The potential, limitations and evaluation of education networks in a monocentric system

In almost all education systems, there has been an increasingly incentivised drive to establish and promote local education networks. In the case of Ireland, funded education networks referred to as ‘education clusters’ have been set up to allow schools to collaborate to increase innovation capacity as well as enhance the return on educational investment through economies of scale. While commendable in theory, there is nevertheless, limited evidence relating to the priorities of these networks as perceived by those who are at the core of them, namely teachers. There is also limited research relating to who should be involved in setting evaluation methodologies and standards for the network. As such, using Ireland as a case example, our study was guided by three interconnected questions; what should the priorities of education networks be, what are the benefits and challenges for such priorities and who should be involved in the development of evaluation methodologies and standards?      Findings, many of which we suggest have considerable relevance to most education systems, reveal that, while in theory, although the appeal of education networks in the form of enhanced professional capital is evident, there are still many issues that need to be resolved to enable such networks to deliver on their theoretical possibilities. These include the limitations of reciprocity among network members and the need for facilitated supports to moderate the competitive nature of schools in a network, allowing for competitive collaboration to occur. Importantly, in this research a significant majority of school principals did not see or were not favourable to the idea of education networks being used for cost reductions through economies of scale.En casi todos los sistemas educativos cada vez se incentiva más el interés por establecer y promover redes educativas locales. En el caso de Irlanda, se han establecido redes educati-vas financiadas conocidas como ‘education clusters’ fomentar la colaboración entre centros educativos con el objetivo de mejorar su capacidad innovadora, así como la rentabilidad de la inversión educativa a través de economías de escala. Aunque este enfoque es meritorio en teoría, existen limitadas evidencias acerca de cómo los integrantes de estas redes perciben sus priori-dades. También existen pocas investigaciones sobre quién debería delimitar las metodologías y estándares de evaluación para las redes. Así, nuestro estudio está guiado por tres cuestiones interconectadas, respondidas utilizando el caso irlandés como ejemplo: cuáles deberían ser las prioridades de la red, cuáles son los beneficios y retos de dichas prioridades, y quién debería implicarse en el desarrollo de su evaluación.Los hallazgos revelan que, aunque en teoría los beneficios de las redes educativas relacio-nados con la mejora del capital profesional son evidentes, todavía hay muchas cuestiones que resolver para conseguir que las redes sean capaces de generar dichos beneficios. Estas incluyen las limitaciones de la reciprocidad entre los miembros de las redes y la necesidad de apoyos para moderar la naturaleza competitiva de los centros educativos dentro de una red, permitiendo de esta manera la existencia de una colaboración competitiva. En esta investigación, una mayoría significativa de directores de centro no estaban de acuerdo con la idea de utilizar las redes educativas como un mecanismo de reducción de costes a través de las economías de escala

Dealing with mobility: Understanding access anytime, anywhere

The rapid and accelerating move towards the adoption and use of mobile technologies has increasingly provided people and organisations with the ability to work away from the office and on the move. The new ways of working afforded by these technologies are often characterised in terms of access to information and people ‘anytime, anywhere’. This paper presents a study of mobile workers that highlights different facets of access to remote people and information, and different facets of anytime, anywhere. Four key factors in mobile work are identified from the study: the role of planning, working in ‘dead time’, accessing remote technological and informational resources, and monitoring the activities of remote colleagues. By reflecting on these issues, we can better understand the role of technology and artefact use in mobile work and identify the opportunities for the development of appropriate technological solutions to support mobile workers

Education networks: a key driving force for school development in a time of crisis and change

This paper examines the rise of networking in education, paying particular attention to the recent recognition of their importance during the unprecedented challenges that have emerged for schools during the COVID-19 period. The paper begins with an overview of the development of network theory, exploring how the concept has been adopted across a series of disciplines as a mode of organisational and personal development. It is evidentiated that networks are goal driven, rely on good communication, are challenging and seek to provide a way for school communities to uncover and transmit the knowledge that helps them ensure effective teaching and learning. The paper subsequently examines how networking has been adapted for educational settings and has become increasingly seen as a potential answer to many of the challenges facing rapidly changing social and educational contexts. Most notably, networking has a significant impact in the field of organisational leadership. The understanding of leadership as a mode that sees power and authority distributed among school communities as a whole has at its heart an awareness of the necessity to network, communicate and dialogue within schools and, perhaps as importantly, between schools. The paper concludes with a brief introduction to the emerging discourse surrounding the potential of networks to re-imaging educational provision in a Covid-19 context

