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Describes how HR and workplace‐psychology agency Ingham Jones works with small and medium‐size companies in West Yorkshire, UK.

Provides two case‐study examples of small firms, estate‐agent group Jump and Apollo Blinds, which employ Ingham Jones.

Reveals that Jump consults Ingham Jones at least twice a month about contracts and other HR issues, and has used Ingham Jones to write motivational‐training courses. Ingham Jones helped Apollo Blinds to draw up an HR policy, and is involved with the company's training and people development.

Demonstrates that issues such as recruiting the right people, rewarding them properly and ensuring the existence of proper succession plans are crucial to the success of small organizations as well as large ones.

Highlights the fact that outside consultants can “tell it as it is” to owner managers, in a way that full‐time employees sometimes cannot.

Decision makers and authorities largely ignore cycling when conceptualising and developing programmes to support older mobility and therefore, unsurprisingly, levels of cycling in the United Kingdom are low compared to other northern European nations. Cycling has the potential to play an important role in the active ageing agenda and provide older citizens with a form of independent mobility that enhances personal health and wellbeing. The chapter provides evidence of the important role cycling does and could play in older people’s mobility and outlines ways in which older cycling could be supported and promoted.

WHEN ASKED which aspect of the library service was given priority in Copenhagen a senior librarian said he was reluctant to emphasize any one aspect of the service but when pressed felt that priority had to be given to children's library services.

The purpose of this paper is to describe the evolution of a blended learning strategy in a company law course for accounting students and to evaluate its impact on assessment and student self-reflection.

A case study approach is used to describe the development of blended learning technologies within an elevator pitch assessment item in four cohorts over a two-year period. This is complemented by teacher observations, an online survey and student interviews to evaluate the assessment item, the technology used and its impact as a self-reflection and assessment tool.

The case study reveals the benefits of blended learning technologies but also a series of logistical, assessment-related, behavioural and technological issues and how these issues were addressed. The preliminary evidence from the online survey and student interviews suggests that the blended learning technologies have facilitated flexibility in assessment (both from a student and teacher perspective), student self-reflection and fairness in assessment practices.

The study identifies the benefits of and likely issues facing educators when considering the deployment of blended learning technologies to teach and assess oral communication skills. The paper contributes to pedagogy by describing the innovative use of video cameras in assessing elevator pitches and extends the literature on video presentations in higher education, in particular, its positive influence on student self-reflection.

To describe the process of conducting an information audit at the Hobart City Council and to demonstrate how the audit contributed to knowledge management at the Council.

This paper is a personalised account of a pilot information audit conducted in the area of risk management activities across the organisation. It gives an overview of some relevant knowledge management texts, the methodology of the pilot audit and a summary of the findings and outcomes of the project.

The Council units have yet to implement all the findings and recommendations of the pilot, but there have already been significant outcomes. Units have used the audit to coordinate risk management initiatives and processes with other areas. This has contributed to breaking down the information silos and to the development of a culture of knowledge sharing.

This paper describes the process used for the Pilot Information Audit – Risk Management project, and what happened as a result.

This paper may provide some useful insights to other librarians in a small special library environment with limited resources who are planning to conduct an information audit.

This is an example of an information audit undertaken in a local government setting.

The purpose of this paper is to explore experiences of e-learners in relation to their time preferences, and to examine how technology changes temporal culture in e-learning.

A pilot study using multiple methods of data collection to provide a rich picture of the experience of e-learners in relation to temporal flexibility. Taking a narrative approach it analysed data from a survey, time tracking data as well as data from online discussion boards, learners’ assignments and short telephone interviews.

The study found e-learners may experience temporal culture shock when starting to study online for the first time. It highlights the need to explore an individual's time preference and to consider the temporal culture of the e-learning programme.

It highlights that the issue of time is still missing from educational studies and suggests that temporal aspects are included in e-learning research studies. This is a small exploratory study but it indicates the need for further research to explore the potential for temporal culture shock and influence of e-learner time preferences.

Designing an e-learning environment for learners needs to consider learner time preferences to ensure that temporal flexibility is a realised benefit, not a barrier to learning. The temporal culture of the online learning environment also needs to be made explicit so that learner expectations can be managed.

It contributes to the literature on e-learning in the higher education context by providing a temporal lens to explore learner experiences. It is of value to educationalists and learning technologists designing, delivering or evaluating e-learning programmes. Online learners may also benefit from its findings.

The move towards “blended learning”, consisting of a combination of online and face-to-face teaching, continues to gain pace in universities around the world. It is important, however, to question the quality of this learning. The OECD has made use of a model of “Readiness, Intensity and Impact” for investigating the adoption and use of eBusiness technologies. The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework, based on this model and adapted for blended learning, to assess the readiness, intensity of adoption and impact on blended learning offerings. The framework is tested via a description of how one university has adopted and used blended learning, and investigates the quality of the learning from this approach.

The framework is tested via a case study involving the assessment of a blended learning approach to the delivery of a first-year undergraduate accounting unit at Victoria University, Australia. Various approaches to delivery are assessed over a two-year period. The results are drawn from a survey specifically designed to identify students’ attitudes towards blended learning.

Despite having three new online options readily available for students to access, there was strong support for face-to-face delivery methods. In relation to the framework, the assessment suggested that certain aspects of the university's blended learning approach could be investigated further (particularly student readiness for different blended learning options and an overall assessment of the impact of a blended approach), to provide a more holistic view of the readiness to adopt and impact of the blended learning offerings.

The value of this contribution lies in the development of a unique framework to assess the impact of blended learning approaches from the viewpoint of student readiness and intensity of separate delivery approaches – whilst maintaining the need to evaluate the effectiveness of blended learning as an overall package.

The purpose of this paper is to describe an approach for utilising a critical incident method within the context of an online business simulation game in order to provide an effective framework for reflective learning.

The paper presents a review of pertinent literature to place the critical incident technique within the novel context of simulation gaming. Through presenting a case study of practice, it goes on to describe a blended learning approach that combines online simulation with post-simulation reflection based on the critical incident method. An action research approach is adopted as a framework for reflection on practice.

From a conceptual perspective, there are a number of potential benefits to employing a critical incident approach combined with simulation gaming. The ability of educators to compress time frames and manage the introduction of critical incidents allows students to learn in a way that would not be possible in the real world. Furthermore, carefully designed post-simulation debriefing, structured around a critical incident framework, has the potential to enhance the learning impact of online simulation.

The research is limited in that a single case study context is described. Further evaluation research is required to fully assess the benefits of the approach adopted.

The study explores the use of the critical incident approach within the novel context of online simulation gaming. It provides educators with a blended learning method that can be employed to enhance the impact of e-learning through structured reflection.