Stephanie Kewley and Mark Blandford
The purpose of this paper is to detail the development and implementation process of a risk management tool that includes the assessment of static and dynamic factors, as well as…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to detail the development and implementation process of a risk management tool that includes the assessment of static and dynamic factors, as well as factors that are both risk related and protective.
Design/methodology/approach
Active Risk Assessment System (ARMS) is a tool used to help criminal justice practitioners as they work to support the safe reintegration of those with sexual convictions back into the community.
Findings
The tool was developed for use by the police, probation and prison services across England and Wales and this paper outlines the following: the process adopted by the development team in designing the tool, the theoretical principles considered and adopted by the team, and a summary of the early evaluation and recommendations made.
Originality/value
This paper includes some further recommendations for both the developers of the tool and for the police service in England and Wales.
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Abstract
Master and servant — Redundancy — Employment — Contractor's agreement to act as agent for National Coal Board in employing and paying workmen — Workmen's contract of service with board — Contractor acting as employer — Workman unaware of agreement — Payment of wages and giving of statutory notice of terms of employment by contractor — Prejudice to workman by relying on contractor's representation as to employer — Whether contractor estopped for denying himself to be workman's employer.
Details of Some Components Used for Subsidiary Services in Aircraft, Missiles and Space Vehicles. A hose coupling incorporating a pressure controller has recently been produced by…
Abstract
Details of Some Components Used for Subsidiary Services in Aircraft, Missiles and Space Vehicles. A hose coupling incorporating a pressure controller has recently been produced by Flight Refuelling Ltd., Tarrant Rushton Airfield, near Blandford, Dorset. Because of its position relatively close to the shut‐off valves in the aircraft fuel system, this unit responds more rapidly to pressure changes in the aircraft system than do vehicle‐mounted, venturi‐sensed, pressure controllers.
The New Year will see Britain a member of the largest multi‐national free trade area in the world and there must be few who see it as anything less than the beginning of a new…
Abstract
The New Year will see Britain a member of the largest multi‐national free trade area in the world and there must be few who see it as anything less than the beginning of a new era, in trade, its trends, customs and usages and especially in the field of labour, relations, mobility, practices. Much can be foreseen but to some extent it is all very unpredictable. Optimists see it as a vast market of 250 millions, with a lot of money in their pockets, waiting for British exports; others, not quite so sure, fear the movement of trade may well be in reverse and if the increasing number of great articulated motor trucks, heavily laden with food and other goods, now spilling from the Channel ports into the roads of Kent are an indication, the last could well be true. They come from faraway places, not all in the European Economic Community; from Yugoslavia and Budapest, cities of the Rhineland, from Amsterdam, Stuttgart, Mulhouse and Milano. Kent has had its invasions before, with the Legions of Claudius and in 1940 when the battle roared through the Kentish skies. Hitherto quiet villagers are now in revolt against the pre‐juggernaut invasion; they, too, fear more will come with the enlarged EEC, thundering through their one‐street communities.
Teacher recruitment is under pressure across England with the majority of routes into teaching facing challenges in respect to recruitment and retention. Schools are also…
Abstract
Teacher recruitment is under pressure across England with the majority of routes into teaching facing challenges in respect to recruitment and retention. Schools are also challenged by issues of attendance, behaviour and exclusion. This paper examines a way forward that addresses inclusion in the context of initial teacher education. Recent research in the southwest of England serves to illustrate the needs of all teachers to deliver inclusive provision in their schools. Teacher education begins with initial teacher training; irrespective of the route inclusion of all pupils should be understood by all trainees, which would have a positive impact on teacher recruitment and retention.
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Stephanie Ellis, Stephann Makri and Simon Attfield
The authors wanted to provide an enriched understanding of how lawyers keep up-to-date with legal developments. Maintaining awareness of developments in an area (known as…
Abstract
Purpose
The authors wanted to provide an enriched understanding of how lawyers keep up-to-date with legal developments. Maintaining awareness of developments in an area (known as “monitoring”) is an important aspect of professional’s information work. This is particularly true for lawyers, who are expected to keep up-to-date with legal developments on an ongoing basis.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors conducted semi-structured interviews with a group of lawyers who authored and published current awareness content for LexisNexis – a large publishing organisation. The interviews focused on identifying the types of electronic, printed and people-based current awareness resources the lawyers used to keep up-to-date with legal developments and the reasons for their choices.
Findings
The lawyers mostly used electronic resources (particularly e-mail alerts and an electronic tool that alerted them to changes in website content), alongside interpersonal sources, such as colleagues, customers and professional contacts. Printed media, such as journals and newspapers, were used more rarely and usually to complement electronic and person-based resources. A number of factors were found to influence choice. These included situational relevance, presentation, utility and trustworthiness, the speed of content acquisition and interpretation facilitated by the resource.
Originality/value
The authors' findings enrich their understanding of lawyers’ monitoring behaviour, which has so far received little direct research attention. Their design suggestions have the potential to feed into the design of new and improvement of existing digital current awareness resources. Their findings have the potential to act as “success criteria” by which these resources can be evaluated from a user-centred perspective.
