Impactful learning: exploring the value of informal learning experiences to improve the learning potential of international research projects.

The Horizon 2020 (H2020) is the largest EU funded research programme, which supports mobility of international researchers through secondments to engage in collaborative research activities to enhance individual and collective research capacity within the EU. This paper explores how an analysis of secondees’ informal learning experiences can highlight opportunities for increasing individual and collective learning capacity of an international partnership and achievement of project objectives. A thematic analysis method (Miles and Huberman, 1994), was applied to 19 secondee’s individual learning reports. The main findings discussed three themes elicited through secondees informal learning, including living and working in a host country and developing an academic career. The paper outlines practice, policy and research implications for improving the learning potential of international research projects

E-Learning Adoption Inside Jordanian Organizations from Change Management Perspective

The objective of this research is to build a complete e-Learning adoption model which can be used to increase the acceptance of e-learning inside Jordanian organizations. This objective is achieved through the analysis of the e-learning adoption process in two different Jordanian case studies

Development of a knowledge management improvement project in a consulting firm

Estágio realizado na Deloitte e orientado pelo Doutor Jorge NadaisTese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Industrial e Gestão. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 201

Add-on Solution Success: A Configurational View on Knowledge Sharing in Digital Platforms

Digital platforms serve as a foundation upon which manifold firms develop complementary add-ons to address heterogeneous customer needs. In order to successfully stimulate partner contributions platform vendors need to share knowledge with partners that enables them to develop add-ons. Vendors face a trade-off between addressing idiosyncratic needs of partners while ensuring the scalability of knowledge sharing. Literature indicates that standardized or idiosyncratic knowledge sharing does not per se result in successful outcomes, but rather depends on how knowledge sharing addresses characteristics of the platform’s architecture. In order to increase our understanding of this trade-off we derive a typology of platform architecture and knowledge sharing. We conduct an empirical study at a large enterprise platform vendor to uncover configurations of knowledge sharing approaches. We distill successful knowledge sharing approaches following a set-theoretic approach. Our research in progress offers insights into our preliminary results and gives an outlook on our future research

Decision analysis techniques for adult learners: application to leadership

Most decision analysis techniques are not taught at higher education institutions. Leaders, project managers and procurement agents in industry have strong technical knowledge, and it is crucial for them to apply this knowledge at the right time to make critical decisions. There are uncertainties, problems, and risks involved in business processes. Decisions must be made by responsible parties to address these problems in order to sustain and grow the company business. This study investigates some of the most recognized decision analysis techniques applied by global leaders from 2006 to 2016. Several decision analysis tools are introduced such as heuristic decisions, multi-attribute rating, decision trees, Monte-Carlo simulations and influence diagrams. The theoretical development framework is presented. The approach for this research is Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement, and Evaluate (ADDIE), which included cognitive, behavioral, and constructive learning theories. Some of the top decision analysis skills needed for today’s leaders and managers from literature review over the past decade (2006 to 2016), were taught to organization leadership doctorate students. Research scheme, the method chosen for selecting the topic, group of contributors, and the method selected for collecting the data are offered. The learners were in their senior year of a leadership doctorate program and they did not need leadership training along with decision analysis technique training. Older learners had more interest in learning the fishbone and influence diagrams prior to the training. Students with intermediate math were more interested in learning about strategic planning techniques before training. The trainees with more computer skills were interested in learning the Zachman framework technique, which was surprising to the researcher since this tool does not require extensive computer skills. After the training, the researcher observed that learners with higher computer skills showed more interest in learning about group decision-making (consensus versus analytic hierarchy process). That students with intermediate math skills were more interested in top-down induction of decision trees, algorithm decision making (data mining and knowledge discovery), and strategic planning techniques. Spearman correlations with a moderate strength showed that older respondents tended to be more interested in the analytical hierarchy process, fishbone diagram, and risk analysis tool. After the training, students with stronger computer skills showed greater curiosity about learning more about the decision tree analysis, Zachman framework, and risk analysis. It made sense that students with weaker computer skills were less eager to learn about the Monte-Carlo simulation

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Managing Intellectual Property to Foster Agricultural Development

Over the past decades, consideration of IPRs has become increasingly important in many areas of agricultural development, including foreign direct investment, technology transfer, trade, investment in innovation, access to genetic resources, and the protection of traditional knowledge. The widening role of IPRs in governing the ownership of—and access to—innovation, information, and knowledge makes them particularly critical in ensuring that developing countries benefit from the introduction of new technologies that could radically alter the welfare of the poor. Failing to improve IPR policies and practices to support the needs of developing countries will eliminate significant development opportunities. The discussion in this note moves away from policy prescriptions to focus on investments to improve how IPRs are used in practice in agricultural development. These investments must be seen as complementary to other investments in agricultural development. IPRs are woven into the context of innovation and R&D. They can enable entrepreneurship and allow the leveraging of private resources for resolving the problems of poverty. Conversely, IPRs issues can delay important scientific advancements, deter investment in products for the poor, and impose crippling transaction costs on organizations if the wrong tools are used or tools are badly applied. The central benefit of pursuing the investments outlined in this note is to build into the system a more robust capacity for strategic and flexible use of IPRs tailored to development goals

Implementation of Shared Services in Multinational Corporations : Insights into challenges and successes

