A comparative analysis of major ERP lifecycle implementation, management and support issues in Queensland Government

This paper reports on a study of ERP lifecycle major issues from the perspectives of individuals with substantial and diverse involvement with SAP Financials in Queensland Government. A survey was conducted of 117 ERP system project participants in five closely related state government agencies. A modified Delphi technique identified, rationalized and weighed perceived major issues in ongoing ERP life cycle implementation, management and support. The five agencies each implemented SAP Financials simultaneously using a common implementation partner. The three survey rounds of the Delphi technique, together with coding and synthesizing procedures, resulted in a set of 10 major issue categories with 38 sub-issues. Relative scores of issue importance are compared across government agencies, roles (client vs implementation partner) and organizational levels (strategic, technical and operational). Study findings confirm the importance of this finer partitioning of the data, and distinctions identified reflect the circumstances of ERP lifecycle implementation, management and support among the stakeholder groups. The study findings should also be of interest to stakeholders who seek to better understand the issues surrounding ERP systems and to better realise the benefits of ERP.

Information technology support to improved construction processes : inter-disciplinarity in research and practice

Research and innovation in the built environment is increasingly taking on an inter-disciplinary nature. The built environment industry and professional practice have long adopted multi and inter-disciplinary practices. The application of IT in Construction is moving beyond the automation and replication of discrete mono and multi-disciplinary tasks to replicate and model the improved inter-disciplinary processes of modern design and construction practice. A major long-term research project underway at the University of Salford seeks to develop IT modelling capability to support the design of buildings and facilities that are buildable, maintainable, operable, sustainable, accessible, and have properties of acoustic, thermal and business support performance that are of a high standard. Such an IT modelling tool has been the dream of the research community for a long time. Recent advances in technology are beginning to make such a modelling tool feasible.----- Some of the key problems with its further research and development, and with its ultimate implementation, will be the challenges of multiple research and built environment stakeholders sharing a common vision, language and sense of trust. This paper explores these challenges as a set of research issues that underpin the development of appropriate technology to support realisable advances in construction process improvements.

The experiences of teacher aides who support students with disabilities and learning difficulties : a phenomenological study

Schools in Queensland, Australia, are undergoing inclusive education reform, following the report of the Ministerial Taskforce on Inclusive Education (Students with Disabilities) in 2004. The State government’s responses to the taskforce report emphasise a commitment to social justice and equity so that all students can be included in ways that enable them to achieve their potential. Teacher aides are employed in schools as ancillary staff to support students with disabilities and learning difficulties. Their support roles in schools are emerging within an educational context in which assumptions about disability, difference and inclusion of students with disabilities and learning difficulties are changing. It is important to acknowledge teacher aides as support practitioners, and to understand their roles in relation to the inclusion of students with disabilities and learning difficulties as inclusive education reform continues. This study used a phenomenological approach to explore the lived experiences of teacher aides as they supported students with disabilities and learning difficulties in primary schools. Four key insights into the support roles of teacher aides in primary schools in Brisbane, Queensland emerged from the study: 1) teacher aides develop empathetic relationships with students that contribute significantly to the students’ sense of belonging within school communities; 2) lack of clear definition of roles and responsibilities for teacher aides has detrimental effects on inclusion of students; 3) collaborative planning and implementation of classroom learning and socialisation programs enhances inclusion; and 4) teacher aides learn about supporting students while on-the-job, and in consultation and collaboration with other members of the students’ support networks.

Creative urban regions : harnessing urban technologies to support knowledge city initiatives

In the rapidly growing knowledge economy, the talent and creativity of those around us will be increasingly decisive in shaping economic opportunity. Creativity can be described as the ability to produce new and original ideas and things. In other words, it is any act, idea, or product that changes an existing domain or transforms an existing domain into a new one. From an economic perspective, creativity can be considered as the generation of new ideas that is the major source of innovation and new economic activities. As urban regions have become the localities of key knowledge precincts and knowledge clusters across the globe, the link between a range of new technologies and the development of ‘creative urban regions’ (CURs) has come to the fore. In this sense, creativity has become a buzz concept in knowledge-economy research and policy circles. It has spawned ‘creative milieus,’ ‘creative industries,’ ‘creative cities,’ ‘creative class,’ and ‘creative capital.’ Hence, creativity has become a key concept on the agenda of city managers, development agents, and planners as they search for new forms of urban and economic development. CURs provide vast opportunities for knowledge production and spillover, which lead to the formation of knowledge cities. Urban information and communication technology (ICT) developments support the transformation of cities into knowledge cities. This book, which is a companion volume to Knowledge-Based Urban Development: Planning and Applications in the Information Era (also published by IGI Global) focuses on some of these developments. The Forward and Afterword are written by senior respected academic researchers Robert Stimson of the University of Queensland, Australia, and Zorica Nedovic-Budic of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. The book is divided into four sections, each one dealing with selected aspects of information and communication technologies and creative urban regions.

Public-oriented interactive environmental decision support system

With the application of GIS methodologies to spatial data, researchers can now identify patterns of occurrence for many social problems including health-issues and crime. Further more, since this type of data also contains clues as to the underlying causes of social problems, it can be used to make well-educated and consequently, more effective policy decisions.

Research Monograph: Building Online Participatory Systems: Towards the Community Based Interactive Environmental Decision Support Systems

The importance of broadening community participation in environmental decision-making is widely recognized and lack of participation in this process appears to be a perennial problem. In this context, there have been calls from some academics for the more extensive use of geographic information systems (GIS) and distance learning technologies, accessible via the Internet, as a possible means to inform and empower communities. However, a number of problems exist. For instance, at present the scope for online interaction between policy-makers and citizens is currently limited. Contemporary web-based environmental information systems suffer from this lack of interactivity on the one hand and on the other hand from the apparent complexity for the lay user. This paper explores the issue of online community participation at the local level and attempts to construct a framework for a new (and potentially more effective) model of online participatory decision-making. The key components, system architecture and stages of such a model are introduced. This model, referred to as a ‘Community Based Interactive Environmental Decision Support System’, incorporates advanced information technologies, distance learning and community involvement tools which will be applied and evaluated in the field through a pilot project in Tokyo in the summer of 2002.

