Working Papers

Some valuable take-aways from the report, "Learning Management Systems: Are organizations making the most of them?" [PDF] are:
- 66 percent of respondents' organizations already use an LMS/VLE and a further 13 percent plan to use one. However, 21 percent do not use an LMS/VLE and have no plans to.
- Of those using an LMS/VLE, 45 percent have used it for more than five years. Only 3 percent started using one within the last year.
- 30 percent of respondents said they are completely satisfied with their LMS/VLE.
- 30 percent were concerned that their LMS/VLE might not meet future requirements.
- 8 percent said their LMS/VLE would definitely not meet future requirements.
- Ensuring training matches employee development needs and reducing costs by decreasing the time taken to train people were seen as the largest benefits of LMS/VLE (40 and 36 percent, respectively).
- Conversely, reducing employee turnover by enabling greater development opportunities (10 percent) and increasing revenue from better trained people (17 percent) were highlighted as the smallest.

This article describes a web based process to guide you from idea, through feasibility, requirements, selection, customisation and implementation of a software package. It is a complete systems methodology.

By Forrest W. Breyfogle

This article (.PDF) describes the advantages of having strategy development be part of an overall system that integrates predictive scorecards with analytically/innovatively determined strategies, improvement efforts that positively impact the big picture and a control system.

By Forrest Breyfogle

Nine-Step Business Management Governance System. Read more...(.PDF)

By Raja Mohan Ivaturi

The conflict between Business and IT has been an acknowledge issue for a long time. There have been many suggestions and solutions implemented but the real success of complete alignment between Business and IT depends on a number of factors. These include
- Human factors
- New tools to support the people

While business is the driving force and IT need to support it, both the functions have their individual goals and objectives which must synchronize for achieving the organization level objectives. Read more...

By Eric Tse

The scope of this article is as followings. For the contract laws, we are going to introduce five concepts:
- Equitable estoppels
- Fundamental breach
- Unilateral mistakes,
- Contract A in tendering process
- Legality of purpose for non compete clause.

Strategic planning as applied to Six Sigma involves detailed and systematic planning in areas of concern that have far-reaching and tactical implications at the project selection stage. The purpose of strategic planning is to develop relevant decisions and actions that guide successful Six Sigma implementation. Read more...

By Elizabeth A. Gruenbaum

When authors refer to a Professional Learning Community (PLC) within a school, they commonly mean a community of stakeholders that are all working together focused on the best interest of the students, where results are measured by an increase in student achievement. These stakeholders are anyone with an interest in that particular school from within the school community—school leaders or administrators, teachers, staff, parents, and community members. Collaboration is a key factor in a PLC. Imagine everyone working together for the best interest of the students and focused on a culture of assessment-driven continuous improvement, and you have a PLC. Read more...

By J. Furlong

The skill set of a 21st-century lawyer will be notably different from what the last century’s practitioner possessed. As fixed-fee arrangements become more common, lawyers will be prized for project management skills and efficient work habits. As collaboration becomes more important, lawyers will be valued for their aptitude for teamwork and their willingness to share. As globalization and technology continue to advance, lawyers who are multi-lingual and scientifically adept will be in great demand. Painfully few firms now look for these assets in the recruitment process. Read more...

Mapping Science is meant to inspire cross-disciplinary discussion on how to best track and communicate human activity and scientific progress on a global scale. It has two components: the physical part supports the close inspection of high quality reproductions of maps for display at conferences and education centers; the online counterpart provides links to a selected series of maps and their makers along with detailed explanations of how these maps work. Read more...

By D. Boyd

For the last few centuries, we have been living in an era of broadcast media, but we have been switching to an era of networked media. This fundamentally alters the structure by which information flows. Read more...

by John Aubrey Douglass

In the midst of the global recession, how have national governments viewed the role of higher education in their evolving strategies for economic recovery? Demand for higher education generally goes up during economic downturns. Which nations have proactively protected funding for their universities and colleges to help maintain access, to help retrain workers, and to mitigate unemployment rates? And which nations have simply made large funding cuts for higher education in light of the severe downturn in tax revenues? This essay provides a moment-in-time review of the fate of higher education among a number of OECD nations and other countries, with a particular focus on the United States, and on California – the largest state in terms of population and in the size of its economy. Preliminary indicators show that most nations are not resorting to uncoordinated and reactionary cutting of funding, and reductions in access in many regions, such as we see in the US. Their political leaders see higher education as a key to both short-term economic recovery and long-term competitiveness.
Read more...

Training and development in the workplace is critical for building organizational capacity and adaptivity. The author of this article argues that American companies have largely reduced workplace education…and have done so at their own peril. India is provided as an example of a country, like Japan, that adopted the best employee development models from western countries and, as a result, dramatically improved the innovativeness (and thereby wealth) of their society.

By Patrick Lambe, Straits Knowledge, Singapore

One of the ongoing admonitions e-learning specialists face is the need to "prove" the return on investment (ROI) for each program they initiate.

But most e-learning programs are funded from ongoing training budgets, which are recurrent (that is, budgeted annually to cover the cost of a year's worth of training, rather than individual projects) and are accounted as operations or infrastructure costs.

Read Part I
Read Part II

Something odd is happening. While financial turmoil engulfs large organizations, intranets and related employee-facing technologies are experiencing a new injection of momentum. Budgets may have been slashed in many central services, but intranet services across multiple sectors are enjoying large-scale investment. Read more...