Built environment education, research and practice: integrating diverse interests to make an impact

The role of the academic in the built environment seems generally to be not well understood or articulated. While this problem is not unique to our field, there are plenty of examples in a wide range of academic disciplines where the academic role has been fully articulated. But built environment academics have tended not to look beyond their own literature and their own vocational context in trying to give meaning to their academic work. The purpose of this keynote presentation is to explore the context of academic work generally and the connections between education, research and practice in the built environment, specifically. By drawing on ideas from the sociology of the professions, the role of universities, and the fundamentals of social science research, a case is made that helps to explain the kind of problems that routinely obstruct academic progress in our field. This discussion reveals that while there are likely to be great weaknesses in much of what is published and taught in the built environment, it is not too great a stretch to provide a more robust understanding and a good basis for developing our field in a way that would enable us collectively to make a major contribution to theory-building, theory-testing and to make a good stab at tackling some of the problems facing society at large. There is no reason to disregard the fundamental academic disciplines that underpin our knowledge of the built environment. If we contextualise our work in these more fundamental disciplines, there is every reason to think that we can have a much greater impact that we have experienced to date.

An analytic knowledge network process for construction entrepreneurship education

Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to provide a quantitative multicriteria decision-making approach to knowledge management in construction entrepreneurship education by means of an analytic knowledge network process (KANP) Design/methodology/approach- The KANP approach in the study integrates a standard industrial classification with the analytic network process (ANP). For the construction entrepreneurship education, a decision-making model named KANP.CEEM is built to apply the KANP method in the evaluation of teaching cases to facilitate the case method, which is widely adopted in entrepreneurship education at business schools. Findings- The study finds that there are eight clusters and 178 nodes in the KANP.CEEM model, and experimental research on the evaluation of teaching cases discloses that the KANP method is effective in conducting knowledge management to the entrepreneurship education. Research limitations/implications- As an experimental research, this paper ignores the concordance between a selected standard classification and others, which perhaps limits the usefulness of KANP.CEEM model elsewhere. Practical implications- As the KANP.CEEM model is built based on the standard classification codes and the embedded ANP, it is thus expected that the model has a wide potential in evaluating knowledge-based teaching materials for any education purpose with a background from the construction industry, and can be used by both faculty and students. Originality/value- This paper fulfils a knowledge management need and offers a practical tool for an academic starting out on the development of knowledge-based teaching cases and other teaching materials or for a student going through the case studies and other learning materials.

Re-engaging with Education

The paper reports a study of alternative pre- 16 provision in a college of further education for young people who were disaffected and/or non-attenders at secondary school. The data are derived from interviews with 26 of these young people who were 'success stories' for the programme in that they had continued attendance up to the end of Year 11 and, in a few cases, beyond. The interviews showed that, for the most part, school placements had broken down for these young people because of difficulties in personal relationships, in particular relationships with teachers. However, for a minority a perceived irrelevance of the school curriculum was also a factor. The young people were almost all positive about their experience at college and the vocational courses they were taking. A good atmosphere, good personal relationships and being treated as adults were the key features of their positive experience at college although their positive feelings about the particular course was related to its vocational relevance. Most of the young people said that education and training was important to them and that they planned further study. The paper tentatively concludes that it is poor personal relationships that are mainly responsible for the premature exit from school and that good personal relationships have enabled them to remain in education. However, their continued involvement in college and intentions for further study are strongly influenced by vocational factors. The positive tone on the results reflects the perceptions of the young people at the point of interview and the paper does not deal with the disadvantaged situation many of them may be in. Further research will focus on longer term outcomes for employment and training.

A lightweight balloon-carried cloud charge sensor

Despite the importance of microphysical cloud processes on the climate system, some topics are under-explored. For example, few measurements of droplet charges in nonthunderstorm clouds exist. Balloon carried charge sensors can be used to provide new measurements. A charge sensor is described for use with meteorological balloons, which has been tested over a range of atmospheric temperatures from -60 to 20 degrees C, in cloudy and clear air. The rapid time response of the sensor (to >10 V s(-1)) permits charge densities from 100 fC m(-3) to 1 nC m(-3) to be determined, which is sufficient for it to act as a cloud edge charge detector at weakly charged horizontal cloud boundaries.

Construction management abstracts : cumulative abstracts and indexes of journals in construction management, 1983-2000

The purpose of this document is to provide a single source of reference for every paper published in the journals directly related to research in Construction Management. It is indexed by author and keyword and contains the titles, authors, abstracts and keywords of every article from the following journals: • Building Research and Information (BRI) • Construction Management and Economics (CME) • Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management (ECAM) • Journal of Construction Procurement (JCP) • Journal of Construction Research (JCR) • Journal of Financial Management in Property and Construction (JFM) • RICS Research Papers (RICS) The index entries give short forms of the bibliographical citations, rather than page numbers, to enable annual updates to the abstracts. Each annual update will carry cumulative indexes, so that only one index needs to be consulted.

ARCOM construction management abstracts : cumulative abstracts and indexes of journals in construction management, 1999 update

The purpose of this document is to provide a single source of reference for every paper published in the journals directly related to research in Construction Management. This volume brings together articles published during 1999. It is indexed by author and keyword and contains the titles, authors, abstracts and keywords of every article from the following journals: • Building Research and Information (BRI) • Construction Management and Economics (CME) • Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management (ECAM) • Journal of Construction Procurement (JCP) • RICS Research Papers (RICS) The index entries give short forms of the bibliographical citations, rather than page numbers, to enable rapid reference to articles. A cumulative volume is available from the editor. Included in this volume is an appendix listing a wide range of journals associated with construction management research, giving details of frequency, editorial addresses and web sites, as well as whether each journal is international and/or refereed.

An analysis of verbal responses to music in a group of adult non-specialists

In a workshop setting, two pieces of recorded music were presented to a group of adult non-specialists; a key feature was to set up structured discussion within which the respondents considered each piece of music as a whole and not in its constituent parts. There were two areas of interest, namely to explore whether the respondents were likely to identify the musical features or to make extra-musical associations and, to establish the extent to which there would be commonality and difference in their approach to formulating the verbal responses. An inductive approach was used in the analysis of data to reveal some of the working theories underpinning the intuitive musicianship of the adult non-specialist listener. Findings have shown that, when unprompted by forced choice responses, the listeners generated responses that could be said to be information-poor in terms of musical features but rich in terms of the level of personal investment they made in formulating their responses. This is evidenced in a number of connections they made between the discursive and the non-discursive, including those which are relational and mediated by their experiences. Implications for music education are considered.

Resilient responses to climate change: exploring organisational learning in networked development organisations

Drawing from the organisational learning and governance literature, this paper assesses four internationally networked governmental and non‐governmental organisations in the UK addressing climate change. We analyse how those concerned understand the climate change crisis, what mechanisms are put in place to address information flows, and what evidence there is of learning through sharing information between the organisational headquarters and their regional offices. The most striking finding is the evidence of learning that largely depends on ad‐hoc informal processes and shadow networks.