Industrial placements for undergraduate students – challenges and opportunities

Industrial placements, as part of a ‘sandwich degree’, have been commonplace in the UK for over thirty years. The European Union has been active in the field of trans-national industrial placements for over ten years, and is now beginning to integrate its student placement programme with other parts of its ‘lifelong learning’ strategy. It now seems timely to reflect on the challenges and benefits of an industrial placement process, and to make recommendations for best practice going forward. Specifically, the paper will: • Identify the main stakeholders of Industrial Placements. • Consider the current processes that are in place in the UK for industrial placements. • Reflect on the processes that are in place in Europe and how they differ from the UK. • Evaluate the issues faced by the main three stakeholders; students, universities, and businesses. • Use Gap Analysis techniques to identify where the UK process needs definite improvement.gap analysis, industrial placement.

Knowledge management and organizational culture

This paper explores the relationship between organisational knowledge, organisational culture, and Process Based Systems (PBS), in the U.K. National Health Service (NHS). Links between PBS and organisational culture have been observed before(Perry, 2003); the contribution made by PBS to organisational knowledge has also been suggested (Perry, 2004). However, links between organisational knowledge and organisational culture in the NHS have not been widely studied. A qualitative study of these links across clinical functions has been used in conjunction with a literature review to consider in particular the use of tacit knowledge and the role that might be played by PBS in mediating and sharing this "embedded" or experiential form of knowledge. While there may be some opportunity for "externalisation" (Nonaka, 1994) - the conversion of tacit to explicit knowledge, this paper argues that PBS may also contribute to "socialisation" - the direct generation of tacit knowledge by tacit knowledge.Process Based Systems, knowledge management, organisational culture

The uptake and application of workflow management systems in the UK financial services sector

Workflow management systems (WFMSs) are an important new technology, which are likely to have a significant impact on the way in which clerical and administrative operations are organised and executed. This paper seeks to investigate how WFMSs are being exploited and utilised commercially by UK-based organisations operating in the financial services sector. In-depth interviews were conducted with fourteen project managers to explore the development, application and commercial implications of this powerful, yet flexible, technology. The results indicate that workflow technology has the potential to facilitate significant changes to the way in which an organisation conducts its business, through the automation of a wide range of document-intensive operations. Furthermore, when applied in a well-focussed manner it has the potential to realise significant increases in an organisation’s flexibility, and productivity, as well as delivering major improvements to the quality, speed and consistency of customer service

The cultural impact of workflow management systems in the financial services sector

The implementation of information systems is increasingly resulting in significant changes to the host organisation’s culture. In particular, the workflow management system (WFMS) is one new technology that, because of its tendency to have a direct impact on the organisation and execution of work, has the potential to significantly modify an organisation’s culture. This qualitative research investigates the nature of the relationship between WFMS and organisational culture, in the UK financial services sector The research concludes that WFMS have the potential to modify culture in a positive way by improving the organisations customer orientation, flexibility and quality focus

Reliable Discrimination of 10 Ungulate Species Using High Resolution Melting Analysis of Faecal DNA

Identifying species occupying an area is essential for many ecological and conservation studies. Faecal DNA is a potentially powerful method for identifying cryptic mammalian species. In New Zealand, 10 species of ungulate (Order: Artiodactyla) have established wild populations and are managed as pests because of their impacts on native ecosystems. However, identifying the ungulate species present within a management area based on pellet morphology is unreliable. We present a method that enables reliable identification of 10 ungulate species (red deer, sika deer, rusa deer, fallow deer, sambar deer, white-tailed deer, Himalayan tahr, Alpine chamois, feral sheep, and feral goat) from swabs of faecal pellets. A high resolution melting (HRM) assay, targeting a fragment of the 12S rRNA gene, was developed. Species-specific primers were designed and combined in a multiplex PCR resulting in fragments of different length and therefore different melting behaviour for each species. The method was developed using tissue from each of the 10 species, and was validated in blind trials. Our protocol enabled species to be determined for 94% of faecal pellet swabs collected during routine monitoring by the New Zealand Department of Conservation. Our HRM method enables high-throughput and cost-effective species identification from low DNA template samples, and could readily be adapted to discriminate other mammalian species from faecal DNA

'Till we meet again’: Memory, Grief and Popular Religion in England in the Aftermath of the Great War

