Expanding uses of building information modeling in life-cycle construction projects

BIM is targeted at providing information about the entire building and a complete set of design documents and data stored in an integrated database. In this paper, we study the use of BIM in two life-cycle construction projects in Kuopio, Finland during 2011. The analysis of uses of BIM and their main problems will constitute a foundation for an intervention. We will focus on the following questions: (1) How different partners use the composite BIM model? (2) What are the major contradictions or problems in the BIM use? The preliminary findings reported in this study show that BIM has been adopted quite generally to design use but the old ways of collaboration seem to prevail, especially between designers and between designers and building sites. BIM has provided new means and demands for collaboration but expansive uses of BIM for providing new interactive processes across professional fields have not much come true.     

Bridgework: Diversity and Collaboration in an Undergraduate Preengineering Course

In this article, we draw on ethnographic findings to examine the meaning of “diversity” and “collaboration” within the context of an undergraduate preengineering course at a large Hispanic-serving institution located on the U.S.–Mexico border. Using bridgework, a new theoretical concept, we analyze interactions and interactivity that occurred within and among jigsaw groups attempting to solve mathematical problems as part of a precalculus review. Our use of bridgework, contributes to cultural-historical activity theory to demonstrate how contradictions and multivoicedness among interacting activity systems can work to change patterns of activity, thus providing a complex view of diversity and collaboration.     

Use of information systems in social work – challenges and an agenda for future research

ABSTRACT

In the age of digitalisation social work is transforming. With the increased use of information systems, social workers are meeting new professional challenges. In this paper, we report findings covering a nine-year longitudinal study on critical issues in the use of a Case Management System in a Swedish social work agency. The study includes a stakeholder-based evaluation, interviews and document analysis. Comparing the evaluation findings with the literature helped us identify six areas in need of intensified research: (i) Usability and interface design; (ii) Mismatch between social conceptualisation and system conceptualisation of the case; (iii) Skills and training for information systems use; (iv) Statistical production for accountability and quality assurance; (v) Terminology for interpersonal understanding; (vi) IT Governance. As can be seen from the areas above, this kind of research depends on professional knowledge from the social work field – but also from the field of information systems. Hence, we suggest deeper collaboration between the two areas of knowledge in order to scrutinize the complexity of social work information systems. Clearly, the intersection of social work and information systems is a neglected research area, and we attempt to contribute by providing guidance for intensified research and practical knowledge generation.     

Thinking Like a Social Worker: Examining the Meaning of Critical Thinking in Social Work

This article proposes a model for interprofessional collaboration within the context and process of field experiences in public schools. The model evolved out of a collaborative venture between the schools of social work and education at Boston College. The placement of pairs of social work and education interns in urban schools provided an opportunity to identify the nature of collaboration that is transdisciplinary and not parallel practice. This transdisciplinary practice model is based on a common goal, discipline-specific objectives, and co-facilitated activities. The discussion includes issues of project design and implementation as well as the advantages and challenges of interprofessional field work.     

Making ideas “app”-en: the creation and evolution of a digital mobile resource to teach social work interviewing skills

ABSTRACT

This paper describes the processes involved in the design, delivery, and evolution of a mobile app.’ The initial app’ was funded by an institutional Teaching Award to update the delivery of Egan interviewing skills to social work students. The article charts the progress of development, beginning with the initial rationale for the app’ and its subsequent evolution into a Motivational Interviewing resource for social workers within a designated local authority. Arguing for the increasing importance of digital resources, within social work training and practice, the article draws from theories of digital pedagogy, as well as highlighting the work of some prominent figures within this emerging field. The article is written as a collaboration between the lead author and the app’ developers, who have contributed technical detail and emphasized the need for collaboration. Whilst the article touches briefly on the mechanics involved with app creation, its chief aim is to act as a guide to the practical, financial and relational aspects of development – in order that other social work practitioners and educators are inspired to progress their own ideas into innovative digital resources. To facilitate this, the article concludes with a practical list of suggestions for successful digital development.     

