Smart offices: A productivity and well-being perspective

The rapid development of information communication technology has led towards the emergence of the “connected world” characterised by the pervasive embeddedness of smart technologies. Smart technologies have a transformative impact on different domains of life. The application of smart technologies redefines the way people live, interact and conduct business. To date, the attention of the scholarly community has been paid primarily to smart cities, smart manufacturing and smart homes. However, despite numerous studies discussing the benefits of advanced technologies in the workplace, there is a lack of research on smart offices and how they affect productivity and employee well-being. This opinion paper argues that office spaces constitute a distinctive type of space, and research on smart homes or manufacturing does not suffice to capture its essence. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to propose a research agenda that can advance the current literature on smart and information communication technologies in relation to workplace spaces and the potential implications these could have on productivity.     

Assessing Research Compliance for Federally Funded Projects: The Good,the Bad,and the Publicly Accessible

Abstract

In 2016, Utah State University launched a program to ensure their campus’ federal grant recipients were in compliance with funder mandates to share any data or publications produced as a result of the award. This article discusses how a cross-institutional team of librarians and administrators evaluated the success of this program using online asynchronous focus groups (OAFG) in conjunction with a traditional survey. The challenges and successes of using OAFGs to assess library services are also examined. An OAFG gave participants greater convenience, flexibility, participation, and time to craft answers, eliminating some of the hurdles to traditional focus group participation.     

What works,for whom,and in what circumstances? Towards a critical realist understanding of learning in international and comparative education

The article explores the potential for a critical realist approach to researching learning in international and comparative education (ICE) with a particular focus on the emerging post-2015 education and development agenda. It provides a critique of existing empiricist and interpretivist approaches to researching learning. It is suggested that whilst both have strengths, they are based on an ontologically reductionist view of learning with implications for research, policy and practice. As a ‘third’ research approach critical realism has the potential to build on the strengths whilst avoiding the pitfalls of both empiricism and interpretivism. Such an approach it is argued needs to start from an ontologically inclusive and laminated view of learning. Further, it is suggested that comparative research should focus on the development of theories of learning that are able to explain the natural and social structures and causal mechanisms that give rise to and inhibit learning at different scales and levels and in different contexts. The development of theory ought to embrace epistemological pluralism drawing critically on, cross-cultural, inter-disciplinary and mixed methods enquiry and making use of abductive and retroductive forms of inference. In this way it is argued it becomes possible to move beyond the dominant ‘what works’ agenda favoured by empiricists to critically consider what works, for who and under what circumstances.     

现代塔塔尔族的形成

有关塔塔尔族的研究，在我国以及世界范围内开始的比较早。从“塔塔尔”一词最早出现到当代塔塔尔族的形成，经历了一定的历史过程。本文介绍了我国现有塔塔尔族研究成果和早期使用“塔塔尔”一词的部落，并阐述了一些研究者中的不同观点；同时阐述了当代塔塔尔族形成的科学依据。     

Managing the delicate matter of advice giving: accomplishing communicative space in Critical Participatory Action Research

ABSTRACT

Critical Participatory Action Research (CPAR) requires communicative space to develop shared understandings and decisions. We examine the interactional accomplishment of such a space between a classroom practitioner and an academic researcher when meeting to reflect on a lesson and agree on future action to bring about change in the practitioner’s classroom practice. Conversation analysis of an audio recording of the meeting establishes how advice giving emerged and was managed as a delicate matter that required achieving shared understandings of what actually happened in the lesson, what could have happened, and what should happen in future lessons. Findings provide insights into how participants used reported and hypothetical speech to manage advice and reach agreement, produce and maintain intersubjectivity through interaction, and address epistemic asymmetry related to the differing experiences and roles that they brought to the action research study. Overall, the article contributes understandings of the ways that interactions produce communicative space in CPAR.     

The Effect of Gender and Minority Status on Salary in Private and Public ARL Libraries

The purpose of this study was to identify pay disparities within gender and race using private and public Association of Research Libraries (ARL) libraries as a lens. In this study, 44 ARL libraries participated, leading to 1099 usable responses to our survey. The findings indicate that race and gender pay disparities are larger at private libraries than at public libraries. However, disparity levels at both public and private ARL libraries are smaller than the national averages for all professions and continue to shrink.     

高职院校青年教师如何面对科研工作

本文以高职院校青年教师科研工作为研究对象,以高职院校科研基础薄弱,教师水平有限为基点,从青年教师自身的科研意识培养,科研能力的锻炼与提高,科研视“开拓,以及科研团队建设等方面阐述了高职院校青年教师如何认识和发展科研工作。为青年教师自身科研定位和业务水平的提高提供方向,为高职院校科研工作水平的提高奠定基础。     

武术散打科学研究现状考察

以1979—2013年间中国期刊网上有关散打(散手)的科研论文为研究对象,运用文献资料法、数理统计法和逻辑分析法,对我国武术散打运动30多年来的科学研究状况进行了梳理与分析。认为我国武术散打科学研究大致经历了起步期、缓慢发展期与快速发展期3个阶段;研究内容的分布具有不平衡性。建议各级决策部门要重视散打运动事业的发展,加大科研立项与资金投入;深化优势领域的研究,加强薄弱领域的研究;善于利用先进技术、多学科交叉的研究方法,进一步提高散打研究的科学性与研究成果的应用性。     

美国高等教育绩效拨款政策研究——以佛罗里达州为例

绩效拨款政策在美国已有30余年历史。佛罗里达州早在1994年就实施了绩效拨款政策,但当时仅限于社区学院。2013年卓越州立研究型大学项目和2014年绩效拨款政策则真实地发生在州立大学身上。本文详细阐述了上述政策的实施背景、主要内容以及院校行动等,并得出如下结论:一是采用不同的绩效指标体系实现卓越与效益目标;二是合理运用激励与惩罚机制;三是州绩效拨款模型结合了绩效拨款1.0与2.0的特征。     

Increasing Knowledge Flows between the Agricultural Research and Advisory System in Italy: Combining Virtual and Non-virtual Interaction in Communities of Practice

Purpose: The aim of the paper is to analyse the use of Communities of Practice and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) to enhance knowledge sharing between researchers and advisors. The associated research question is to what extent ICT supported a virtual Community of Practice and has been effective in counteracting fragmentation between research and advisory systems in terms of knowledge sharing between these two pillars of the Italian Agricultural Knowledge System (AKS).

Design/Methodology/approach: The paper uses a mixed methods approach: a questionnaire submitted to the Community of Practice participants on their experiences, observation of interaction between Community of Practice participants and data on the use of the ICT platform.

Findings: The ICT supported Community of Practice approach appears to improve knowledge sharing between researchers and advisors, and also draws in other actors of the broader Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System in which the AKS is embedded. However, ICT based tools alone are not sufficient and need to be complemented with face-to-face (non-virtual) interactions. A clear theoretical implication of this study is that this is an iterative process in which virtual and non-virtual interaction mutually reinforce each other: ICT interaction spurs real life and face-to-face interaction, and ICT supports follow-up on real life face-to-face interaction.

Practical Implications: Communities of Practice can be a useful tool for knowledge sharing between research and advisory systems, but should have a degree of flexibility in terms of the topics they address and should accommodate new members when appropriate. ICT is supportive, but should be complemented by real life meetings.

Originality/Value: The paper connects recent frameworks of the use of Communities of Practice with literature on ICT in agriculture and adds insights on the contribution of combining virtual and non-virtual interaction in Communities of Practice aimed at knowledge sharing.