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Soft systems methodology (SSM) is well documented in the academic and management literature. Over the last 40 years, the methodology has come to be adapted depending on the tool users’ skills and experience in order to fit the problem. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate good teaching and learning practice from a pedagogical perspective.

Dr Ian Yeoman of Victoria University of Wellington provides a personal reflection of how the methodology is used in the teaching and learning of TOUR301 Tourism Policy and Planning as a policy and scenario analysis method.

The paper articulates the seven stages of SSM from problem situation unstructured, through to Rich Pictures, vision and guiding principles, policy solutions, comparisons, feasibility and implementation stages. The paper uses a series of teaching tasks to breakdown the complexity of the methodology thus guiding students and teachers in how to deploy the methodology in the classroom.

The value of the paper demonstrates the reflective practice of SSM in action as an exemplar of good practice. The paper clearly articulates the stages of the methodology so students and teachers can adopt this approach in classroom environments following a scaffolding learning approach. The use of teaching tasks throughout the paper helps bring clarity and order thus enabling the teacher to effectively teach the subject and the students to learn. The most significant contribution of this paper is the articulation of good teaching practice in policy and scenario analysis which articulated through four learning lessons: facilitating a learning environment; the impact of visual thinking; political theory; the importance of incremental learning; and problem-based learning and international students.

The purpose of this paper is to address the need to rethink the traditional approach to education in the university engineering curriculum. The paper examines two engineering projects led by university students in Sweden: the design and construction of a solar-powered car taking part in the Bridgestone World Solar Challenge and the creation of a business model for the ownership phase of an electric car together with Polestar.

An extensive literature review was conducted. Students were interviewed and surveyed on their impressions of their learning experience in the two projects and student logbooks reviewed. Problem-based learning (PBL), the Conceiving, Designing, Implementing and Operating approach and the ABCD procedure are used. Results are compared to theories from the literature.

PBL in real-world settings can increase engineering students’ technical knowledge and improve their technical skills as they solve complex problems or propose solutions to such problems. Such projects also strengthen students’ commitment, self-confidence and self-esteem as well as promote co-operation and creativity. These are soft skills largely absent from traditional engineering education.

Innovative, student-led learning in the applied engineering curriculum can foster students’ soft skills in ways that teacher-led, lecture-style learning does not.

This research offers a timely perspective on an issue of current interest in engineering education: student-led learning versus teacher-led learning. The paper also provides two illustrative student-led projects that focus on sustainability and mobility.

Concepts of health and wellbeing have long been conceived as relevant to leisure, recreation and rejuvenation. These are now conceived as being necessary and useful as potential measures of success in community development and in that subset of leisure and recreation pursuits that is designated as tourism at a destination. The paper aims to discuss this issue.

A post-modern approach to development of community and markers of sustainable development more-or-less correspond to sustainable development goals (there are 17) that often overlay the concepts of good health and wellbeing that concern all stakeholders.

This paper encompasses best practice experiences from two case studies conducted in a tourism “hot spot” in the environs of the first National Park established in Derbyshire in the UK. There is some urgency about this topic as resources for community development are increasingly under pressure from local, central government and the expectation is now that local communities take full responsibility for that development. An inter-disciplinary approach using concepts of health and wellbeing is recommended.

Wellbeing may demand a greater allocation of scarce resources in an era of self-determination, bottom-up and locally sourced community aspiring to become, or remain, a destination of choice. Two case studies’ outcomes in this development are presented with a special focus on creation of a repository for the know-how and know what of the learning acquired.

Based on this holistic model, the authors propose and analyze seven key issues related to the admissibility of digital media in cross-border trials considering four Latin American countries.

The authors apply the modeling process of the soft systems methodology by Checkland in order to develop a holistic model focused on human situation problems involving digital media and information technology devices or systems.

The authors discuss the status of the identified key issues in each country and offer a perspective on the integration of cross-border work analyzing the contribution of these key issues to the collaboration between countries criminal cases or the use of foreign digital artifacts in domestic trials.

In this study, the authors assumed that the problems of official interaction between agencies of different countries are considered solved. However, for future studies or research, the authors recommend that these issues can be considered as relevant, since they are related to cross-border cooperation topics that will necessarily require unavoidable official arrangements, agreements and formalities.

This work is aimed at defining and analyzing the key issues that can contribute to the application of current techniques and methodologies in digital forensics as a tool to support the legal framework of each country, considering cross-border trials. Finally, the authors highlight the implications of this study lie in the identification and analysis of the key issues that must be considered for digital forensics as a support tool for the admissibility of digital evidence in cross-border trials.

The authors consider that digital forensic will have high demand in cross-border trials, and it will depend on the people mobility between the countries considered in this study.

This paper shows that the soft systems methodology allows elaborating a holistic model focused on social problems involving digital media and informatics devices.