meat Industry within Australia has recently undertaken large consumer based analyses of on farm and post farm gate factors influencing beef and sheep meat quality. This paper will initially describe the principle factors influencing consumer defined eating quality of meat derived from Ros taurus cattle including ossification score, intramuscular fat, muscle temperature at pH6, carcass hanging method, ageing time, muscle group, ultimate pH and cooking method. The paper will then discuss the influence of genetic selection and nutrition on the metabolism of muscle with particular reference to influences on bone maturity, intramuscular fat, glycogen metabolism and pH decline post slaughter. The paper will show that the metabolic activity of skeletal muscle is influenced by genotypic and environmental factors that powerfully influence the ability of the beef industry to meet optimal slaughter management and also to produce product which is appreciated by the consumer.