Insights into factors affecting production and operations management (POM) journal evaluation

The paper extends the current literature on peer review journal evaluations by providing a number of insights based on the diversity of Production and Operations Management (POM) research. We provide peer review evaluations for POM research outlets, based on a sampling frame that includes a large number of POM researchers worldwide. More specifically, the paper develops and tests various hypotheses as to whether the perceived quality and relevance of a journal is affected by such factors as: (i) nature of research work (empiricists versus modelers), (ii) society membership, (iii) research productivity, (iv) geographical location, and (v) seniority. Our findings suggest that caution must be exercised when utilizing existing POM journal rankings, as some factors, particularly the difference between empiricists and modelers, may influence journal evaluation. These must be considered when addressing issues such as faculty promotions, tenure, and salary. © 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

The abstracts of the 5th UQ symposium on organisational psychology 4 June 2005 Emmanuel College, University of Queensland, organised and sponsored by the Centre for Organisational Psychology, University of Queensland

These abstracts form the collection of papers that were presented at the 5th UQ Symposium on Organisational Psychology held at Emmanuel College, University of Queensland, Brisbane, on Saturday 4th June, 2005. The UQ Symposium on Organisational Psychology is an annual event organised by the Centre for Organisational Psychology at the University of Queensland. The aim of the symposium is for academic psychologists to present their latest research to fellow academics and practitioners. Papers were accepted for either paper presentation or poster presentation following a peer-review process. The 75 delegates who attended consisted of practitioners and academics. The inter-state invited speakers were Professor John Cordery (University of Western Australia) and Dr Leisa Sargent (University of Melbourne). The inter-state student speaker was Michelle Pizer (Deakin University). For more information about the UQ Symposium on Organisational Psychology series please contact Robin Martin (r.martin@psy.uq.edu.au).

Content-based VLE designs improve learning efficiency in constructivist statistics education

Background: We introduced a series of computer-supported workshops in our undergraduate statistics courses, in the hope that it would help students to gain a deeper understanding of statistical concepts. This raised questions about the appropriate design of the Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) in which such an approach had to be implemented. Therefore, we investigated two competing software design models for VLEs. In the first system, all learning features were a function of the classical VLE. The second system was designed from the perspective that learning features should be a function of the course's core content (statistical analyses), which required us to develop a specific-purpose Statistical Learning Environment (SLE) based on Reproducible Computing and newly developed Peer Review (PR) technology. Objectives: The main research question is whether the second VLE design improved learning efficiency as compared to the standard type of VLE design that is commonly used in education. As a secondary objective we provide empirical evidence about the usefulness of PR as a constructivist learning activity which supports non-rote learning. Finally, this paper illustrates that it is possible to introduce a constructivist learning approach in large student populations, based on adequately designed educational technology, without subsuming educational content to technological convenience. Methods: Both VLE systems were tested within a two-year quasi-experiment based on a Reliable Nonequivalent Group Design. This approach allowed us to draw valid conclusions about the treatment effect of the changed VLE design, even though the systems were implemented in successive years. The methodological aspects about the experiment's internal validity are explained extensively. Results: The effect of the design change is shown to have substantially increased the efficiency of constructivist, computer-assisted learning activities for all cohorts of the student population under investigation. The findings demonstrate that a content-based design outperforms the traditional VLE-based design. © 2011 Wessa et al.

Does reviewing lead to better learning and decision making? Answers from a randomized stock market experiment

