The conceptualisation, practice and value of Design Thinking in Entrepreneurship Education – an Educator’s Perspective

The thesis illustrates how entrepreneurship educators understand Design Thinking (conceptual understanding), how and on what level they apply it in their entrepreneurship teaching (educational practice) and why and for what perceived value they choose to do so (perceived value). By adopting a more critical and differentiated perspective on this integration than previously reported in the existing literature, this research study provides novel insights to the question of the conceptualization, practice and value of Design Thinking for Entrepreneurship Education – from an educator’s perspective. It follows an interpretive and qualitative approach, drawing upon semi-structured interviews from 29 entrepreneurship educators from Higher Education in the UK andNorthern Europe. Thus, the thesis demonstrates that entrepreneurship educators integrate Design Thinking in many ways and for different reasons.As a result, this thesis synthesises existing perspectives on Design Thinking (toolset, process, mindset) and defines a framework for the four forms (selective, idea-centric, procedural, holistic) of Design Thinking integration in the context of Entrepreneurship Education. The findings suggest that perceived values of Design Thinking could be explicit and implicit and that entrepreneurship educators integrate Design Thinking to provide value for their students’ learning but also to develop their own teaching practice. Overall, this study contributes to unfolding the Design Thinking concept and advocating a common ground among educators’ sense-making of a Design Thinking integration in Entrepreneurship Education. In conclusion, this study reaffirmed the wide application of Design Thinking within Entrepreneurship Education but presented the new centrality of the educator’s perspective at the core of the discussion on its utility and thus, moving towards convergence of a common understanding. The findings of this research would be of interest for entrepreneurshipeducators and entrepreneurship education researchers who seek a more profound and reflective integration of Design Thinking within Entrepreneurship Education

Writing the railway: biosemiotic strategies for enforming meaning and dispersing authorship in site-specific text-based artworks

This practice-led PhD is concerned with the subject matter of contemporary art. It proposes methods by which a writer-maker’s authorship can be dispersed throughout reticulated networks of interpretation, and tests the limits of detail articulable in an artwork. To counter the literary and discursive turns that have dominated art theory and practice since the 1970s, the thesis demands a reassessment of the privileging of the viewer and of the adoption of indeterminacy as a generic style. It proposes instead a turn to biosemiotics as a means to situate the artwork materially, bodily, historically. That ambiguity and pluralism can consequently be deployed strategically, affectively and to critical effect is tested and evaluated in the accompanying practice. The thesis gives an account of the theorising and devising of text-based artworks which take the UK railway as site, and considers site-specificity a particular sort of engagement with subject matter. The railway is approached as a complex technical object consisting in multiple entangled intentions and interpretations – social, emotional and political valences, diffracted by a spectrum of practices, knowledges and semiotic ontologies – all of which are available to the writermaker as immanent materials of the artwork. Part One of the thesis presents a transdisciplinary argument that draws on biosemiotics, linguistic anthropology, philosophy of time and socio-psychology as well as art history and critical theory. Part Two performs an analysis of paradigmatic descriptions of the railway, speculates on the social dynamics of a train carriage interior and empirically tests the bureaucratic structures of London Underground. Part Three is an exegesis of three pieces submitted as documentation in the practice portfolio: an audio work, a guided tour and a live performance on a train carriage tabletop

The Role and Contribution of Knowledge and Knowledge Management Practices in Policing. The Case of An Garda Síochána

Thisresearch was undertaken in response to knowledge, and particularly knowledge management practice in policing that finds it complex, multifaceted, under researched and lacking in structure and cohesion. This exploratory research sets out to evaluate the role and contribution of knowledge and knowledge management practices in policing, and using An Garda Síochána, (the Police Service ofthe Republic of Ireland), as the underlying case exemplar in this work, it will contribute to the extant literature and understanding in the area by use of a study which contains unprecedented insider access to a modern police force, practical findings for knowledge change predicated on structured methodological data analysis, and viable recommendations for knowledge in policing based on these.Secondary data was initially collected from within and outside An Garda Síochána. This data provided the context and content for the topic list utilised to collect the primary data. Primary data was collected via in-depth interviews, which were conducted with key informants from within the organisation, and one with a key informant from the Irish Parliament. These semi-structured interviews were then analysed in a sequential three-stage data analytical process, using process coding, followed by in-vivo coding, and thematic analysis. Access to the organisation was obtained as a result of rigorous security clearance protocols and granted as the researcher is also serving police officer

The impact of online skills on teaching and learning during covid-19 at a selected school in Kempton Park, Johannesburg

