Tim Shaw, Deborah McGregor, Sue Sinclair, Robert Sutherland, Ana Munro and Jackie Ross
Cancer care is complex and an integrated cancer pathway involves many health professionals in a variety of care settings using many skills. The widely distributed and…
Abstract
Purpose
Cancer care is complex and an integrated cancer pathway involves many health professionals in a variety of care settings using many skills. The widely distributed and heterogeneous nature of the cancer workforce raises significant challenges with respect to professional development. Cancer Learning is a government-funded initiative designed to provide access to a wide range of quality online learning resources for all health care professionals involved in the care of cancer patients and their families. The purpose of this paper is to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A multi-phase project, led by a consortium of national stakeholders in cancer care, informed the design, build, and deployment of Cancer Learning; an online, evidence based, information and learning portal to support professional development of health professionals across the continuum of cancer care in Australia. An action research approach allowed for an iterative process of ongoing dynamic evaluation and improvement of this workforce improvement resource.
Findings
The National Government Agency, Cancer Australia's Cancer Learning online hub has been supporting the professional development requirements of cancer care professionals since the site deployment in 2007. Since launch, site usage continues to grow and evaluations have been positive. Time constraints of health professionals continue to be a major barrier to sustained online learning participation.
Originality/value
This research recount of the development and implementation of an Australia first national online learning initiative highlights the rigorous approach undertaken for the delivery of a quality evidence-based resource for the professional development of all health professionals involved in the delivery of cancer care.
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Scott deLahunta and Jordan Beth Vincent
This article aims to bring together and demonstrate overlaps in three different areas of reflexive research concerned variously with audiences for contemporary dance. These are…
Abstract
Purpose
This article aims to bring together and demonstrate overlaps in three different areas of reflexive research concerned variously with audiences for contemporary dance. These are: 1) artists reflecting on their own creative process and engaging other researchers in doing so, generating new insights and language as a result; 2) humanities-based dance studies and a small number of dance scholars reflecting on this “process turn” in dance; and 3) the field of empirical audience studies, drawing on a single study specifically interested in access to creative process. The goal is to propose how these areas might coexist and mutually inform each other.
Design/methodology/approach
The approach develops a three-fold framework where the multiple definitions and examples of reflexive research in dance-making processes coexist. It draws systematically on a detailed example of one self-reflective study conducted by a dance company into creative process, on new scholarly writing on the “process turn” in dance research and written analysis of a unique audience research project as well as related literature.
Findings
In conclusion, the article suggests that in whatever combination of different research approaches, empirical evidence is increasingly important. This risks tipping the balance towards a more utilitarian understanding, particularly in the area of audience studies. It is possible to counterbalance this with approaches from artists and scholars interested in understanding arrived at through reflexive study of creative practice.
Originality/value
The original contribution is to bring these three areas together for the first time to expose difference and overlaps and suggest that challenges of understanding (in a non-utilitarian form) could be mitigated through more systematic dialogue between them, such as presented here.
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In Great Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, a physician (Lorber, 1971) developed criteria that would exclude from treatment many babies born with spina bifida (“open spine”) based on…
Abstract
In Great Britain in the 1960s and 1970s, a physician (Lorber, 1971) developed criteria that would exclude from treatment many babies born with spina bifida (“open spine”) based on what he perceived to be a poor projected quality of life. In the US, the parameters of the modern debate developed around the case of “Baby Doe,” a child born in the early 1980s with Down syndrome and duodenal atresia, an intestinal blockage. Without surgery to correct the blockage, the baby would not survive. Because the infant also had Down syndrome, which typically includes some degree of intellectual disability, the parents decided not to consent to the surgery. The parents’ decision was met with outrage by disability advocacy groups, as was a similar decision a few years later to forego surgery to repair a myelomeningocele (spina bifida) in the case of “Baby Jane Doe.” The publicity surrounding these and other non-treatment decisions resulted in the US in the passage of the Child Abuse Amendments of 1984, largely through the efforts of then Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. This legislation effectively mandated universal treatment of newborns with disabilities. However, several court cases since have resulted in rulings allowing parents to discontinue life support based on quality-of-life issues, resulting in the establishment of state standards in addition to the federal ones (Clark, 1994). Still, the norm in the case of Down syndrome and spina bifida, two of the most common childhood impairments apparent at birth, continues to support the treatment of virtually all children born with these conditions. As a result, most post-natal decision making today involves infants with other, often more serious, impairments that result from perinatal complications or from extreme prematurity. Even in those cases, a bias toward treatment seems to prevail (Levin, 1990).
