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The purpose of this paper is to support the use of unique identifiers for the authors of scientific publications. This, the authors believe, aligns with the views of many others, as it would solve the problem of author disambiguation. If every researcher had a unique identifier, there would be significant opportunities to provide even more services. These extensions are proposed in this paper.

The authors discuss the bibliographic services that are currently available. This leads to a discussion of how these services could be developed and extended.

The authors suggest a number of ways that a unique identifier for scientific authors could support many other areas of importance to the scientific community. This will provide a much more robust system that provides a much richer and more easily maintained, scientific environment.

The scientific community lags behind most other communities with regard to the way it identifies individuals. Even if the current vision for a unique identifier for authors was to become more widespread, there would still be many areas where the community could improve its operations. This viewpoint paper suggests some of these, along with a financial model that could underpin the functionality.

The purpose of this paper is to identify the most significant barriers to successful implementation of information technology (IT) in higher educational institutions (HEIs) of India. Although, educational institutions are investing in IT, they have been not been able to leverage it the same way as other business organizations. The present investigation will assist the management of HEIs to distinguish the key barriers affecting productive IT implementations and further take appropriate measures to deal with it.

For the purpose of the study, focus group and semi-structured interviews were conducted with academicians, administrators, functional heads, and IT staff from various HEIs of India. This research attempts to discover the major barriers to successful implementation of IT in HEIs using an interpretive structural modeling (ISM) methodology. Furthermore, structural analysis and classification of barriers is done using MICMAC analysis.

The results identified the key barriers that if dealt with can help overcome or lower the effect of other barriers preventing successful IT implementation in HEIs. It will provide roadmap to managers and administrators of HEIs to take appropriate measures to overcome the major barrier to effective implementation of IT.

Several authors have been studied barriers to implementation of IT in industry and educational institutions, but none have found the most significant barriers that affect successful implementation of IT and may drive other impediments. This research draws inspiration and is being carried out for Indian HEIs.

THE parliamentary White Paper issued on May 2nd by the Minister of Local Government has not yet been debated by the House. It may have repercussions on public library control, although specific proposals on most of the matters involved, including this, have Still to be made. Our readers will know that its purport is to intensify the local side of local government; that is, to take certain powers that are exclusively the business of county councils and to place them in the hands of the non‐county borough, urban district, and other councils. Public libraries are to be considered by a committee to be appointed; they are probably unique in that they are a nationally universal service, or almost that, which has no specified Ministerial department concerned in their direction except in a few matters. A number of questions are therefore left in the air ; for example, the future of the county library system would differ considerably from the present set‐up if every local authority became independent in library matters. Complete independence would mean a locally‐raised and controlled rate, not one raised locally to the amount prescribed for county purposes by the county. Such independence is probably not expected as it would seem that the county is to exercise supervision; and those who are supervised can rarely be free agents, if ever. The Committee, if and when formed, might have many matters to debate, such as the desirability of an adequate local Standard of service which conformed to a reasonable national level, in book provision, the training and payment of librarians—the latter in scandalous need of settlement as advertisements of posts every week demonstrate—and in satisfactory accommodation. With these matters the whole national service should be considered ; the relations of the regional systems and their solvency and their workings with the National Central Library and, when founded, the National Science and Technology Library. Moreover, the interrelations of public libraries with the libraries of Schools, Colleges of all kinds, including Technical Colleges and the accessibility and liaison of all state libraries and others receiving public money with the whole system should be surveyed. Thus it might seem that a unique opportunity for great advance may be offered. On the other hand, unless those who know have access to and are heard by the prospective committee, many things that bitter experience shows to be evil may be done and what is almost as bad, many things may be left undone which ought to be done. We are sure the Library Association will be vigilant.

This paper aims to examine the effect of short-term performance fluctuations on long-term performance of football clubs.

This study did not develop any hypothesis for statistical testing. Instead, a database composing of 24 seasons of English Premier Club clubs’ performance was used to analyse for temporal fluctuations of club performance and examined whether such fluctuations would be substantiated in the long run.

Findings showed that club performance exhibited a non-unit root nature, which in turn suggested that clubs’ long-term performance was only temporally affected by short-term performance fluctuations, leading to the evidence that club performance tended to return to the club’s long-run equilibrium after experiencing temporary high or low positions.

Findings of this paper provide important information regarding the cost-benefit implications of the reactions of the club management to boost or rectify short-term performance fluctuations by, for example, replacing the club manager or head coach.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the process of innovation management in the eighteenth century in the context of the search for precision time keeping in the watch making industry. In particular it looks at how knowledge was managed and transferred among interested stakeholders in the process.

The paper reviews the published horological literature on the subject and considers it within modern theories relating to the management of innovation.

This paper illustrates that personal contact and collaboration is important to the development of innovation. The paper highlights the importance of networking in the process of innovation and collaboration as a means to share and develop ideas. Collaboration with organisations working in adjacent technologies was found to be present and competition promoted by the incentive of financial reward was found to be a motivator factor for moving innovation forward.