Quality of life and sustainability issues as seen by the population of low-income housing in the region of Campinas, Brazil

This paper presents a study on quality of life and sustainability indicators relating to site-planning parameters for low-income public housing projects in the region of Campinas, Brazil. The study is based on a post-occupancy-evaluation (POE), conducted in five housing developments. Most of these housing projects are based on a repetitive model and are devoid of urban infrastructure. Users act on their own in providing for some elements considered necessary to create an identity and community spirit. Results show that the population relates quality of life to economic factors and sustainability is associated to reduce utility bills. Houses are preferred to apartments and satisfaction with the present housing conditions is high, despite low feelings of security in the neighbourhood. This work is part of a broader study, which aims to develop design evaluation tools. Most sensitive quality of life and sustainability indicators related to site-planning should permeate these tools and establish design guidelines. The inclusion of a large number of qualitative design issues into the decision-making process and the questioning of existing standardized solutions are seen as essential means to increase local housing quality.     

Implementing Rigorous Survey Methodology within Contexts of Social Work Education,Training and Practice: A Case Study in Substance Use

With the integration of evidence-based practice central to all areas of social work education and training across the globe, it is crucial that we continue to engage with the methodological challenges inherent in gathering this evidence, particularly when it is related to the nature of social work education itself. As a result, this paper addresses some of the methodological challenges involved in examining the education available to social workers on engaging with substance use, both within the social work academy and local authorities in England. Drawing on experiences of implementing large scale online surveys from three substantial research projects completed by the authors, this paper highlights four methodological themes: (1) Constructing a representative sampling frame; (2) Identifying participants within organisations with many departments; (3) Response rates; and (4) Questionnaire design. While these are familiar methodological considerations, this article draws attention to the specific complexities of gathering ‘representative’ knowledge to inform educational strategies on substance use within social work education and employment contexts. Finally this paper offers lessons learned and guidance for social work academics, students and practitioners who are minded to build, or draw from, an evidence-base using representative samples from and within these environments.     

Practical knowledge and occupational control: The professionalization of architecture in the United States

An analysis of the formation of a discipline of architectural design in the United States in the first part of the 19th century emphasizes the relationship between the substantive content of professional expertise and the social structure of professional practice. As a newly constructed practice of design was threatened by broad changes affecting the structure of occupational control, explicit professionalizing projects emerged from the ideological organization of professional work itself. This paper identifies limitations of the market monopoly model and outlines an alternative view that focuses on the way the rhetorical dimensions of professional work organize the efforts of actors within a self-reproducing structure of occupational control. Analysis of the production of practical knowledge opens up new directions for research, incorporating the cultural dimensions of work into a macrostructural account of a profession and the processes of professionalization.     

Collaboration in EU Framework Programmes – the case of the social sciences and humanities

The impact of the European Framework Programme (hereafter FP) projects is usually measured with reference to the possibilities offered for collaboration. In this research note we take a different perspective and explore the extent to which FPs have influenced the traditional performance of researchers and vice versa. The population reference for our study consists of the projects funded within the EU Sixth Framework Programme (FP6) between 2002 and 2006. Here, we have concentrated our analysis on the priority area of “citizens and governance in a knowledge-based society” (CIT).     

Network Canvas: Key decisions in the design of an interviewer-assisted network data collection software suite

Self-reported social network analysis studies are often complex and burdensome, both during the interview process itself, and when conducting data management following the interview. Through funding obtained from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA/NIH), our team developed the Network Canvas suite of software – a set of complementary tools that are designed to simplify the collection and storage of complex social network data, with an emphasis on usability and accessibility across platforms and devices, and guided by the practical needs of researchers. The suite consists of three applications: Architect: an application for researchers to design and export interview protocols; Interviewer: a touch-optimized application for loading and administering interview protocols to study participants; and Server: an application for researchers to manage the interview deployment process and export their data for analysis. Together, they enable researchers with minimal technological expertise to access a complete research workflow, by building their own network interview protocols, deploying these protocols widely within a variety of contexts, and immediately attaining the resulting data from a secure central location. In this paper, we outline the critical decisions taken in developing this suite of tools for the network research community. We also describe the work which guides our decision-making, including prior experiences and key discovery events. We focus on key design choices, taken for theoretical, philosophical, and pragmatic reasons, and outline their strengths and limitations.     

