Learning requirements engineering within an engineering ethos

An interest in educating software developers within an engineering ethos may not align well with the characteristics of the discipline, nor address the underlying concerns of software practitioners. Education for software development needs to focus on creativity, adaptability and the ability to transfer knowledge. A change in the way learning is undertaken in a core Software Engineering unit within a university's engineering program demonstrates one attempt to provide students with a solid foundation in subject matter while at the same time exposing them to these real-world characteristics. It provides students with a process to deal with problems within a metacognitive-rich framework that makes complexity apparent and lets students deal with it adaptively. The results indicate that, while the approach is appropriate, student-learning characteristics need to be investigated further, so that the two aspects of learning may be aligned more closely

Minding the IS Soft Skills Gap: Evidence of Discourse Convergence and Organizational Field Structure

IS continually struggles with the ‘gap’ between academic preparation and industry needs. To close this gap, we need to better understand its causes. Recent IS research suggests that gaps may arise when issues receive attention in only practitioner or academic discourses. Institutionalism suggests that gaps can be attributed to the structure of the organizational field. We conduct two studies to investigate these rival explanations. In Study 1 we analyze the practitioner and academic discourses on the need for soft skills in IS. In Study 2 we identify important actors in the IS field and the degree to which they are tightly coupled as evidenced by linkages in their discourses. We then present a process model of the identification, development and assessment of requisite IS skills. We conclude that convergence between academic and practitioner discourses alone cannot close the gap between preparation and industry needs in a loosely coupled organizational field

Discovering Diamonds In Your Survey Data

Library surveys enable us to open up a dialogue with our patron base in order to uncover areas of improvement and to facilitate a better user experience for all of our patrons. Traditional survey creation has innate challenges, such as asking the right questions, properly coding the data, and addressing the proper audience. All of these challenges must be considered when drafting and designing surveys to ensure the collection of useful data for outcome-driven decision-making at your library. Additionally, librarians can also redesign their own or other open-sourced surveys to enable library administration to plan for, manage, and achieve outcomes that will drive future services, initiatives, and programs aimed at improving the entire institution

Bringing Global Sourcing into the Classroom: Lessons from an Experiential Software Development Project

Global sourcing of software development has imposed new skill requirements on Information Technology (IT) personnel. In the U.S., this has resulted in a paradigm shift from technical to softer skills such as communications and virtual team management. Higher education institutions must, consequently, initiate innovative curriculum transformations to better prepare students for these emerging workforce needs. This paper describes one such venture between MU, U.S.A. and MDI, India, wherein IT students at MU collaborated with Management Information Systems (MIS) students at MDI on an offshore software development project. The class environment replicated an offshore client/vendor relationship in a fully virtual setting while integrating communications and virtual team management with traditional IT project management principles. Course measures indicated that students benefited from this project, gained first-hand experience in the process of software offshoring, and learned skills critical for conduct of global business. For faculty considering such initiatives, we describe the design and administration of this class over two semesters, lessons learned from our engagement, and factors critical to success of such initiatives and those detrimental to their sustenance

Tact in translation: negotiating trust by the Russian interpreter, at home and abroad

Being the only conversational participant with the ability to follow both sides of a crosslinguistic dialogue gives the interpreter the power to obscure or clarify. Because of heightened mutual dependency, all interpreters need trust to perform their roles. They actively build trust, both between self and client and between clients. In academic linguistic contexts, trust is often regarded as based on impartiality: the more objective and invisible the interpreter, the better and more professional he or she will be. In practice, this approach is not always possible, or desirable. The trust relationship between client and interpreter can also be based on closeness and personal interdependence. Interpreting po-chelovecheski (lit. ‘approaching someone in a humane way’) is a colloquial way for Russian interpreters to describe this approach. This thesis explores the negotiation of trust by Russian interpreters. The Russian translation market’s unregulated character, and historical framing of ‘the foreigner’ as someone to be protected and mistrusted, make for an interesting case to study face-to-face interpreting at all levels of the international dialogue. Based on ethnographic fieldwork with interpreters from St Petersburg, Moscow and Pskov, I argue that becoming ‘someone’s voice’ presents a specific caring relationship. Interpreters deliberately 'perform trustworthiness' by actively working towards becoming ‘one of them’ (svoi) and avoiding actions that could spark mistrust. This trust then allows them to encourage trust between interlocutors through practices of smoothening (‘smoothen’ = sgladitʹ) and softening (‘soften’ = smiagchitʹ). Drawing on 37 interviews with 41 interpreters, supplemented by participant observation, I explore the gender dynamics, emotional load and moral ambiguity of these practices. Instead of evaluating interpreters’ work along formal-informal, professional-intimate and economic-social binaries, studying interpreting through the interdisciplinary lens of care demonstrates the deficiencies of these divisions. This thesis provides a starting point for a relational and embodied understanding of interpreting, as well as insights into professional trust relationships in Russia at large

