Effective Performance Evaluations For Generation X and Generation Y Employees

This Capstone focuses on the overview of generic performance evaluation process, characteristics of Generation X and Y employees in a workplace, first and second-hand research in the area of Effective Performance Evaluations for Generation X and Y employees, and recommends different approaches to performance evaluations for Generation X and Y employees to increase its effectiveness.

Event ordering through temporal expression resolution

In this paper a multilingual method for event ordering based on temporal expression resolution is presented. This method has been implemented through the TERSEO system which consists of three main units: temporal expression recognizing, resolution of the coreference introduced by these expressions, and event ordering. By means of this system, chronological information related to events can be extracted from documental databases. This information is automatically added to the documental database in order to allow its use by question answering systems in those cases referring to temporality. The system has been evaluated obtaining results of 91 % precision and 71 % recall. For this, a blind evaluation process has been developed guaranteing a reliable annotation process that was measured through the kappa factor.

Software de gestão pedagógica e administrativa para as escolas

Trabalho de Projeto apresentado à Escola Superior de Tecnologia do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco para cumprimento dos requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Desenvolvimento de Software e Sistemas Interactivos, realizada sob a orientação científica do Professor Doutor José Carlos Metrôlho, do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco.

Inspeção-Geral da Educação e Ciência e Avaliação das Escolas : o caso da autoavaliação de um agrupamento de escolas : um olhar a partir de quem avalia e de quem é avaliado

Relatório de estágio de mestrado, Educação (Área de especialidade em Administração Educacional), Universidade de Lisboa, Instituto de Educação, 2016

Processos e práticas de avaliação de centros novas oportunidades: o caso do CNO da escola secundária Gabriel Pereira

A presente investigação assentou na temática da Educação e Formação de Adultos, nomeadamente no processo de Reconhecimento, Validação e Certificação de Competências. Sob a configuração metodológica de um estudo de caso, teve como objeto de estudo o Centro Novas Oportunidades da Escola Secundária Gabriel Pereira. Neste trabalho de investigação procurou-se não só analisar os resultados em matéria de satisfação pessoal e profissional, decorrentes da realização de um processo de RVCC, manifestados pelos diferentes intervenientes (adultos certificados, famílias e entidades empregadoras de adultos certificados e equipa técnico-pedagógica) como também, compreender até que ponto a avaliação do processo permite consubstanciar esses mesmos resultados. Ao longo de toda a pesquisa foi definida uma estratégia metodológica que permitiu combinar uma variedade de métodos, incluindo técnicas de natureza quantitativa e qualitativa. Com o desenvolvimento desta investigação foi possível concluir que os resultados alcançados pelos adultos certificados são, do ponto de vista dos diferentes participantes, mais positivos no domínio da satisfação pessoal comparativamente à dimensão profissional, corroborando, aliás, outros estudos dirigidos à mesma problemática.

Utility of the Social Responsiveness Scale- Parent Report (SRS-Parent) as a Diagnostic Tool for Autism Identification

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2016-06

O IMPACTO DA TECNOLOGIA DA INFORMAÇÃO NA SATISFAÇÃO DAS PESSOAS EM EMPRESAS PÚBLICAS: O CASO DE UMA EMPRESA MUNICIPAL PRESTADORA DE SERVIÇOS DE SANEAMENTO AMBIENTAL NA REGIÃO DO GRANDE ABC

O principal objetivo deste estudo foi identificar e analisar qual o impacto da tecnologia da informação (TI) na satisfação das pessoas em uma empresa pública. Este estudo pretendeu abordar o assunto de forma a concentrar-se na investigação, com um estudo de caso em uma empresa pública de saneamento ambiental da região do grande ABC paulista, o SEMASA, com o intuito de avaliar as mudanças nas rotinas operacionais dos diversos departamentos da empresa e o impacto causado pela TI na satisfação das pessoas envolvidas. Com base na literatura sobre trabalho e sociedade na era da globalização e empresas públicas, foram analisados inicialmente os motivos que podem contribuir para as pessoas buscarem ingressar na carreira pública. Esse estudo verificou a importância da adoção de ferramentas de tecnologia nos processos produtivos e na prestação de serviços das organizações. Verificou também, que estimular os funcionários de empresas públicas a criarem mecanismos para facilitarem seus trabalhos, através de ferramentas de TI atualizadas, pode ser benéfico, ao mesmo tempo em que pode proporcionar condições destes adquirirem novas capacitações profissionais com a aquisição de novos conhecimentos tecnológicos. Os resultados obtidos apontaram para um significativo aumento na satisfação das pessoas envolvidas sendo estas estimuladas a estarem em constante aperfeiçoamento, através da realização de novos treinamentos e cursos de tecnologia.(AU)

