Search results

The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which line officers in police agencies can identify digital evidence at crime scenes, also known as the binary artifacts stored on computers, mobile devices, tablets and the internet, through an analysis of survey responses of line staff in a Midwestern state police agency.

An electronic survey was completed by 258 respondents using a scenario-based vignette asking them to identify where such evidence may be located during a fictitious call for service.

Most all respondents identified appropriate devices and locations where digital evidence may be stored on suspects and victims in a scenario call for service. There were significant differences in responses on the basis of recent field experience with digital evidence.

The findings demonstrate the importance of experiential learning and training for line staff in police agencies to prepare them for basic digital evidence handling in the field. This sample is, however, based on a single state police agency and may not be reflective of other similarly sized agencies. Future research is needed to replicate this study and expand the generalizability of these findings.

First responders should be able to identify and secure all appropriate forms of evidence at crime scenes, regardless of crime type, while awaiting specialized investigators. This study is one of the first to consider when and how police are able to recognize digital evidence at crime scenes.

Design-Build (DB) is known as the alternative for Design-Bid-Build in the Malaysian construction industry. For DB projects, it is critical to adopt effective decision support tool to ensure the execution of a systematic decision-making technique. This study aimed to examine the impact of a decision support tool for novice decision makers to reject or adopt DB for their construction projects.

Literature review and qualitative input from experts identified several key-selection factors pertaining to critical success factors and design-build drivers. This resulted in the development of Decision Support Tool for Design-Build (DST-DB). A quasi-experiment, which involved 382 novice decision makers in the construction industry, was conducted to test the DST-DB quantitatively. The participants were required to compare two construction projects using DST-DB and traditional decision-making methods. Multivariate analysis was performed to analyse all collected data.

The quasi-experiment data suggests that DST-DB enables significantly higher usability, likelihood, precision, confidence and satisfaction rate when compared to the traditional decision-making process. The pre- and post-surveys indicated that the DST-DB is effective in improving decision-making performance through selection factors of client-briefing, maximised resources and sharing expertise. The participants also agreed that DST-DB is easy to use and helps them to gain better understanding of the decision-making process for construction projects.

This research contributes to the existing body of knowledge through the impact of DST on the decisions of novices. The novice decision makers found that DST-DB is practically adaptable and comparatively effective for decision-making process than traditional decision-making methods. This contributes to the practical application of construction companies to provide DST-DB training to the fresh graduate employees to enhance their competencies in the decision-making process.

This study aims to review processes of accreditation for Chilean Universities. Along with cataloguing evolutionary milestones, the study analyses effects at the institutional and program levels.

The study adopts a meta-evaluative approach and is based on secondary information sources, including both specialised publications and national databases, regarding the expansion of institutions, programs and enrolment, as well as the results of accreditation processes.

University quality assurance reflects developments in economic policies, and supply and demand. Progressive consolidation of the national system has had positive effects on the management and development of universities, but the implementation of quality assurance has brought some problems. A traditional classification of universities into customary categories is predictive of the results of accreditation. The variable of administrative compliance is more important than a culture of quality in explaining the results of institutional and program accreditation.

This review identifies advances, limitations and challenges in the improvement and assurance of quality of Chilean Universities and their programs. This is an unprecedented metanalysis of studies concerning the evolution of accreditation processes and will inform future practice.