SPEIR: Scottish Portals for Education, Information and Research. Final Project Report: Elements and Future Development Requirements of a Common Information Environment for Scotland

The SPEIR (Scottish Portals for Education, Information and Research) project was funded by the Scottish Library and Information Council (SLIC). It ran from February 2003 to September 2004, slightly longer than the 18 months originally scheduled and was managed by the Centre for Digital Library Research (CDLR). With SLIC's agreement, community stakeholders were represented in the project by the Confederation of Scottish Mini-Cooperatives (CoSMiC), an organisation whose members include SLIC, the National Library of Scotland (NLS), the Scottish Further Education Unit (SFEU), the Scottish Confederation of University and Research Libraries (SCURL), regional cooperatives such as the Ayrshire Libraries Forum (ALF)1, and representatives from the Museums and Archives communities in Scotland. Aims; A Common Information Environment For Scotland The aims of the project were to: o Conduct basic research into the distributed information infrastructure requirements of the Scottish Cultural Portal pilot and the public library CAIRNS integration proposal; o Develop associated pilot facilities by enhancing existing facilities or developing new ones; o Ensure that both infrastructure proposals and pilot facilities were sufficiently generic to be utilised in support of other portals developed by the Scottish information community; o Ensure the interoperability of infrastructural elements beyond Scotland through adherence to established or developing national and international standards. Since the Scottish information landscape is taken by CoSMiC members to encompass relevant activities in Archives, Libraries, Museums, and related domains, the project was, in essence, concerned with identifying, researching, and developing the elements of an internationally interoperable common information environment for Scotland, and of determining the best path for future progress

Pedagogy and new power relationships

Changes in the context of Higher Education have led to lecturers being disenfranchised. Both the introduction of new managerialism and developments in pedagogy have contributed to this process. On the one hand, performance management and the introduction of teaching and learning strategies have put issues of pedagogy and curriculum development into the realms of strategic management. On the other, student-centred learning has usurped teacher-centred models of education. In this paper, reviews of both of these trends are presented. Based on these, a benchmarking tool has been developed which enables the identification and monitoring of the way that the locus of control for various teaching-related activities has changed. This tool is then applied to the case of an MBA course that was transformed from a traditional to a distance format. The issues that arise from this case are discussed, and conclusions are drawn about the potential implications of “creeping managerialism ” in the context of Higher Education

Supplementary skills guides for built environment researchers

Deepening specialised knowledge-base and wider skills of researchers in a wider variety of disciplines are prerequisite for developing successful leadership in higher education, the public sector and industry. In response to this repeated calls for enhancing supplementary skills of the built environment researchers, TG53 (Postgraduate Research Training in Building and Construction) initiated steps to develop and nurture understanding of supplementary skills and providing a common frame of reference for use and further discourse and has developed 6 good practice examples highlighting skills for researchers within the built environment. Accordingly, this TG53 publication is in response to the repeated calls for enhancing supplementary skills of the built environment researchers

Training of future teachers of natural sciences for the use of information and communication technologies in their professional activities

Today, an important aspect of future teachers training, in particular, natural sciences, is the usage of innovative technologies and approaches in the educational process of higher education institutions. The features of training future teachers of natural sciences using information and communication technologies are considered. The general global trends in the development of informatization of education are highlighted: expansion of the scope of use new information technologies.The principles of using information and communication technologies in the educational process are highlighted: the principle of visibility; the principle of expediency; the principle of systematicity and consistency; the principle of strength of knowledge; the principle of accessibility; the principle of individualization; the principle of connecting theory with practice; the principle of multimedia; the principle of interactivity. Online tools are highlighted to enable the use of innovative technologies for teaching future teachers of natural sciences. It is noted that in the educational system there are applications and information and communication technologies that widely used in the education system: word supercomputers, databases, demonstration programs, catalogue organization schemes, planners, graphic packages, etc

INTEGRATING PROJECT CHANGE MANAGEMENT LEARNING INTO AN ACADEMIC COURSE ON IT PROJECT MANAGEMENT

Within project management, little attention has been devoted to controlling and facilitating changes when constraints of a project have been changed such as scope, time, cost, or quality, also known as Project Change Management (Arami, 2008). Growing statistics prove it is imperative for students finishing IT programs to acquire an understanding of project change management (PCM) for industry preparation. The U.S. spent 3.28 billion dollars on global change management and accountability projects for technology (roughly one-third of the total budget for global change) in the year 2000; this percentage still continues to rise (Goncalves, 2007). As a result, students must understand the importance of project change management. This project addressed the research question; Can the introduction of tools like mind mapping software and the process framework of organizational change management improve student understanding of project change? These tools have recently emerged within industry and academic environments, but have yet to be integrated. This study demonstrates how the integration of both tools allows students to approach new concepts taught in the classroom while improving their understanding