This paper will be helpful to academics who study innovation history as well as current innovation management practices.

Discusses the concept of service‐learning in relation to environmental education. Observes the similarities between the two concepts. Defines the service‐learning experience, provides brief guidelines for implementing a learning experience, gives examples of service learning and presents implications for action.

This article explores an incident that raises questions relating to the making and unmaking of history, heritage and social memory. It also points to the role of the historian in unravelling forgotten pasts. On 21 May 1945, at the Royal Australian Engineers Training Camp (RAETC) Kapooka near the provincial New South Wales city of Wagga Wagga, twenty‐four ‘sappers’ or engineers, and their two ‘other ranks’ trainers, were killed in a demolitions training exercise gone terribly wrong. The accident remains the largest in Australian army history. However, following a brief flurry of national grief public memory of the tragedy soon slipped into historical obscurity. The article narrates the Kapooka story and then reflects on its role as an exemplar of how a society makes, unmakes or forgets its past.

Building information modeling (BIM) is a prominent concept to digitalize data collection and analysis processes. Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for a considerable percentage of the works performed in the construction industry. The adoption rate of BIM by SMEs is still, however, not at the desired level in the New Zealand construction industry. This study aims to evaluate barriers to BIM implementation for SMEs in the New Zealand construction industry.

This study adopted four-step methodology to evaluate barriers to BIM adoption for SMEs. First, a comprehensive literature review, followed by a focus group discussion was performed to identify barriers to BIM adoption. Then, analytical hierarchy process (AHP) was used to assess identified barriers. Finally, experts’ agreements (both internal and external) were ensured by consistency analysis and Kendall’s coefficient of concordance (Kendall’s W) tests.

The findings indicate that (1) interoperability between software platforms, (2) lack of government mandate on BIM usage at project level, (3) high cost of acquiring the software and licensing required to use BIM and (4) lack of client demand for adopting BIM were the most significant barriers in terms of technological, governmental, resource and cultural categories, respectively. Further investigation of the expert evaluation showed strong consistencies (each expert separately) and agreements (among experts) in each AHP matrix.

Primary focus should be training of local market (particularly SMEs) professionals as the shortage in qualified professionals makes the country-wide adoption challenging. The publicity in the local market can help SMEs understand how BIM is leveraged for further improvements in project performance.

Overall, this research not only provides a roadmap for the widespread adoption of BIM within SMEs in New Zealand through analysis of the barriers encountered but also highlights the power that policymakers hold over the mass adoption of BIM within SMEs.

There is concern that traditional teaching methods (including lectures and tutorials) do not prepare graduates with the generic employability skills required by the construction industry. This has motivated architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) academics to consider the use of student-centred approaches like collaborative learning. However, the effectiveness of collaborative learning approaches has not been widely examined in AEC education. The purpose of this paper is to provide empirical results on the benefits and barriers of collaborative learning from AEC students’ perspective.

From a questionnaire survey conducted with Associate Degree students who studied in four AEC programmes at a university in Hong Kong, 621 valid responses were received. Descriptive statistics were used to test these data for any significant agreement or disagreement between respondents.

All AEC students agreed that collaborative learning benefited them in building their academic knowledge and generic skills. However, the degree of agreement about their generic skills development differed between programmes. The findings of this study highlight the effectiveness of collaborative learning as a means of developing students’ employability skills.

First, the analysis of the benefits of collaborative learning is based on students’ perceptions rather than objective measures of learning gains. Although research suggests that self-reported measures of learning are valid indicators of educational and skill gains, the possibility of individual's bias or peer influence in the responses cannot be discounted. Second, the study does not take into account the teachers’ instructional skills that may affect the effectiveness of collaborative learning. To minimize the impact of different tutors on students’ learning experiences, standardized delivery mode and course materials were adopted in the surveyed courses.

From the findings presented, collaborative learning is a viable tool which assists in improving both the technical and generic employability skills of students. To allow students to appreciate collaboration in a practical context, multi-disciplinary collaborative assignments can be integrated in AEC curricula. Through collaboration with other disciplines, students can understand the ways of working with other professionals. At the same time, AEC educators can apply collaborative learning to strengthen specific collaborative skills. To maximize the benefits of collaborative learning, teachers should arrange regular meetings and counseling sessions with students to ensure participation from each individual.

The findings contribute practical insights about collaborative learning and, in particular, the learning attitudes and perceptions of Chinese students and engineering students. Whilst the findings are different to some studies which describe Chinese students as being influenced by the Confucian Heritage culture, and preferring competitive rather than collaborative learning, more detailed studies about collaborative learning dynamics among students from different ethnic backgrounds should improve the design of collaborative learning environments for the students.

The findings provide confidence to AEC academics to incorporate collaborative learning activities in their courses. Mapping students’ generic skills development between programme of study provides indicators that highlight the use of collaborative learning for different generic skills development in different AEC programmes. The results of this study provide useful information for AEC teachers, assisting them to design multi-disciplinary collaborative learning curricula.