Quality assurance in Irish schools: inspection and school self-evaluation

In this paper, we provide an overview of the development of school inspection in Ireland over the past twenty years using the analytic and critical lens developed by Richard Boyle in partnership with the current authors. The paper is fundamentally a reflection on the nature, purpose and operation of evaluation in the Irish public sector through the lens of education. The paper provides a historical overview of developments in the linked areas of school evaluation and inspection, and goes on to explore how the implementation of this mode of quality assurance has influenced, and been influenced by, a wide range of policy actors. The argument made is that education has embedded a culture of evaluation in a unique yet systemically resonant manner and that a reflection on this reality will help illuminate our understanding of the role of evaluation across the public sector as a whole

Can patient involvement improve patient safety? : A cluster randomised control trial of the Patient Reporting and Action for a Safe Environment (PRASE) intervention

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the efficacy of the Patient Reporting and Action for a Safe Environment intervention. DESIGN: A multicentre cluster randomised controlled trial. SETTING: Clusters were 33 hospital wards within five hospitals in the UK. PARTICIPANTS: All patients able to give informed consent were eligible to take part. Wards were allocated to the intervention or control condition. INTERVENTION: The ward-level intervention comprised two tools: (1) a questionnaire that asked patients about factors contributing to safety (patient measure of safety (PMOS)) and (2) a proforma for patients to report both safety concerns and positive experiences (patient incident reporting tool). Feedback was considered in multidisciplinary action planning meetings. MEASUREMENTS: Primary outcomes were routinely collected ward-level harm-free care (HFC) scores and patient-level feedback on safety (PMOS). RESULTS: Intervention uptake and retention of wards was 100% and patient participation was high (86%). We found no significant effect of the intervention on any outcomes at 6 or 12 months. However, for new harms (ie, those for which the wards were directly accountable) intervention wards did show greater, though non-significant, improvement compared with control wards. Analyses also indicated that improvements were largest for wards that showed the greatest compliance with the intervention. LIMITATIONS: Adherence to the intervention, particularly the implementation of action plans, was poor. Patient safety outcomes may represent too blunt a measure. CONCLUSIONS: Patients are willing to provide feedback about the safety of their care. However, we were unable to demonstrate any overall effect of this intervention on either measure of patient safety and therefore cannot recommend this intervention for wider uptake. Findings indicate promise for increasing HFC where wards implement ≥75% of the intervention components. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: ISRCTN07689702; pre-results

Physio-chemical assessment of beauty leaf (Calophyllum inophyllum) as second-generation biodiesel feedstock

Recently, biodiesels from non-edible vegetable oil, known as second generation biodiesel, are receiving more attention because it can overcome food versus fuel crisis related to edible oils. The Beauty Leaf tree (Calophyllum Inophyllum) is a potential source of non-edible vegetable oil for producing future generation biodiesel because of its sustainability in a wide range of climate conditions, easy cultivation, high fruit production rate, and the high oil content in the seed. In this study, bio-oil was extracted from beauty leaf tree seeds through three different oil extraction methods. The important physical and chemical properties of produced beauty leaf oils were experimentally analysed and compared with commercial edible vegetable oils. Biodiesel was produced using a two-stage esterification process consisting of acid catalysed pre-esterification and alkali catalysed Transesterification. Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) profile and physicochemical properties including kinematic viscosity, density, higher heating value and acid value were measured using laboratory standard testing equipment following internationally recognized testing procedures. Other fuel properties including oxidation stability, iodine value, cetane number, flash point, cold filter plugging point, cloud point and pour point temperature were estimated using Fatty acid methyl ester (FAME) of biodiesel. Physicochemical properties of beauty leaf oil biodiesels are described briefly and compared with recognised biodiesel standards and commercially available biodiesels produced from edible oil feedstock. Quality of produced biodiesel was assessed based 13 important chemical and physical properties through Preference Ranking Organisation Method for Enrichment Evaluation (PROMETHEE) and Graphical Analysis for Interactive Assistance (GAIA) analysis. This study found that Mechanical extraction using the screw press can produce oil from correctly prepared product at a low cost, however overall this method is ineffective with relatively low oil yields. The study found that seed preparation has a significant impact on oil yields, especially in the mechanical oil extraction method. High temperature and pressure in extraction process increases the performance of oil extraction. On the contrary, this process increases the free fatty acid content in the oil. Clear difference was found in physical properties of beauty leaf oils that eventually affected the oil to biodiesel conversion process. However, beauty leaf oils methyl esters (biodiesel) were very consistent and able to meet almost all indicators of biodiesel standards. Furthermore, it showed as a better automobile fuel compared to most of the commercially available biodiesels produced from edible oil sources. Result of this study indicated that, Beauty Leaf oil seed is readily available feedstock to commence the commercial production of 2nd generation biodiesel. The findings of this study are expected to serve as the basis from which industrial scale biodiesel production from Beauty Leaf can be made