Technical support and professional development : using remote desktops to address bottlenecks in music technology

This paper presents research findings about the use of remote desktop applications to teach music sequencing software. It highlights the successes, shortcomings and interactive issues encountered during a pilot project with a theoretical focus on a specific interactive bottleneck. The paper proposes a new delivery and partnership model to widen this bottleneck, which currently hinders interactions between the technical support, education and professional development communities in music technology.

A review of models of spatial innovation infrastructures in support of high growth SMEs

This Paper first provides a review and analysis of the recent trends on innovation infrastructures developed in industrialised countries to promote innovation and competitiveness for high growth SMEs. It specifically aims to examine various spatial models developed to support provision of innovation infrastructure for high growth sector.

Using videotelephony to support paediatric oncology-related palliative care in the home : from abandoned RCT to acceptability study

Videotelephony (real-time audio-visual communication) has been used successfully in adult palliative home care. This paper describes two attempts to complete an RCT (both of which were abandoned following difficulties with family recruitment), designed to investigate the use of videotelephony with families receiving palliative care from a tertiary paediatric oncology service in Brisbane, Australia. To investigate whether providing videotelephone-based support was acceptable to these families, a 12-month non-randomised acceptability trial was completed. Seventeen palliative care families were offered access to a videotelephone support service in addition to the 24 hours ‘on-call’ service already offered. A 92% participation rate in this study provided some reassurance that the use of videotelephones themselves was not a factor in poor RCT participation rates. The next phase of research is to investigate the integration of videotelephone-based support from the time of diagnosis, through outpatient care and support, and for palliative care rather than for palliative care in isolation

Nation & internation practices in decision support tools in road asset management

This document provides a review of international and national practices in investment decision support tools in road asset management. Efforts were concentrated on identifying analytic frameworks, evaluation methodologies and criteria adopted by current tools. Emphasis was also given to how current approaches support Triple Bottom Line decision-making. Benefit Cost Analysis and Multiple Criteria Analysis are principle methodologies in supporting decision-making in Road Asset Management. The complexity of the applications shows significant differences in international practices. There is continuing discussion amongst practitioners and researchers regarding to which one is more appropriate in supporting decision-making. It is suggested that the two approaches should be regarded as complementary instead of competitive means. Multiple Criteria Analysis may be particularly helpful in early stages of project development, say strategic planning. Benefit Cost Analysis is used most widely for project prioritisation and selecting the final project from amongst a set of alternatives. Benefit Cost Analysis approach is useful tool for investment decision-making from an economic perspective. An extension of the approach, which includes social and environmental externalities, is currently used in supporting Triple Bottom Line decision-making in the road sector. However, efforts should be given to several issues in the applications. First of all, there is a need to reach a degree of commonality on considering social and environmental externalities, which may be achieved by aggregating the best practices. At different decision-making level, the detail of consideration of the externalities should be different. It is intended to develop a generic framework to coordinate the range of existing practices. The standard framework will also be helpful in reducing double counting, which appears in some current practices. Cautions should also be given to the methods of determining the value of social and environmental externalities. A number of methods, such as market price, resource costs and Willingness to Pay, are found in the review. The use of unreasonable monetisation methods in some cases has discredited Benefit Cost Analysis in the eyes of decision makers and the public. Some social externalities, such as employment and regional economic impacts, are generally omitted in current practices. This is due to the lack of information and credible models. It may be appropriate to consider these externalities in qualitative forms in a Multiple Criteria Analysis. Consensus has been reached in considering noise and air pollution in international practices. However, Australia practices generally omitted these externalities. Equity is an important consideration in Road Asset Management. The considerations are either between regions, or social groups, such as income, age, gender, disable, etc. In current practice, there is not a well developed quantitative measure for equity issues. More research is needed to target this issue. Although Multiple Criteria Analysis has been used for decades, there is not a generally accepted framework in the choice of modelling methods and various externalities. The result is that different analysts are unlikely to reach consistent conclusions about a policy measure. In current practices, some favour using methods which are able to prioritise alternatives, such as Goal Programming, Goal Achievement Matrix, Analytic Hierarchy Process. The others just present various impacts to decision-makers to characterise the projects. Weighting and scoring system are critical in most Multiple Criteria Analysis. However, the processes of assessing weights and scores were criticised as highly arbitrary and subjective. It is essential that the process should be as transparent as possible. Obtaining weights and scores by consulting local communities is a common practice, but is likely to result in bias towards local interests. Interactive approach has the advantage in helping decision-makers elaborating their preferences. However, computation burden may result in lose of interests of decision-makers during the solution process of a large-scale problem, say a large state road network. Current practices tend to use cardinal or ordinal scales in measure in non-monetised externalities. Distorted valuations can occur where variables measured in physical units, are converted to scales. For example, decibels of noise converts to a scale of -4 to +4 with a linear transformation, the difference between 3 and 4 represents a far greater increase in discomfort to people than the increase from 0 to 1. It is suggested to assign different weights to individual score. Due to overlapped goals, the problem of double counting also appears in some of Multiple Criteria Analysis. The situation can be improved by carefully selecting and defining investment goals and criteria. Other issues, such as the treatment of time effect, incorporating risk and uncertainty, have been given scant attention in current practices. This report suggested establishing a common analytic framework to deal with these issues.