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There is increasing evidence in the literature that patient outcome is strongly linked to the quality of nursing care. In practice, the process of measuring the quality of nursing care is complex and multifaceted as it is dependent not only on the skills and practices of the individual nurse, but also on the professional and organisational structure that is practised within. The expert panel concept was developed to address clinical standards and practice at The Royal Melbourne Hospital. The Nursing Expert Panel's purpose was to evaluate nursing practice, identify practice deficits, highlight areas of clinical innovation and excellence, and make recommendations where appropriate to improve patient outcome. The aim of this paper is to investigate this.

A pilot programme to evaluate eight clinical areas was developed and implemented. The key areas of evaluation included clinical care as well as the managerial and professional practices that support patient care. The Expert Panel, consisting of predominantly nursing staff, was recruited from within the organisation. During the evaluation, the panel collected qualitative and quantitative data using a variety of data collection tools. Data were then analysed and recommendations developed.

Five common themes of practice deficit were identified during the pilot period and the development of strategies for practice improvement is in progress.

Following successful implementation of the pilot phase, the Nursing Expert Panel process is now being implemented across the organisation. With ongoing evaluation and improvement of the Expert Panel Process, this quality initiative will become the foundation of nursing standards and practice evaluation at this organisation.

The purpose of this paper is to narrow the diverse views of the industry stakeholders on two controversial issues, namely the scope of core competence of building services engineers (BSEs) and the statutory role that they should play, which were encountered in an extensive research study on the building services profession of Hong Kong.

An expert panel was formed and the Delphi method was applied to resolve the controversies. In the Delphi process, every panel member was provided with complete opinions expressed by all other panel members in each round of the deliberation.

Sufficient support was found for the proposition that professional BSEs should be competent in handling air‐conditioning, electrical, fire services, and plumbing & drainage works, and that the government authorities should mandate the design and compliance certification of electrical and fire services installations by BSEs.

Although the Delphi method has not been hitherto applied to resolve the controversies addressed in the study, it was proven to be a very effective tool in seeking majority opinions from a group of experts. The same approach may be taken in similar studies in future.

The core competence identified should be made as a minimum requirement for practitioners who wish to practise as professional BSEs. The views and comments given by the expert panel members are informative references to public policy makers.

This was the first ever study conducted in an attempt to identify the core competence and statutory role of BSEs in Hong Kong.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the verbal content and its impact on panel-based business advice meetings (springboards) for family business owners and startup entrepreneurs. Further, the study also investigates how panel-based advising assists entrepreneurship.

The investigated springboards concern family business owners who run established firms and startup entrepreneurs who are applying for venture capital. Data from 12 different springboards are collected and studied by content analysis.

The outcomes indicate that advising is more constructive for the family business owners than for the startup entrepreneurs. This can mainly be explained by the rational screening that follows the business plan concept and group dynamics which appear in these meetings.

The study was conducted in Sweden and concerns Swedish family business owners and startup entrepreneurs. It reveals different speech patterns that appear during organized advice-giving and its implications depending on the type of entrepreneur.

This study provides potential input to change the institutional practice of panel-based business advice, which will likely support entrepreneurs in their business development and network building.

This study is the first to investigate the verbal content in panel-based business advice for family business owners. Further, it provides a deeper understanding of the institutionalized conditions that this kind of advising builds on.

Higher education institutions possess a plethora of knowledge at the institutional, departmental and individual levels. Therefore, knowledge management plays a vital role in assisting partnerships to synergise knowledge and strengthen market competitiveness when working collaboratively. The purpose of this study is to identify and critically discuss the role of knowledge management concepts that support development of UK higher education partnerships. This knowledge management research was undertaken with the purpose of exploring components of behavioural constructs in assisting the development of successful partnerships between higher education institutions.

This research embraces a qualitative methodology and makes use of an expert panel method to gather field data and assess the relevance, robustness and applicability of a conceptual model developed in the context of higher education partnerships. Guided by two research questions, the researchers elicited knowledge from eight experts, academics and practitioners, who had initiated and led partnership development between UK higher education institutions. The experts were invited and selected to attend the panel using the criteria of “Years of Experience in the Higher Education sector”, “Job Positions and Experiences” and the “Partnership Scope and Impact”.