Background - The literature is not univocal about the effects of Peer Review (PR) within the context of constructivist learning. Due to the predominant focus on using PR as an assessment tool, rather than a constructivist learning activity, and because most studies implicitly assume that the benefits of PR are limited to the reviewee, little is known about the effects upon students who are required to review their peers. Much of the theoretical debate in the literature is focused on explaining how and why constructivist learning is beneficial. At the same time these discussions are marked by an underlying presupposition of a causal relationship between reviewing and deep learning. Objectives - The purpose of the study is to investigate whether the writing of PR feedback causes students to benefit in terms of: perceived utility about statistics, actual use of statistics, better understanding of statistical concepts and associated methods, changed attitudes towards market risks, and outcomes of decisions that were made. Methods - We conducted a randomized experiment, assigning students randomly to receive PR or non–PR treatments and used two cohorts with a different time span. The paper discusses the experimental design and all the software components that we used to support the learning process: Reproducible Computing technology which allows students to reproduce or re–use statistical results from peers, Collaborative PR, and an AI–enhanced Stock Market Engine. Results - The results establish that the writing of PR feedback messages causes students to experience benefits in terms of Behavior, Non–Rote Learning, and Attitudes, provided the sequence of PR activities are maintained for a period that is sufficiently long.

Benefits from competition:some illustrative UK cases

This study provides a powerful demonstration of the real world impact of increasedcompetition. By presenting six market case studies drawn from a variety of sectors itgives evidence of the type and magnitude of the benefits following marketinterventions to develop competition and free up the operation of these sectors. In discussing the types and form such interventions take, whether competition policy,deregulation or liberalisation, this report explores market conditions before and afterintervention, paying careful attention to both the envisaged benefits and the potentialfor negative side effects. Overall, the evidence suggests these benefits materialised,and in a number of instances proved more sizeable than anticipated. Concerns aboutharmful side effects have proved unfounded, with market stimuli impacting not only onthe price and range of goods available but also acting as a motivating force to productand process innovation. As Professor Davies points out, although active competition policy proves an importantcomponent in the competitive process, it is not sufficient in its own right. In order todeliver greater productivity, of which competition is a key driver, the UK needs a pool of resourceful entrepreneurs able to exploit changing market conditions. In order togive these people the best chance of success the framework conditions need to becorrect with strength in the complementary capabilities of innovation, investment, skillsand enterprise. Ensuring the competition framework is world class is central to the DTI’s strategy. The most recent peer review of the UK competition regime demonstrates that the UK isa strong performer, ranked third in the 2004 study, with the US first and Germanysecond. This study provides further evidence of the important role played by thatframework in delivering tangible benefits to consumers.

The abstracts of the 4th UQ symposium on organisational psychology

These abstracts form the collection of papers that were presented at the 4th UQ Symposium on Organisational Psychology held at Emmanuel College, University of Queensland, Brisbane on Saturday 24th July, 2004. The UQ Symposium on Organisational Psychology is an annual even organised by the Centre for Organisational Psychology at the University of Queensland. The aim of the symposium is for academic psychologists to present their latest research to fellow academics and practitioners. Papers were accepted for either paper presentation or poster presentation following a peer-review process. The 100 delegates who attended consisted of practitioners and academics. The invited speaker was Dr Sally Carless (Monash University, Melbourne) who presented her latest research on selection procedures. The 5th Symposium will take place on Saturday 4th June, 2005. For more information about the UQ Symposium on Organisational Psychology series please contact Robin Martin

Taming the TAME systems

This volume on TAME systems (Tense-aspect-mood-evidentiality) stems from the 10th Chronos conference that took place in Aston University (Birmingham, UK) on 18th-20th April 2011. The papers collated here are therefore a chosen selection from a stringent peer-review process. They also witness to the width and breadth of the interests pursued within the Chronos community. Besides the traditional Western European languages, this volume explores languages from Eastern Europe (Greek, Romanian, Russian) and much further afield such as Brazilian Portuguese, Korean or Mandarin Chinese. Little known languages from the Amazonian forest (Amondawa, Baure) or the Andes (Aymara) also come under scrutiny.

Presentation

This volume on TAME systems (Tense-aspect-mood-evidentiality) stems from the 10th Chronos conference that took place in Aston University (Birmingham, UK) on 18th-20th April 2011. The papers collated here are therefore a chosen selection from a stringent peer-review process. They also witness to the width and breadth of the interests pursued within the Chronos community. Besides the traditional Western European languages, this volume explores languages from Eastern Europe (Greek, Romanian, Russian) and much further afield such as Brazilian Portuguese, Korean or Mandarin Chinese. Little known languages from the Amazonian forest (Amondawa, Baure) or the Andes (Aymara) also come under scrutiny.

