Re-Engineering as a Change Agent at the National Library of Canada

1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 107-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liz McKeen ◽  
Ingrid Parent
Keyword(s):  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
National Library ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Document Delivery ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Management Commitment ◽  
Working Groups ◽  
Set Up

Business process re-engineering (or re-engineering) involves a rethinking of the processes, operations and structure of an organization in order to achieve dramatic improvements in its outputs. Over the past four years the National Library of Canada has been engaged in an in-depth review of several of its activities using re-engineering. Three projects have been undertaken, involving the Serials Record Section, the document delivery of items in the library's collections, and bibliographic access (including cataloguing and related activities). The last was carried out over the summer of 1993, and as a result four working groups were set up, each dealing with the following prime recommendations: strengthening the focus on users; simplifying cataloguing priorities and reducing cataloguing levels; reorganizing the cataloguing operation to reflect an integrated approach: and streamlining the current partially contracted out CIP programme. A reorganized bibliographic access function took effect on March 1, 1995, incorporating a new approach to management and demonstrating greater involvement in decision making by staff at all levels. Essential elements for successful re-engineering include senior management commitment, selection of knowledgeable and representative team members, the use of technology as a means not an end, and regular communication channels.

scholarly journals Developing a BIM-Based MUVR Treadmill System for Architectural Design Review and Collaboration

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (15) ◽  
pp. 6881
Author(s):  
Calvin Chung Wai Keung ◽  
Jung In Kim ◽  
Qiao Min Ong
Keyword(s):  
Architectural Design ◽  
Human Locomotion ◽  
Virtual Space ◽  
Design Stage ◽  
Design Review ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Physical Constraints ◽  
Simulated Environment ◽  
Set Up ◽  
High Level

Virtual reality (VR) is quickly becoming the medium of choice for various architecture, engineering, and construction applications, such as design visualization, construction planning, and safety training. In particular, this technology offers an immersive experience to enhance the way architects review their design with team members. Traditionally, VR has used a desktop PC or workstation setup inside a room, yielding the risk of two users bump into each other while using multiuser VR (MUVR) applications. MUVR offers shared experiences that disrupt the conventional single-user VR setup, where multiple users can communicate and interact in the same virtual space, providing more realistic scenarios for architects in the design stage. However, this shared virtual environment introduces challenges regarding limited human locomotion and interactions, due to physical constraints of normal room spaces. This study thus presented a system framework that integrates MUVR applications into omnidirectional treadmills. The treadmills allow users an immersive walking experience in the simulated environment, without space constraints or hurt potentialities. A prototype was set up and tested in several scenarios by practitioners and students. The validated MUVR treadmill system aims to promote high-level immersion in architectural design review and collaboration.

Telephone-based consultation in an acute eye clinic service: A patient satisfaction survey

2021 ◽  
pp. 112067212110307
Author(s):  
Julia Sieberer ◽  
Patrick Hughes ◽  
Indy Sian
Keyword(s):  
Healthcare Professionals ◽  
Medical Specialties ◽  
New Approach ◽  
High Satisfaction ◽  
Negative Comments ◽  
Patient Responses ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Strongly Agree ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Park Hospital

Objectives: The coronavirus pandemic has forced healthcare staff across all medical specialties to adapt new and different ways of working. A new approach has been set up in the Acute Referral Clinic (ARC) at Musgrove Park Hospital and a survey has been conducted to measure the impact of the new method on patient and healthcare professionals’ satisfaction with the new service. Methods: A telephone-based consultation was introduced in ARC at Musgrove Park Hospital in March 2020 and patients were instructed to fill out a questionnaire containing eight items using a Likert Scale 1 (‘very poor/disagree’) to 4 (‘very good/strongly agree’) plus two boxes for open positive and negative comments respectively. Likewise a questionnaire was designed in order to assess the healthcare professionals’ satisfaction using the new approach. Data collection took place over a two month period between the end of March 2020 and end of May 2020. The data underwent quality control and was analysed using descriptive statistics. Results: Patient responses illustrated high satisfaction scores with an overall rating of very good (89.4%). The healthcare professionals’ rating of the service was good (28.6% – ‘very good/strongly agree’, 57.1% – ‘good/agree’). The safety rating of the new approach was overall rated ‘very good’ with 90.4% and 71.4% of patients and healthcare professionals respectively. Conclusions: The telephone consultations introduced in the wake of COVID-19 are well accepted by both patients and doctors. There are some limitations of the approach, foremost being consultation time and clinic space but these do not outweigh the general benefit of this format amidst a pandemic setting.