Depicting in a tree analogy, the conceptual model indicates that effective knowledge management will require higher education executives, managers and practitioners to centre on nurturing “tree roots” presented as behavioural knowledge management constructs and include institutional culture, trust, absorptive capacities and communication channels. The research findings elaborate on previous research and provide a categorisation of partnership outcomes between higher education institutions, explaining that partnership outcomes can be of an “Academic”, “Marketing and Finance” or “Managerial” nature. Importantly, practical use of the model could be implemented using audit methods or benchmarking methods, whereby the categorised elements of the model are used as a criterion of assessment for audit teams.

The conclusion extracted experiential insights to provide guidance as to how higher education executives, managers and practitioners can make use of knowledge management behavioural constructs and activities to assist collaborative undertakings in the higher education sector. This paper provided a new, modified, knowledge management higher education partnership tree, thus giving researchers and academic practitioners a holistic viewpoint of important partnership knowledge management factors.

The purpose of this article is to highlight the results of the online Delphi research project; in particular the procedures used to establish an online and innovative process of content validation and obtaining “rich” and descriptive information using the internet and current e‐learning technologies. The online Delphi was proven to be an excellent tool in establishing content validity for an HRD‐related construct, e.g. adult learning principles. A review of related literature revealed no existing research that used a web‐based Delphi technique to validate measurements used in training and development (T&D) or HRD.

Research methods included: a thorough review of the literature to construct an item pool of adult learning principles and instructional methods, and a Delphi expert panel consensus. The mean, mode, standard deviation, interquartile range, and skewness of the data were calculated from the voting procedures for determination of consensus. Evidence of reliability was indicated by the interrater reliability coefficient from a field test. In addition, the Gunning FOG Index for readability was calculated to improve the readability of the instrument.

To address the first research question the authors suggest that a valid instrument can be developed by a diverse Delphi expert panel that measures the application of adult learning principles to fully‐mediated world wide web‐based training. The second research question was answered by illustrating that the internet can assist a group of diverse and geographically dispersed subject‐matter experts in establishing a content valid measurement of instructional methods and techniques that demonstrate the application of adult learning principles to fully‐mediated web‐based training. And, finally, the paper concludes that a Delphi process can be established as a web‐based method to validate research measures.

This research helps to address the critical issue of how research is used in practice. Reasons why this research lends itself more to practice than other HRD research using more common qualitative or quantitative methods include: it is a relatively simple procedure requiring less than expert‐level skills; the Delphi uses expert opinion that is commonly used in training and development practice; and results are easy to interpret and practical.

This research is unique in its approach to developing a content valid instrument using state‐of‐the‐art technology coupled with a updated Delphi method. It is valuable to HRD and other professionals and researchers interested in developing valid measures across cultures and where experts are geographically dispersed.

Academic libraries have endured rapid change in the past two decades that has had repercussions on how they manage their organization and deliver library services. Skyrocketing costs, especially for journals, explosive growth in new technologies, fiscal exigencies caused by a tightening of public financing of most academic institutions, demands for greater accountability, and the onslaught of electronic delivery of networked information, are just some of the major obstacles libraries are encountering (Lubans, 1996; Riggs, 1993; Shaughnessy, 1987). Customers of academic libraries are increasingly less satisfied because of limited resources and the difficulties they encounter in accessing printed material in a traditional library facility (Doughtery, 1992). The emergence of textual materials in electronic form has added a new dimension to this discontent. While such resources have the potential for meeting the information needs more dynamically, the costs for information have been exorbitant, particularly since full electronic texts have not been sufficient in coverage to supplant printed resources (Tenopir, 1993). These phenomena require academic libraries to use a more integrated and flexible approach to problem solving (Gapen, Hampton & Schmitt, 1993).

