The UK’s first professional symphony orchestra cooperative: social enterprise?

This conference paper reports the results of the first phase of a three phase longitudinal research study designed to examine the initiation and development of the UK‟s first professional symphony orchestra cooperative. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with thirty six professional musicians from a "pool" of forty plus musicians. This "pool" of musicians provides the cooperative with a resource that can be drawn on to form an orchestra to rehearse for and perform concerts and recordings. Preliminary results reveal four themes that emerged from the semi-structured interview data. These themes were interpreted by the researchers as: "commitment", "democracy", "social mission" and "aesthetic aspirations". The themes are presented along with supporting quotations from the interview data that illustrate the characteristics of these four emergent themes. The implications of the themes are then discussed within the context of the prior literature reviewe

Would You Trust a (Faulty) Robot? : Effects of Error, Task Type and Personality on Human-Robot Cooperation and Trust

How do mistakes made by a robot affect its trustworthiness and acceptance in human-robot collaboration? We investigate how the perception of erroneous robot behavior may influence human interaction choices and the willingness to cooperate with the robot by following a number of its unusual requests. For this purpose, we conducted an experiment in which participants interacted with a home companion robot in one of two experimental conditions: (1) the correct mode or (2) the faulty mode. Our findings reveal that, while significantly affecting subjective perceptions of the robot and assessments of its reliability and trustworthiness, the robot's performance does not seem to substantially influence participants' decisions to (not) comply with its requests. However, our results further suggest that the nature of the task requested by the robot, e.g. whether its effects are revocable as opposed to irrevocable, has a signicant im- pact on participants' willingness to follow its instructions

Issues and techniques for collaborative music making on multi-touch surfaces

A range of systems exist for collaborative music making on multi-touch surfaces. Some of them have been highly successful, but currently there is no systematic way of designing them, to maximise collaboration for a particular user group. We are particularly interested in systems that will engage novices and experts. We designed a simple application in an initial attempt to clearly analyse some of the issues. Our application allows groups of users to express themselves in collaborative music making using pre-composed materials. User studies were video recorded and analysed using two techniques derived from Grounded Theory and Content Analysis. A questionnaire was also conducted and evaluated. Findings suggest that the application affords engaging interaction. Enhancements for collaborative music making on multi-touch surfaces are discussed. Finally, future work on the prototype is proposed to maximise engagement

Drinking in social groups. Does 'groupdrink' provide safety in numbers when deciding about risk?

AimsTo investigate the impact of alcohol consumption on risk decisions taken both individually and while part of a four- to six-person ad-hoc group.DesignA 2 (alcohol: consuming versus not consuming alcohol) x 2 (decision: individual, group) mixed-model design; decision was a repeated measure. The dependent variable was risk preference, measured using choice dilemmas.SettingOpportunity sampling in campus bars and a music event at a campus-based university in the United Kingdom.ParticipantsA total of 101 individuals were recruited from groups of four to six people who either were or were not consuming alcohol.MeasurementsParticipants privately opted for a level of risk in response to a choice dilemma and then, as a group, responded to a second choice dilemma. The choice dilemmas asked participants the level of accident risk at which they would recommend someone could drive while intoxicated.FindingsFive three-level multi-level models were specified in the software program HLM 7. Decisions made in groups were less risky than those made individually (B = -0.73, P < 0.001). Individual alcohol consumers opted for higher risk than non-consumers (B = 1.27, P = 0.025). A significant alcohol?×?decision interaction (B = -2.79, P = 0.001) showed that individual consumers privately opted for higher risk than non-consumers, whereas risk judgements made in groups of either consumers or non-consumers were lower. Decisions made by groups of consumers were less risky than those made by groups of non-consumers (B = 1.23, P < 0.001).ConclusionsModerate alcohol consumption appears to produce a propensity among individuals towards increased risk-taking in deciding to drive while intoxicated, which can be mitigated by group monitoring processes within small (four- to six-person) groups

How Do You Feel, Developer? An Explanatory Theory of the Impact of Affects on Programming Performance

Affects---emotions and moods---have an impact on cognitive activities and the working performance of individuals. Development tasks are undertaken through cognitive processes, yet software engineering research lacks theory on affects and their impact on software development activities. In this paper, we report on an interpretive study aimed at broadening our understanding of the psychology of programming in terms of the experience of affects while programming, and the impact of affects on programming performance. We conducted a qualitative interpretive study based on: face-to-face open-ended interviews, in-field observations, and e-mail exchanges. This enabled us to construct a novel explanatory theory of the impact of affects on development performance. The theory is explicated using an established taxonomy framework. The proposed theory builds upon the concepts of events, affects, attractors, focus, goals, and performance. Theoretical and practical implications are given.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures. Postprin

Comparative research: Team learning in higher education

Team learning is the process of aligning and developing the capacity of a team to create the results its members truly desire‟ (Senge, 1990, p 236). This emphasizes the significance of team learning as the fundamental learning units. Despite its importance, team learning among employees in higher education, especially among academics remains poorly understood. This research aims at shedding a light in the area which has recently been urged by the increasingly demanding requirements of interdisciplinary research and teaching in higher education around the world. Through a thorough literature review, a model of team learning has been built with a set of antecedents, two moderators, and the outcome of mental models. Hypotheses were formed, including team commitment, goal setting, development and training, organizational culture, and leadership are positively associated with team learning (antecedents), team learning is positively associated with knowledge sharing (outcome), and better communication systems, and learning environment provide better outcome of team learning (moderators). Thus, the study tested both mediating and Kaleidoscope Postgraduate Conference, Cambridge 2009 http://www.educatejournal.org/ 92 moderating relationships. The data were collected in a form of self-report questionnaires. The model was tested with the data collected from employees of two universities, one in the UK and the other in Vietnam. The findings revealed interesting information on the differences between two universities/two cultures, which is often the benefits of comparative research. The case in VN had more positive results than the case in the UK. There are not many differences between academic and non-academic employees, or between employees who work in science and non-science areas. The research could not avoid some limitations due to self-report questionnaires, though some actions were conducted to reduce research bias. In addition, it is really difficult to measure team performance in higher education, which should have been another outcome of team learning

Proceedings of the Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference (SPARC) 2011

These proceedings bring together a selection of papers from the 2011 Salford Postgraduate Annual Research Conference(SPARC). It includes papers from PhD students in the arts and social sciences, business, computing, science and engineering, education, environment, built environment and health sciences. Contributions from Salford researchers are published here alongside papers from students at the Universities of Anglia Ruskin, Birmingham City, Chester,De Montfort, Exeter, Leeds, Liverpool, Liverpool John Moores and Manchester