Constructive Distributed Work: An Integrated Approach to Sustainable Collaboration and Research for Distributed Teams

2021 ◽  
pp. 105065192110214
Author(s):  
Michelle McMullin ◽  
Bradley Dilger
Keyword(s):  
Best Practices ◽  
Team Building ◽  
Three Dimensional ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Interdisciplinary Teams ◽  
Digital Tools ◽  
Distributed Teams ◽  
Distributed Work ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Negative Impacts

Academic work increasingly involves creating digital tools with interdisciplinary teams distributed across institutions and roles. The negative impacts of distributed work are described at length in technical communication scholarship, but such impacts have not yet been realized in collaborative practices. By integrating attention to their core ethical principles, best practices, and work patterns, the authors are developing an ethical, sustainable approach to team building that they call constructive distributed work. This article describes their integrated approach, documents the best practices that guide their research team, and models the three-dimensional thinking that helps them develop sustainable digital tools and ensure the consistent professional development of all team members.

scholarly journals REXIC project: retrospective cross-sectional study of documentation of informed consent for research biobanking in a public research and teaching hospital

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Nobile ◽  
Elena Garavelli ◽  
Barbara Gagliardi ◽  
Silvia Giovanelli ◽  
Paolo Rebulla ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Informed Consent ◽  
Standard Model ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Research And Teaching ◽  
Single Standard ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Design And Methods

<em>Background</em>. The Center for Transfusion Medicine, Cell Therapy and Cryobiology, Milan, Northern Italy, is the headquarter of the POLI-MI biobank. It co-ordinates the biobank activities of the Fondazione Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico of Milan. Such activities require specific safeguarding of donors’ rights and protection of sensitive and genetic data. The Fondazione Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico has set up a project on informed consent with the aim of developing awareness and understanding of this issue. Within this project, it has been decided to evaluate how consent for biobanking material is expressed. <em>Design and methods.</em> The aim of the study was to evaluate the quality and completeness of consent to biobanking in the POLI-MI biobank. This was a retrospective study carried out in 2012 on samples of consent declarations collected by biobank units in 2011. Some units used a single, standard consent model available from a previous POLI-MI biobank workgroup. Other units used models which had been previouly formulated. Evaluation was made using a form that indicated the essential elements of consent. <em>Results</em>. A total of 48 consent declarations were collected using the single, standard model and 84 were collected using other models. The consent declarations that used the single, standard model were found to be the most complete and were filled in better than other models. <em>Conclusions</em>. Progressive adoption of a simple, standard consent model is expected to improve the quality of consent acquisition. Regular audit of the compliance of consent practices with ethical and legal requirements is mandatory to improve the quality of research biobanking.

scholarly journals The origins and evolution of Cypriot glazed ware productions during the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries CE

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Carmen Ting ◽  
Thilo Rehren ◽  
Athanasios Vionis ◽  
Vasiliki Kassianidou
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Mediterranean ◽  
Medieval Period ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Commercial Activities ◽  
Late Medieval Period ◽  
Thin Section Petrography ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Economic Developments ◽  
Full Consideration

AbstractThis paper challenges the conventional characterisation of glazed ware productions in the eastern Mediterranean, especially the ones which did not feature the use of opaque or tin-glazed technology, as technologically stagnant and unsusceptible to broader socio-economic developments from the late medieval period onwards. Focusing on the Cypriot example, we devise a new approach that combines scientific analyses (thin-section petrography and SEM-EDS) and a full consideration of the chaîne opératoire in context to highlight the changes in technology and craft organisation of glazed ware productions concentrating in the Paphos, Famagusta and Lapithos region during the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries CE. Our results indicate that the Paphos production was short-lived, lasting from the establishment of Frankish rule in Cyprus in the thirteenth century to the aftermath of the fall of the Crusader campaigns in the fourteenth century. However, glazed ware production continued in Famagusta and Lapithos from the late thirteenth/fourteenth centuries through to the seventeenth century, using technical practices that were evidently different from the Paphos production. It is possible that these productions were set up to serve the new, local demands deriving from an intensification of commercial activities on the island. Further changes occurred to the technical practices of the Famagusta and Lapithos productions around the 16th/17th centuries, coinciding with the displacement of populations and socio-political organisation brought by the Ottoman rule.

