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Accessible games, both for serious and for entertainment purposes, would allow inclusion and participation for those with disabilities. Research into the development of accessible games, and accessible virtual environments, is discussed. Research into accessible Virtual Environments has demonstrated great potential for allowing people who are blind to explore new spaces, reduce their reliance on guides and aid development of more efficient spatial maps and strategies. Importantly, Lahav and Mioduser (2005, 2008) have demonstrated that, when exploring virtual spaces, people who are blind use more and different strategies than when exploring real physical spaces, and develop relatively accurate spatial representations of them. The present paper describes the design, development and evaluation of a system in which a virtual environment may be explored by people who are blind using Nintendo Wii devices, with auditory and haptic feedback. The nature of the various types of feedback is considered, with the aim of creating an intuitive and usable system. Using Wii technology has many advantages: it is mainstream, readily available and cheap. The potential of the system for exploration and navigation is demonstrated. Results strongly support the possibilities of the system for facilitating and supporting the construction of cognitive maps and spatial strategies. Intelligent support is discussed. Systems such as the present one will facilitate the development of accessible games, and thus enable Universal Design and accessible interactive technology to become more accepted and widespread.

Virtual environments (VEs) that represent real spaces (RSs) give people who are blind the opportunity to build a cognitive map in advance that they will be able to use when arriving at the RS. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

In this research study Nintendo Wii-based technology was used for exploring VEs via the Wiici application. The Wiimote allows the user to interact with VEs by simulating walking and scanning the space.

By getting haptic and auditory feedback the user learned to explore new spaces. The authors examined the participants’ abilities to explore new simple and complex places, construct a cognitive map, and perform orientation tasks in the RS.

To the authors’ knowledge, this finding presents the first VE for people who are blind that allow the participants to scan the environment and by this to construct map model spatial representations.

The hospital sector has expanded in Norway with reforms and a strong demand for better management. The purpose of this paper is to examine: first, how this has affected physicians and nurses in management; second, how management roles in hospitals are changing; and third, how these two professions are tackling their new roles.

The paper presents a review of the secondary literature and a case study undertaken in the spring, 2012.

In Norway, two reforms have been introduced aimed at creating stronger management positions with less professional influence. The leader has full responsibility for a particular unit, which means that the jurisdiction of managers has expanded and that management has become more time consuming. Physicians – traditionally those in charge of hospitals – are facing competition from other professions, especially nursing, which has gained representation in top management positions, particularly at middle management level.

The originality of this paper is the comparison of the evolvement of management among physicians and nurses since the reforms. While the medical profession was critical of management to begin with, i.e. viewing management positions as a trap, it is gradually adapting to the new ideas. Physicians are facing competition from nurses, who readily adjust to the new conditions, and perceive management as a new career track.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the past 15 years of research and development (R&D) on the role of virtual environments (VEs) as an orientation and mobility (O&M) aid to enhance skills and to train people who are blind or newly blind.

This paper describes and examines studies of 21 VE systems developed specifically to help people who are blind improve their O&M skills. These VE systems, equipped to supply appropriate perceptual and conceptual spatial information through haptic and auditory sensorial channels, are mainly focussed on two goals: helping congenitally blind or late blind persons to collect spatial information in advance and supporting people who are newly blind in practicing their O&M skills during rehabilitation. The R&D studies represented in these 21 studies were examined along three dimensions: descriptive information, system, and research.

This paper highlights weaknesses and strengths of VE systems that have been developed in the past 15 years as O&M aids for people who are blind. These results have the potential to influence future R&D in this field.

The author hopes that this paper will influence future R&D in this field and lead to accessible O&M VEs in practice and research.

The aim of the Game On project is to adapt and create highly engaging and motivating serious games to teach employment skills to prisoners, ex‐offenders and those at risk of offending (termed offenders). The target audience first trialled existing serious games with work‐based educational content to identify their limitations and to highlight gaps in provision. From this, a development plan evolved for the adaptation of these materials and the creation of new materials using 3D games mods' to teach induction information to prisoners in an accessible format. Games features include an ability to personalise educational content, locale detection for use in a variety of countries, accessibility features including signing tracks and closed captions and accompanying activities for a blended learning approach. Retrial of these serious games and games mods' with trainers and offenders found that they provided positive measures of engagement and effectiveness.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the rise of strata manager as a newly emergent profession and note their impact on the governance within medium and high density, strata titled housing such as flats, apartments, town-houses and CIDs.