AVALIAÇÃO EM MATEMÁTICA NA EDUCAÇÃO BÁSICA, DO ESTADO DE SÃO PAULO: PONTOS DE VISTA DOS SUJEITOS ENVOLVIDOS

Este trabalho tem por objetivo levantar e analisar algumas concepções sobre a avaliação escolar em Matemática e sobre a Avaliação em Matemática do Sistema de Avaliação de Rendimento Escolar do Estado de São Paulo (SARESP), procurando desvendar a realidade que é encontrada nas escolas paulistas referente à avaliação dessa disciplina. O intuito é verificar os pontos de vista dos alunos, professores, gestores escolares, família e especialistas para articular uma organização escolar que desenvolva um processo permanente de construção do conhecimento. Para verificar quais as concepções referentes às avaliações já citadas foram adotadas entrevistas, questionários e desenhos realizados pelos alunos, mostrando o que pensam sobre as avaliações previamente aplicadas. As entrevistas somente foram aplicadas aos discentes, pois seus depoimentos são fundamentais para a pesquisa. Para a concretização destas entrevistas foi solicitado aos alunos à produção de desenhos que representassem o que são as avaliações já mencionadas anteriormente. Levantamos uma grande quantidade de informações a partir desses depoimentos e desenhos sobre as avaliações pesquisadas, a opinião que possuem sobre a escola, seus professores de Matemática, de como são ministradas as aulas e também sobre a forma de avaliar dos professores. Os questionários foram dirigidos ao corpo docente de Matemática, diretor, vice-diretor, professor coordenador, supervisor de ensino, família e especialistas em Educação, Psicologia da Educação e Matemática para verificar também sua concepção sobre avaliação escolar em Matemática e sobre a prova de Matemática do SARESP, que fazem parte fundamental de todo o processo de avaliação, pois, direta ou indiretamente, estão ligados a ela e são responsáveis pelos seus resultados. Na análise dos dados obtidos foram destacados, nos depoimentos dos questionários e das entrevistas, as,unidades significativas referentes aos processos de avaliações pesquisadas, para com isso analisarmos e verificarmos quais são as opiniões e fatos que podem ajudar ou atrapalhar todo o processo de Avaliação em Matemática, tanto o escolar quanto o de grande escala como o SARESP. Também foram analisados o que os alunos representaram na produção dos desenhos. As imagens adquiridas demonstraram muitas informações sobre o que os discentes pensam sobre a Avaliação em Matemática ao desenhar monstros, corações, números e até mesmo pontos de exclamação e de interrogação. Este estudo foi desenvolvido em uma escola pública da rede Estadual de ensino do Estado de São Paulo. Essa pesquisa investiga o que realmente está acontecendo em todo o processo de Avaliação em Matemática, possibilitando identificar no que cada sujeito envolvido neste processo pode contribuir ou atrapalhar para sua concretização, evidenciando assim áreas críticas efavoráveis sobre a tão temida e polêmica Avaliação em Matemática.

