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Ideally, quality should be, and is, an integral element of education, yet capturing and articulating quality is not simple. Programme quality reviews in third-level education can demonstrate quality and identify areas for improvement, offering many potential benefits. However, details on the process of quality programme review are limited in the literature. This study aims to report on the introduction of a standardised programme review process in one university.

Using a standardised template, the annual programme review (APR) process captured student voice, external examiner reports, statistical data and action/s since the previous review. Following completion of programme reviews across the university, the APR process was itself evaluated using questionnaires and focus groups.

Findings showed that the programme chairs understood the rationale for the review, welcomed the standardised format and felt the information could inform future programme planning. However, in the focus group, issues arose about the timing, ownership and possible alternate use of the data collected in the course of the review.

This case study demonstrates the experience of APR in a single third-level institution, therefore, limiting generalisability.

APR offers a comprehensive record of the programme that can be carried out with efficacy and efficiency. The study illustrates one institution’s experience, and this may assist others in using similar quality evaluation tools. Using APR allows quality to be measured, articulated and improved.

Using APR allows quality, or its lack to be to be measured, articulated and improved in the delivery of education at a third-level institution.

This study demonstrates the experience of the introduction of an APR process in one higher education institute. Programme review is an important and essential part of academia in the 21st century. At third level, quality assurance is, or should be, a central part of academic programmes and delivery. The review of the first implementation has provided valuable information that will inform future programme review processes. Academic programmes grow, evolve and need to be reviewed regularly. It is hoped that the information reported here will aid others developing academic review procedures.

This study explored the experiences of Irish emergency medical services (EMS) first responders during the first nationwide restrictions to curb the spread of COVID-19.

A systematic literature review (SLR) of research into healthcare workers' and first responders' experiences during the COVID-19 and 2003 SARS pandemics was performed. The SLR informed the content of an online questionnaire distributed via the Irish Pre-Hospital Emergency Care Council to 2,092 first responders on its live register. Data analysis used both descriptive and content analysis.

EMS first responders faced many challenges including PPE quality, training on its use, issues with decontamination facilities, and organisational effectiveness. Emotional challenges included the anxiety experienced, the impact on families, and ethical dilemmas confronted related to patient care. Positive findings also emerged, such as first responders' dedication to working through the pandemic, collegiality, and the community goodwill displayed.

While investigations of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare workers have been undertaken globally, studies focussing exclusively on the experiences of EMS first responders have been rare. This study addressed this knowledge gap, providing an insight into the challenges and successes experienced by first responders and identifying opportunities for learning that can be applied to future public health emergencies.

The purpose of this paper is to identify how coordination has evolved in humanitarian logistics (HL), what were the triggers for change and how have they been facilitated.

This paper applies a systematic literature review of academic journals.

This is the first paper to discuss the concepts of network orchestration and choreography in a humanitarian context. The research revealed that network coordination has moved on in the commercial sector to include orchestration and now, choreography concepts which have not been tested in HL literature. This reveals a lag exists between HL research and practice.

This paper represents an exploratory study and provides the basis for further research on the concepts of orchestration and choreography in HL. The paper sets a research agenda for academics.

This paper is the first to discuss the concepts of network orchestration and choreography in a humanitarian context.

The areas of orchestration and choreography have received limited consideration within the humanitarian aid logistics literature to date. This paper is designed to redress this shortfall. As a result, it is hoped that it will act as a catalyst for further research and to widen and deepen the resultant debate with a view to improving the outcome for those affected by current and future disasters.

The purpose of this paper is to show the relationship between food as a shared good (or public within the household) in the economic sense, and food as a shared meal in the sociological sense.

Quantitative data derived from a household budget survey (HBS) in Cyprus are used to set up questions to which answers are suggested using the qualitative approach of in-depth interviews.

The main finding is that the relatively high expenditure by elderly couples on food for home consumption may be explained by frequent inter-household, intra-extended family meals in Cyprus.

