Academics are expected to publish. In Australia universities receive extra funding based on their academic publication rates and academic promotion is difficult without a good publication record. However, the reality is that only a small percentage of academics are actively publishing. To fix this problem, a number of international universities and other higher education institutions have implemented interventions with the main aim being to increase the number of publications. A comprehensive literature search identified 17 studies published between 1984 and 2004, which examined the effects of these interventions. Three key types of interventions were identified: writing courses, writing support groups and writing coaches. The resulting publication output varied, but all interventions led to an increase in average publication rates for the participants.

The two step floating catchment area (2SFCA) method has emerged in the last decade as a key measure of spatial accessibility, particularly in its application to primary health care access. Many recent ‘improvements’ to the original 2SFCA method have been developed, which generally either account for distance-decay within a catchment or enable the usage of variable catchment sizes. This paper evaluates the effectiveness of various proposed methods within these two improvement groups. Moreover, its assessment focuses on how well these improvements operate within and between rural and metropolitan populations over large geographical regions.