IMPACTO DE FATORES PSICOSSOCIAIS SOBRE O DESEMPENHO: UM ESTUDO COM TUTORES EM EAD

Considerando a acelerada expansão da Educação a Distância (EaD) no Brasil e os desafios que ainda enfrenta, torna-se importante dedicar um olhar cuidadoso sobre as questões envolvidas. Do ponto de vista da Psicologia, o foco no indivíduo que trabalha com EaD é fundamental. Neste contexto, destaca-se o trabalho do tutor, um recorte deste complexo mundo do trabalho em EaD, alvo deste estudo. O desempenho profissional do tutor depende de fatores tecnológicos, ambientais e psicossociais. Neste este estudo, o objetivo foi verificar o impacto que as crenças de autoeficácia no trabalho, a percepção de suporte social e o engajamento no trabalho exercem sobre o desempenho de tutores de disciplinas oferecidas a distância. A pesquisa teve caráter transversal e foi desenvolvida em uma universidade brasileira com sede no Estado de São Paulo. Os 227 tutores participantes atuavam em diferentes localidades do Brasil; 62% eram mulheres, 65% casados, 66% possuíam idades entre 25 e 45 anos e 97% cursou pelo menos especialização. A coleta dos dados foi realizada por meio eletrônico. Foram aplicadas escalas válidas e confiáveis de autoeficácia, engajamento e percepção de suporte social no trabalho, além de um questionário de dados sociodemográficos. Foi ainda realizada pesquisa documental para levantar informações sobre desempenho. Cálculos de médias, desvios-padrão, medianas e quartis revelaram que os tutores possuem bons níveis de autoeficácia, engajamento no trabalho e desempenho. Mais de 75% deles percebem ter acesso a informações suficientes e importantes, bem como contar com relacionamentos confiáveis e afetivos no trabalho, enquanto metade percebe dispor de bons insumos materiais, financeiros, técnicos e gerenciais. Resultados de análises de variância revelaram não haver diferenças entre desempenho de grupos que exercem outras atividades profissionais além da tutoria e os que não exercem, nem entre grupos que possuem e não possuem formação específica para atuar em tutoria em EaD. Resultados de regressões lineares múltiplas revelaram que as crenças de autoeficácia no trabalho, a percepção de suporte social e o engajamento no trabalho não explicam significantemente a variância do desempenho de tutores. Os resultados foram discutidos, sustentados principalmente na pequena variabilidade das notas de desempenho, considerando que 98,8% dos tutores obtiveram pontuação superior à média do instrumento de avaliação utilizado pela instituição, o que pode revelar dificuldades no processo de avaliação ou problemas relativos à validade do instrumento. Discutiram-se, além disso, questões relacionadas ao desempenho humano, como fenômeno complexo e multidimensional, buscando abordar o papel das variáveis do estudo em sua determinação, à luz da literatura especializada. Ao final, foram apresentadas implicações metodológicas, teóricas e práticas, bem como limitações do estudo e agenda de pesquisa.

The use of counterfactual scenarios as a means to assess policy deadweight:an Irish case study

The evaluation of industrial policy interventions has attracted increasing policy and academic attention in recent years. Despite the widespread consensus regarding the need for evaluation, the issue of how to evaluate, and the associated methodological considerations, continue to be issues of considerable debate. The authors develop an approach to estimate the net additionality of financial assistance from Enterprise Ireland to indigenously owned firms in Ireland for the period 2000 to 2002. With a sample of Enterprise Ireland assisted firms, an innovative, self-assessment, in-depth, face-to-face, interview methodology was adopted. The authors also explore a way of incorporating the indirect benefits of assistance into derived deadweight estimate issue which is seldom discussed in the context of deadweight estimates. They conclude by reflecting on the key methodological lessons learned from the evaluation process, and highlight some pertinent evaluation issues which should form the focus of much future discussion in this field of research.

Word of mouth communication within online communities:conceptualizing the online social network

Word of mouth (WOM) communication is a major part of online consumer interactions, particularly within the environment of online communities. Nevertheless, existing (offline) theory may be inappropriate to describe online WOM and its influence on evaluation and purchase.The authors report the results of a two-stage study aimed at investigating online WOM: a set of in-depth qualitative interviews followed by a social network analysis of a single online community. Combined, the results provide strong evidence that individuals behave as if Web sites themselves are primary "actors" in online social networks and that online communities can act as a social proxy for individual identification. The authors offer a conceptualization of online social networks which takes the Web site into account as an actor, an initial exploration of the concept of a consumer-Web site relationship, and a conceptual model of the online interaction and information evaluation process. © 2007 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and Direct Marketing Educational Foundation, Inc.

The experience of delivering case award research in a public sector setting

The CASE Award PhD is a relatively new approach to completing academic research degrees, aligning the ideals of comprehensive research training and cross-collaboration between academics and organisations. As the initial wave of CASE funded PhD research begins to near completion, and indeed become evident through the publication of results, now is an appropriate time to begin the evaluation process of how to successfully deliver a CASE PhD, and to analyse the best practice approaches of completing a CASE Award with an organisation. This article intends to offer a picture into the CASE PhD process, with a focus on methods of communication to successfully implement this kind of research in collaboration with an organisation.

