Applicability of non-modular assessment in construction management and allied undergraduate programmes:perspective of the academics involved

Undergraduate programmes on construction management and other closely related built environment disciplines are currently taught and assessed on a modular basis. This is the case in the UK and in many other countries globally. However, it can be argued that professionally oriented programmes like these are better assessed on a non-modular basis, in order to produce graduates who can apply knowledge on different subject contents in cohesion to solve complex practical scenarios in their work environments. The examples of medical programmes where students are assessed on a non-modular basis can be cited as areas where this is already being done. A preliminary study was undertaken to explore the applicability of non-modular assessment within construction management undergraduate education. A selected sample of university academics was interviewed to gather their perspectives on applicability of non-modular assessment. General acceptance was observed among the academics involved that integrating non-modular assessment is applicable and will be beneficial. All academics stated that at least some form of non-modular assessment as being currently used in their programmes. Examples where cross-modular knowledge is assessed included comprehensive/multi-disciplinary project modules and creating larger modules to amalgamate a number of related subject areas. As opposed to a complete shift from modular to non-modular, an approach where non-modular assessment is integrated and its use further expanded within the current system is therefore suggested. This is due to the potential benefits associated with this form of assessment to professionally aligned built environment programmes

Management and management education in a less developed economy: the case of Malawi

Malawi is seen as a society in transition, and as a consequence, it is argued, Malawian managers face particular problems where traditional and Western values intersect. The role of the Polytechnic of Malawi as a provider of management education in this environment is thus problematical. The thesis begins with a description of the Malawian business environment in its geographical, historical, political, cultural, economic and institutional forms, and then goes on to examine the problems practising managers themselves feel they face, and attempts to explain these problems in terms of the environmental factors described, and the environmental changes taking place. It is concluded, from the analysis conducted, that the environmental features discussed interact in a complex way to make Malawian managers averse to exercising initiative and taking decisions. The question of what the Polytechnic can do to help overcome this aversion is addressed. The field research was conducted in Malawi in the seven months January to July, 1980, during which time 207 questionnaires were administered to junior and middle managers working in all sectors of the economy at levels equivalent to Polytechnic graduate entry. In addition, a number of senior managers (both Malawian and expatriate) were interviewed, a case study was conducted in a manufacturing organisation, and a second questionnaire was administered to all business students at the Polytechnic. Extensive use of official statistics was also made where appropriate.

Education and self-management for people newly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes: a qualitative study of patients' views.

OObjectives: We explored the perceptions, views and experiences of diabetes education in people with type 2 diabetes who were participating in a UK randomized controlled trial of methods of education. The intervention arm of the trial was based on DESMOND, a structured programme of group education sessions aimed at enabling self-management of diabetes, while the standard arm was usual care from general practices. Methods: Individual semi-structured interviews were conducted with 36 adult patients, of whom 19 had attended DESMOND education sessions and 17 had been randomized to receive usual care. Data analysis was based on the constant comparative method. Results: Four principal orientations towards diabetes and its management were identified: `resisters', `identity resisters, consequence accepters', `identity accepters, consequence resisters' and `accepters'. Participants offered varying accounts of the degree of personal responsibility that needed to be assumed in response to the diagnosis. Preferences for different styles of education were also expressed, with many reporting that they enjoyed and benefited from group education, although some reported ambivalence or disappointment with their experiences of education. It was difficult to identify striking thematic differences between accounts of people on different arms of the trial, although there was some very tentative evidence that those who attended DESMOND were more accepting of a changed identity and its implications for their management of diabetes. Discussion: No one single approach to education is likely to suit all people newly diagnosed with diabetes, although structured group education may suit many. This paper identifies varying orientations and preferences of people with diabetes towards forms of both education and self-management, which should be taken into account when planning approaches to education.

