Bridging the Data Talent Gap: Positioning the iSchool as an Agent for Change

This paper examines the role, functions and value of the “iSchool” as an agent of change in the data informatics and data curation arena. A brief background to the iSchool movement is given followed by a brief review of the data decade, which highlights key data trends from the iSchool perspective: open data and open science, big data and disciplinary data diversity. The growing emphasis on the shortage of data talent is noted and a family of data science roles identified. The paper moves on to describe three primary functions of iSchools: education, research intelligence and professional practice, which form the foundations of a new Capability Ramp Model. The model is illustrated by mini-case studies from the School of Information Sciences, University of Pittsburgh: the immersive (laboratory-based) component of two new Research Data Management and Research Data Infrastructures graduate courses, a new practice partnership with the University Library System centred on RDM, and the mapping of disciplinary data practice using the Community Capability Model Profile Tool. The paper closes with a look to the future and, based on the assertion that data is mission-critical for iSchools, some steps are proposed for the next data decade: moving data education programs into the mainstream core curriculum, adopting a translational data science perspective and strengthening engagement with the Research Data Alliance.</jats:p

Practical heutagogy: Promoting personalised learning in management education

The purpose of this article is to highlight the benefits to both organizations and individuals in adopting heutagogy within management education to develop individual capability. This conceptual paper is based on a systematic review of the literature relating to heutagogy and learning theory. This article calls for the adoption of heutagogic learning within management education alongside traditional pedagogy and andragogy. It provides a number of practical examples of how heutagogy may be implemented in a variety of contexts, ranging from undergraduate study to senior leadership positions within organizations. This article contributes to the growing interest and literature related to new forms of student-centered learning and, in particular, heutagogy. This article is an original contribution to the discourse on student-centered learning and the contribution that heutagogy may make to the professional development of individuals

Creating an Experiential Learning Based Multi-Disciplinary Program

For many years, curriculum development has considered learning outcomes at the program level largely via learning outcomes at the course level. Some programs have modified their designs to use different structures such as condensed courses or project based learning. Recently, there has been an increased interest in experiential learning as a way to facilitate student acquisition of real-world applicable capabilities while enhancing student learning of ‘soft skills’ such as professionalism, communication, and team management. Historically, such engagement including complexities of real-world problems has been accomplished through internships, co-op, capstone courses, or project based learning. In this paper we present an innovative model for experiential curriculum design based on skill requirements and learning outcomes derived from industry needs combined with technology enabled learning. The curriculum has been designed in a highly modular approach to ensure flexibility in student learning pathways to meet the requirements of the work related learning projects that are integrated as part of the program design. The conceptual model of this approach to curriculum design will be presented through a case study of the development of the informatics program at UOIT. Areas of caution are explored to identify recommendations for risk mitigation when developing a program utilizing this type of learning environment. In particular, student selection, technical infrastructure requirements, learning outcome measurement, faculty scheduling, and program management are considered

Business Process Management Education in Academia: Status, challenges, and Recommendations

In response to the growing proliferation of Business Process Management (BPM) in industry and the demand this creates for BPM expertise, universities across the globe are at various stages of incorporating knowledge and skills in their teaching offerings. However, there are still only a handful of institutions that offer specialized education in BPM in a systematic and in-depth manner. This article is based on a global educators’ panel discussion held at the 2009 European Conference on Information Systems in Verona, Italy. The article presents the BPM programs of five universities from Australia, Europe, Africa, and North America, describing the BPM content covered, program and course structures, and challenges and lessons learned. The article also provides a comparative content analysis of BPM education programs illustrating a heterogeneous view of BPM. The examples presented demonstrate how different courses and programs can be developed to meet the educational goals of a university department, program, or school. This article contributes insights on how best to continuously sustain and reshape BPM education to ensure it remains dynamic, responsive, and sustainable in light of the evolving and ever-changing marketplace demands for BPM expertise