Uses of frontier efficiency methodologies and multi-criteria decision making for performance measurement in the energy sector

Guest editorial Ali Emrouznejad is a Senior Lecturer at the Aston Business School in Birmingham, UK. His areas of research interest include performance measurement and management, efficiency and productivity analysis as well as data mining. He has published widely in various international journals. He is an Associate Editor of IMA Journal of Management Mathematics and Guest Editor to several special issues of journals including Journal of Operational Research Society, Annals of Operations Research, Journal of Medical Systems, and International Journal of Energy Management Sector. He is in the editorial board of several international journals and co-founder of Performance Improvement Management Software. William Ho is a Senior Lecturer at the Aston University Business School. Before joining Aston in 2005, he had worked as a Research Associate in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research interests include supply chain management, production and operations management, and operations research. He has published extensively in various international journals like Computers & Operations Research, Engineering Applications of Artificial Intelligence, European Journal of Operational Research, Expert Systems with Applications, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Production Research, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, and so on. His first authored book was published in 2006. He is an Editorial Board member of the International Journal of Advanced Manufacturing Technology and an Associate Editor of the OR Insight Journal. Currently, he is a Scholar of the Advanced Institute of Management Research. Uses of frontier efficiency methodologies and multi-criteria decision making for performance measurement in the energy sector This special issue aims to focus on holistic, applied research on performance measurement in energy sector management and for publication of relevant applied research to bridge the gap between industry and academia. After a rigorous refereeing process, seven papers were included in this special issue. The volume opens with five data envelopment analysis (DEA)-based papers. Wu et al. apply the DEA-based Malmquist index to evaluate the changes in relative efficiency and the total factor productivity of coal-fired electricity generation of 30 Chinese administrative regions from 1999 to 2007. Factors considered in the model include fuel consumption, labor, capital, sulphur dioxide emissions, and electricity generated. The authors reveal that the east provinces were relatively and technically more efficient, whereas the west provinces had the highest growth rate in the period studied. Ioannis E. Tsolas applies the DEA approach to assess the performance of Greek fossil fuel-fired power stations taking undesirable outputs into consideration, such as carbon dioxide and sulphur dioxide emissions. In addition, the bootstrapping approach is deployed to address the uncertainty surrounding DEA point estimates, and provide bias-corrected estimations and confidence intervals for the point estimates. The author revealed from the sample that the non-lignite-fired stations are on an average more efficient than the lignite-fired stations. Maethee Mekaroonreung and Andrew L. Johnson compare the relative performance of three DEA-based measures, which estimate production frontiers and evaluate the relative efficiency of 113 US petroleum refineries while considering undesirable outputs. Three inputs (capital, energy consumption, and crude oil consumption), two desirable outputs (gasoline and distillate generation), and an undesirable output (toxic release) are considered in the DEA models. The authors discover that refineries in the Rocky Mountain region performed the best, and about 60 percent of oil refineries in the sample could improve their efficiencies further. H. Omrani, A. Azadeh, S. F. Ghaderi, and S. Abdollahzadeh presented an integrated approach, combining DEA, corrected ordinary least squares (COLS), and principal component analysis (PCA) methods, to calculate the relative efficiency scores of 26 Iranian electricity distribution units from 2003 to 2006. Specifically, both DEA and COLS are used to check three internal consistency conditions, whereas PCA is used to verify and validate the final ranking results of either DEA (consistency) or DEA-COLS (non-consistency). Three inputs (network length, transformer capacity, and number of employees) and two outputs (number of customers and total electricity sales) are considered in the model. Virendra Ajodhia applied three DEA-based models to evaluate the relative performance of 20 electricity distribution firms from the UK and the Netherlands. The first model is a traditional DEA model for analyzing cost-only efficiency. The second model includes (inverse) quality by modelling total customer minutes lost as an input data. The third model is based on the idea of using total social costs, including the firm’s private costs and the interruption costs incurred by consumers, as an input. Both energy-delivered and number of consumers are treated as the outputs in the models. After five DEA papers, Stelios Grafakos, Alexandros Flamos, Vlasis Oikonomou, and D. Zevgolis presented a multiple criteria analysis weighting approach to evaluate the energy and climate policy. The proposed approach is akin to the analytic hierarchy process, which consists of pairwise comparisons, consistency verification, and criteria prioritization. In the approach, stakeholders and experts in the energy policy field are incorporated in the evaluation process by providing an interactive mean with verbal, numerical, and visual representation of their preferences. A total of 14 evaluation criteria were considered and classified into four objectives, such as climate change mitigation, energy effectiveness, socioeconomic, and competitiveness and technology. Finally, Borge Hess applied the stochastic frontier analysis approach to analyze the impact of various business strategies, including acquisition, holding structures, and joint ventures, on a firm’s efficiency within a sample of 47 natural gas transmission pipelines in the USA from 1996 to 2005. The author finds that there were no significant changes in the firm’s efficiency by an acquisition, and there is a weak evidence for efficiency improvements caused by the new shareholder. Besides, the author discovers that parent companies appear not to influence a subsidiary’s efficiency positively. In addition, the analysis shows a negative impact of a joint venture on technical efficiency of the pipeline company. To conclude, we are grateful to all the authors for their contribution, and all the reviewers for their constructive comments, which made this special issue possible. We hope that this issue would contribute significantly to performance improvement of the energy sector.

