Search results

The purpose of this paper is to discuss DigitalCommons@ILR, a product of the Martin P. Catherwood Library and the School of Industrial and Labor Relations, Cornell University.

This paper recounts the development of DigitalCommons@ILR and examines local policies and procedures. In addition, the paper addresses the issues of choosing a institutional repository platform, creating partnership with stakeholders, and addressing staffing needs.

The paper finds that in less than two years from its inception, DigitalCommons@ILR was launched and is now providing access to nearly 2,000 documents, including access to an online journal. Partnerships and collaborations have been an essential component in the success of this product. The need for staff support to build and sustain this institutional repository was and remains vital.

This paper goes beyond the technical issues involved in creating an institutional repository by discussing the partnerships and staffing needs necessary to create and sustain such an endeavor.

The self‐reports of bullies or victims of workplace bullying appear to result in confused responses that fail to clarify who is doing what to whom. The research reported in this paper aimed to examine how staff from human resources and occupational health conceptualized and assessed cases of alleged bullying.

The research relied on semi‐structured interviews with managers, human resource staff, occupational health staff, mediators, trade union representatives, and staff members who were both victims and alleged perpetrators of bullying. The staff contributing came from an NHS trust, two universities and a criminal justice agency.

Staff were reluctant to document or reveal information about the frequency and severity of bullying within their services. Despite this, three key themes emerged from the interviews that seemed to inform individual and organisational responses: the ethos of professionalism, the ambiguous role of human resources and the presumption of mutuality.

Reliance on interpretations of workplace bullying that defend both individual staff members and the organization had implications for victims. By not naming reported problems as bullying, the organization could limit its responsibility to act. Failure to identify and document bullying limited the research but also poorly served victimized individuals.

Services require training to help them move beyond a presumption that the self‐reports of bullies are a reliable source of assessment data.

Effective identification and assessment of bullying situations would be the first step towards reducing the psychological impact of the problem. Experience of workplace bullying is highly correlated with health and mental health problems of targeted individuals.

This paper capitalizes on insights from the field of domestic violence in highlighting the need for clarity about the nature of coercive control. The paper will be valuable to individuals and organisations charged with the task of tackling workplace bullying.

This chapter describes how Astronaut and Aerospace Engineer, Jeanette Epps, dealt with the ambiguity of being pulled from a space flight by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), leveraged emotional intelligence to adapt to the challenge, solidified valuable leadership lessons on resilience, courage, and vulnerability, and provides advice for female leaders on navigating the leadership labyrinth. Fundamentally, the hardship Epps experienced deepened her sense of purpose and leadership identity, making her an exceptional role model for female leaders everywhere.

This paper describes the research underpinning the development and evaluation of a brain computer interface (BCI) system designed to be suitable for domestic use by people with acquired brain injury in order to facilitate control of their home environment. The purpose of the research is to develop a robust and user‐friendly BCI system which was customisable in terms of user ability, preferences and functionality. Specifically the human interface was designed to provide consistent visual metaphors in usage, while applications change, for example, from environmental control to entertainment and communications.

The research took a user centred design approach involving representative end‐users throughout the design and evaluation process. A qualitative study adopting user interviews alongside interactive workshops highlighted the issues that needed to be addressed in the development of a user interface for such a system. User validation then underpinned prototype development.

The findings of the research indicate that while there are still significant challenges in translating working BCI systems from the research laboratories to the homes of individuals with acquired brain injuries, participants are keen to be involved in the deign and development of such systems. In its current stage of development BCI is multi‐facetted and uses complex software, which poses a significant usability challenge. This work also found that the performance of the BCI paradigm chosen was considerably better for those users with no disability than for those with acquired brain injury. Further work is required to identify how and whether this performance gap can be addressed.

The research had significant challenges in terms of managing the complexity of the hardware and software set‐up and transferring the working systems to be tested by participants in their home. Furthermore, the authors believe that the development of assistive technologies for the disabled user requires a significant additional level of personalisation and intensive support to the level normally required for non‐disabled users. Coupled with the inherent complexity of BCI, this leads to technology that does not easily offer a solution to both disabled and non‐disabled users.

The research contributes additional findings relating to the usability of BCI systems. The value of the work is to highlight the practical issues involved in translating such systems to participants where the acquired brain injury can impact on the ability of the participant to use the BCI system.