Accelerating positive change in e-records management : the AC+erm project at Northumbria

The AC+erm project aims to investigate and critically explore issues and practical strategies for accelerating positive change in electronic records management. The project’s focus is on designing an organisational-centred architecture from three perspectives: people, process and technology. This paper introduces the project, describes the methodology (a systematic literature review, e-Delphi studies and colloquia) and presents solutions for improving ERM developed from the people and process e-Delphi responses. ERM is particularly challenging and the solutions offered by the Delphi participants are numerous, and range in scale and complexity. The only firm conclusion that one can draw is that the majority of the solutions are people-focussed ones. The Cynefin framework is introduced as one approach for providing a conceptual overview to our findings on ERM. The sample solutions presented in this paper provide a toolkit of ‘probes’ and ‘interventions’ for practical application in organisations

Accelerating positive change in electronic records management: an empirical toolkit of solutions

The AC+erm project aims to investigate and critically explore issues and practical strategies for accelerating positive change in electronic records management. The project’s focus is on designing an organisational-centred architecture from three perspectives: people, process and technology. This paper introduces the project, describes the methodology (a systematic literature review, e-Delphi studies and colloquia) and presents solutions for improving ERM developed from the people and process e-Delphi responses. ERM is particularly challenging and the solutions offered by the Delphi participants are numerous, and range in scale and complexity. The only firm conclusion that one can draw is that the majority of the solutions are people-focussed ones. The Cynefin framework is introduced as one approach for providing a conceptual overview to our findings on ERM. The sample solutions presented in this paper provide a toolkit of ‘probes’ and ‘interventions’ for practical application in organisations

The Delphi: An Underutilized Method of Scholarly and Practical Research for a Public Relations Field in Transition

This paper introduces, analyzes, and explains the Delphi method of research, particularly as it applies to certain aspects of the public relations industry. The Delphi technique became known some fifty years ago when the Rand Corporation used it extensively for forecasting. Since then, scholars and forecasters have used it periodically for early, qualitative explorations into complex issues or domains. The overall purpose of the Delphi is to facilitate formal discussion among selected experts in a given domain around a particular topic; it is particularly useful when those experts cannot easily come together in one place. The method encourages the sharing of diverging worldviews over a few “rounds” or iterations in the hope that the views may converge into some direction around the given topic. For this reason, the Delphi has often been used in situations or environments that tend to be somewhat ambiguous and where interviews and surveys are neither timely nor appropriate. Public relations scholars started incorporating the Delphi method into their research in the late 1980s, and the technique has since been employed to explore broad-ranging issues among experts on at least seven or eight occasions. It has also been used to explore ethical norms. However, public relations literature contains little discussion about the technique and its possible applications or implications for developing knowledge in the field. This paper, then, is intended to dissect the Delphi method so as to offer guidance to public relations scholars who may wish to use it in future studies. The authors, both of whom have conducted Delphi studies, believe that the method is valuable in examining topics that are emerging or underdeveloped in the field; however, certain precautions are necessary in order to ensure that the research achieves the desired effects. The paper is created through a literature review of similar articles on Delphi studies in other domains, notably health communications, followed by an examination of some studies conducted to advance issues in public relations. The authors explore the most appropriate situations for using a Delphi and list the benefits and disbenefits of different aspects or applications of the method. They trace the evolution of Delphi research from its early roots into the era of the Internet and social media, which offer new tools for increasing the number of respondents and moving through the Delphi process more quickly than could previously be done. In advancing such an examination of the Delphi, this paper should be a useful addition to emerging public relations literature

Operational and Organizational Issues Facing Corporate Real Estate Executives and Managers

This article examines three major categories of issues facing corporate real estate executives in the future, as determined by a Delphi process survey conducted by the authors. We present areas of agreement and disagreement among the corporate executives surveyed, and distill the results of the Delphi survey and other major studies on the future of corporate real estate into a research agenda for further inquiry.

