The relationship between rurality, skills and productivity in the East Midlands: summary

This summary report sets out the findings of research into the relationship between rurality, skills and productivity in the East Midlands. The report has been prepared by the Enterprise Research and Development Unit (ERDU) at the University of Lincoln on behalf of the East Midlands Development Agency (emda). The full report, which includes the detailed data analysis that underpins the findings set out in this report, is available separately

Opportunities for greater Lincolnshire's supply chains: summary report

A study of the key sector supply chains across Lincolnshire and the barriers and opportunities for growth

The relationship between rurality, skills and productivity in the East Midlands: final report

This report sets out the findings of research into the relationship between rurality, skills and productivity in the East Midlands. The report has been prepared by the Enterprise Research and Development Unit (ERDU) at the University of Lincoln on behalf of the East Midlands Development Agency (emda)

Opportunities for greater Lincolnshire's supply chains: full report

A study of the key sector supply chains across Greater Lincolnshire, and identification of barriers and opportuniteis for growth

A six-week sermon series : changing attitudes toward personal stewardship and financial planning

https://place.asburyseminary.edu/ecommonsatsdissertations/1571/thumbnail.jp

Selected E-Course Controls: Accounting Department Heads Views

Use of the Internet continues to increase, and new technology continues to provide more and better communication options.  As more and more students choose to enroll in Internet courses (e-courses), technological advances offer various ways to control academic dishonesty.  A questionnaire was developed and distributed to chairpersons of accounting departments to obtain their views about the use of several technological enhancements that could serve as controls in e-courses.  Such controls would require that some of these newer physical enhancements be on students’ computers when they register for an e-course.  Respondents strongly favored requiring students to provide a digital photo ID and audio capabilities when registering for an e-course.  Other potential controls were not supported.  Those surveyed also tended to believe that students should use a web cam when completing examinations on-line and that faculty should compare the photo ID with the web cam image.  In other settings, they felt that such a comparison was unnecessary.  Overall, the accounting department heads surveyed endorsed requiring the student who enrolls in an e-course to obtain some existing technology, and they expect the student to be prepared to spend more than $100 to obtain the technology

LEADER as a vehicle for neo-endogenous rural development in England

LEADER emphasises neo-endogenous approaches where local rural development relies as much as possible on “bottom-up” activities. This research shows that the mainstreaming of LEADER saw certain compromises regarding the philosophical aspiration to give greater weight to local issues, local resources and local engagement. However, many LAGs learned to apply flexibility to meet local opportunities and challenges demonstrating how LEADER can empower local actors. Future challenges require LEADER to be more integrated with other rural policies and for the procedural elements to be simplified, especially for the smaller projects that have been found to make real impact at a very local level

A review of the leader approach for delivering the rural development programme for England: a report for Defra

This report, commissioned by the Rural Communities Policy Unit at Defra, sets out the findings of a review of the Leader approach in England. The focus of the review is the impact of Leader in contributing to the delivery of the Rural Development Programme (RDP) in England, in order to inform the future Leader approach to delivering rural policy. The research is primarily based on a review of existing literature and in-depth qualitative research with Local Action Groups and other stakeholders involved in delivering or benefiting from the Leader approach. The review focuses on four key issues: 1) Evidence to support the rationale for use of EU resources to enable rural development – justifying intervention for the current programme and informing choices about interventions in the next programme 2) Evidence on the extent to which interventions have been effective to date and where future resources can be targeted 3) Evidence to provide an assessment of the impact of RDPE spend (2007-13) on outcomes – with reference to delivery mechanisms 4) Evidence to support prioritisation of activities to be funded under the next programme mapped against the six EU wide priorities for 2014-2020 and inform decisions about future delivery models

Making training more cognitively effective: making videos interactive

The cost of health and safety (H&S) failures to the UK industry is currently estimated at up to £6.5 billion per annum, with the construction sector suffering unacceptably high levels of work-related incidents. Better H&S education across all skill levels in the industry is seen as an integral part of any solution. Traditional lecture-based courses often fail to recreate the dynamic realities of managing H&S on site and therefore do not sufficiently create deeper cognitive learning (which results in remembering and using what was learned). The use of videos is a move forward, but passively observing a video is not cognitively engaging and challenging, and therefore learning is not as effective as it can be. This paper describes the development of an interactive video in which learners take an active role. While observing the video, they are required to engage, participate, respond and be actively involved. The potential for this approach to be used in conjunction with more traditional approaches to H&S was explored using a group of 2nd-year undergraduate civil engineering students. The formative results suggested that the learning experience could be enhanced using interactive videos. Nevertheless, most of the learners believed that a blended approach would be most effective