53,685 research outputs found
Talking about Security with Professional Developers
This paper describes materials developed to engage professional developers in discussions about security. First, the work is framed in the context of ethnographic studies of software development, highlighting how the method is used to explore and investigate research aims for the Motivating Jenny research project. A description is given of a series of practitioner engagements, that were used to develop a reflection and discussion tool using security stories taken from media and internet sources. An explanation is given for how the tool has been used to collect data within field sites, offering a way to clarify and member check findings, and to provide a different view on practice and process. The report concludes with observations and notes about future aims for supporting and encouraging professionals to engage with security in practice
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Knowledge management: Using a knowledge requirements framework to enhance UK health sector supply chains
The gaps of mismatch both knowledge and understanding of beneficiaries and solution providers at the
initial stage of developing projects have led to the failures of many projects including supply chains
(SC) and related information technology systems (ITS) projects (Lyytinen and Hirschheim, 1987) . The
aims of this paper are first, to address theoretical framework by bridging the gaps of different types of
knowledge. Second, to establishing business requirements and the flow of information in supply chains
between beneficiaries and solution providers in the long and complicated supply chains of the UKâs
Health Sector. On the basis of brief introduction to knowledge, knowledge management and supply
chain, the paper presents a practical framework that has been developed through critical and relevant
literatures in the above three subject areas. Techniques and Tools stem from both management science
and information systems were used to provide a possible solution for the problem in bridging the gaps
of mismatch knowledge and understanding at the initial stage of identifying requirements in projects
through knowledge sharing and transfer
Fixing a Flat at 65 MPH: Restructuring Services to Improve Program Performance in Workforce Development
Business leaders have easy access to primers on organizational change; indeed many are bestsellers. In contrast, little is available to nonprofit executives intent on restructuring their organizations. And, while many lessons from the business world are relevant, there are unique aspects of nonprofits' missions and organizational cultures that demand special attention. This report examines the restructuring of three leading workforce development organizations that were seeking to improve performance. Based on their many achievements and the occasional misstep, Fixing a Flat at 65 MPH offers nonprofit managers seven guiding principles addressing the most significant challenges likely to arise during a major reorganization
Why Do Developers Get Password Storage Wrong? A Qualitative Usability Study
Passwords are still a mainstay of various security systems, as well as the
cause of many usability issues. For end-users, many of these issues have been
studied extensively, highlighting problems and informing design decisions for
better policies and motivating research into alternatives. However, end-users
are not the only ones who have usability problems with passwords! Developers
who are tasked with writing the code by which passwords are stored must do so
securely. Yet history has shown that this complex task often fails due to human
error with catastrophic results. While an end-user who selects a bad password
can have dire consequences, the consequences of a developer who forgets to hash
and salt a password database can lead to far larger problems. In this paper we
present a first qualitative usability study with 20 computer science students
to discover how developers deal with password storage and to inform research
into aiding developers in the creation of secure password systems
Teachers Know Best: Making Data Work For Teachers and Students
The Teachers Know Best research project seeks to encourage innovation in K - 12 education by helping product developers and those who procure resources for teachers better understand teachers' views. The intent of Making Data Work is to drill down to help educators, school leaders, and product developers better understand the challenges teachers face when working with this critical segment of digital instructional tools. More than 4,600 teachers from a nationally representative sample were surveyed about their use of data to drive instruction and the use of these tools.This study focuses on the potential of a specific subset of digital instructional tools: those that help teachers collect and make use of student data to tailor and improve instruction for individual students. The use of data is a crucial component in personalized learning, which ensures that student learning experiences -- what they learn and how, when, and where they learn it -- are tailored to their individual needs, skills, and interests and enable them to take ownership of their learning. Personalized learning is critical to meeting all students where they are, so they are neither bored with assignments that are too easy nor overwhelmed by work that is too hard
A very modern professional: the case of the IT service support worker
The IT profession has retained a reputation as a âprivileged area of the labour marketâ (Webster, 2005, p.4; Bannerji, 2011). Workers practicing IT skills have been at the forefront of the competitive drive for innovation and efficiency gains promoted by a neoliberal enterprise ideology (Blackler et al, 2003). In the last two decades, as systems thinking (e.g. Ackoff, 1999) and customer-centric practices (e.g. Levitt, 2006) have converged in a globally powerful IT service management (ITSM) âbest practiceâ discourse (Trusson et al, 2013), the IT service support worker has emerged to be a worker-type of considerable socio-economic importance. Aside from keeping organizational information systems operative, when such systems fail these workers are called upon to rapidly restore the systems and thus head-off any negative commercial or political consequences. Yet these workers are acknowledged only as objectified resources within the ITSM âbest practiceâ literature (e.g. Taylor, Iqbal and Nieves, 2007) and largely overlooked as a distinctive contemporary worker-type within academic discourse.
This paper, through analysis of salary data and qualitative data collected for a multiple case study research project, considers the extent to which these workers might be conceived of as being âprofessionalsâ. The project approached the conceptual study of these workers through three lenses. This paper focuses on the projectâs consideration of them as rationalised information systems assets within âbest practiceâ ITSM theory. It also draws upon our considerations of them as knowledge workers and service workers.
We firstly situate the IT service support worker within a broader model of IT workers comprising four overlapping groupings: managers, developers, technical specialists and IT service support workers. Three types of IT service support worker are identified: first-line workers who routinely escalate work; second-line workers; and âexpertâ single-line workers. With reference to close associations made with call centre workers (e.g. Murphy, 2011) the status of IT service support workers is explored through analysis of: (i) salary data taken from the ITJOBSWATCH website; and (ii) observational and interview data collected in the field. From this we challenge the veracity of the notion that the whole occupational field of IT might be termed a profession concurrently with the notion that a profession implies work of high status.
Secondly, the paper explores two forces that might be associated with the professionalization of IT as an occupation: (i) rationalisation of the field (here promoted by the British Computer Society); and (ii) formalisation of IT theoretical/vocational education. A tension is identified, with those IT service support workers whose work is least disposed to rationalisation and whose complex âstocks of knowledgeâ (Schutz, 1953) have been acquired through time-spent practice laying claim to greater IT professional status.
Thirdly, consideration is given to individualsâ personal career orientations: occupational, organizational and customer-centric (Kinnie and Swart, 2012). We find that whilst organizations expect IT service support workers to be orientated towards serving the interests of the organization and its clients, the most individualistically professional tend towards being occupationally orientated, enthusiastically (re)developing their skills to counter skills obsolescence in an evolving technological arena (Sennett, 2006)
2015 Menino Survey of Mayors
The 2015 Menino Survey of Mayors represents the second nationally representative survey of American mayors released by the Boston University Initiatives on Cities. The Survey, based on interviews with 89 sitting mayors conducted in 2015, provides insight into mayoral priorities, policy views and relationships with their key partners, including other levels of government. Sitting mayors shared insight on their specific infrastructure needs and spending priorities, from roads and transit to water treatment and bike lanes, and reacted to police reforms proposed by the White House. They also shed light on the difficult choices they must often make, to promote affordable housing or improve the fiscal health of their city. A significant portion of the Survey is devoted to mayoral leadership, including areas of mayoral control and constituent approval, as well as constraints they confront under increasingly politicized and polarized state legislatures.Cit
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