A critical evaluation of the volume, relevance and quality of evidence submitted by the tobacco industry to oppose standardised packaging of tobacco products

OBJECTIVES: To examine the volume, relevance and quality of transnational tobacco corporations' (TTCs) evidence that standardised packaging of tobacco products 'won't work', following the UK government's decision to 'wait and see' until further evidence is available. DESIGN: Content analysis. SETTING: We analysed the evidence cited in submissions by the UK's four largest TTCs to the UK Department of Health consultation on standardised packaging in 2012. OUTCOME MEASURES: The volume, relevance (subject matter) and quality (as measured by independence from industry and peer-review) of evidence cited by TTCs was compared with evidence from a systematic review of standardised packaging . Fisher's exact test was used to assess differences in the quality of TTC and systematic review evidence. 100% of the data were second-coded to validate the findings: 94.7% intercoder reliability; all differences were resolved. RESULTS: 77/143 pieces of TTC-cited evidence were used to promote their claim that standardised packaging 'won't work'. Of these, just 17/77 addressed standardised packaging: 14 were industry connected and none were published in peer-reviewed journals. Comparison of TTC and systematic review evidence on standardised packaging showed that the industry evidence was of significantly lower quality in terms of tobacco industry connections and peer-review (p<0.0001). The most relevant TTC evidence (on standardised packaging or packaging generally, n=26) was of significantly lower quality (p<0.0001) than the least relevant (on other topics, n=51). Across the dataset, TTC-connected evidence was significantly less likely to be published in a peer-reviewed journal (p=0.0045). CONCLUSIONS: With few exceptions, evidence cited by TTCs to promote their claim that standardised packaging 'won't work' lacks either policy relevance or key indicators of quality. Policymakers could use these three criteria-subject matter, independence and peer-review status-to critically assess evidence submitted to them by corporate interests via Better Regulation processes.

Free to publish - free to read

Full Text: August 2001 saw the birth of the British Journal of Diabetes & Vascular Disease (Figure 1): an open-access peer review journal.1 Free to publish and free to read. The founding editorial board and publisher (MediNews Diabetes) aimed to deliver a free journal to the diabetes team and vascular professionals with a special interest in diabetes. Despite the shifting sands of time and a change of publisher (SAGE) the journal has remained true to its founding philosophy - publication is on merit, not on ability to pay and free online access remains available worldwide (www.bjdvd.com) plus an extensive – mainly UK - print circulation. Evolution- The journal attracted much attention and was soon receiving good quality experimental and clinical science manuscripts. However it was felt that these articles, especially experimental and pre-clinical studies, were not within the focus of the British Journal of Diabetes & Vascular Disease, thus Diabetes & Vascular Disease Research was conceived –and is now also a SAGE journal and has an impact factor of 2.59. Over the years the organisation of topics has changed, for example the Healthcare management, The diabetes care team and Trans-cultural medicine sections have been absorbed into the Achieving Best Practice and Current Topics sections which better reflect the broader-based content of submitted material. Landmark Studies was a regular highly popular section – but how many truly Landmark Studies are undertaken? Not enough to warrant special attention 6 times a year for 12 years. Interestingly one of the studies reviewed is consistently amongst the top ten of our most read online articles.2 The British Journal of Diabetes & Vascular Disease has also challenged convention with the production of two Jubilee issues.3,4 The celebrations for the golden and diamond jubilees of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II afforded opportunities to reflect on changes in the understanding and treatment of diabetes during her reign. Most of the articles in these issues were written by authors who had first hand experience of the changing face of diabetes and vascular disease care. The increased costs of print and post – both financially and environmentally mean that digital communications are likely to become more popular (assuming that these approaches have a smaller ecological footprint). The British Journal of Diabetes & Vascular Disease is pleased to be able to celebrate its 12th birthday as an original open-access journal, with an ongoing commitment to support authors to publish free of charge whilst providing free reader access. As for what the future holds: tomorrow is another day. References 1.British Journal of Diabetes & Vascular Disease 2001; 1: 1-92. 2.Levy J. Impotence and its medical and psychosocial correlates: results of the Massachusetts Male Aging Study. Br J Diabetes Vasc Dis 2002; 2: 278-80. 3.British Journal of Diabetes & Vascular Disease. (Golden Jubilee Issue) 2002; 2: 415-480. 4.British Journal of Diabetes & Vascular Disease. (Diamond Jubilee Issue) 2012; 12: 266-380.

