Auditing technology uses within a global voluntary organisation

WAGGGS, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts, is the umbrella organization for Member Organizations from 145 countries around the world. As such one of its remits is to provide programmes that promote leadership development and opportunities for girls and young women to advocate on issues they care about. One of the ways WAGGGS is exploring to do this more widely and efficiently is through the use of digital technologies. This paper presents the results of an audit undertaken of the technologies already used by potential participants in online communities and courses and investigates the challenges faced in using technology to facilitate learning, within this context.

Guiding e-learning: introducing online informal learning to a global voluntary organisation

The World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) is the umbrella organisation for Member Organisations from 145 countries around the world, with a total membership of ten million. While Member Organisations offer training and development within their own countries, WAGGGS offers international opportunities. This project seeks to explore how technology can be used to offer similar opportunities to those provided by the face-to-face courses to a much wider audience, while retaining the community and interactive learning aspects of the existing programmes.

Documents as 'critical incidents' in organisation to consumer communication

A diary study tracked the paper documents received by nine UK informants over one month. Informants gave simple ratings of individual documents’ attractiveness and the ease of understanding them; more detailed reactions to the documents were gathered through informant diaries and follow-up interviews. The detailed reactions extended beyond the feedback gathered through the rating task. Informants showed sensitivity to the content, language, design and circumstances of receipt of documents, with indications that they developed opinions of originating organizations based on their experience of using their documents. Documents that failed to provide all the information needed, that failed to make their intentions clear (or obscured their intentions) or that were perceived as miss-targeted received negative comment. Repeat experiences of receiving either well- or poorly-conceived documents strengthened informant reactions to individual originating organizations. The paper concludes with recommendations for steps document originators, writers and designers need to take to prepare documents that enhance organization to consumer communication. We recommend that organizations evaluate and act on consumers’ reactions to their documents, beyond user testing in document development or scorecard ratings in use.

Réflexions sur le ‘Nucléaire interdit'

A discussion of the taboo on nuclear use from the perspective of different governments, focusing on the circumstances of the post-Cold War environment where the danger of nuclear proliferation looms large.

‘La coopération nucléaire européenne: de la guerre froide au XXIe siècle’

A discussion of nuclear guarantees as means of deterrence and security projection in Europe, and also a countermeasure against nuclear proliferation. My contribution to this jointly authored book is contained mainly, but not exclusively, under the above section.

BSkyB transformation from a new loss-making venture to a successful organisation: case study and interview with Jeremy Darroch, Chief Executive of British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc

Purpose – This paper aims to articulate strategic dilemmas faced by a Chief Executive of a highly successful company and how such dilemmas were resolved. Design/methodology/approach – The case is based on a semi-structured interview with Mr Jeremy Darroch – Chief Executive of BSkyB – and analysis of documentary evidence. Findings – It is often difficult to implement strategies that simultaneously yield high organic growth rate, innovation, and a healthy balance-sheet. The paper sheds light on how Sky has met this challenge. Research limitations/implications – The research offers a unique insight into the views of a principal strategist and articulates the background to offer context, however, because of its design the findings are not generalisable. Originality/value – Very few articles offer insight into the thinking of those with principal responsibility for design and delivery of strategy. This paper offers such an insight based on a detailed interview with a highly successful Chief Executive.

Developing a knowledge management system using an ontological approach in global organisation

This paper introduces an ontology-based knowledge model for knowledge management. This model can facilitate knowledge discovery that provides users with insight for decision making. The users requiring the insight normally play different roles with different requirements in an organisation. To meet the requirements, insights are created by purposely aggregated transnational data. This involves a semantic data integration process. In this paper, we present a knowledge management system which is capable of representing knowledge requirements in a domain context and enabling the semantic data integration through ontology modeling. The knowledge domain context of United Bible Societies is used to illustrate the features of the knowledge management capabilities.

What is outside? The early years foundation stage in England: outdoor facilities, organisation and staff attitudes

The purpose of this paper is to report on the facilities available, organisation of, and staff attitudes to early years outdoor education from schools within the south east of England, focusing on provision for children aged three to five. One component of the successful education of the child involves providing an ‘environment for learning’, including the facilities, layout and routines. This paper presents findings concerning the type and variety of facilities available outside; the various styles of organisation of the space; staff attitudes about: their roles, their aims for the environment, children’s behaviour and learning, and perceived drawbacks to practice. This paper draws on empirical data collected from schools within the University of Reading partnership. The findings suggest that although all early years settings must adhere to the statutory framework there are a range of facilities available, and there are a number of ways this environment is organised. Further there appears to be uncertainty about the adult role outside and the aims for activities. The conclusions drawn indicate that staff do not appear to be linking their aims for outdoor education to the facilities provided or to their actions outside. This means there is not a clear link between what staff provide outside and the declared ambitions for learning. This study is important as all educators need to be certain about their aims for education to ensure best outcomes for children. The implications of these findings for early years teachers are that they need to be able to articulate their aims for outdoor education and to provide the correct facilities to achieve these aims. Finally this study was undertaken to raise debate, posit questions and to ascertain the parameters for further research about the early years outdoor environment.

Datakvalitet. Ett måste för en kostnadsmedveten organisation

Uppsatsen visar resultatet av en kartläggning och analys av datakvaliteten i databasen Vägdatabanken på Vägverket. Vi har studerat datakvaliteten som den visar sig hos slutanvändarna, i detta fall de som upphandlar drift och underhåll av statliga vägar. Målet var att se hur väl Vägverkets krav på data stämmer överens med användarnas behov. För att nå målet skapades en modell med sju faser. Centralt var kartläggningen av verksamheten med hjälp av intervjuer, som blev grunden för vidare analyser. En egen modell var nödvändig eftersom arbetssättet, att utgå från användarna, inte är det vedertagna sättet att undersöka datakvalitet.Resultatet visar en rad kostnader som kan härröras till bristande datakvalitet varav många är dolda. Trovärdigheten är viktig i samband med datakvalitet. Användarna litar inte på data vilket skapar direkta kostnader, merarbete med mera. Det beror i sin tur på att det brister i insamlingen av data. Ett problem är att en rad olika arbetssätt och förhållningssätt till data i Vägdatabanken förekommer. Därför rekommenderas att Vägverket beslutar vilket arbetssätt som är ekonomiskt och funktionellt bäst.Syftet var att beskriva begreppet datakvalitet. Resultatet av praktiskt arbete och teoretiska studier ger definitionen "Datakvalitet är datas förmåga att vara förståelig och trovärdig samt tillräckligt väl uppfylla användarens behov".

Koordination och organisation : - två viktiga begrepp vid skapandet av en innehållsrik hemsida för kommunala myndigheter

Vi har undersökt vilket innehåll som socialtjänstens enhet individ-och familjeomsorgen inom olika kommuner har på sina hemsidor samt hur de har organiserat och koordinerat arbetet.Det visar sig att innehållsmässigt ser det väldigt lika ut med den information som erbjuds, det som skiljer hemsidorna åt är aktiviteter och kontaktmöjligheter för användarna. En del kommuner erbjuder sina användare möjligheten till kontakt via email till berörd handläggare medan andra valt att enbart ha email till själva enheten eller någon chef.Koordinationen kring själva arbetet sker i det flesta fall via muntlig kommunikation och ömsesidig anpassning. Endast en kommun har minskat koordinationen genom att använda standardprogram.Arbetets organisation utgår ifrån en grundläggande form av AD-hocracy.