Interval data without sign restrictions in DEA

Conventional DEA models assume deterministic, precise and non-negative data for input and output observations. However, real applications may be characterized by observations that are given in form of intervals and include negative numbers. For instance, the consumption of electricity in decentralized energy resources may be either negative or positive, depending on the heat consumption. Likewise, the heat losses in distribution networks may be within a certain range, depending on e.g. external temperature and real-time outtake. Complementing earlier work separately addressing the two problems; interval data and negative data; we propose a comprehensive evaluation process for measuring the relative efficiencies of a set of DMUs in DEA. In our general formulation, the intervals may contain upper or lower bounds with different signs. The proposed method determines upper and lower bounds for the technical efficiency through the limits of the intervals after decomposition. Based on the interval scores, DMUs are then classified into three classes, namely, the strictly efficient, weakly efficient and inefficient. An intuitive ranking approach is presented for the respective classes. The approach is demonstrated through an application to the evaluation of bank branches. © 2013.

GEO Label:user and producer perspectives on a label for geospatial data

One of the aims of the Science and Technology Committee (STC) of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) was to establish a GEO Label- a label to certify geospatial datasets and their quality. As proposed, the GEO Label will be used as a value indicator for geospatial data and datasets accessible through the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). It is suggested that the development of such a label will significantly improve user recognition of the quality of geospatial datasets and that its use will help promote trust in datasets that carry the established GEO Label. Furthermore, the GEO Label is seen as an incentive to data providers. At the moment GEOSS contains a large amount of data and is constantly growing. Taking this into account, a GEO Label could assist in searching by providing users with visual cues of dataset quality and possibly relevance; a GEO Label could effectively stand as a decision support mechanism for dataset selection. Currently our project - GeoViQua, - together with EGIDA and ID-03 is undertaking research to define and evaluate the concept of a GEO Label. The development and evaluation process will be carried out in three phases. In phase I we have conducted an online survey (GEO Label Questionnaire) to identify the initial user and producer views on a GEO Label or its potential role. In phase II we will conduct a further study presenting some GEO Label examples that will be based on Phase I. We will elicit feedback on these examples under controlled conditions. In phase III we will create physical prototypes which will be used in a human subject study. The most successful prototypes will then be put forward as potential GEO Label options. At the moment we are in phase I, where we developed an online questionnaire to collect the initial GEO Label requirements and to identify the role that a GEO Label should serve from the user and producer standpoint. The GEO Label Questionnaire consists of generic questions to identify whether users and producers believe a GEO Label is relevant to geospatial data; whether they want a single "one-for-all" label or separate labels that will serve a particular role; the function that would be most relevant for a GEO Label to carry; and the functionality that users and producers would like to see from common rating and review systems they use. To distribute the questionnaire, relevant user and expert groups were contacted at meetings or by email. At this stage we successfully collected over 80 valid responses from geospatial data users and producers. This communication will provide a comprehensive analysis of the survey results, indicating to what extent the users surveyed in Phase I value a GEO Label, and suggesting in what directions a GEO Label may develop. Potential GEO Label examples based on the results of the survey will be presented for use in Phase II.