Coordination and Convention: The Organization of the Concert World

The organization of collaborative work is generally the focus of formal organization researchers. This article examines collaboration organized through an alternative framework, the “social world.” The substantive focus is the concert world, where the interdependent activities of composition and performance are routinely coordinated to produce concerts. Coordination of these activities takes place through musical conventions, which act as an alternative to administrative processes used in formal organization. But the use of conventions vary in the concert world depending on the organizational characteristics of concert collaboration, called “coordination problems”, and the aesthetic interests of participants. The first part of this article develops a model to assess coordination problems in social worlds, and the second part of the article uses the model to analyze collaboration in repertory, academic, and avant-garde concert activities.     

Effect of a workplace design and training intervention on individual performance, group effectiveness and collaboration: the role of environmental control

The effects of a workplace design and training intervention and the relationships between perceived satisfaction of office workplace design factors (layout and storage) and work performance measures (individual performance, group collaboration and effectiveness) were studied with 120 office workers using the Workplace Environment Questionnaire. Further, we examined whether environmental control had a direct effect on work performance, and then explored whether environmental control mediated or moderated the relationship between workplace design factors and work performance. Results showed a significant, positive impact of the intervention on environmental satisfaction for workstation layout. Satisfaction with workstation layout had a significant relationship with individual performance, group collaboration and effectiveness; and satisfaction with workstation storage had a significant relationship with individual performance and group collaboration. Environmental control had a direct impact on individual performance and group collaboration; whereas, the mediating and moderating effects of environmental control on the relationship between workplace design factors and outcome variables were not significant.     

Gambling Prevention Program Among Children

Gambling becomes a more frequent activity among children as they have an easy access to the world of the games. In the same time children are at a higher risk for developing problem and/or pathological gambling having erroneous information about how games of chance and games of skill work. The purpose of the study was to compare the influence of specific primary prevention with rational emotive education (REE) on the subjects’ knowledge about games. The experimental design randomly assigned children (N = 81, age 12–13, 37 male and 44 female) into three groups: 1. control, 2. specific information about games using the interactive software “Amazing Chateau”, and 3. REE. All children completed a questionnaire with 38 items at the beginning of the study and after 10 weekly interventional meetings. Each item had three answering options, children choosing only one correct answer. Findings indicated that the use of the software significantly improved subjects’ knowledge about gambling and corrected their information about how games work. The results of the study confirmed that using specific primary prevention tools for changing erroneous conceptions about games is more efficient than using only REE. The implications of these results for the prevention of gambling problems especially in schools are discussed.     

Traits of Leaders of Rural Non-governmental Organisations as Predictors of Collaboration Between NGOs and Rural Gmina Offices: Voices from Central Poland

Collaboration between non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and public institutions, in accordance with the new public governance model, may contribute to actions by such organisations on behalf of both the co-production and co-construction of social services. The aim of this article is to assess the role of selected traits of NGO leaders in determining the chances of collaboration between NGOs and rural gmina offices in central, post-socialist Poland. The authors present the results of studies on selected subjective determinants of such collaboration, in which 104 leaders of NGOs from 29 rural gminas participated. Five independent research tools were implemented. Logistic regression analysis was used to assess the role of selected traits of NGO leaders in determining the potential for collaboration between NGOs and rural gmina offices. The final model indicates that the potential for collaboration between an NGO and a rural gmina office increases alongside higher levels of education, social competences and locus of control and decreased control ideology among NGO leaders. On this basis, the authors formulate practical conclusions concerning the education of leaders of rural NGOs in post-socialist Poland.