The purpose of this paper is to review and analyse Vision 2023: the Turkish National Technology Foresight project. The paper aims to review the process of conducting the project, how it was implemented afterwards and how it compares to other national technology foresight projects

Through a literature search, a process framework was conducted. The analysis was then conducted in four phases. First a process review, second a comparative review, third content review and finally a post project review. Expert interviews and site visits to Turkish State Planning Organization and TUBITAK (Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey) helped the authors to collect the data on Vision 2023 including how it was established, which areas were involved and what the recommendations were. Finally an expert panel was organized as part of a recent Portland International Conference on Management of Engineering and Technology. This included experts involved in the project as well as leading researchers who have been analyzing this project. This panel helped to validate the results.

Processes used in the Turkish project were similar to the other national projects, however lack of political ownership and change in leadership had been blocking the recommendations coming out of this project from being implemented. A second effort is required to modify the results of the first one and to establish political ownership and leadership. Several other national projects had multiple rounds before solid actions were taken. Industry needs to be a part of the effort as the panelists indicated that several key corporations were missing in the first project.

The project provides comparative details on running national technology foresight projects. This should be useful for those responsible for planning similar projects.

The paper reviews the project implementation process and what happened after the implementation providing feedback on what should have been done or should be done in similar foresight projects.

The study aims to build up knowledge for collateral exploration of the classical Delphi survey method for assessing the industrial sustainability-related correction factor using a real field study in Nigeria.

The paper elicits the character and the operational approaches using an example study to provide a critical review of the method. It estimates the correction factor for appraisal purposes by transforming expert opinion into a valid group consensus.

The work considers the specific parameters of the method, design and analysis for interpretation to prove the reliability and the validity for the research results. Moreover, it emphasises that the validity of the traditional Delphi research demands cautious theoretical and practical applications by the coordinating researcher. The paper establishes the current validity and effectiveness of the classical Delphi method of foresight and streamlines their efficient implementation for theory building despite its numerous weaknesses.

It explores desirable futures for the method while analysing what is possible and probable.

Consulting experts is an effective way to utilize tacit resource. The purpose of the paper is to optimize the matching between panels of experts and groups of demanders to improve the efficiency of tacit knowledge sharing.

Experts and demanders express preferences using linguistic terms. The estimate method based on trust is developed to get missing ratings. Weights of demanders are determined and knowledge needs are identified. Three kinds of satisfaction are measured based on grey relational analysis. To maximize satisfaction of experts and demanders and safeguard meetings of knowledge needs as well as the workload of experts, the optimization model is constructed and the solution is optimal matching results.

The presented approach not only optimizes the matching between demanders and experts but also sets up a panel of experts in case that knowledge needs exceed a single expert’s capacity.

The approach expands research works of methods for tacit knowledge sharing. The continuous updating of matching results and the processing of the data with mixing formats need to be studied further.

The presented approach acts as a valuable reference for the development of knowledge management systems. It can be used in any scene that needs the match between experts and demanders.

The approach provides a new way of helping demanders to find appropriate experts. Both experts’ and demanders’ preferences are considered. A panel of experts is set up when needed. Expert resources are utilized more efficiently and knowledge needs are met more comprehensively.

Benefits of positive mental health have been demonstrated across work and non-work domains. Individuals reporting positive mental health experience better work performance, better social relationships and better physical health. Additionally, positive work environments can contribute to employee mental health. The purpose of this paper is to develop “expert” consensus regarding practical, actionable strategies that organisations can implement to promote positive mental health in the workplace.

A Delphi consensus method was used to establish expert consensus on strategies to promote positive workplace mental health. A 278-item questionnaire was developed and strategies were rated over three survey rounds by two panels comprising 36 workplace mental health practitioners and 36 employer representatives and employees (27 and 9, respectively), employees with experience of promoting positive mental health and well-being in the workplace (total – 72 panellists).

In total, 220/278 strategies were rated as essential or important by at least 80 per cent of both panels. Endorsed strategies covered the topics of: mental health and well-being strategy, work environment that promotes positive mental health, positive leadership styles, effective communication, designing jobs for positive mental health, recruitment and selection, supporting and developing employees, work-life balance, and positive mental health and well-being initiatives.

The guidelines arising from this study represent expert consensus on what is currently appropriate for promoting positive mental health at work from the perspectives of workplace mental health practitioners, employers and employees, and constitute a resource for translating the growing body of knowledge in this area into policy and practice.