The science of writing an article – or is it art?

Getting your work published is an important aim for anyone undertaking research. This paper described how to prepare your work for peer review. Some recommendations are detailed i.e ensure yourself that your work is of good quality, decide is which journal you want to submit it to, follow the required style and be structured. Finally, a few tips and the reviewer's checklist are reminded.

Misrepresentations and flawed logic about the prevalence of false memories

Brewin and Andrews (2016) propose that just 15% of people, or even fewer, are susceptible to false childhood memories. If this figure were true, then false memories would still be a serious problem. But the figure is higher than 15%. False memories occur even after a few short and low-pressure interviews, and with each successive interview they become richer, more compelling, and more likely to occur. It is therefore dangerously misleading to claim that the scientific data provide an “upper bound” on susceptibility to memory errors. We also raise concerns about the peer review process.

International flavours

It is an Olympic year and we have just witnessed the fantastic games hosted by Rio de Janeiro. Well done to team USA for winning the most medals overall but also well done to so many other nations and individuals who performed so well or were ambassadors in other ways. Teenage swimmer Yusra Mardini who swam for the refugee team and South Africa's Wayde van Niekerk who broke the longstanding 400 m record of Michael Johnson that has stood since 1999. Of course, we must mention sprinter Usain Bolt and swimmer Michael Phelps, who have now transcended superstar status and entered a new level of icon. My personal highlight was the sportsmanship witnessed in the 5000 m when American Abbey D’Agostino was accidentally felled by New Zealand runner Nikki Hamblin. D’Agostino helped Hamblin back to her feet but slumped to the track after realising her own injury. Hamblin helped her up and stayed with her so that both completed the race. The International Olympic Committee has awarded both with the prestigious Pierre de Coubertin award, also known as the International Fair Play Trophy. Fair play is of paramount importance in publishing in peer-reviewed papers. At CLAE we try and maintain, as do other journals, this by ensuring double blind peer review and allowing authors to select the most appropriate handling editor for their submission. Our handling editors are placed across the world (2 in Europe, 1 in the Americas, 1 in Australia and 1 in Asia) and part of their role is to encourage submissions from their region. Over the last decade we certainly have seen more and more papers from places that haven’t previously published in CLAE. In this issue of CLAE we have a true international blend of papers. We have papers from authors from the UK, USA, Iran, Jordan, France, Poland, Turkey, Nigeria, France, Spain and Brazil. I think it's a testament to the continued success of the journal that we are attracting new writers from so many parts of the world and retain papers from more established authors and research centres. We do continue to attract many weaker papers that are rejected early in the review process. Often these will be unexceptional case reports or papers describing a surgical technique. Case reports are published but only those that offer something original and especially those with interesting photographs. In this issue you will see Professor James Wolffsohn (UK) has an interesting paper around a lot of the focus of his recent research activity into clinical evaluation of methods of correcting presbyopia. In this paper he highlights predictors to aid success of presbyopic contact lenses. If you have been involved in any clinical work or research in the field of dry eye disease then you will know well the CLDEQ (Contact Lens Dry Eye Questionnaire) devised by Robin Chalmers and her colleagues (USA). This issue of CLAE details the latest research using the CLDEQ-8 (the 8 item version of the CLDEQ). The Shahroud Eye Cohort Study has produced many papers already and in this issue we see Fotouhi Akbar (Iran) looking at changes in central and peripheral corneal thickness over a five year period. These days we use a lot of new instrumentation, such as optical low-coherence reflectometry. In this issue Emre Güler (Turkey) compares that to a new optical biometry unit. Dry eye is more common and in this issue we see a study by Oluyemi Fasina (Nigeria) to investigate the disease in adults in South-West Nigeria. The TearLab™ is now commonly used to investigate osmolarity and Dorota Szczesna-Iskander (Poland) looks at measurement variability of this device. Following the theme of dry eyes and tear testing Renaud Laballe (France) looks at the use of scleral lenses as a reservoir-based ocular therapeutic system. In this issue we have a couple of papers looking at different aspects of keratoconus. Magdalena Popiela (UK) looks at demographics of older keratoconic patients in Wales, Faik Orucoglu (Turkey) reports a novel scoring system for distinguishing keratoconus from normal eyes, Gonzalo Carracedo (Spain) reports the effect of rigid gas permeable lens wear on dry eye in keratoconus and Hatice Nur Colak (Turkey) compares topographic and aberrations in keratoconus. Other interesting papers you will find are Mera Haddad (Jordan) investigates contact lens prescribing in Jordan, Camilla Fraga Amaral (Brazil) offers a report on the use of ocular prosthetics, Naveed Ahmed Khan (Malaysia) reports of the use of dimethyl sulfoxide in contact lens disinfectant and Michael Killpartrick (UK) offers a short piece with some useful advice on contamination risk factors that may occur from the posterior surface of disposable lenses. So for this issue I would say that the Gold Medal for biggest contribution in terms of papers has to go to Turkey. I could have awarded it to the UK too, but Turkey has three full papers and the UK has two plus one short communication. Turkey is also one of the countries that has shown the largest increase in submissions over the last decade. Finally, welcome aboard to our newest Editorial Board Member Nicole Carnt from Australia. Nicole has been an active researcher for many years and acted as a reviewer for CLAE many times in the past. We look forward to working with you.

