732 research outputs found
Virtual placements to develop employability skills for civil and environmental engineering students
This project work addresses the crucial need to encourage undergraduate civil and environmental engineering students to gain employment skills and training right from the start of their studies so that their overall employability increases; their confidence level in networking with industry and within the workplace increases; and so that they are
successfully able to obtain employment after finishing their studies. This initiative is a stepping-stone employability exercise which focuses specifically on first year students to help them engage with industry right from the start of their course. It is proposed that they would gain some realistic work experience both individually and as part of group within a
virtual work environment using an action learning approach. The virtual environment used was based on SecondLife, a popular virtual reality programme. A pilot scheme was set up and run at Brunel University during the summer of 2014 using eight self-selecting first year students. The scheme’s outputs were extensively monitored and evaluated to assess its impact on the development of employability skills. This approach may prove a cost effective way of letting students gain an insight into the workplace whilst improving these skills. It may also prove a way for employers to select from a large range of students the
best to actually undertake their real work-based internships
A Non-Custodial Wallet for CBDC: Design Challenges and Opportunities
Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is a novel form of money that could be
issued and regulated by central banks, offering benefits such as
programmability, security, and privacy. However, the design of a CBDC system
presents numerous technical and social challenges. This paper presents the
design and prototype of a non-custodial wallet, a device that enables users to
store and spend CBDC in various contexts. To address the challenges of
designing a CBDC system, we conducted a series of workshops with internal and
external stakeholders, using methods such as storytelling, metaphors, and
provotypes to communicate CBDC concepts, elicit user feedback and critique, and
incorporate normative values into the technical design. We derived basic
guidelines for designing CBDC systems that balance technical and social
aspects, and reflect user needs and values. Our paper contributes to the CBDC
discourse by demonstrating a practical example of how CBDC could be used in
everyday life and by highlighting the importance of a user-centred approach.Comment: 25 pages, 12 figure
Initiating e-learning by stealth, participation and consultation in a late majority institution
The extent to which opportunities afforded by e-learning are embraced by an institution can depend in large measure on whether it is perceived as enabling and transformative or as a major and disruptive distraction. Most case studies focus on the former. This paper describes how e-learning was introduced into the latter environment. The sensitivity of competing pressures in a research intensive university substantially influenced the manner in which e-learning was promoted. This paper tells that story, from initial stealth to eventual university acknowledgement of the relevance of e-learning specifically to its own context
Enacting the last mile:Experiences of smart contracts in courier deliveries
Smart contract systems could change the nature of last-mile delivery for the better through enhanced precision, coordination and accountability. However, technological complexity poses a challenge for end-users participating in the design process, making it hard to explore their experiences and incorporate their perspectives. We describe a case study where technological prototypes create smart contract experiences for professional couriers and receptionists, allowing them to speculate about emerging possibilities, whilst remaining grounded in their current practices. Participants enacted a series of deliveries, choreographed by smart contracts, and their responses were explored in post-experience, one-to-one interviews. Working with professionals to explore the potential impact of smart contract technologies, revealed the systemic webs of value underlying their existing work practices. This has implications for design of such technologies, in which increased automation, efciency and accountability must be delicately balanced with the benefts of sustaining personal values, relationships and agency.</p
Developing transferable management skills through Action Learning
There has been increasing criticism of the relevance of the Master of Business Administration (MBA) in developing skills and competencies. Action learning, devised to address problem-solving in the workplace, offers a potential response to such criticism. This paper offers an insight into one university’s attempt to integrate action learning into the curriculum. Sixty-five part-time students were questioned at two points in their final year about their action learning experience and the enhancement of relevant skills and competencies. Results showed a mixed picture. Strong confirmation of the importance of selected skills and competencies contrasted with weaker agreement about the extent to which these were developed by action learning. There was, nonetheless, a firm belief in the positive impact on the learning process. The paper concludes that action learning is not a panacea but has an important role in a repertoire of educational approaches to develop relevant skills and competencies
Ion acoustic waves in the plasma with the power-law q-distribution in nonextensive statistics
We investigate the dispersion relation and Landau damping of ion acoustic
waves in the collisionless magnetic-field-free plasma if it is described by the
nonextensive q-distributions of Tsallis statistics. We show that the increased
numbers of superthermal particles and low velocity particles can explain the
strengthened and weakened modes of Landau damping, respectively, with the
q-distribution. When the ion temperature is equal to the electron temperature,
the weakly damped waves are found to be the distributions with small values of
q.Comment: 9 pages,22 reference
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