Teamwork protocol

This protocol represents an attempt to assist in the instruction of teamwork assessment for first-year students across QUT. We anticipate that teaching staff will view this protocol as a generic resource in teamwork instruction, processes and evaluation. Teamwork has been acknowledged as a problematic practice at QUT while existing predominantly in importance amongst graduate capabilities for all students at this institution. This protocol is not an extensive document on the complexities and dynamics of teamwork processes, but instead presents itself as a set of best practice guidelines and recommendations to assist in team design, development, management, support and assessment. It is recommended that this protocol be progressively implemented across QUT, not only to attain teamwork teaching consistency, but to address and deal with the misconceptions and conflict around the importance of the teamwork experience. The authors acknowledge the extensive input and contributions from a Teamwork Steering Committee selected from academic staff and administrative members across the institution. As well, we welcome feedback and suggestions to both fine tune and make inclusive those strategies that staff believe add to optimal teamwork outcomes

The Hanabi Challenge: A New Frontier for AI Research

From the early days of computing, games have been important testbeds for studying how well machines can do sophisticated decision making. In recent years, machine learning has made dramatic advances with artificial agents reaching superhuman performance in challenge domains like Go, Atari, and some variants of poker. As with their predecessors of chess, checkers, and backgammon, these game domains have driven research by providing sophisticated yet well-defined challenges for artificial intelligence practitioners. We continue this tradition by proposing the game of Hanabi as a new challenge domain with novel problems that arise from its combination of purely cooperative gameplay with two to five players and imperfect information. In particular, we argue that Hanabi elevates reasoning about the beliefs and intentions of other agents to the foreground. We believe developing novel techniques for such theory of mind reasoning will not only be crucial for success in Hanabi, but also in broader collaborative efforts, especially those with human partners. To facilitate future research, we introduce the open-source Hanabi Learning Environment, propose an experimental framework for the research community to evaluate algorithmic advances, and assess the performance of current state-of-the-art techniques.Comment: 32 pages, 5 figures, In Press (Artificial Intelligence

The Influence of Diversity Dimensions on Student’s Collaboration Success: What It Means for Workforce Development in Manufacturing

Manufacturing productivity is measured by labor productivity which is the hourly output of the manufacturing economy. The recent reduction in productivity numbers by the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics emphasizes the need for workforce development. With globalization and technological advancements, diversity has emerged as a critical aspect for the workplace. By encompassing dimensions such as education, race, and age, diversity creates a tapestry of unique perspectives and experiences. This study’s aim is to figure out the effect of a diversity dimension on team performance using intelligent systems, and in addition, if extra dimensions of diversity further impact team performance. To accomplish this, this study employed a manual assembly process with two human participants and an autonomous agent working together as teammates. It measured build time in minutes, the instances of rework, the number of missing fasteners and the detection of part colour errors. This is compared to the composition of the team’s diversity. Based on the experiment, it was determined that educationally diverse teams had a higher performance than the non-diverse team. It was also discovered that additional dimensions of diversity does not necessarily result in better team performance. This study then elucidates the relationship between diversity and team performance, and greater adaptability of manufacturing companies to dynamic market conditions. Also explaining that manufacturing companies can reap several benefits, spur growth, and survive in today\u27s cutthroat environment by strategically implementing the appropriate level of technology and intelligent systems. Using a technological road map that details the intended adoption of various intelligent systems over a predetermined time frame results in greater team performance, increased product quality, cost savings and increased competitiveness

Sustainable Livelihoods Enhancement and Diversification (SLED): A Manual for Practitioners