"Ignorance was bliss, now I'm ignorant and that is far more difficult":transdisciplinary learning and reflexivity in responsible management education

Purpose – The collapse of world economic systems brought the interconnectedness between business and global events sharply into focus. As Starkey points out: “leading business schools need to overcome their fascination with a particular form of finance and economics […] to broaden their intellectual horizons […] (and to) look at the lessons of history and other disciplines”. The purpose of this paper is to provide evidence from three years of research on the Aston MBA suggesting that an emphasis on developing capabilities within a far broader, connected and reflexive business curriculum is what business students and practitioners now recognise as an essential way forward for responsible management education. Design/methodology/approach – This research paper examines the reflective accounts of 300 MBA students undertaking a transdisciplinary Business Ethics, Responsibility and Sustainability core module. Findings – As Klein argues, transdisciplinarity is simultaneously an attitude and a form of action. The student reflections provide powerful discourses of individual learning and report a range of outcomes from finding “the vocabulary or the confidence” to raise issues to acting as “change agents” in the workplace. Originality/value – As responsibility and sustainability requires learners, researchers and educators to engage with real world complexity, uncertainty and risk, conventional disciplinary study, especially within business, often proves inadequate and partial. This paper demonstrates that creative and exploratory frames need to be developed to facilitate the development of more connected knowledge – informed by multiple stakeholders, able to contribute heterogeneous skills, perspectives and expertise.

Responsible management education from across the pond:innovations and experiences in UK business schools

The session draws upon experiences highlighted within a series of ongoing CSR/sustainability teaching days organized through the British Academy of Management CSR Special Interest Group, designed to encourage UK schools to develop new innovative curricula and to engage with the UN PRME initiative. The panel will consist of representatives from UK universities all of which are at different stages of developing responsible management curricula and have adopted different approaches towards these challenges.

Is Bologna working? Employer and graduate reflections of the quality, value and relevance of business and management education in four European Union countries

This article focuses on the relevance of undergraduate business and management higher education from the perspectives of recent graduates and graduate employers in four European countries. Drawing upon the findings of an empirical qualitative study in which data was collated and analysed using grounded theory research techniques, the paper draws attention to graduates' and employers' perceptions of the value of higher education in equipping students with discipline-specific skills and knowledge as well as softer 'generic' skills. It also highlights the importance of formal 'work-based' learning within undergraduate curricula in providing students with the skills and experiences required by employers operating within a global workplace. © 2014 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

"We don't need no education" - Or do we? Management education and alumni adoption of strategy tools

Despite concerns about the relevance of management education, there is relatively little evidence about whether graduates use the management tools and concepts they are taught. We address this gap with evidence from a survey of business school alumni adoption of tools typically taught in strategic management courses. Our findings show that four educational characteristics-level of formal education, frequency of management training, specificity of strategic management education, and time elapsed since formal education-drive adoption of strategy tools. Specifically, features such as postgraduate over undergraduate qualifications and frequent exposure to management training predispose greater user of strategy tools. However, other factors, such as time elapsed since formal education, are not as great a predictor of variation in use. We conclude with a predictive model of the relative weight and importance of educational and demographic characteristics on strategy tool adoption and discuss our findings in light of the relevance debate. © The Author(s) 2013.

A cloud-based farm management system:architecture and implementation

Recent technological advances have paved the way for developing and offering advanced services for the stakeholders in the agricultural sector. A paradigm shift is underway from proprietary and monolithic tools to Internet-based, cloud hosted, open systems that will enable more effective collaboration between stakeholders. This new paradigm includes the technological support of application developers to create specialized services that will seamlessly interoperate, thus creating a sophisticated and customisable working environment for the end users. We present the implementation of an open architecture that instantiates such an approach, based on a set of domain independent software tools called "generic enablers" that have been developed in the context of the FI-WARE project. The implementation is used to validate a number of innovative concepts for the agricultural sector such as the notion of a services' market place and the system's adaptation to network failures. During the design and implementation phase, the system has been evaluated by end users, offering us valuable feedback. The results of the evaluation process validate the acceptance of such a system and the need of farmers to have access to sophisticated services at affordable prices. A summary of this evaluation process is also presented in this paper. © 2013 Elsevier B.V.

Knowledge management education:five Ws and one H

This panel will discuss key aspects of knowledge management (KM) education in response to challenges posed by the necessity to improve KM as a discipline and an established professional field. Through panelists' thought-provoking presentations and interactions with the audience, the discussion will address KM education from the starting why, what, who, where and when perspectives to the end result and understanding of how to approach KM education in the future.