Deborah Anne Delaney, Marty Fletcher, Craig Cameron and Kerry Bodle
The purpose of this study is to describe and evaluate the implementation of an online self and peer assessment model (SPARKPLUS) to assess team work skills of accounting students…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to describe and evaluate the implementation of an online self and peer assessment model (SPARKPLUS) to assess team work skills of accounting students.
Design/methodology/approach
This study describes the background and implementation of SPARKPLUS and employs a survey questionnaire administered to students enrolled in an undergraduate company accounting subject before and after the implementation of the model. The survey results and selected qualitative data are used to evaluate students' attitudes to group work and the impact of SPARKPLUS.
Findings
The study suggests that students understand the benefits of group work activities in developing their technical knowledge in company accounting. However, students do not appreciate the value of group work activities in developing generic skills or how SPARKPLUS supports group work activities.
Practical implications
Professional and accreditation bodies require evidence of teaching and learning activities and assessment of team work skills during the students' undergraduate accounting degree. This study demonstrates that students require significant teaching and learning activities in relation to team work skills and the assessment model for successful implementation.
Originality/value
This study makes an original contribution to the accounting education literature pertaining to assessment of team work skills in two respects. First, the study outlines the design, implementation and preliminary evaluation of an online self and peer assessment model in an undergraduate company accounting course. Second, preliminary evidence concerning the impact of this model on group work activities and team work skills is provided.
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Deborah Taub, Megan H. Foster, Ann-Marie Orlando and Diane L. Ryndak
The purpose of this chapter is to examine what it means for students with extensive support needs (ESN) to have opportunities to learn (OTL), why OTL is inexplicably tied to…
Abstract
The purpose of this chapter is to examine what it means for students with extensive support needs (ESN) to have opportunities to learn (OTL), why OTL is inexplicably tied to inclusive practices, and the in-school and post-school outcomes when students have OTL. Research will be provided that supports positive in-school and post-school outcomes, when students are provided equitable learning opportunities in inclusive contexts. Given the difference in possible outcomes for students with ESN when they do and do not have OTL, excluding them from general education contexts, where they have the best access to the intended and enacted curricula, is both unethical and limiting to society as a whole.
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Deborah A. Boehm-Davis and Robert W. Holt
A strong, useful theoretical foundation for performance assessment and prediction relies on four components: preliminary observation of a system, identification of key or…
Abstract
A strong, useful theoretical foundation for performance assessment and prediction relies on four components: preliminary observation of a system, identification of key or dominating variables in the system, synthetic and vertical thinking, and successive refinement.
Leon C. Prieto, Simone T. A. Phipps, Lemaro R. Thompson and Xavier A. Smith
This paper aims to depict the pivotal role played by Rose Schneiderman and Frances Perkins in early twentieth-century labor and safety reform in the USA. The paper also examines…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to depict the pivotal role played by Rose Schneiderman and Frances Perkins in early twentieth-century labor and safety reform in the USA. The paper also examines the contributions made by these notable women through the lens of stakeholder theory and the feminist ethic of care.
Design/methodology/approach
The review process commenced with a comprehensive search for women in history who advocated labor and safety reform and campaigned for safer organizational practices in the workplace. History books, academic journals and newspaper articles, including writings from Schneiderman and Perkins, were the main sources used for this research endeavor.
Findings
Schneiderman and Perkins were both instrumental in playing a major role in fighting for labor and safety reform in the early twentieth century, albeit in different ways. Through their work, there was a heightened understanding of organizations’ duties and obligations to their stakeholders and, in particular, to their employees. They also embodied the feminist ethic of care by being attentive to the needs of others, accepting responsibility and demonstrating competence, while being responsive to their needs.
Originality/value
The influential women in management history are often given scant recognition or not recognized at all. This article highlights the contributions of two women who greatly impacted labor and safety through their struggle for the improvement of working conditions in the USA. The originality of this manuscript also lies in the ethical perspective in which it is grounded.