     

Mending the gaps in social work education and research: two examples from a Swedish context

ABSTRACT

The gap-mending concept is an analytical tool that helps teachers and researchers in social work to reflect upon what, in their practice, increases, maintains or mends gaps between professionals and service user groups. The article suggests a theoretical background on how gaps in social work practice can be challenged. This includes theories about power and recognition. It then moves on to describe the development of gap-mending strategies in research and education at the School of Social Work at Lund University. Lund University was one of three partners that took the initiative to the international network PowerUs that has focused on gap-mending strategies in social work education. The authors have been working over 10 years in collaboration with service user participation in the education of social workers and in different research projects. In the article, they give examples of gap-mending practices and of challenges that they have faced. The first example is an experimental course that has been given since 2005 where social work students study together with students from service user organizations in a university course. The second example is an attempt to combat homelessness in several Swedish municipalities. Supported by researchers, the development project has been a collaboration between homeless groups, politicians and social workers.     

Finding disturbances in on-farm biogas production

When implementing innovations, disturbances are very likely to take place. Disturbances are undesirable because they can lead to unwanted outcomes, such as economic losses and work overload to workers. However, they can be powerful opportunities for learning and re-designing innovations. Here, we will present activity theoretical tools for analyzing disturbances in a way that they could be used as learning opportunities. We illustrate the proposed tools by analyzing a disturbance that took place during the implementation of a project of biogas production. By interpreting the disturbance process with a network of activity systems, we found that on-farm disturbances were formed as ruptures, innovations and asynchronies originated in other activity systems. This finding suggests that disturbances are outcomes of the functioning of networks, rather than simple results of failure of individuals or technical devices. The proposed tools could be used in interventions to help practitioners and ergonomists to recognize the systemic and networked nature of problems, and therefore, realize that they may require the collaboration of actors from different activities. In this sense, disturbances may be turned into opportunities for learning and developing innovations. We conclude by discussing how the method could be used in ergonomic design and intervention.     

Merging and its procedures in QSR software

Qualitative Solutions and Research (QSR) provide merge tools for combining NUD*IST or NVivo 'projects' as neither package enables more than one researcher to work on a data set simultaneously (although, of course, turn-taking on the computer is possible). These tools appear to offer researchers collaborating in pairs and in teams the option to develop work separately and combine it for cross-analysis. Although the merge tools are easy to use, doing so effectively imposes some important limitations on the use of QSR software. This paper discusses four strategies for using merge effectively in team research.     

Using conceptual models as a planning and evaluation tool in conservation

Conservation projects are dynamic interventions that occur in complex contexts involving intricate interactions of social, political, economic, cultural, and environmental factors. These factors are constantly changing over time and space as managers learn more about the context within which they work. This complex context poses challenges for planning and evaluating conservation project. In order for conservation managers and evaluation professionals to design good interventions and measure project success, they simultaneously need to embrace and deconstruct contextual complexity.In this article, we describe conceptual models—a tool that helps articulate and make explicit assumptions about a project's context and what a project team hopes to achieve. We provide real-world examples of conceptual models, discuss the relationship between conceptual models and other evaluation tools, and describe various ways that conceptual models serve as a key planning and evaluation tool. These include, for example, that they document assumptions about a project site and they provide a basis for analyzing theories of change.It is impractical to believe that we can completely eliminate detail or dynamic complexity in projects. Nevertheless, conceptual models can help reduce the effects of this complexity by helping us understand it.     

Anticipating needs and designing new items rapidly - a case study for the design of postural aid equipment

In this case study, designers proactively proposed new product ideas to a client by using an ergonomic approach. This approach differs from a more traditional approach where one works within a specific, clientdefined project. The methodology used included basic ergonomic techniques such as task analysis and information gathering sessions conducted with users. It was adapted so that these enriched user sessions could be conducted within a short time period. After meeting with five users in seven days, designers identified 20 problems that could be tackled and eight design ideas that could be implemented over the short, medium and long term. The ideas encompassed a wide range of potential projects, including physical product improvements, new product lines, Web-site and software improvements and longer term research. Problems identified and ideas generated involved many disciplines including occupational therapy, mechanical engineering, graphical design, software engineering, sales and manufacturing know-how. This wide range was possible because designers were not constrained to specific project scopes and timelines. The client was involved in the idea evaluation process. As a result of this study two new projects were initiated so far.