Student Feedback on Teaching in Schools

This open access book provides a comprehensive and informative overview of the current state of research about student perceptions of and student feedback on teaching. After presentation of a new student feedback process model, evidence concerning the validity and reliability of student perceptions of teaching quality is discussed. This is followed by an overview of empirical research on the effects of student feedback on teachers and instruction in different contexts, as well as on factors promoting the successful implementation of feedback in schools. In summary, the findings emphasize that student perceptions of teaching quality can be a valid and reliable source of feedback for teachers. The effectiveness of student feedback on teaching is significantly related to its use in formative settings and to a positive feedback culture within schools. In addition, it is argued that the effectiveness of student feedback depends very much on the support for teachers when making use of the feedback. As this literature review impressively documents, teachers in their work - and ultimately students in their learning - can benefit substantially from student feedback on teaching in schools. “This book reviews what we know about student feedback to teachers. It is detailed and it is a pleasure to read. To have these chapters in one place – and from those most up to date with the research literature and doing the research - is a gift.” John Hatti

A walk in the PARC:developing and implementing 21st century chemical risk assessment in Europe

Current approaches for the assessment of environmental and human health risks due to exposure to chemical substances have served their purpose reasonably well. Nevertheless, the systems in place for different uses of chemicals are faced with various challenges, ranging from a growing number of chemicals to changes in the types of chemicals and materials produced. This has triggered global awareness of the need for a paradigm shift, which in turn has led to the publication of new concepts for chemical risk assessment and explorations of how to translate these concepts into pragmatic approaches. As a result, next-generation risk assessment (NGRA) is generally seen as the way forward. However, incorporating new scientific insights and innovative approaches into hazard and exposure assessments in such a way that regulatory needs are adequately met has appeared to be challenging. The European Partnership for the Assessment of Risks from Chemicals (PARC) has been designed to address various challenges associated with innovating chemical risk assessment. Its overall goal is to consolidate and strengthen the European research and innovation capacity for chemical risk assessment to protect human health and the environment. With around 200 participating organisations from all over Europe, including three European agencies, and a total budget of over 400 million euro, PARC is one of the largest projects of its kind. It has a duration of seven years and is coordinated by ANSES, the French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Health & Safety

The Effectiveness of Performance Appraisals in Measuring Employee Performance: A Study of the First Capital Plus Limited.

This project is about the effectiveness of performance appraisals in measuring employee performance: A case study of the First Capital Plus Limited. The study was based on the perception that Performance Appraisals was not categorically effective means of measuring Employee Performance at First Capital Plus Limited. Three (3) Regional capitals (Kumasi, Accra and Takoradi), four (4) branches, Upper Level Management, Middle and other employees were sampled, making a total sample size of ninety (90) for the study. The design adopted was a descriptive survey, questionnaires and interviews were used in collecting the data and analyze the data collected which involved the use of tables, pie charts and histogram to display frequencies and percentages. The findings revealed that a higher percentage of the respondents see positive relationship between appraisals and employee effectiveness and overall organizational performance. It is therefore recommended that First Capital Plus Limited should apply progressive human resource Strategies and provide effective and productive methods regarding employee motivation and subsequent appraisal. Key words: Performance, Appraisal, Organization, Effectiveness and Human Resourc

Conducting Case Studies

[Excerpt] The purpose of case study research is to complement these cross-organization studies with in-depth data collected from employees within organizations (in the case of our own work, two organizations—one each from the federal and private sectors). The two primary advantages of within-organization research are that it allows for an examination of (a) the intrapsychic perceptions, attributions, and attitudes of employees with disabilities that are not (usually) captured in administrative, national, or cross-organization datasets; and (b) the interplay between these individual-level experiences and the particular organizational context within which employees are working. There have been a number of cross-organization surveys conducted to examine the attitudes and experiences of people with disabilities (for example, Schur et al. 2014; von Schrader, Malzer, and Bruyere 2013). Within-organization case studies offer the unique opportunity to examine how the experiences of individuals with disabilities are influenced by surrounding leadership, informational, task, and social attributes (Johns 2001). In this chapter, we will discuss the opportunities afforded by case study research in general and will also describe some of the specific approaches that we adopted in our own case studies, as well as associated research findings