Dynamic real-time risk analytics of uncontrollable states in complex internet of things systems, cyber risk at the edge

The Internet of Things (IoT) triggers new types of cyber risks. Therefore, the integration of new IoT devices and services requires a self-assessment of IoT cyber security posture. By security posture this article refers to the cybersecurity strength of an organisation to predict, prevent and respond to cyberthreats. At present, there is a gap in the state of the art, because there are no self-assessment methods for quantifying IoT cyber risk posture. To address this gap, an empirical analysis is performed of 12 cyber risk assessment approaches. The results and the main findings from the analysis is presented as the current and a target risk state for IoT systems, followed by conclusions and recommendations on a transformation roadmap, describing how IoT systems can achieve the target state with a new goal-oriented dependency model. By target state, we refer to the cyber security target that matches the generic security requirements of an organisation. The research paper studies and adapts four alternatives for IoT risk assessment and identifies the goal-oriented dependency modelling as a dominant approach among the risk assessment models studied. The new goal-oriented dependency model in this article enables the assessment of uncontrollable risk states in complex IoT systems and can be used for a quantitative self-assessment of IoT cyber risk posture

The development and application of bioinformatics core competencies to improve bioinformatics training and education

Bioinformatics is recognized as part of the essential knowledge base of numerous career paths in biomedical research and healthcare. However, there is little agreement in the field over what that knowledge entails or how best to provide it. These disagreements are compounded by the wide range of populations in need of bioinformatics training, with divergent prior backgrounds and intended application areas. The Curriculum Task Force of the International Society of Computational Biology (ISCB) Education Committee has sought to provide a framework for training needs and curricula in terms of a set of bioinformatics core competencies that cut across many user personas and training programs. The initial competencies developed based on surveys of employers and training programs have since been refined through a multiyear process of community engagement. This report describes the current status of the competencies and presents a series of use cases illustrating how they are being applied in diverse training contexts. These use cases are intended to demonstrate how others can make use of the competencies and engage in the process of their continuing refinement and application. The report concludes with a consideration of remaining challenges and future plans

Drivers for renewal and reform of contemporary nursing curricula: A blueprint for change

The creation of a curriculum blueprint appropriate to the development of a professional nurse who is practice-ready for the current and future context of health service delivery must take account of the extant context as well as an unpredictable and sometimes ambiguous future. The curriculum renewal process itself ought to challenge existing long held ideals, practices, and sacred cows within the health and higher education sectors. There is much to consider and importantly curriculum developers need to be mindful of reform within the health sector and health workforce education, as well as the concomitant vision and requirements of the nursing profession. Curriculum must develop more than discipline knowledge and skills: it must provide an infrastructure for generic abilities both social and intellectual in order to better prepare students for the registered nurse role. This paper discusses a number of forces that are essential to consider in curriculum development in undergraduate nursing education. © eContent Management Pty Ltd

Integrating nursing informatics into undergraduate nursing education in Africa: a scoping review

