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Centralized vs. decentralized computing : organizational considerations and management options
The long-standing debate over whether to centralize or decentralize computing is examined in terms of the fundamental organizational and economic factors at stake. The traditional debate is examined and found to focus predominantly on issues of efficiency vs. effectiveness, with solutions based on a rationalistic strategy of optimizing in this tradeoff. A more behavioralistic assessment suggests that the driving issues in the debate are the politics of organization and resources, centering on the issue of control. The economics of computing deployment decisions is presented as an important issue, but one that often serves as a field of argument that is based on more political concerns. The current situation facing managers of computing, given the advent of small and comparatively inexpensive computers, is examined in detail, and a set of management options for dealing with this persistent issue is presented
Crossâcampus Collaboration: A Scientometric and Network Case Study of Publication Activity Across Two Campuses of a Single Institution
Team science and collaboration have become crucial to addressing key research questions confronting society. Institutions that are spread across multiple geographic locations face additional challenges. To better understand the nature of crossâcampus collaboration within a single institution and the effects of institutional efforts to spark collaboration, we conducted a case study of collaboration at Cornell University using scientometric and network analyses. Results suggest that crossâcampus collaboration is increasingly common, but is accounted for primarily by a relatively small number of departments and individual researchers. Specific researchers involved in many collaborative projects are identified, and their unique characteristics are described. Institutional efforts, such as seed grants and topical retreats, have some effect for researchers who are central in the collaboration network, but were less clearly effective for others
10. The Academic Departments
Includes: Collective Bargaining, Labor Law, and Labor History: The Department of Economic and Social Statistics; Labor Economics and Income Security Department: A Parent Department: Human Resources and Administration; The Organizational Behavior Department; Evolution of the Human Resources and Administration Department
Establishing a support service for educational technology within a university
This paper covers some of the issues associated with the support of learning technology within an institution. It describes the activities of a working support service, and highlights approaches to some of the academic, technological, political and management issues that have helped it perform effectively over a fourâyear period
Driving departmental change through evaluation: Some outcomes and problems
This paper identifies the ways in which a threeâyear technologyâbased learning and teaching project has addressed the issue of catalysing departmental change. In order to promote change at this level, it is necessary to relate the accepted learning and teaching parameters of specific disciplines to meaningful evaluation data of student and staff perceptions, in an attempt to broaden the understanding of academic staff. Thus, a number of factors become important to the process of change including: supportive role models within departments; forging feasible departmental implementation plans; utilizing support staff with a technical and pedagogical awareness; and fully involving students in curriculum development and design. Inhibitors to change also need to be noted, for instance: timeâmanagement; resource and training allocation; and a lack of managerial support. However, the creation of a supportive structure which highlights good practice is fundamental in gaining uptake of materials and in changing perceptions. An acceptance of staff development needs in the light of the objectives of both the student and the curriculum is required This holistic approach provides a suitable environment for the symbiosis between learning and teaching to develop
Key Factors for Effective Organisation of e-Assessment
The benefits of e-assessment are widely documented (Bull and McKenna 2004). However, instances of good practice have not been systematically reported. Recognising and acknowledging this gap in the research, the JISC Organisational Committee has funded a number of projects on e-assessment practice: 'E-Assessment Glossary?, 'The Roadmap to E-Assessment? together with a set of case studies of innovative and effective practice.
This paper is based on the findings of the JISC Case Study Project 'The innovative and effective use of E-Assessment'. Members of the project team conducted over 90 interviews with teaching staff, senior management, developers and students to showcase all aspects of e-assessment. The project offered a unique opportunity to observe different organisational structures and gain inside-information about the effectiveness of a number of different applications. The 17 case studies and their follow-up surveys have been studied to identify the facilitating factors for the introduction of e-assessment and the organisational structures supporting e-assessment have also been investigated. The focus of this analysis was to study the different organisational structures and to identify patterns herein.
We suggest that the key characteristics for the typology are the position of the e-assessment within the organisational structure and the support from the senior management. Three types of organisational structures are identified by the study, which support innovative practice. These are the Central Team, the Faculty based Team and the Departmental Champion.
The Central Team offers e-assessment support and, in some cases, production services to all academics on a university-wide basis whilst the Faculty Based Team provides a more limited discipline-related service. The Departmental Champion usually implements e-assessment within his/her specific discipline and may be an early adopter or have a special interest in this area
Access to Core Course Materials Project: report of the needs analysis interviews
This report outlines the findings of the Access to Core Course Materials needs
analysis interviews. Interviews were conducted with academics in thirteen
departments (including one pilot interview). Individuals were asked to identify core
materials in their subject, the specific needs of their department, their use of and
attitudes towards the current teaching support services and their requirements for a
future electronic service
Integrating BOINC with Microsoft Excel: A case study
The convergence of conventional Grid computing with public resource computing (PRC) offers potential benefits in the enterprise setting. For this work we took the popular PRC toolkit BOINC and used it to execute a previously monolithic Microsoft Excel financial model across several commodity computers. Our experience indicates that speedup approaching linear may be realised for certain scenarios, and that this approach offers a viable route to leveraging idle desktop PCs in the enterprise
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