The paper provides evidence that household expenditure on food may not be directly indicative of household consumption of food. Researchers interested in household consumption of food should therefore be aware of the differences between household and extended family and, where extended family continues to be significant, they should be wary of using data from HBSs to analyse food consumption. One limitation is that the results are derived from in-depth interviews with a purposive sample of nine households. It may be appropriate to replicate the study, either in Cyprus or in similar societies where extended family remains significant, at a larger scale.

The evidence that household expenditure may not be indicative of household consumption suggests that questions on social context of consumption should be included in HBSs.

This paper draws together, for the first time, economic ideas on expenditure on food derived from the quantitative research of Ernst Engel on one hand and implications of the theories of Georg Simmel on the sociology of the meal on the other. The paper shows that some issues arising from quantitative analysis of HBSs cannot be explained using data from that source; this is particularly so where consumption of food is inter-household.

Crises are hitting our industries with alarming regularity. Yet the word crisis is usually used with little thought to its meaning. Examines the various meanings which have been proposed by authors in the field of crisis management, and contends that for a situation to develop into a crisis three elements must be present: a triggering event causing significant change or having the potential to cause significant change; the perceived inability to cope with this change; and a threat to the existence of the foundation of the organization.

Failure to consistently deliver promises is a likely outcome for high contact services. While many organizations create blueprints to recover from service failures, these tend to focus on production processes rather than the individual needs of customers. Develops a framework based on equity, for studying the effects on customers of service failure and recovery. In a study of restaurant customers, the construct of equity is found to be significantly correlated with respondents’ intention to repurchase. Significant differences in equity were observed between genders and age groups, suggesting that service recovery processes should be more closely tailored to the demographic characteristics of customers.

The purpose of this article is to investigate how social integration, immigrant networks and barriers to ventureing affect the entrepreneurial activities of Brazilians in Canada, indicating how mixed embeddedness takes place in that context.

Data were collected in Toronto, through the application of a survey with 74 Brazilian entrepreneur respondents and 42 semi-structured interviews with selected subjects, thus representing a multi-method approach. The analysis included descriptive statistics from the survey data and a qualitative analysis of the trajectories and life stories of Brazilian immigrants.

Our sample comprises respondents with a high level of education and proficiency in English, coming predominantly from the southeast of Brazil, white, aged from 30 to 49. The majority of businesses are small and related to the service sector. The article contributes to the literature by discussing the elements related to mixed embeddedness, including the need for cultural adaptation and for the creation of networks as a crucial element for business venturing.

The study focuses on entrepreneurs regardless of their businesses sector or formality/informality status. It could be used as an instrument to support Canadian public policies for welcoming Brazilians and for the Brazilian government to prevent the evasion of potential entrepreneurs.

The article contributes to the body of knowledge of immigrant entrepreneurship in Canada and of Brazilian entrepreneurship overseas. The results suggest factors that may be relevant to the expansion of their business, such as social networking, cultural embeddedness and adaptation of the products/services to a wider range of target customers.

There exist many forms of discrimination. Different societies have developed varying approaches to the problem but most have evolved some legal prohibition. Of course there are many other ways in which the problem of discrimination can be tackled and this article will touch on some of those. However here the principal concern is with the law both as a tool for redressing disadvantage and as a social signal of the seriousness with which inequality is viewed.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon the process that underpinned and informed the development and delivery of a “creativity-led” credit-bearing teacher training provision and to illuminate key factors of influence for the approaches to teaching and learning.

Based on the assumption that sustaining enterprise education involves developing educator capacity, networks of collaborating educators from different institutions and subject disciplines developed transdisciplinary pedagogical strategies. These were delivered to two pilot programmes, with a cohort of 18 in each.

Feedback from the pilots suggest that creativity-based pedagogies are effective triggers. They motivate educators and enable specialists to develop subject-related content.

The paper highlights the need for a more developed understanding of creativity, innovation and opportunity recognition, so that enterprise education starts with ideas generation, not merely ideas evaluation.

Understanding creativity and innovation is emergent and there is a dearth of understanding, especially in teaching and learning for enterprise. The paper illuminates a developmental process that has responded to this shortfall.