Design and construction for traditional house building

This study is concerned with quality and productivity aspects of traditional house building. The research focuses on these issues by concentrating on the services and finishing stages of the building process. These are work stages which have not been fully investigated in previous productivity related studies. The primary objective of the research is to promote an integrated design and construction led approach to traditional house building based on an original concept of 'development cycles'. This process involves the following: site monitoring; the analysis of work operations; implementing design and construction changes founded on unique information collected during site monitoring; and subsequent re-monitoring to measure and assess Ihe effect of change. A volume house building firm has been involved in this applied research and has allowed access to its sites for production monitoring purposes. The firm also assisted in design detailing for a small group of 'experimental' production houses where various design and construction changes were implemented. Results from the collaborative research have shown certain quality and productivity improvements to be possible using this approach, albeit on a limited scale at this early experimental stage. The improvements have been possible because an improved activity sampling technique, developed for, and employed by the study, has been able to describe why many quality and productivity related problems occur during site building work. Experience derived from the research has shown the following attributes to be important: positive attitudes towards innovation; effective communication; careful planning and organisation; and good coordination and control at site level. These are all essential aspects of quality led management and determine to a large extent the overall success of this approach. Future work recommendations must include a more widespread use of innovative practices so that further design and construction modifications can be made. By doing this, productivity can be improved, cost savings made and better quality afforded.

Enhancing student learning experience through a novel electronic coursework assessment and feedback management system

Recent National Student Surveys revealed that many U.K. university students are dissatisfied with the timeliness and usefulness of the feedback received from their tutors. Ensuring timeliness in marking often results in a reduction in the quality of feedback. In Computer Science where learning relies on practising and learning from mistakes, feedback that pin-points errors and explains means of improvement is important to achieve a good student learning experience. Though suitable use of Information and Communication Technology should alleviate this problem, existing Virtual Learning Environments and e-Assessment applications such as Blackboard/WebCT, BOSS, MarkTool and GradeMark are inadequate to support a coursework assessment process that promotes timeliness and usefulness of feedback while maintaining consistency in marking involving multiple tutors. We have developed a novel Internet application, called eCAF, for facilitating an efficient and transparent coursework assessment and feedback process. The eCAF system supports detailed marking scheme editing and enables tutors to use such schemes to pin-point errors in students' work so as to provide helpful feedback efficiently. Tutors can also highlight areas in a submitted work and associate helpful feedback that clearly links to the identified mistakes and the respective marking criteria. In light of the results obtained from a recent trial of eCAF, we discuss how the key features of eCAF may facilitate an effective and efficient coursework assessment and feedback process.

Knowledge management and risk management

This article takes the perspective that risk knowledge and the activities related to RM practice can benefit from the implementation of KM processes and systems, to produce a better enterprise wide implementation of risk management. Both in the information systems discipline and elsewhere, there has been a trend towards greater integration and consolidation in the management of organizations. Some examples of this are: Enterprise Resource Planning (Stevens, 2003), Enterprise Architecture (Zachmann, 1996) and Enterprise Content Management (Smith & McKeen, 2003). Similarly, risk management is evolving into Enterprise Risk Management. KM’s importance in breaking down silos within an organization can help it to do so.

Discretion and control in education:the teacher as street-level bureaucrat

This article assesses the impact of education reform and the new public management (NPM) on the discretion of school teachers. The focal point of the study is Michael Lipsky's theory of discretion which casts public service professionals and others involved in service delivery as 'street-level bureaucrats' because their high degree of discretionary rule-making power enabled them to effectively make policy as well as implement it. The article considers the relationship between education reform and the NPM and focuses on the increased emphasis on skills-based teaching and changes in management and leadership in schools. The literature and survey of teachers demonstrate that discretion in the workplace has been eroded to such an extent due to a high degree of central regulation and local accountability as to question the applicability of Lipsky's model. The findings are based on the literature and a small survey undertaken by the author. © 2007 BELMAS.