An intellectual capital perspective of human resource strategies and practices

Knowledge Management Research & Practice - Previous research has investigated the relationships between intellectual capital (IC) and human resource management (HRM). Others have described the...     

A state-wide change initiative: The primary science teacher-leader project

The Primary Science Teacher-Leader Project was conducted during 1995 and 1996 as part of the Education Department of Western Australia's Science Project. This paper focuses on the implications of this project for primary science education reform. It is shown that the project inducted a cadre of skilled and enthusiastic teacher-leaders who impacted on science teaching in classrooms throughout the state. Quality professional development, networking, time and the provision of modest resources for teacher-leaders were the major structural factors contributing to the success of the model. Contextual factors included the readiness for change in primary science among schools and teachers, the collaborative approach to the project by the science education community in Western Australia and the concurrent publication and implementation of quality teaching materials in the form ofPrimary Investigations.     

Fostering thinking through science in the early years of schooling

The purpose of this research was to investigate and describe concrete examples of Year 1 students engaged in good thinking and to generate assertions about the ways teachers can foster habits of good thinking through science. The research design was a multiple case study of 32 lessons, of which four are analysed in detail in this paper. The results suggest that young children engaged in good thinking are likely to explain and demonstrate their ideas and actions and to make suggestions for solving problems. Children engaged in good thinking also are likely to highlight discrepancies, adopt new ideas, and work collaboratively. The results indicate that teachers can foster habits of good thinking through science; first, by accepting difficulty as an integral part of the learning process, second, by encouraging children to explain and talk about their ideas and, finally, by creating an environment where thinking is a valued classroom process.     

Semantic annotation based exploratory search for information analysts

The system presented in this article aims to improve information access through the use of semantic annotation utilizing a non-traditional approach. Instead of applying semantic annotations to enhance the internal information access mechanisms, we use them to empower the user of an information access system through an innovative named entity-based user interface – NameSieve. NameSieve was built to support an intelligence analyst during the process of exploratory search, an advanced type of search requiring multiple iterations of retrieval interleaved with browsing and analyzing the retrieved information. The proposed approach was implemented in the NameSieve system so that the system can transparently present a summary of search results in the form of entity “clouds.” Therefore, these clouds allow the analyst to further explore the results in a novel manner, acting together as a faceted browsing interface. We ran a user study (with ten subjects) to examine the effect of NameSieve, and the study results reported in the paper demonstrate that this new way of applying semantic annotation information was actively used and was evaluated positively by the subjects. It enabled the subjects to work more productively and bring back most relevant documents.