This research presents finding from a small scale, qualitative research project focused on the interaction between the owner committee of management and strata managers.

The introduction mandatory certification is championed by industry bodies. The strata managers considered they already demonstrated valuable attributes desired by committees of management. These differed to the attributes targeted by the new training regime, and the attributes valued by the committees of management.

This is a small scale pilot study. A larger study will need to be undertaken to confirm these results.

There is a disjunct between the training and what strata managers consider relevant to undertaking their duties. This has significance for the ongoing governance of these properties and industry professionalisation. The resilience of Australia’s densification policies will depend on how learning will translate into better governance outcomes for owners.

One in three people within Australia’s eastern states lives or owns property within strata titled complex (apartments, flats and townhouse developments). The increasing number of strata managers and professionalisation within their industry has the ability to impact an increasing number of people.

The impact of this new profession, and their requirements in terms of expertise has not been fully considered within existing academic literature.

This paper aims to explore the following question: does the industry context influence management attitudes towards being a professional?

Previous research has identified traits that define a professional. Using this framework, the features of a profession are explored from the perspective of hotel financial controllers. Primary research is used to further explore attitudes towards the achievement of these traits.

The characteristics of this particular industry do appear to impact on attitudes towards professionalism, from the perspective of organizations and the professional association, in comparison to more traditional professions. Although the industry desires to become more professional, there is unwillingness to promote career development and other approaches for hotel controllers. Individuals, however, wish to meet the desired traits and hence improve their personal status and careers.

This research has examined only one type of manager in hotels, and various contradictions have emerged. Other managers in hotels may also demonstrate certain characteristics influenced by the industry context that could be further explored, and further attitudes towards professionalism in the industry investigated.

Hotel companies must demonstrate commitment to their managers by investing in their development to improve levels of professionalism and hence profits. Professional associations can assist by providing appropriate courses at various levels, with a consequent increase in their own status as well as that of the industry.

Most previous research has focused on the profession rather than the industry context. This research raises questions as to the dominance of a particular industry on attitudes and hence on standards.

The purpose of this paper is to deploy the concept of the “glass slipper” to unpack the construction of systematic patterns of inclusion and exclusion along the lines of gender, age and class in the emerging, female-dominated profession of psychological counselling in Russia.

The study draws on an analysis of 26 in-depth qualitative interviews with practising counsellors in Russia.

Drawing on the glass slipper concept, the article demonstrates how seemingly neutral discursive “rules” of professional conduct articulated by counsellors create an association between a collective professional identity and the social identities of typical practitioners, making this profession appear most suitable for middle-aged, middle-class women. The findings also show how certain embodied identities – in this case masculinity – may be able to “fit” into a slipper that was not made for them.

The paper extends the understanding of the dynamics of inequality patterns in a feminized profession in the Russian context by unveiling previously underexplored patterns of marginalization along the lines of class and age. It also strengthens the collective-associative view of occupational identity and extends the glass slipper concept by exposing the mechanisms of body-work association in this profession and demonstrating that certain identity characteristics may be more universally privileged in the construction of professional identities.

When you admit that you do research on information and communication in the humanities disciplines, a common response is ‘Why on earth do you do that? Surely there is nothing worth knowing that isn't already obvious.’ What the sceptical listener is telling you is that he believes humanist research and scholarship are still firmly wedded to methods, sources and subject matter that have not changed in the centuries since the Middle Ages ended and the Age of Humanism began. The people who tell you this are not fools; they are just as likely to be distinguished librarians or researchers as they are to be outsiders forgivably ignorant of what actually happens in the humanities. The idea that you really need to do very little to help humanist scholarship achieve its ends, and that you certainly don't need to do anything much which is new, follows only too logically from this initial scepticism. Fortunately, it has not been necessary for researchers in Britain to overcome such scepticism to obtain support for investigations in the humanities because the British Library Research and Development Department (BLRDD), the nation's chief information research funding body, has been a committed promoter of such research. Indeed, it has often been ahead of the information research community in its concern for humanities issues.