In recent years, a large number of multinational corporations have been implementing shared services aiming to streamline business processes, reduce costs and improve efficiency. In order to ensure successful transition to shared services, it is important to understand how the implementation process is done and what has the most significant influence on the outcomes. The main objective of this research is to investigate how to facilitate successful implementation of shared services, providing insights into challenges and successes of the large multinational corporations operating in the industrial engineering sector. The main research question of this study is divided into two questions, namely ‘What facilitates successful implementation of shared services?’ and ‘How is the implementation of shared services done by the companies within the industrial engineering sector?’. These questions are answered through discovering the most critical success factors, the process and the phases of the implementation and the most common challenges that companies encounter during implementation. This study adapts the qualitative research approach, enabling the researcher to profoundly explore the phenomenon and expand the current understanding of the shared services. The case study method has been selected for this research and the representatives of four case companies have been interviewed. The interviews were conducted with eight managers, who have been leading or participating in transition to shared services, based on the predefined open-ended questions which facilitated insightful discussion on the topic. The empirical data states that support and sponsorship of senior management is crucial to succeed in the implementation of such complex initiatives. It was also concluded that sufficient and suitable transition resources are vital to ensure fast-paced transition and high-quality deliverables. And most importantly, the findings of this research emphasise the importance of the focus on the end-to-end processes and the end user in order to maximise process efficiency, and thereby, better leverage benefits of the shared services business model, and ensure proper utilisation of new services. Thus, this study provides important managerial implications, enabling leaders to increase probability of successful implementation of shared services, as well as offers suggestions for future academic research

Gamificação aplicada à formação em cibersegurança de profissionais de saúde: uma prova de conceito

Mestrado em Gestão e Avaliação de Tecnologias em SaúdeIntrodução: O sector da saúde é fortemente afetado pelo cibercrime, com as principais técnicas de ataque a serem direcionadas para os utilizadores. Por isso, os profissionais de saúde têm um papel fundamental na minimização destes ataques, quando devidamente treinados. As estratégias de formação gamificada em cibersegurança têm resultados bastante positivos ao nível da aquisição e retenção de conhecimento, tendo vantagens ao nível da gestão dos recursos e do tempo. Objetivos: Descrever o estado da arte relacionado com o impacto da cibersegurança no sector da saúde e com a gamificação; identificar os componentes associados ao desenvolvimento de soluções de gamificação; comparar as plataformas de gamificação existentes; definir uma metodologia de gamificação adequada para a formação em cibersegurança de profissionais de saúde e desenvolver uma ferramenta de gamificação para a sensibilização em cibersegurança de profissionais de saúde. Metodologia: Desenvolveu-se uma metodologia de gamificação para a formação em cibersegurança dos profissionais de saúde. Foi igualmente desenvolvido um protótipo da estratégia de formação gamificada, específica para o setor da saúde, onde consta um piloto da aplicação (Health-Cy-Game). Resultados: Desenvolvimento do protótipo da estratégia de formação gamificada – Health-Cy-Game – de acordo com o perfil de conhecimentos estabelecido: conhecimento geral de tecnologia; autenticação e gestão de palavras-passe; técnicas de ciberataques dirigidas ao sector da saúde; gestão da informação; manutenção e atualização de software, e procedimentos e regulamentos em cibersegurança das instituições de saúde. Disposições finais: No setor da saúde, a cibersegurança deverá constituir uma preocupação central dos planos estratégicos de segurança e qualidade dos cuidados. Para atingir este estado de segurança, é preciso munir os utilizadores da tecnologia de conhecimento adequados. “Health-Cy-Game” foi construído tendo em conta o perfil de competências destes profissionais e as especificidades deste sector, de acordo com o Referencial de Competências e Conhecimentos do Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança e as escalas Risky Cybersecurity Behaviours Scale (RsCB) e Security Behaviour Intentions Scale (SeBIS).ABSTRACT - Introduction: The healthcare sector is heavily affected by cybercrime, with the majority of techniques used being addressed to its users. Health professionals have a key role in minimizing these attacks when properly trained. Gamified training strategies in cybersecurity have very positive results in terms of knowledge acquisition and retention, with advantages in terms of resources and time management. Objectives: To describe the state-of-the-art related to the impact of cybersecurity in the health sector and with gamification; identify the components associated with the development of gamification solutions; compare existing gamification platforms; define an appropriate gamification methodology for training health professionals in cybersecurity and develop a gamification tool to raise awareness of cybersecurity among health professionals. Methodology: A gamification methodology was developed for training health professionals in cybersecurity. A prototype of the gamified training strategy, specific for the health sector, was also developed, which contains a pilot application (Health-Cy-Game). Results: Development of the prototype of the gamified training strategy – Health-Cy-Game – according to the knowledge profile established: general knowledge of technology; authentication and password management; cyberattack techniques targeting the health sector; information management; maintenance and updating of software, and procedures and regulations in cybersecurity of health institutions. Final Provisions: In the healthcare sector, cybersecurity must be a central concern of strategic plans addressed to safety and quality of care. To achieve this state of security, it is necessary to provide adequate training to healthcare professionals. “Health-Cy-Game” was built taking into account the skills profile of these professionals and the specificities of this sector, in accordance with Centro Nacional de Cibersegurança’s roadmap “Competências e Conhecimentos”, the Risky Cybersecurity Behaviours Scale (RsCB) and Security Behaviour Intentions Scale (SeBIS).N/