The aim of this document is to provide development practitioners with an introduction to the SLED process as well as guidance for practitioners facilitating that process. The Sustainable Livelihoods Enhancement and Diversification (SLED) approach has been developed by Integrated Marine Management Ltd (IMM) through building on the lessons of past livelihoods research projects as well as worldwide experience in livelihood improvement and participatory development practice. It aims to provide a set of guidelines for development and conservation practitioners whose task it is to assist people in enhancing and diversifying their livelihoods. Under the Coral Reefs and Livelihoods Initiative (CORALI), this approach has been field tested and further developed in very different circumstances and institutional settings, in six sites across South Asia and Indonesia. While this process of testing and refining SLED has been carried out specifically in the context of efforts to manage coastal and marine resources, it is an approach that can be applied widely wherever natural resources are facing degradation because of unsustainable human use. The SLED approach provides a framework within which diverse local contexts and the local complexities of livelihood change can be accommodated

A Theoretical Exploration of the Adoption and Design of Flexible Benefit Plans: A Case of Human Resource Innovation

This article explores theoretical explanations of managers\u27 decisions about flexible benefit plans. We (1) examine the adoption and design of flexible benefit plans through four theoretic lenses: institutional, resource dependence, agency, and transaction costs; (2) integrate the relevant insights gained from these theories into a more complete model and derive propositions for future research; and (3) generalize the insights gained from exploring a specific innovation to broader questions surrounding decisions about other human resource innovations

Online Expert System for forming Project Team

This report was about the research on how the information and communication technologies (ICT) and the development of tools can help students in higher education [earn through communication and collaboration with other learners. The objective of the study was to assist IT/IS students in forming a project team according to their roles and sroficiency based on their interest in order to match students ability with the skills needed n a project team. This report provides some theories which are related to the set of skills md guidelines on how to build a project team as well as other requirements in forming a :eam. By providing example of relevant subjects, it helps to create better view in onderstanding project team needs. Other than that, this report also includes a sample of nerely similar project done by other university but with different approach. These findings can be adapted in the implementation phase ofthis project. \n online expert system such as this particular system is the alternative method in lelping students to form a better project team. All of these findings were found through inline research, decision support system book as well as from the information resource ;enter. The results and discussion shows the effectiveness of both methods which are the ;onventional system and the online expert system. In conclusion, identifying students' ;apabilities and interest is important so that the selection of team members can be done smoothly and accurately. However, without a well-defined set of skills for each team nember's roles, the selection may be difficult and the results may not be as encouraging is people always expected a project team to be. Best selection of team members makes ?est productivity from the team as well. Furthermore with the combination of other ;lements such as responsibility, commitment, proficiency and so on will help in gaining ;eam trust and lead towards team effectiveness. i

Deconstructing the stereotypes: building mutual respect

Through a combination of a detailed literature review and structure online survey, the study seeks to establish the extent of interdisciplinary attitudes within built environment students at Kingston University, whilst building a picture of not only the stereotypes held amongst and between disciplines, but also the fundamental root of such perceptions

The Impact of Group Diversity on Performance and Knowledge Spillover -- An Experiment in a College Classroom

An important yet under-explored question in the teamwork literature concerns how group characteristics affect productivity. Within a given teamwork setting, it is not obvious how group member diversity affects the performance of the individual and the group. The group may gain from knowledge transfer and sharing while it may be crippled by communication and coordination problems that are prevalent in heterogeneous groups. In this study, we combine class performance data from an undergraduate management class with students%u2019 personal records to explore diversity and knowledge spillover effects. A major advantage of our dataset is the exogenous assignment of groups, which rules out the troublesome yet common self-selection issue in team literature. Our results indicate that male-dominant groups performed worse both in group work and in individually taken exams than female-dominant and equally-mixed gender groups after controlling for other group characteristics. Individual members from a group with more diversity in age and gender scored higher in exams. However, we did not find any significance of a group%u2019s racial composition over group and individual performances. Another novel aspect of this natural experiment is that each group chooses their own group contract form %u2013 members of %u201Cautonomous%u201D groups receive equal grade for their group work while those in "democratic" groups can adopt differentiated point allocation, thus, providing a proper mechanism to punish free riders. Our estimation results show a significant correlation between the choice of a democratic contract and the group and individual performance. To address the endogeneity problem in groups%u2019 contract choices, we use a maximum likelihood treatment effect model and found that the democratic group contract has a positive and significant effect on group performance.