Discipline-specific writing for business students: Research, practice and pedagogy

In the past few years strong arguments have been made for locating academic writing in higher education within the students’ disciplinary contexts in the belief that a full understanding of the role and dynamic of writing can only be achieved if it is examined as a social practice in its context of production. This chapter reports on a study that examined the conceptualisations of writing for business by a group of undergraduate and postgraduate lecturers and students at the business school of a British university. Based on a critical analysis of the literature reviewed for the study, and the data collected, the chapter contributes to existing writing pedagogy with a number of research-informed transformative pedagogical applications for teaching discipline-specific writing for business. Such applications which combine context-oriented practices (e.g. raising awareness of the role of disciplinary values in shaping writing) and text-oriented activities (e.g. discipline-specific referencing) aim at influencing the pedagogic agenda for teaching writing in higher education. The chapter concludes with questions for reflection and discussion that provide an opportunity for readers to reflect upon their own teaching environment.

Business Process Modelling based on formal temporal theory with an application to hospital patient flows

Existing Workflow Management Systems (WFMSs) follow a pragmatic approach. They often use a proprietary modelling language with an intuitive graphical layout. However the underlying semantics lack a formal foundation. As a consequence, analysis issues, such as proving correctness i.e. soundness and completeness, and reliable execution are not supported at design level. This project will be using an applied ontology approach by formally defining key terms such as process, sub-process, action/task based on formal temporal theory. Current business process modelling (BPM) standards such as Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) and Unified Modelling Language (UML) Activity Diagram (AD) model their constructs with no logical basis. This investigation will contribute to the research and industry by providing a framework that will provide grounding for BPM to reason and represent a correct business process (BP). This is missing in the current BPM domain, and may result in reduction of the design costs and avert the burden of redundant terms used by the current standards. A graphical tool will be introduced which will implement the formal ontology defined in the framework. This new tool can be used both as a modelling tool and at the same time will serve the purpose of validating the model. This research will also fill the existing gap by providing a unified graphical representation to represent a BP in a logically consistent manner for the mainstream modelling standards in the fields of business and IT. A case study will be conducted to analyse a catalogue of existing ‘patient pathways’ i.e. processes, of King’s College Hospital NHS Trust including current performance statistics. Following the application of the framework, a mapping will be conducted, and new performance statistics will be collected. A cost/benefits analysis report will be produced comparing the results of the two approaches.

A general framework for Business Process Modelling (BPM) based on Formal Temporal Theory with an application to Hospital Patient flows

Existing Workflow Management Systems (WFMSs) follow a pragmatic approach. They often use a proprietary modelling language with an intuitive graphical layout. However the underlying semantics lack a formal foundation. As a consequence, analysis issues, such as proving correctness i.e. soundness and completeness, and reliable execution are not supported at design level. This project will be using an applied ontology approach by formally defining key terms such as process, sub-process, action/task based on formal temporal theory. Current business process modelling (BPM) standards such as Business Process Modelling Notation (BPMN) and Unified Modelling Language (UML) Activity Diagram (AD) model their constructs with no logical basis. This investigation will contribute to the research and industry by providing a framework that will provide grounding for BPM to reason and represent a correct business process (BP). This is missing in the current BPM domain, and may result in reduction of the design costs and avert the burden of redundant terms used by the current standards. A graphical tool will be introduced which will implement the formal ontology defined in the framework. This new tool can be used both as a modelling tool and at the same time will serve the purpose of validating the model. This research will also fill the existing gap by providing a unified graphical representation to represent a BP in a logically consistent manner for the mainstream modelling standards in the fields of business and IT. A case study will be conducted to analyse a catalogue of existing ‘patient pathways’ i.e. processes, of King’s College Hospital NHS Trust including current performance statistics. Following the application of the framework, a mapping will be conducted, and new performance statistics will be collected. A cost/benefits analysis report will be produced comparing the results of the two approaches.