Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine and discuss the classification of commercial popular music when large digital collections are organised for use in films.

A range of systems are investigated and their organization is discussed, focusing on an analysis of the metadata used by the systems and choices given to the end‐user to construct a query. The indexing of the music is compared with a check‐list of music facets which has been derived from recent musicological literature on semiotic analysis of popular music. These facets include aspects of communication, cultural and musical expression, codes and competences.

In addition to bibliographic detail, descriptive metadata are used to organise music in these systems. Genre, subject and mood are used widely; some musical facets also appear. The extent to which attempts are being made to reflect these facets in the organization of these systems is discussed. A number of recommendations are made which may help to improve this process.

The paper discusses an area of creative music search which has not previously been investigated in any depth and makes recommendations based on findings and the literature which may be used in the development of commercial systems as well as making a contribution to the literature.

This study explored how the expression of search facets and relevance feedback (RF) by users was related to search success in interactive and automatic query expansion in the course of the search process. Search success was measured both in the number of relevant documents retrieved, whether identified by users or not. Research design consisted of 26 users searching for four TREC topics in Okapi IR system, half of the searchers using interactive and half automatic query expansion based on RF. The search logs were recorded, and the users filled in questionnaires for each topic concerning various features of searching. The results showed that the exhaustivity of the query was the most significant predictor of search success. Interactive expansion led to better search success than automatic expansion if all retrieved relevant items were counted, but there was no difference between the methods if only those items recognised relevant by users were observed. The analysis showed that the difference was facilitated by the liberal relevance criterion used in TREC not favouring highly relevant documents in evaluation.

The relevance of business education is coming under increasing challenge from many quarters, who argue that business schools are not delivering research and programmes that are relevant to the needs of business and society. The purpose of this paper is to test these claims by evaluating the impact of a leadership development programme on middle managers within a city council organisation.

A qualitative methodology was employed within an evaluative research approach. Interviews were held with 32 line managers of the Leading Managers (delegates on the programme). A thematic analysis was undertaken using categories of “knowledge”, “skills” and “attributes”. Key stories were also collected as “vignettes” to illuminate where the line manager had considered the impact of the programme to have been particularly significant to their department or to the organisation as a whole.

The research was able to identify how the programme had benefited those managers who had taken part on the programme, and how the programme had positively impacted on the organisation as a whole.

The paper counters the claims that business schools and business education have little impact at organisational level. The paper provides evidence to support the value and relevance of training and development within the workplace.

There is little hard evidence available highlighting the impact of management education on organisations. This paper provides such evidence.