Pmo Lite for Colorado Housing and Finance Authority

The focus of this professional project was to identify the appropriate services for a lightweight project management office (PMO) to implement at a company referred to with the alias Not-For-Profit Organization (NFPO), and then to complete the first phase of this implementation. NFPO had lower project success rates than desired. They wanted to integrate project management practices into their organization in order to be more effective in meeting their mission. In order to determine the best approach to do this, lightweight and heavyweight project management methodologies and PMOs were examined. Based on NFPO\u27s smaller staff size, their culture, managements\u27 desire to keep overhead low, and their low project management maturity state, a lightweight PMO (PMO Lite) with a supportive nature was tailored for NFPO\u27s needs. This paper presents the results of the first phase of the PMO Lite implementation, which was to implement PMO Lite within the IT division. The next phase planned was to implement PMO Lite company-wide. For the first phase a PMO Lite Project Charter was completed. This document defined the goals and objectives, as well as high level responsibilities and resources for the PMO. A primary service of the PMO was to manage a project management methodology. Next, a simple project management methodology was developed to eventually be used organization-wide for all projects. It incorporated Scrum in a separate project management methodology for the IT application development projects. Document templates and a central document repository were created. IT staff were trained on these methodologies. A business case for NFPO\u27s PMO Lite was presented. The early results of the implementation were favorable. They included executive support of the PMO, IT staff trained on the project management methodologies, and the successful completion of two Scrum projects

KY-CTDS Kentucky Contract Time Determination System (KYSPR 99-195-lF)

This paper reports on the results of research that was funded by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KyTC) to develop a new method for determining construction contract time for its highway construction contracts. The current and other DOT systems were analyzed to determine how a new system could provide better estimated duration. It was pre-determined that a PC computer based system was best suited. The development of the system input was developed from KyTC engineers with construction experience. The study advisory committee worked with Kentucky Transportation Center research engineers to develop the basis for the new contract time determination system, called KY-CTDS. The KY-CTDS program provides a conceptual estimating tool for predicting construction contract time for the Kentucky Department of Highways. It uses the pre-determined project classifications with only the major activities that control the project duration. Production rates and activity relationships were determined and are included in the program. Final adjustments in the project can be easily made by KyTC engineers. This system utilizes Microsoft Project® 98 and Microsoft Excel® Version 7.0 software operating on a personal computer. System outputs include a graphical bar chart schedule for estimating the contract time for bidding purposes. System output may also help in resolving construction disputes. The program is not suitable for detailed scheduling of construction operations

Designing Refillable Packaging: A Qualitative Approach

In recognition of the fact that current packaging design fails to address the resource reductions needed to support the sustainability agenda (INCPEN, 2001; Environmental Services Association, 2004), a 2 year collaborative research project between Loughborough University and The Boots Company, funded by DEFRA, was set up to investigate the feasibility of developing refillable packaging systems which appeal to the consumer whilst reducing the overall sustainability impact. The overall aim of the project – ‘Refillable Packaging Systems’, reported on in this paper was to develop a refillable packaging system for a ‘body wash’ product and to investigate its feasibility with respect to consumer acceptance (female customers, aged 21-40) and sustainability improvements. In order to achieve the project aim a broad range of qualitative methods were used. This paper details the methods used to collate background understanding, develop design concepts and test the viability of the design solutions. It reflects on why they were used, how effective they were and on the benefits of combining these different methods at different stages. The paper concludes that combining together an array of design related qualitative methods, of the nature described, can produce rich and valuable outcomes. The project demonstrates that this approach can lead to the development of a more detailed understanding of the topic under investigation and open up discussion by creating demonstrator products which can be handled, critiqued and examined. Keywords: Packaging; Design Methods; Questionnaire; Visual Templates; Prototyping; Consumer Workshops</p

Document Automation Architectures: Updated Survey in Light of Large Language Models

This paper surveys the current state of the art in document automation (DA). The objective of DA is to reduce the manual effort during the generation of documents by automatically creating and integrating input from different sources and assembling documents conforming to defined templates. There have been reviews of commercial solutions of DA, particularly in the legal domain, but to date there has been no comprehensive review of the academic research on DA architectures and technologies. The current survey of DA reviews the academic literature and provides a clearer definition and characterization of DA and its features, identifies state-of-the-art DA architectures and technologies in academic research, and provides ideas that can lead to new research opportunities within the DA field in light of recent advances in generative AI and large language models.Comment: The current paper is the updated version of an earlier survey on document automation [Ahmadi Achachlouei et al. 2021]. Updates in the current paper are as follows: We shortened almost all sections to reduce the size of the main paper (without references) from 28 pages to 10 pages, added a review of selected papers on large language models, removed certain sections and most of diagrams. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:2109.1160