Peer mentoring in higher education:a literature review

A review of the literature in the area of peer mentoring.

Why are health care interventions delivered over the internet? A systematic review of the published literature

Background: As Internet use grows, health interventions are increasingly being delivered online. Pioneering researchers are using the networking potential of the Internet, and several of them have evaluated these interventions. Objective: The objective was to review the reasons why health interventions have been delivered on the Internet and to reflect on the work of the pioneers in this field in order to inform future research. Methods: We conducted a qualitative systematic review of peer-reviewed evaluations of health interventions delivered to a known client/patient group using networked features of the Internet. Papers were reviewed for the reasons given for using the Internet, and these reasons were categorized. Results: We included studies evaluating 28 interventions plus 9 interventions that were evaluated in pilot studies. The interventions were aimed at a range of health conditions. Reasons for Internet delivery included low cost and resource implications due to the nature of the technology; reducing cost and increasing convenience for users; reduction of health service costs; overcoming isolation of users; the need for timely information; stigma reduction; and increased user and supplier control of the intervention. A small number of studies gave the existence of Internet interventions as the only reason for undertaking an evaluation of this mode of delivery. Conclusions: One must remain alert for the unintended effects of Internet delivery of health interventions due to the potential for reinforcing the problems that the intervention was designed to help. Internet delivery overcomes isolation of time, mobility, and geography, but it may not be a substitute for face-to-face contact. Future evaluations need to incorporate the evaluation of cost, not only to the health service but also to users and their social networks. When researchers report the outcomes of Internet-delivered health care interventions, it is important that they clearly state why they chose to use the Internet, preferably backing up their decision with theoretical models and exploratory work. Evaluation of the effectiveness of a health care intervention delivered by the Internet needs to include comparison with more traditional modes of delivery to answer the following question: What are the added benefits or disadvantages of Internet use that are particular to this mode of delivery? © Griffiths, Frances, Lindenmeyer, Antje, Powell, John, Thorogood, Margaret.