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This paper describes how researchers from diverse research disciplines are working together with design teams of children, carers and practitioners to create an exploratory multimodal environment for children. This learning environment, entitled ECHOES II, aims to be both an educational intervention and an environment through which we research children's learning. It is designed for typically developing (TD) children and children with Asperger's syndrome aged five to seven, with the aim of enabling the children to enhance their social interaction and communication skills. This paper explains the technology development process, which in order to create designs that are relevant to the individual user, is based on a deep relationship between theory, design and practice. We outline our current focus upon the inter‐relationships between pedagogy, knowledge about child development, people and technology.

Attention to safety has long been important to the British oil industry. North Sea‐based companies have always imposed rigorous methods aimed at reducing physical danger to employees. More recently, awareness of the need for long term health care has seen greater emphasis placed on diet.

Examines how Oakridge Training and Consulting designed and delivered a training program to enhance Contour Housing Group's ability to deliver effective change.

Reports on the background to the training program and some of the results it has achieved.

Claims that understanding the need for change is the first step to its acceptance, yet managers are too often frustrated by a lack of employee vision. Imposing change without communication and consultation serves only to widen the understanding and communication gap. Argues that, to avoid this, employers need to consider what they are doing to develop employees' understanding and ability to manage the process.

Describes how, over the course of the program, managers were introduced to the concepts of personal impact and influence training, leading and managing change, building teams and the concept and application of action learning.

Highlights some basic principles that can help to make change a success in a wide range of organizations.

Argues that change management does not end after the announcement of change plans; that is really only the starting‐point.

The purpose of this paper is to reflect upon on the opportunities and challenges of engaging with a wide variety of stakeholders during the design, development and evaluation of innovative technologies for people with autism. Autism is defined in part by difficulties in social communication and interaction, and is therefore particularly pertinent when considering the opportunities and challenges of participatory design (PD).

A series of presentations from key researchers and practitioners are reviewed, highlighting contemporary issues about how technologies have been designed to improve educational support using a range of methods and processes for stakeholder involvement.

Involvement per se does not constitute engagement as a design partner. The interdisciplinary nature of PD, combined with the viewpoints of communities beyond academia, need to be integrated in a manner that allows for different perspectives and voices, and for the “trace” of the contribution to be evidenced. The level of evidence required for demonstrating effective support needs to be considered in terms of both the outcomes of projects and the processes for involving stakeholders in PD.

This paper offers an up-to-date insight from lead researchers into key debates about the benefits and challenges of PD with autistic people and the broader autism community. Its value lies in raising questions about, and discussing evidence that challenges, some of the assumptions that underpin both PD processes and the needs of the autistic community.

The purpose of this paper is to raise important questions from the different perspectives on autism research that arose from a seminar on autism and technology, held as part of an ESRC-funded series on innovative technologies for autism.

The paper focuses on the roles of technology in understanding questions about different perspectives on autism: how do people on the spectrum see neurotypicals (people without autism) and vice versa?; how do the authors use eye gaze differently from each other?; how might technology influence what is looked at and how the authors measure this?; what differences might there be in how people use imitation of others?; and finally, how should the authors study and treat any differences?

The authors synthesise common themes from invited talks and responses. The audience discussions highlighted the ways in which the authors take account of human variation, how the authors can understand the perspective of another, particularly across third-person and second-person approaches in research, and how researchers and stakeholders engage with each other.

The authors argue that the question of perspectives is important for considering how people with autism and neurotypical people interact in everyday contexts, and how researchers frame their research questions and methods. The authors propose that stakeholders and researchers can fruitfully engage directly in discussions of research, in ways that benefit both research and practice.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impacts of enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems on user performance (UP) in higher education institutions with a view to better understanding the ERP phenomenon in these institutions, and to determine whether or not these systems work well in such a complex environment.

A quantitative methodology was used in this study and data were collected by means of a written questionnaire. Measurement items used in the operationalization of the study instrument were adopted from relevant prior research.

The findings indicated that system quality, task technology fit and information quality are the most important factors that lead to better end UP. The provides evidence of the appropriateness of extending IS models as a useful way to give more powerful insights into user aspects and system impact.

Although the study factors explained a large portion of the variance in UP, there is a part of the variance that still remains unexplained.

Vendors and designers must consider user needs and concerns in the design of ERP packages. Understanding user characteristics and their interaction will lead to better benefits. For example, if ERP users are predominantly individuals with little computer experience, the system designers should invest more in making the systems easier to use to facilitate more system impacts and benefits.

There has been a general lack of awareness about the importance of evaluating ERP systems from a user perspective. Rather, the main focus of previous studies was either on critical factors and implementation issues and/or on user acceptance and satisfaction. This study underscores the importance of this issue and presents some insights into the benefits of ERP systems in higher education by taking lessons from IS theory in general.

Has 1992 caught the popular imagination of the man in the Clapham commuter train? As Professor Joad would have said: ‘It all depends what you mean by the popular imagination’.

This paper aims to identify both the traditional and novel forms of marketing behind New Zealand Prime Minster Jacinda Ardern’s landslide victory in the 2020 New Zealand General Election during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This research analysed both qualitative and quantitative data, including over 70 primary sources, the perspectives of practitioners, polling and data from surveys with over 450,000 respondents. The qualitative data was analysed interpretively against established theoretical concepts, whereas the quantitative data was analysed through descriptive statistics.

This research found that COVID-19 drastically changed what the public prioritised, allowing Ardern and Labour to position themselves as guardians of government stability, while camouflaging previous delivery failures. Labour also used a more emergent market-oriented and “polite” populist political marketing strategy.

While the survey data used is not a perfect sample of the population, it is the largest public opinion survey in New Zealand and, given its convergence with other sources, provides valuable insights into political marketing during a crisis more broadly.

This research reinforces marketing’s most important aspect; the market should drive action. How decision makers respond to the market should depend on the environment. Thus, up-to-date market research becomes even more important during a crisis, as the environment changes rapidly. This leaves prior assumptions obsolete and implies strategy needs to be adaptive. Additionally, greater public attention provides governing leaders with the opportunity to present a more well-rounded leadership image.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first research to look at marketing while in government and election campaigning in the context of successful management of a global pandemic.

The purpose of this paper is to document the strategies adopted at The University of Illinois at Urbana‐Champaign's library to improve open workshops in which digital tools are used to teach two digital databases. Workshops that were not geared toward one particular group of people required different marketing, design and teaching strategies from those developed for one particular patron class.

To demonstrate the difference in both marketing and teaching strategies for such workshops, both were offered multiple times over the course of both semesters of the academic year 2005‐2006. All workshops were advertised to the campus community via multiple marketing outlets and registration was limited to 20. The instructors gathered information from both observation and post‐workshop evaluation forms.

The key finding of this work was a formula for successful digital workshops offered to a large and diverse academic community. With thoughtful advertising and course design and creating a learning‐centered environment, such workshops could be successful.

Best practices and other tips for creating successful workshops for digital tools provide a formula for other librarians to use as they begin to teach digital tools on a more regular basis. As the number of digital resources continue to grow, so too will the need to teach users how to use them effectively and properly.

The health movement that has been sweeping this country has given rise to increased consumer awareness of both prescription and nonprescription medications. One of several responses to this heightened interest has been a plethora of drug information publications aimed at the general public audience. Some of these publications became so popular they attained positions on the best‐seller list. At the same time books, such as the PDR, that had generally been available only to health professionals began to find their way into popular bookstores.