Professional performance evaluation within the Romanian administrative system

The current economic crisis, manifested in the entire world, highlights the need for sustained involvement of the local and regional authorities in each country, in conceiving and implementing Community policies (which already exist at European level) having an essential role in implementing the economic plans achievement. This view was shared by all European Union Member States, of which Romania is part, since 2007. Therefore, the economic crisis which is reflected in the Romanian society today, requires prompt and sustained intervention by the authorities in the execution of the economic recovery plan, implying the community strategies, due to sharply budgetary expenses cut, which is found in all European countries. In order to achieve this major objective, the Romanian authorities should have qualified and properly motivated personnel through an adequate remuneration, according to the training, skills, responsibilities and especially individual performance obtained at each position, as it happens in most developed countries of the European Union. In this context, this study approaches the issues related to the performance evaluation of the public sector’s employees. Considering the fact that strengthening and developing the human resources segment is a strategic goal of the Romanian administration for the period 2008 - 2013, which will lead to modernizing it and making it more efficient (at both central and local level), the personnel performance evaluation, at the organizational level represents a fundamental activity from the human resources’ management perspective.performance evaluation, performance indicators’ system, human resources management, Romanian administration.

Collaborating

This paper examines moral hazard in teams over time. Agents are collectively engaged in an uncertain project, and their individual efforts are unobserved. Free-riding leads not only to a reduction in effort, but also to procrastination. The collaboration dwindles over time, but never ceases as long as the project has not succeeded. In fact, the delay until the project succeeds, if it ever does, increases with the number of agents. We show why deadlines, but not necessarily better monitoring, help to mitigate moral hazard.Moral hazard, Teams, Experimentation, Collaboration, Public goods, Learning

Attitude development in designer's education

Modern academic design and engineering education adopted the issues and goals of holistic development of design competence. Holistic design competence is a combination of generic capacities: capability, knowledge, skill, experience and attitude. All capacities should be addressed in academic education, but the development of attitude is not sufficiently emphasized. Designers’ attitude can be seen as the relationship between a designer and the design profession. With a good designers’ attitude, different types of design problems can be solved and all the capacities, including attitude, can be developed. This paper proposes that developing a good designers’ attitude can be implemented in design education and should be done. We present the five different elements that comprise an attitude: communication, reliability, trust, motivation and open mindset. The relations between elements of designers’ attitude and other capacities of design competence are discussed. We studied the manifestation of attitudes and their development in a project of the so called Global Product Realization (GPR) course. The GPR course incorporates students from several European universities who are asked to solve a real design problem for an industrial company. The conclusion is that this project has supported the development of all five attitudinal elements. Since GPR projects are multi disciplinary, multi cultural and communication is non face-toface, a certain level of designers’ attitude is required for such projects. Further research is needed to support the vision that development of designers’ attitude needs to be addressed earlier in design education, preferably from the very first course

Improving the performance of student teams in project-based learning with Scrum

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of Scrum for project and team management in PBL teams in higher education. To attain this goal, a study was carried out to analyze students’ perceptions about Scrum as an effective method for PBL teams. Based on two different editions of PBL that used the Scrum method with different characteristics in each approach, this paper aims to identify the best practices for effective team and project management and draw recommendations for successful use of scrum in PBL approaches. The authors used an exploratory case study carried out within an engineering program at the University of Minho, Portugal. The research design was based on an explorative quantitative and qualitative approach. Implementing Scrum in PBL teams helps students to keep the project running smoothly and draws greater awareness on how to manage the project and teams in a more effective way. Findings show that task assignment, performance monitoring, visual management and regular feedback were considered the main advantages of using Scrum in PBL teams, which had a positive impact on student performance. However, for the success of Scrum, students recognize the role of the Scrum Master and Project Owner as vital to guide the teams in a sustainable way. Research on the application of Scrum in Education is scarce and mostly exploratory. This paper is among the very few empirical studies consolidating knowledge on the implementation of Scrum approaches to improve learning in higher education. More specifically, it brings a valuable contribution on how to improve specifically team performance in PBL teams with the use of agile approaches such as Scrum

Schedules, Calendars and Agendas

Time management instruments such as schedules, calendars and agendas are obvious tools to organise individual and collective action. Besides being of great practical significance in the western world and beyond, these tools are remarkable in that they are rarely questioned by those who are governed by them. Yet, they are tools and as such they can be used by management in organisations. This paper will explore: -why these time instruments are much legs visible than the task itself, -to what extent they are knowingly used by management, and -if their effectiveness is somehow limited to certain activities. It is argued that the unobtrusiveness oftime instruments is related to the natural distinction between content and context. Tasks, intellectual or practical, lead the actors to focus on content. Time management instruments appear to belong to context instead. Hence, they are normally taken for granted, framing the problem.Time; management

Redcar and Cleveland College: report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; )

The Further Education Funding Council has a legal duty to make sure further education in England is properly assessed. The FEFC’s inspectorate inspects and reports on each college of further education according to a four-year cycle. This record comprises the reports for periods 1995-96 and 1999-2000

Newcastle-under-Lyme College: report from the Inspectorate (FEFC inspection report; 107/95 and 28/99)

The Further Education Funding Council has a legal duty to make sure further education in England is properly assessed. The FEFC’s inspectorate inspects and reports on each college of further education according to a four-year cycle. This record comprises reports for the periods 1994-95 and 1998-99

A model for successful teamwork

Increasingly, there have been greater expectations from industry and employers that universities in Australian focus on developing student generic skills, core competencies or graduate attributes. As a result, key skills included in the mission statements of most universities tend to include higher-level aims relating to critical thinking, lifelong learning and teamwork. These generic skills and others, are considered essential for successful work place practice and universities are constantly being called upon to produce graduates that can show these skills. This is not an easy task, and universities are trying different approaches to try and satisfy these needs, e.g. e-portfolios and tracking key skills throughout the course of study. This study has focused on developing teamwork skills, and conducted a wide literature review to develop a model of team evolution for successful teamwork. A four-stage model was developed from the literature, which examined team development stages such as: pre-grouping issues (beyond students\u27 control); team establishment issues; team operation issues (rules and standards); and ongoing operational issues for the duration of the project. The model was synthesised from the literature with a view to develop processes and rules that teams could undertake in order to be successful. Based on this literature review, a survey was developed and a pilot study was carried out with nine teams in the field of Multimedia and IT development to confirm the findings from the literature and the established team life cycle model. With the acknowledgement that only a small sample was used for this study and no robust statistical inference could be drawn, the results revealed that the established model was reasonably accurate in determining successful teams i.e. teams that demonstrated reasonable knowledge and abilities in teaming skills, developed team rules and processes, and focused on promoting collaboration and interpersonal relationships. The study was undertaken within the context of Multimedia/IT development in a higher education environment. It is hoped that the results of this study can not only benefit Multimedia/IT students when preparing for team-based assignments, but also students from other disciplines. In this way, this study may help provide one of the essential graduate attributes being called on by industry and employers