Comprehensive Methods for Studying Microinhomogeneity in Thermal Spray Coatings with Amorphous-Crystalline Structure

1998 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Grigorenko ◽  
A. Borisova
Keyword(s):  
Thermal Spray ◽  
Crystalline Structure ◽  
Structural Phase ◽  
Thermal Spraying ◽  
Integrated Approach ◽  
Thermal Spray Coatings ◽  
Chemical Heterogeneity ◽  
New Approach ◽  
X Ray ◽  
Spray Coatings

Abstract An integrated approach was developed for investigation of thermal spray coatings with the amorphous-crystalline structure. The new approach combines methods of metallography, differential thermal and X-ray phase analysis, scanning electron microscopy and X-ray microanalysis. This makes it possible to reveal structural, phase and chemical heterogeneity, determine the degree of amorphization of coatings, temperature and heat of crystallization of the amorphous phase during heating. The new integrated approach was used to study amorphous-crystalline coatings of the Ni-P, Fe-Ni-B and Fe-B systems produced by thermal spraying.

Supporting the pursuit of professionalism during a crisis

BMJ Leader ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. leader-2021-000458
Author(s):  
William O Cooper ◽  
Nancy M Lorenzi ◽  
Heather A Davidson ◽  
Cynthia A Baldwin ◽  
Daniel M Feinberg ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Focus Group ◽  
Essential Elements ◽  
Healthcare Organisation ◽  
Focus Group Discussions ◽  
Group Discussions ◽  
Crisis Plans ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Professional Accountability ◽  
Physical Plant

BackgroundCrisis plans for healthcare organisations most often focus on operational needs including staffing, supplies and physical plant needs. Less attention is focused on how leaders can support and encourage individual clinical team members to conduct themselves as professionals during a crisis.MethodsThis qualitative study analysed observations from 79 leaders at 160 hospitals that participate in two national professionalism programmes who shared their observations in focus group discussions about what they believed were the essential elements of leading and addressing professional accountability during a crisis.ResultsAnalysis of focus group responses identified six leadership practices adopted by healthcare organisations, which were felt to be essential for organisations to navigate the crisis successfully. Unique aspects of maintaining professionalism during each phase of the pandemic were identified and described.ConclusionsLeaders need a plan to support an organiation’s pursuit of professionalism during a crisis. Leaders participating in this study identified practices that should be carefully woven into efforts to support the ongoing safety and quality of the care delivered by healthcare organisations before, during and after a crisis. The lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic may be useful during subsequent crises and challenges that a healthcare organisation might experience.

PANDORA: Providing Long Term Access to Australia's Online Electronic Publications

1998 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-75 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wendy Smith
Keyword(s):  
World Wide Web ◽  
World Wide ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Online Environment ◽  
National Library ◽  
Policies And Procedures ◽  
Electronic Publications ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Printed Materials

The Internet, particularly through the application of World Wide Web (WWW) technology, has proved to be a very attractive medium for publishing. However, the difficulties of finding appropriate information online and then of ensuring its long term accessibility have created problems for libraries. Practices that work for books and other printed materials do not always translate directly to online materials. The National Library of Australia's PANDORA project has been set up to develop policies and procedures for ensuring long term access to significant Australian publications which are accessible only in an online environment, and to establish and maintain a permanent archive ofthat material.

Survey on Faculty Use of Interactive Videodisc Technology in Teacher Education

1993 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 321-332 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. Lynne Hannah ◽  
Ronald J. Abate
Keyword(s):  
Administrative Support ◽  
Postgraduate Education ◽  
Technology Research ◽  
Education Students ◽  
Faculty Knowledge ◽  
Core Curricula ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
Urban University ◽  
Set Up ◽  
Videodisc Technology

A videodisc and related technology research project was set up at an urban university to improve the delivery of information by professors, and the understanding of important concepts by education students. An exploratory study was conducted to investigate factors that influence the use of technology by faculty who teach the core curricula in the under/postgraduate education program. Through the use of questionnaires and direct interviews, the factors that influenced the decisions to use or not to use the available videodisc technology were isolated. Principal among these were: time, student and faculty knowledge of technology, conceptions about the technology and its potential, faculty incentives to become involved, and administrative support.

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