It became fashionable in the 1970s to associate the Great War with the death of religion. The notion that ‘Tommy’ – the ordinary soldier – despised the war, his senior officers and God was promoted in film (Oh, What a Lovely War!), critical works (Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory) and the general revival of interest in the war poets. Historians soon showed that Tommy’s religion did not die in the mud of Passchendaele. From the late 1970s, McLeod showed very nuanced patterns of working-class religiosity. In the 1980s, Parsons revealed that the religion of ordinary people was different from the theology of the churches. Later, Snape described the complex response by Tommy to religion and the churches. All these studies however relied heavily either on statistics, or the writings of the educated middle classes – not the testimony of ordinary people themselves. Ordinary people (apart from the religiously committed) did not normally write about their religious feelings. However, thanks to the Imperial War Graves Commission, tens of thousands of families were able to record epitaphs for their dead servicemen. Further, the expansion of cheap local newspapers and the growth of literacy promoted the use of In Memoriam notices. These sources provide a rich mix of religious and secular messages that families used to record their deepest feelings of loss, regret and hope. Through them, we are able to see the texts, sentiments and articles of faith that infused the religious responses of ordinary people in the period between 1914 and 1925. The religion of ordinary people emerges as a strong but subtle faith, subject to the stresses of social class, but inextricably interwoven with ideas of love, family and life after death

Workflow by the Back Door? Using XML Systems in Health Service Processes, and Changing the System.

The UK’s National Health Service (NHS) was founded 50 years ago and is now the largest employer in Europe. As with any enormous corporation, there will be procedural and administrative problems in enacting any type of organizational change, and the NHS, run partly by government, partly by managers and partly by clinicians, has been subject to most of them. In hospitals – traditionally a battleground between senior clinicians and the other two interest groups – there are signs of a new accommodation in at least one area; Electronic Patient Records (EPR). Partly through government sponsorship and partly through clinical need, new technology- particularly XML-based processes – is being used, and is beginning to have positive effects both on administrative and clinical processes. Unlike the UK finance industry, where large scale workflow systems have been implemented since the mid-1980s, the UK public health services have noticeably not automated the kind of prescriptive, repetitive workflow processes that have become popular in both costreduction and customer-focused programmes in the finance industry. However, evidence is now emerging that EPR processes are evolving, and crossing traditional departmental and informal ‘turfdom ’ barriers. In this way, these XML systems are moving beyond the commonly accepted view of XML as a content management tool, and are now positioned to become a kind of ‘proto-workflow ’ system. As such, they are beginning to display a number of characteristics of ‘industrial strength ’ workflow systems, in creating changes in processes, user behaviour and possibly in organizational culture. This study is based on interviews and surveys with clinicians and administrators, and seeks to understand the development of EPR under a new government initiative. It also uses previous research into NHS systems, and into workflow management systems in the UK finance industry

‘Till we meet again’: Memory, Grief and Popular Religion in England in the Aftermath of the Great War

It became fashionable in the 1970s to associate the Great War with the death of religion. The notion that ‘Tommy’ – the ordinary soldier – despised the war, his senior officers and God was promoted in film (Oh, What a Lovely War!), critical works (Fussell’s The Great War and Modern Memory) and the general revival of interest in the war poets. Historians soon showed that Tommy’s religion did not die in the mud of Passchendaele. From the late 1970s, McLeod showed very nuanced patterns of working-class religiosity. In the 1980s, Parsons revealed that the religion of ordinary people was different from the theology of the churches. Later, Snape described the complex response by Tommy to religion and the churches. All these studies however relied heavily either on statistics, or the writings of the educated middle classes – not the testimony of ordinary people themselves. Ordinary people (apart from the religiously committed) did not normally write about their religious feelings. However, thanks to the Imperial War Graves Commission, tens of thousands of families were able to record epitaphs for their dead servicemen. Further, the expansion of cheap local newspapers and the growth of literacy promoted the use of In Memoriam notices. These sources provide a rich mix of religious and secular messages that families used to record their deepest feelings of loss, regret and hope. Through them, we are able to see the texts, sentiments and articles of faith that infused the religious responses of ordinary people in the period between 1914 and 1925. The religion of ordinary people emerges as a strong but subtle faith, subject to the stresses of social class, but inextricably interwoven with ideas of love, family and life after death