Is it possible to reduce wastewater to obtain sustainable cities? Some urban experiences

openTo address these global concerns, a fundamental shift in the way things are manufactured and processed is required. In this Master’s thesis, I will focus on the role of cities in the environment, due to their linear setting that powers the capitalist system, producing and managing the resources as the capacity of the planet to recover them were endless. One of the one-fits-all solutions that was proposed in the last decades is the circular economy model, i.e. the modus operandi of the various actors through which everything that is extracted, obtained, or used from the environment in order to create a product, service, or energy useful for their realization, can continue to be part of the economic cycle, even after the need for which it was created and conceived has been satisfied. Attention will be also put to recognizing drivers and barriers in the circular economy model, which is given as the new solution to every problem. I will try to understand the main difficulties, such as the lack of a proper business model for its realization, and the lack of proper information. To achieve the shift to sustainability, cities can make use of several instruments; among them, I will explain the concept of the so-called Nature-based Solutions (NBS), which could be presented as one of the main tools to face a huge number of canonic cities problems in a more sustainable way. To further understand NBS and innovations, the focus will be put also on a case study of MULTISOURCE, a Horizon 2020 European project that aims to demonstrate NBS for urban water treatment, storage, reuse and reduction. In this project, technical pilots treat a wide range of urban water, where the decision support tools are co-designed together with local, national, and international stakeholders.To address these global concerns, a fundamental shift in the way things are manufactured and processed is required. In this Master’s thesis, I will focus on the role of cities in the environment, due to their linear setting that powers the capitalist system, producing and managing the resources as the capacity of the planet to recover them were endless. One of the one-fits-all solutions that was proposed in the last decades is the circular economy model, i.e. the modus operandi of the various actors through which everything that is extracted, obtained, or used from the environment in order to create a product, service, or energy useful for their realization, can continue to be part of the economic cycle, even after the need for which it was created and conceived has been satisfied. Attention will be also put to recognizing drivers and barriers in the circular economy model, which is given as the new solution to every problem. I will try to understand the main difficulties, such as the lack of a proper business model for its realization, and the lack of proper information. To achieve the shift to sustainability, cities can make use of several instruments; among them, I will explain the concept of the so-called Nature-based Solutions (NBS), which could be presented as one of the main tools to face a huge number of canonic cities problems in a more sustainable way. To further understand NBS and innovations, the focus will be put also on a case study of MULTISOURCE, a Horizon 2020 European project that aims to demonstrate NBS for urban water treatment, storage, reuse and reduction. In this project, technical pilots treat a wide range of urban water, where the decision support tools are co-designed together with local, national, and international stakeholders

Knowledge Guided Integration of Structured and Unstructured Data in Health Decision Process

Data in the health domain is continuously increasing. It is collected from several sources, has several formats and is characterized by its sensibility (protection of personal health data). These characteristics make the management and the expert interaction with the collected data, in order to facilitate decision-making in Health Information Systems (HIS) a challenging field. In this paper, we propose a Knowledge guided integration of structured and unstructured data for health decision process. The knowledge is represented by domain ontology, which allows the integration of structured and unstructured data, stored in NoSQL format. Our motivation is to combine the confirmed advantages of ontologies and NoSQL databases both in data integration and decision aided processes. The proposed ontology has been implemented and evaluated using quality metrics. The approach was evaluated and results show response time optimization, compared with traditional approaches, and improvement of data relevance

Survey of research libraries on aggregation of digital content

This document reports the results of a survey of Europe’s research libraries concerning their opportunities for and attitudes to digital content aggregation, specifically by aggregation services capable of feeding Europeana. The survey was carried out as Task 3.4 of the EuropeanaTravel project. The survey was prepared with input from Europeana, LIBER and the EuropeanaTravel management team. The intentions were to provide a snapshot of aggregation attitudes and activity across Europe, to inform the strategies of both LIBER and Europeana, and to help to inform the long-term development path for the LIBER aggregator which is being developed as part of EuropeanaTravel

IT Multisourcing Management : A Qualitative Study from the Vendor's Perspective

IT multisourcing is an outsourcing method that combines services of various different vendors in a single technology focused undertaking. This study investigates the benefits and disadvantages that an IT multisourcing setting presents to the vendor from a management perspective. As vendors are responding to client needs, studying their experiences can present valuable information for managing IT multisourcing projects for client companies and their decision makers. The study aims to gather as much information of multisourcing from the vendors’ perspective, but due to the main focus in previously conducted research articles being on the client’s side, there is a gap in research to be filled. This study aims to fill the gap by interviewing eight IT industry experts with experience from IT outsourcing and multisourcing projects. As multisourcing describes a situation where one client contracts two or more independent vendors on a single IT project or undertaking, it is also a situation where the different tasks assigned to vendors have some impact on each other. This is true in most cases, even though the vendors may operate independently from each other. It has been shown that multisourcing is only efficient when vendors are communicating with each other. This study also focuses on examining the communication and cooperation activities of the various operators in a multisourcing setting. Through examination of a selection of most ocmmonly used models in IT multisourcing, the thesis aims to expand the knowledge on what the benefits and disadvantages of IT multisourcing are as well as what the management challenges in these settings are with an emphasis on the vendor's view point