The purpose of this paper is to provide learning and development professionals with a succinct overview of what they should expect from any rapid e‐learning software.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to provide learning and development professionals with a succinct overview of what they should expect from any rapid e‐learning software.
Design/methodology/approach
Provides a viewpoint on rapid e‐learning software.
Findings
The paper makes a sound case for investment in rapid e‐learning software. It cites a number of key drivers including the ever‐reducing lead times for new e‐learning; the savings that can be made and the control that can be regained by developing product in‐house. Any rapid authoring tool should enable the user to create a simple course within minutes of launching the software. In addition, it should provide the following features as a minimum: intuitive user interface; interactivity with other applications; options for collaborative working – e.g. server side development; accessibility and good after sales support. The paper goes on to explore some of the additional characteristics that provide greater value and emphasizes the speed at which these products are changing, making it imperative that learning and development professionals keep themselves up to date with the changing marketplace.
Practical implications
For anyone looking to source authoring tools, this article gives invaluable advice on the features any purchase should provide. It will particularly assist those with little experience in the area as well as providing timely reminders and suggestions for those more familiar with the world of e‐learning software.
Originality/value
It highlights the benefits and features that should without question be incorporated into any rapid e‐learning software and identifies a number of examples of added value features that buyers should look out for.
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The paper aims to reveal how rapid e‐learning technologies are allowing organizations to introduce e‐learning into situations where inflexibility and cost would have previously…
Abstract
Purpose
The paper aims to reveal how rapid e‐learning technologies are allowing organizations to introduce e‐learning into situations where inflexibility and cost would have previously precluded their use.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper provides a case study of Everyday Financial Solutions (EFS) which, together with Atlantic Link Ltd, won a UK National Training Award based on its experience in implementing e‐learning using rapid e‐learning authoring tools.
Findings
The case study reveals that induction training is now e‐learning based as is Financial Services Authority compliance training. EFS invested around £60,000 in products and induction training, but in two years since 2005 it is estimated that the reduction in design and delivery durations has saved £127,000. In addition, the need to create training environments has been removed and EFS training has saved more than £500,000 in IT effort.
Practical implications
The paper describes how the success of the training is being shown throughout the business in improved staff retention and development.
Originality/value
The paper argues that the flexibility of self‐authored e‐learning means that EFS has a considerable competitive advantage when bidding for third‐party work.
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Every seaport with foreign‐going shiping trade has always had its “foreign” quarters; every large city hat had its Oriental traders and services, eg., Chinese laundries, Indian…
Abstract
Every seaport with foreign‐going shiping trade has always had its “foreign” quarters; every large city hat had its Oriental traders and services, eg., Chinese laundries, Indian restaurants, Italian restaurants, greengrocers, ice cream and biscuit manufacturers; all of which has meant that foreign foods were not unknown to food inspectors and the general public in its discerning quest for exotic food dishes. It was then largely a matter of stores specially stocking these foods for their few users. Now it is no longer the coming and going of the foreign seaman, the isolated laundry, restaurant, but large tightly knit communities of what have come to be known as the “ethnic minorities”, from the large scale immigration of coloured peoples from the old Empire countries, who have brought their families, industry and above all their food and eating habits with them. Feeding the ethnic minorities has become a large and expanding area within the food industry. There are cities in which large areas have been virtually taken over by the immigrant.
Sue Baines, Mike Bull and Ryan Woolrych
The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical overview of claims and counter claims around increased expectations that the third sector organisations (TSOs) will compete for…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to offer a critical overview of claims and counter claims around increased expectations that the third sector organisations (TSOs) will compete for contracts to deliver public services. It does this through the lens of contested notions of being “businesslike” and “entrepreneurial” across the public and third sectors. Then it assesses how some of these tensions are currently played out between public sector commissioners and third sector service providers.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper is based on a one‐year project funded under the ESRC Business Engagement Opportunities scheme (2009‐2010) in which the authors are working with NHS Manchester (responsible for commissioning and directing NHS funds into a wide range of services for communities across the city) and local third sector delivery and infrastructure organisations. The project consists of a set of knowledge exchange activities (scoping, workshops, placements and an on‐line tool) intended to help NHS Manchester reshape its local provider profile through market making and commissioning new service contracts from TSOs, especially social enterprises. Preliminary findings are reported from the review of academic and policy literature that formed the scoping stage of this project.
Findings
Public sector commissioners and TSOs often struggle to make sense of each others' world views and working assumptions. This cannot be easily overcome but ways of improving dialogue are proposed through exploration of third sector outcomes and entrepreneurial language, practices and mindsets.
Originality/value
This paper offers a new, grounded reflection on the nexus of public sector contracts, entrepreneurship and third sector values.
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Pam Seanor, Mike Bull, Sue Baines and Rory Ridley‐Duff
In response to calls to critically analyse and conceptually advance social enterprise, the purpose of this paper is to examine narratives and models representing a spectrum of…
Abstract
Purpose
In response to calls to critically analyse and conceptually advance social enterprise, the purpose of this paper is to examine narratives and models representing a spectrum of social enterprise from the “social” to the “economic”. The paper tests these against the experience of practitioners who were either employees in social organisations or support workers tasked with promoting social enterprise. This is timely against a background of imperatives from central governments for social organisations to compete for the delivery of public services and become more “entrepreneurial”.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper reports qualitative research in which participants were invited to draw lines and arrows onto spectrum models to illustrate the social and economic contexts they perceived themselves to be working within. The data comprise interviews and drawings, combined with verbal descriptions of the drawings and reflections on their significance.
Findings
The paper shows how participants interpreted the “social” and “economic” of social enterprise in pictures and words. The research suggests that social enterprise can not be told as a single narrative but as a set of little stories showing oscillations, contradictions and paradox.
Research limitations/implications
Understanding of social enterprise can be much improved by giving greater recognition to ambiguities and compromises within the lived experience of contemporary practice.
Originality/value
The article offers new reflection on widely used images that represent social enterprise along a dichotomous, polar spectrum from social to economic.
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Abstract
Details
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The combination of previously unassociated terms in a metaphor can helpfully illustrate particular characteristics of a person, phenomenon or practice. However, it can also…
Abstract
The combination of previously unassociated terms in a metaphor can helpfully illustrate particular characteristics of a person, phenomenon or practice. However, it can also obfuscate because the focus on some elements may come at the expense of others. The metaphor of the landscape is somewhat ubiquitous in academic literature, and this paper is specifically interested in the ‘higher education landscape’, which is widely used in scholarly – as well as media and policy – writing. By applying thematic analysis to a sample of publications which invoke the term, this paper comprises what Haslanger calls a descriptive and ameliorative approach to investigate both how and why this metaphor is used. By considering these publications cumulatively, we can identify that the higher education landscape enables scholars to simultaneously acknowledge higher education's temporal, social and political positioning, its state of what can feel like permanent and wide-ranging flux, and its diverse cast of interrelated actors. In this way, it serves as a useful and evocative container metaphor for higher education's activities and constituents and the interrelationships and tensions between them. At the same time, its somewhat indiscriminate and indeterminate use can conflate and mask the detail and nature of these dynamics, and it is possible to discern in its application a collective sense of nervousness and uncertainty about higher education more generally.