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An odd‐sounding expression recently introduced into the language, derived from the passage of events, Privatization, introduced as a rescue operation for sections of public and…
Abstract
An odd‐sounding expression recently introduced into the language, derived from the passage of events, Privatization, introduced as a rescue operation for sections of public and nationalised industry to hand them over to private enterprise to avoid their destruction and smothering by the unholy wedlock of trade unionism and weak, inefficient management. It frequently met with the opposition of unions and sections of staff. Efforts have been made to sabotage the take‐over and operation of the services by private firms, occasionally making them impossible to operate. This elementary operation was expected to achieve even greater success in the sections taken over and reduced the room for destructive manoeuvring by ajitator, much of which was caused independent of the unions. In the public services some of the antics between rival factions bordered on the ludicrous.
Sudatta Chowdhury, Monica Landoni and Forbes Gibb
The main objective of this paper is to review work on the usability and impact of digital libraries.
Abstract
Purpose
The main objective of this paper is to review work on the usability and impact of digital libraries.
Design/methodology/approach
Work on the usability and impact of digital libraries is reviewed. Specific studies on the usability and impact of digital libraries in specific domains are also discussed in order to identify general and specific usability and impact measures.
Findings
The usability studies reviewed in this paper show that a number of approaches have been used to assess usability. In addition to the technical aspects of digital library design (e.g. architecture, interfaces and search tools), there are a number of usability issues such as globalisation, localisation, language, culture issues, content and human information behaviour. Digital libraries should, however, be evaluated primarily with respect to their target users, applications and contexts.
Research limitations/implications
Although a digital library evaluation study may have several objectives, ranging from the evaluation of its design and architecture to the evaluation of its usability and its impact on the target users, this paper focuses on usability and impact.
Originality/value
This paper provides insights into the state‐of‐the art in relation to the usability and impact of digital libraries.
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Myrtede Alfred, Ken Catchpole, Emily Huffer, Kevin Taafe and Larry Fredendall
Achieving reliable instrument reprocessing requires finding the right balance among cost, productivity, and safety. However, there have been few attempts to comprehensively…
Abstract
Achieving reliable instrument reprocessing requires finding the right balance among cost, productivity, and safety. However, there have been few attempts to comprehensively examine sterile processing department (SPD) work systems. We considered an SPD as an example of a socio-technical system – where people, tools, technologies, the work environment, and the organization mutually interact – and applied work systems analysis (WSA) to provide a framework for future intervention and improvement.
The study was conducted at two SPD facilities at a 700-bed academic medical center servicing 56 onsite clinics, 31 operating rooms (ORs), and nine ambulatory centers. Process maps, task analyses, abstraction hierarchies, and variance matrices were developed through direct observations of reprocessing work and staff interviews and iteratively refined based on feedback from an expert group composed of eight staff from SPD, infection control, performance improvement, quality and safety, and perioperative services. Performance sampling conducted focused on specific challenges observed, interruptions during case cart preparation, and analysis of tray defect data from administrative databases.
Across five main sterilization tasks (prepare load, perform double-checks, run sterilizers, place trays in cooling, and test the biological indicator), variance analysis identified 16 failures created by 21 performance shaping factors (PSFs), leading to nine different outcome variations. Case cart preparation involved three main tasks: storing trays, picking cases, and prioritizing trays. Variance analysis for case cart preparation identified 11 different failures, 16 different PSFs, and seven different outcomes. Approximately 1% of cases had a tray with a sterilization or case cart preparation defect and 13.5 interruptions per hour were noted during case cart preparation.
While highly dependent upon the individual skills of the sterile processing technicians, making the sterilization process less complex and more visible, managing interruptions during case cart preparation, improving communication with the OR, and improving workspace and technology design could enhance performance in instrument reprocessing.
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Claire Warwick, Isabel Galina, Jon Rimmer, Melissa Terras, Ann Blandford, Jeremy Gow and George Buchanan
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of documentation for digital humanities resources. This includes technical documentation of textual markup or database…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to discuss the importance of documentation for digital humanities resources. This includes technical documentation of textual markup or database construction, and procedural documentation about resource construction.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study is presented of an attempt to reuse electronic text to create a digital library for humanities users, as part of the UCIS project. The results of qualitative research by the LAIRAH study on provision of procedural documentation are discussed, as also is, user perception of the purpose, construction and usability of resources collected using semi‐structured interviews and user workshops.
Findings
In the absence of technical documentation, it was impossible to reuse text files with inconsistent markup (COCOA and XML) in a Digital Library. Also, although users require procedural documentation, about the status and completeness of sources, and selection methods, this is often difficult to locate.
Practical implications
Creators of digital humanities resources should provide both technical and procedural documentation and make it easy to find, ideally from the project web site. To ensure that documentation is provided, research councils could make documentation a project deliverable. This will be even more vital once the AHDS is no longer funded to help ensure good practice in digital resource creation.
Originality/value
Previous work has argued that documentation is important. However, the paper presents actual evidence of the problems caused by a lack of documentation and shows that this makes reuse of digital resources almost impossible. This is intended to persuade project creators who wish resources to be reused to provide documentation about its contents and technical specifications.