Bricks Plus Bytes: How Click-and-Brick Will Define Legal Education Space

Herein, I present a number of technological, commercial and profes- sional scenarios that cumulatively suggest that the law school of the near future must be re-engineered and become what is known in e-commerce as "click-and-brick" or "click-and-mortar.' In a click-and-brick law school, distributive learning techniques will fill much of the space, supplementing traditional class experiences and substituting for many others. But a true click-and-brick will also integrate distance learning methodologies, reach- ing out to remote students, enabling collaboration with off-campus faculty and consuming remote content. I draw this not entirely happy conclu- sion from analyzing the commercial and technological forces that are si- multaneously energizing and threatening traditional legal education, and from my belief that, properly re-engineered, the traditional law schools can retain their relevance and continue in their role as the guardians of the intellect of the law. In the sections that follow, I first address the qualitative and institu- tional arguments frequently raised against such non-traditional legal edu- cation (Part II). I then suggest that the law school of the future will be quite a different place from the one we are familiar with, both because of the implications of the new enabling technologies (Part III) and because law school space is no longer a self-contained, autonomous and insulated environment (Part IV). I argue that, before we can aspire to a sustainable click-and-brick model, we will be forced to make some significant changes to how we fill our virtual and physical law school space (Part V). Finally, I suggest that, in designing our click-and-brick model, we pay particular at- tention to the ways in which law practice is being reshaped, and suggest other areas where the law school curriculum will require major re-tooling to be relevant to the Information Age (Part VI)

The New Right and physical education: a critical analysis

My thesis argues that the New Right (NR) sought to manipulate state education as a mechanism of both social transformation and social control in the UK between 1979 and 1992. This is investigated by employing a 'critical realist' perspective which is located within a wider 'neo-Marxist' conceptual frame. The links between the NR and the Radical Right (RR) Conservative governments during this period are investigated through an analysis of the origins, intentions and ascendancy of NR ideology. It is suggested that the NIRIRR's political intent was a 'hegemonic project' to shift underlying moral values from 'social democracy' to the 'social market'. This depended on the successful transmission, through education, of a definition of 'citizenship' grounded in competitive, 'selfish individualism', with the inequalities of the 'social market' accepted as 'common-sense'. My data reveal how the NRJRR conjoined symbolic and material rules and resources to draw power and authority to 'the centre' on the grounds that there was a crisis in national stability and security. Education is identified as a central mechanism in the NR!RR's 'hegemonic project'. It is shown how the RR gained control of the form, content and method of educational provision through a series of initiatives which gradually altered the structure of education and shifted provision progressively from the periphery to the centre, centralising control over curriculum and resources while devolving responsibility and accountability to schools. The argument central to my thesis is that the NR/RR sought to use physical education as a pivotal component of its 'hegemonic project'. This is revealed most clearly in the privileging of the definition of physical education as 'sport and games' in NRJRR discourse. This discourse sought to imbue pupils with values of competition, tradition, reward, meritocracy and individual responsibility: the moral values central to the 'social market'. My data outline how the NRLRR endeavoured to 'control' the 'form', 'structure', 'content' and 'methods' of physical education provision in state schools by delineating the discursive framework and text of the national curriculum physical education (NCPE), and raise critical issues relating to the relationship between policy, power and autonomy within the education system

Renaissance or Retrenchment: Legal Education at a Crossroads

This Article begins to synthesize the literature criticizing the current state of legal education with the scholarship proposing solutions, and argues that whatever review is undertaken must be expansive, with a careful and critical look at how each piece supports the endeavor. None of the ideas discussed, taken alone, are novel, as scholarship abounds on all of the topics. Considered together, the analysis suggests that a comprehensive and holistic approach to reform is necessary. In essence, the goal is to catalyze a wholesale reconsideration of the very foundation of legal education. Many of the seemingly disparate themes comprise a Gordian Knot and cannot be rectified in isolation. Accordingly, the whole enterprise of legal education must be deconstructed, from how law schools recruit and admit law students to how lawyers are licensed, because the process supports a self-reinforcing and self-perpetuating system and culture that fails to serve law students and the society in which they will operate as professionals. The Author hopes this engenders a conversation that is unfreighted by and decoupled from history and compels legal educators and professionals to step back and critically assess how to restructure legal education by focusing on the best interests of law students instead of perpetuating the privilege and luxury of legal academia. Given the well-documented emotional and fiscal price that legal education is exacting from law students, it is unconscionable to maintain the status quo. After lamenting the current conditions that law students confront, one commentator noted that [a]t some point, law professors can no longer disclaim responsibility for the harmful consequences of this enterprise. This Article is comprised of three parts. Part I provides the historical backdrop for legal education, briefly critiques the current system, and discusses the impact of those shortcomings on law students. Part II considers a few of the solutions crafted in response to the current crisis facing legal educators. Part III suggests a wide array of reforms aimed at remediating these deficiencies and argues that any real reform must consider and integrate the seemingly disparate but interdependent factors

Evolving science communication: learn, adapt, collaborate

In March 2009 the Science Communication Unit (SCU) at the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE) hosted a symposium to investigate key issues around transferability and sustainability in science communication and public engagement. The symposium was designed for professionals in the field, specifically aiming to provide a platform for discussion between experts in both the practitioner and academic communities.The symposium emerged following a major UK-wide project funded by the Wellcome Trust (via an Engaging Science Society Award) entitled Meet the Gene Machine. This project was led by the SCU, working with eight Science & Discovery Centres around the UK to stimulate discussion and debate with over 10,000 young adults on issues around genetic testing. Alongside this over 400 teachers took part in training on incorporating discussion of scientific issues in the classroom. The funding for the project has now ended, however Meet the Gene Machine continues to be delivered in the majority of participating Science & DIscovery Centres, and has also been taken up by new partners in other locations. Meet the Gene Machine has demonstrated that successful science communication activities can be transferable, collaborative and sustainable. The purpose of the Evolving Science Communication Symposium was to investigate these issues on a broader scale.The following report documents the variety of sessions held at the symposium. Each invited speaker has provided a short summary of their contribution; a brief overview of the discussion that followed is also included