When COVID-19 struck, resulting in the closure of schools and a shift to online learning, the inadequacies in the South African education system were laid bare, especially teacher and learner preparedness to embark on online learning. Documents such as White Paper on e-Education are awash with ideas on how to equip educators and learners with online skills. Yet, such ideas remain on paper, with many educators, especially those teaching in public schools and learners from poor households bearing the brunt. The shift to online learning saw educators and learners pushed to territories they were not familiar with. The purpose of the study was to explore the impact of online skills on teaching and learning during COVID-19 at a selected high school in Kempton Park, Johannesburg. The study adopted a qualitative approach. Two Heads of Departments (Post level 2), four educators (Post level 1) and four Grade 12 learners were purposefully sampled to participate in the study. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data. The study revealed that educators and learners experienced multiple challenges while learning online. They lacked online skills, and there was little support given to them by the Department of Education and the school in general. Based on the challenges experienced, the study recommends that educators and learners be equipped with relevant skills and resources. The government must invest in school infrastructure to ensure effective online learning for all learners, regardless of their background or school. In addition, policies that support online learning must be implemented.Educational Leadership and ManagementM. Ed. (Educational Leadership and Management

Management of innovation in an engineering department in the broadcast industry

Abstract: Innovation management in the broadcasting industry is a critical component of television station profitability and survival given the rapid rate of technological change as well as increasing competition intensity in this industry in South Africa. The study surveyed a sample of 66 engineers, technical managers and senior managers from South Africa’s public and private television stations for their perceptions on the innovativeness of their organisations, the internal and external factors of innovation and how effectively these were being managed and the measures that can be taken to improve innovation management in their respective stations. This data was collected through convenience sampling and analysed using descriptive statistics and Chi-square tests of association. The sample associated the following internal factors with highly innovative organisations: an innovation-centred business strategy; the availability of adequate financial and technical resources to support innovation; highly skilled and experienced staff and a staff reward system that rewards innovation. The external factors associated with highly innovative organisations were responses to new technological changes by competitors and new technological expectations by customers. The study recommended a framework that considered the above factors as a possible guide to innovation management in addition to the development of comprehensive innovation strategies, keeping motivated teams and rewarding innovativeness.M.Phil. (Engineering Management

Multi-perspective modelling for knowledge management and knowledge engineering

ii It seems almost self-evident that “knowledge management ” and “knowledge engineering” should be related disciplines that may share techniques and methods between them. However, attempts by knowledge engineers to apply their techniques to knowledge management have been praised by some and derided by others, who claim that knowledge engineers have a fundamentally wrong concept of what “knowledge management” is. The critics also point to specific weaknesses of knowledge engineering, notably the lack of a broad context for the knowledge. Knowledge engineering has suffered some criticism from within its own ranks, too, particularly of the “rapid prototyping ” approach, in which acquired knowledge was encoded directly into an iteratively developed computer system. This approach was indeed rapid, but when used to deliver a final system, it became nearly impossible to verify and validate the system or to maintain it. A solution to this has come in the form of knowledge engineering methodology, and particularly in the CommonKAD

Front-Line Physicians' Satisfaction with Information Systems in Hospitals

Day-to-day operations management in hospital units is difficult due to continuously varying situations, several actors involved and a vast number of information systems in use. The aim of this study was to describe front-line physicians' satisfaction with existing information systems needed to support the day-to-day operations management in hospitals. A cross-sectional survey was used and data chosen with stratified random sampling were collected in nine hospitals. Data were analyzed with descriptive and inferential statistical methods. The response rate was 65 % (n = 111). The physicians reported that information systems support their decision making to some extent, but they do not improve access to information nor are they tailored for physicians. The respondents also reported that they need to use several information systems to support decision making and that they would prefer one information system to access important information. Improved information access would better support physicians' decision making and has the potential to improve the quality of decisions and speed up the decision making process.Peer reviewe

Automatic Ontology Generation Based On Semantic Audio Analysis

PhDOntologies provide an explicit conceptualisation of a domain and a uniform framework that represents domain knowledge in a machine interpretable format. The Semantic Web heavily relies on ontologies to provide well-defined meaning and support for automated services based on the description of semantics. However, considering the open, evolving and decentralised nature of the SemanticWeb – though many ontology engineering tools have been developed over the last decade – it can be a laborious and challenging task to deal with manual annotation, hierarchical structuring and organisation of data as well as maintenance of previously designed ontology structures. For these reasons, we investigate how to facilitate the process of ontology construction using semantic audio analysis. The work presented in this thesis contributes to solving the problems of knowledge acquisition and manual construction of ontologies. We develop a hybrid system that involves a formal method of automatic ontology generation for web-based audio signal processing applications. The proposed system uses timbre features extracted from audio recordings of various musical instruments. The proposed system is evaluated using a database of isolated notes and melodic phrases recorded in neutral conditions, and we make a detailed comparison between musical instrument recognition models to investigate their effects on the automatic ontology generation system. Finally, the automatically-generated musical instrument ontologies are evaluated in comparison with the terminology and hierarchical structure of the Hornbostel and Sachs organology system. We show that the proposed system is applicable in multi-disciplinary fields that deal with knowledge management and knowledge representation issues.Fundings from EPSRC, OMRAS-2 and NEMA projects