A Delphi survey to determine how educational interventions for evidence-based practice should be reported:Stage 2 of the development of a reporting guideline

BACKGROUND: Undertaking a Delphi exercise is recommended during the second stage in the development process for a reporting guideline. To continue the development for the Guideline for Reporting Evidence-based practice Educational interventions and Teaching (GREET) a Delphi survey was undertaken to determine the consensus opinion of researchers, journal editors and educators in evidence-based practice (EBP) regarding the information items that should be reported when describing an educational intervention for EBP. METHODS: A four round online Delphi survey was conducted from October 2012 to March 2013. The Delphi panel comprised international researchers, educators and journal editors in EBP. Commencing with an open-ended question, participants were invited to volunteer information considered important when reporting educational interventions for EBP. Over three subsequent rounds participants were invited to rate the importance of each of the Delphi items using an 11 point Likert rating scale (low 0 to 4, moderate 5 to 6, high 7 to 8 and very high >8). Consensus agreement was set a priori as at least 80 per cent participant agreement. Consensus agreement was initially calculated within the four categories of importance (low to very high), prior to these four categories being merged into two (<7 and ≥7). Descriptive statistics for each item were computed including the mean Likert scores, standard deviation (SD), range and median participant scores. Mean absolute deviation from the median (MAD-M) was also calculated as a measure of participant disagreement. RESULTS: Thirty-six experts agreed to participate and 27 (79%) participants completed all four rounds. A total of 76 information items were generated across the four survey rounds. Thirty-nine items (51%) were specific to describing the intervention (as opposed to other elements of study design) and consensus agreement was achieved for two of these items (5%). When the four rating categories were merged into two (<7 and ≥7), 18 intervention items achieved consensus agreement. CONCLUSION: This Delphi survey has identified 39 items for describing an educational intervention for EBP. These Delphi intervention items will provide the groundwork for the subsequent consensus discussion to determine the final inclusion of items in the GREET, the first reporting guideline for educational interventions in EBP

The Next Round of Hadronic Generator Tuning Heavily Based on Identified Particle Data

Event shape and charged particle inclusive distributions determined from 750 000 hadronic Z events measured with the DELPHI detector at LEP are presented. The statistical and systematic precision of this data allows for a decisive confrontation with Monte Carlo models of the hadronization process and a better understanding of the structure of the Z hadronic final state. Improved tunings of the JETSET, ARIADNE and HERWIG parton shower models and the JETSET matrix element model are obtained by fitting the models to identified particle distributions from all LEP experiments and the DELPHI data presented. The description of the data distributions by the models is critically reviewed with special importance attributed to identified particles.Comment: 73+2 pages, latex, 39 figures appended as uuencoded fil

Overcoming Expert Disagreement In A Delphi Process. An Exercise In Reverse Epistemology

Disagreement among experts is a central topic in social epistemology. What should an expert do when confronted with the different opinion of an epistemic peer? Possible answers include the steadfast view (holding to one’s belief), the abstemious view (suspending one’s judgment), and moderate conciliatory views, which specify criteria for belief change when a peer’s different opinion is encountered. The practice of Delphi techniques in healthcare, medicine, and social sciences provides a real-life case study of expert disagreement, where disagreement is gradually transformed into consensus. An analysis of Delphi shows that moderate conciliatory views are descriptively more adequate than rival views. However, it also casts doubt on whether the debate in social epistemology is explanatory relevant vis-à-vis real life cases of expert disagreement, where consensus replaces truth, and acceptance is more explanatorily relevant than belief

An Investigation into the attitudes of academic librarians towards Internet plagiarism of HE students using a Delphi study

This presentation will outline the findings of a study undertaken to investigate the attitudes of academic librarians towards Internet plagiarism by Higher Education students in the United Kingdom. A Delphi study – with its potential to yield rich qualitative data – was chosen as the most appropriate research tool for the study. A Delphi study is defined by its distinct stages. Key components include securing a sufficient number of qualified participants followed by the iterative process of preparation and distribution of questionnaires, analysis of responses and feedback to participants. For the purposes of this research qualified participation consisted of academic librarians who possessed the knowledge and/or practical experience of teaching about plagiarism and the Internet