The Promise of Open Educational Resources

This whitepaper defines OER, discusses what underlies the open educational resources movement and the current status of open educational resources, presents MIT's OpenCourseware project as a case-study, and concludes with future visions for teaching and learning, challenges, and observations

Living with contradictions: the dynamics of senior managers in relation to sustainability

In this article, we investigate how senior managers located in Northern Europe in the energy and power industry coordinate their recognition of sustainability challenges with other things they say and do. Identity theory is used to examine the fine-grained work through which the managers navigate identities and potentially competing narratives. In contrast with other studies we find that pursuing cohering identities and resolving potential tensions and contradictions does not appear to matter for most of the managers. We explore the dynamics of how managers live with apparent contradictions and tensions without threat to their narrative coherence. We extend existing research into managerial identities and sustainability by: showing how managers combine different potentially contrasting identity types; identifying nine discursive processes through which the majority of managers distance and deflect sustainability issues away from themselves and their companies; and, showing the contrasting identity dynamics in the case of one manager to whom narrative coherence becomes important and prompts alternative action

The Impact of Audit Risk, Materiality and Severity of Ethical Decision Making: An Analysis of the Perceptions of Tax Agents in Australia

This paper focuses on the role of the tax agent as a preparer of tax returns and provider of professional tax advice under a system based on self-assessment principles. In particular it recognises the competing pressures under which tax agents attempt to discharge their professional responsibilities, and the implications for potentially unethical behaviour. Empirical research into taxpayer attitudes suggests that the risk of audit, the severity of tax law and the materiality of dollar amounts involved, will all impact on the decision making process. This paper extends these principles from taxpayer to tax agent, by seeking their response to alternative client demands as represented in realistic tax return scenarios. The findings suggest that the severity of tax law violation is an important factor in ethical decision making, but that audit risk and the amounts involved are not. The lack of support for audit risk as an influential variable is an important outcome, because policy makers have traditionally proceeded on the basis that increases in audit probabilities will reduce the likelihood of taxpayers adopting aggressive tax reporting positions. The implications are that alternative enforcement and compliance strategies must be considered by tax administrators.

Ethical Issues Facing Tax Professionals: A Comparative Survey of Tax Agents and Big 5 Tax Practitioners in Australia

The move towards a full self-assessment tax regime in Australia has brought with it a greater representation of, and expanded role for tax practitioners. Given that the resolution of many tax issues present significant ethical dilemmas for tax practitioners in their role as the moral agent of their clients, and the close relationship of ethics and tax compliance, an evaluation of the nature and extent of ethical concerns as identified by tax practitioners themselves has important implications both for the tax profession and tax administration. There have, however, been few empirical studies reported in Australia as to the range of ethical issues encountered in tax practice. Further, there has been a tendency in the literature to treat the tax profession as a homogeneous group, notwithstanding that tax services are provided through a variety of organisational structures ranging from sole-practitioners to large international public accounting firms (Big 5 firms). To investigate whether such a view of the tax profession in Western Australia is accurate or inappropriate, tax professionals were partitioned into the broad body of tax practitioners in general practice (registered tax agents), in one group, and tax practitioners engaged by the Big 5 firms, in a second group. The aim of this research was to investigate whether there were significant differences in the ethical perceptions between tax agents and Big 5 tax practitioners. A mail - questionnaire was used to elicit data as to the frequency and importance of a range of ethical issues in tax practice. For analysis, the list was subsequently reduced to a ÌTop 10Ì inventory. Overall, the practical differences were not dramatic with significant percentages of both groups rating those issues which related primarily to the conduct of professional responsibilities e.g., ensuring reasonable enquiries are undertaken, maintaining an appropriate level of technical competence, continuing to act for a client when it is not appropriate, as of most concern to tax practitioners. One issue on which there was a significant difference between the two groups was the ranking of loophole seeking on the frequency dimension. A tentative explanation for this difference (ranked Ì1Ì and Ì11Ì for Big 5 and tax agent respondents respectively) is offered in terms of client expectations of a "tax exploiter" role for Big 5 practitioners in contrast to a "tax enforcer/compliance" role for their tax agent counterparts.

Focal Plane Alignment and Detector Characterization for the Subaru Prime Focus Spectrograph

We describe the infrastructure being developed to align and characterize the detectors for the Subaru Measurement of Images and Redshifts (SuMIRe) Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS). PFS will employ four three-channel spectrographs with an operating wavelength range of 3800 $\AA$ to 12600 $\AA$. Each spectrograph will be comprised of two visible channels and one near infrared (NIR) channel, where each channel will use a separate Schmidt camera to image the captured spectra onto their respective detectors. In the visible channels, Hamamatsu 2k x 4k CCDs will be mounted in pairs to create a single 4k x 4k detector, while the NIR channel will use a single Teledyne 4k x 4k H4RG HgCdTe device.Comment: 16 pages, 27 figures, SPIE ATI Montreal 201

Modelling and simulating unplanned and urgent healthcare: the contribution of scenarios of future healthcare systems.

The current financial challenges being faced by the UK economy have meant that the NHS will have to make £20 billion of savings between 2010 and 2014 requiring it to be innovative about how it delivers healthcare. This paper presents the methodology of a research project that is simulating the whole healthcare system with the aim of reducing waste within urgent unscheduled care streams whilst understanding the impact of such changes on the whole system. The research is aimed at care commissioners who could use such simulation in their decision-making practice, and the paper presents the findings from early stakeholder discussions about the scope and focus of the research and the relevance of stakeholder consultation and scenarios in the development of a valid decision-support tool that is fit for purpose

In the balance: report of a research study exploring information for weight management

This paper uses findings from a research study called Net.Weight to examine the concepts of interaction, information quality and Internet-based information from the perspective of people engaged in managing their weight. The Net.Weight study was a two-year project funded by the British government 19s Department of Health and located in the city of Brighton and Hove. It examined the potential for increased, innovative and effective uses of information and communication technologies (ICTs) to support the self management of weight. The study had several inter-related research strands and the findings discussed in the paper emerged primarily from participatory learning workshops and evaluative interviews. The paper demonstrates that the interaction between people is an important aspect of the information process, which is often neglected in the literature. It suggests that exploring the user-user dimension might add to the understanding of information effectiveness. It also suggests that an approach to information and health literacy which includes a social as well as an individual perspective is necessary. On quality assessment, it supports findings from other studies that organisational authority is a key measure of reliability for lay users and that quality assessment tools have a limited role in the assessment process. The Net.Weight participants embraced the Internet as a medium for weight management information only when it added value to their existing information and weight management practices and when it could be integrated into their everyday lives

Proposed best practice for projects that involve modelling and simulation

Modelling and simulation has been used in many ways when developing new treatments. To be useful and credible, it is generally agreed that modelling and simulation should be undertaken according to some kind of best practice. A number of authors have suggested elements required for best practice in modelling and simulation. Elements that have been suggested include the pre-specification of goals, assumptions, methods, and outputs. However, a project that involves modelling and simulation could be simple or complex and could be of relatively low or high importance to the project. It has been argued that the level of detail and the strictness of pre-specification should be allowed to vary, depending on the complexity and importance of the project. This best practice document does not prescribe how to develop a statistical model. Rather, it describes the elements required for the specification of a project and requires that the practitioner justify in the specification the omission of any of the elements and, in addition, justify the level of detail provided about each element. This document is an initiative of the Special Interest Group for modelling and simulation. The Special Interest Group for modelling and simulation is a body open to members of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry and the European Federation of Statisticians in the Pharmaceutical Industry. Examples of a very detailed specification and a less detailed specification are included as appendices