Background: Information and communication technologies have become omnipresent in healthcare systems globally, and since nurses comprise the majority of the health sector workforce, they are expected to be adequately skilled to work in a technology-mediated environment. Integrating nursing informatics into undergraduate nursing education is a cornerstone to nursing education and practice in Africa. Aim: This scoping review aimed to evidence the integration of nursing informatics into undergraduate nursing education in Africa. Methods: A scoping review of the literature used electronic databases including CINAHL Plus databases; EmCare; MEDLINE Ovid; Scopus; ERIC ProQuest; Web of Science; Google; and Google Scholar to locate papers specific to the African context. From a total of 8723 articles, 19 were selected for critique and synthesis. Results: Selected studies indicated that nursing students used several information and communication technologies tools primarily for academic purposes, and rarely for clinical practice. In Africa, the challenges for teaching informatics in nursing education included: limited information and communication technologies skills among faculty and students; poor teaching strategies; and a lack of standardization of nursing informatics competencies. Successful integration of nursing informatics into undergraduate nursing education in African countries depends on restructuring nursing informatics content and teaching strategies, capacity building of the faculty and students in information and communication technologies, political commitment, and collaborative partnership. Conclusion: Nursing informatics is scarce in undergraduate nursing education in Africa due to the implementation and adoption challenges. Responding to these challenges requires a multi-sectoral approach in the revision of undergraduate nursing curricula. Implication for nursing education, practice, policy and research: This study highlights the importance of nursing informatics in undergraduate nursing education, with its challenges and success. Nursing education policies should support the development of well-standardized nursing informatics content and appropriate teaching strategies to deliver it. Further research is needed to establish which aspects of nursing informatics are integrated into undergraduate nursing education and nursing practice, implementation process, challenges and possible solutions. Collaborative partnerships are vital to developing nursing informatics policies to better prepare graduate nurses for the African healthcare workforce in the digital era

Faculty Development Initiatives at the College of Medicine & Health Sciences, Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman

Faculty development is necessary to improve and update teaching and learning methodologies. As such, a variety of learning activities have been designed to improve teaching competencies of individual teachers. The College of Medicine &amp; Health Sciences at Sultan Qaboos University, Muscat, Oman, recognised the need for teacher training in order to bring faculty up-to-date in teaching and assessment methodologies. A programme of regular and one-time interventions consisting of short courses, workshops and a series of lectures was offered. Feedback from the participants and facilitators led to programme expansion and enhancement. This special contribution discusses the impact of the programme on faculty and the college.Keywords: Teacher Training; Medical Education; Oman

Innovative learning in action (ILIA) issue four: New academics engaging with action research

This edition of ILIA showcases four papers which were originally submitted as action research projects on the Postgraduate Certificate in Higher Education Practice and Research programme. Within the programme we offer an environment where participants can explore their unique teaching situations – not to produce all-encompassing approaches to Higher Education (HE) practice but to develop an ongoing dialogue about the act of teaching. In effect, there are no generalisable ‘best’ methods of teaching because they never work as well as ‘locally produced practice in action’ (Kincheloe, 2003:15). Thus rather than providing short term ‘survival kits’ the programme offers new HE teachers a ‘frame’ for examining their own and their colleagues’ teaching alongside questioning educational purpose and values in the pursuit of pedagogical improvement. This ‘frame’ is action research which Ebbutt (1985:156) describes as: …The systematic study of attempts to change and improve educational practice by groups of participants by means of their own practical actions and by means of their own reflections upon the effects of their actions… We promote ‘practitioner-research’ or ‘teacher-research’ as a way of facilitating professional development for new HE teachers, promoting change and giving a voice to their developing personal and professional knowledge. Teachers as researchers embark upon an action orientated, iterative and collaborative process to interrogate their own practices, question their own assumptions, attitudes, values and beliefs in order to better understand, influence and enrich the context of their own situations. The action researcher assumes that practitioners are knowledgeable about their own teaching situations and the fact that they are ‘in-situ’ and not at ‘arms length’ as the value-neutral, ‘scientific’ researcher is often claimed to be, does not invalidate their knowledge. Thus, practitioners are capable of analysing their own actions within a ‘reflective practitioner’ modus operandi. Action research is on-going in conception and well suited to examining the ever-changing and increasingly complex HE practice environment. Findings from action research are always subject to revision since it intrinsically acknowledges the need to constantly revisit widely diverse teaching situations and scenarios across everyday HE practice. Teaching is not predictable and constant, it always occurs in a contemporary microcosm of uncertainty. Action research provides an analytical framework for new HE teachers to begin to engage with this unpredictability on a continuing basis, that is its purpose and also its perennial challenge. The papers presented here describe how four relatively new HE teachers have begun to address the challenge of improving their practice within their locally based settings utilising the action research ‘paradigm’