Environmental forces influencing the future of higher education in the U.S. threaten to undermine the desirable role of faculty as arbiters of academic quality. For online learning to live up to its ...potential, institutional policies can return academic authority to faculty over degree programs in all modes and support the importance of education in promotion and tenure processes. Accreditation agencies traditionally have been a service to the institutions and the administration at higher education institutions; they will also have to become an equal service to the consumer of higher education. Consumerism will force all those concerned with the quality and utility of a higher education to focus on the quality and effectiveness of the instructors.
This paper is an update of one that the author published in 1982. It deals with the costs and effort required to set up a first class academic program for 2000 students that is made up of students ...and faculty scattered around the world. The establishment of such a University would cost less than the addition of a single classroom building on a physical college campus (approximately $15 million US).
Since its origins, decision makers have broadly used the Delphi method as a collaborative technique for generating important events and scenarios about what may happen in the future. This is a ...complex process because of the different interrelations and the potential synergetic effects among the relevant events related to a decision. This fact, along with the uncertainty about the occurrence or non-occurrence of the events, makes the scenario generation task a challenging issue in Delphi processes. In the 1960's, Cross-Impact Analysis (CIA) appeared as a methodological tool for dealing with this complexity. CIA can be used for creating a working model out from a set of significant events. CIA has been combined with other methodological approaches in order to increase its functionality and improve its final outcome. In this paper, the authors propose a new step-by-step model for scenario-analysis based on a merger of Turoff's alternative approach to CIA and the technique called Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM). The authors' proposal adds tools for detecting critical events and for producing a graphical representation to the previous scenario-generation methods based on CIA. Moreover, it allows working with large sets of events without using large computational infrastructures. The authors present sufficient information and data so that anyone who wishes to may duplicate the implementation of the process. Additionally they make explicit a set of requirements for carrying out a Delphi process for a group to develop a set of significant events, collectively make the estimations of cross impacts, and to support a continuous planning process within an organization. They use two examples to discuss operational issues and practical implications of the model.
► We propose a new step-by-step model for scenario-analysis, a merger of CIA and ISM. ► We describe tools for detecting critical events and for producing a graphical representation to CIA. ► We make explicit a set of requirements for carrying out a Delphi process. ► We describe two examples to illustrate operational issues and practical implications of the model.
Social Media (SM) contain a wealth of information that could improve the situational awareness of Emergency Managers during a crisis, but many barriers stand in the way. These include information ...overload, making it impossible to deal with the flood of raw posts, and lack of trust in unverified crowdsourced data. The purpose of this project is to build a communications bridge between emergency responders and technologists who can provide the advances needed to realize social media's full potential. We employed a two round Delphi study survey design, which is a technique for exploring and developing consensus among a group of experts around a particular topic. Participants included emergency managers, researchers, and technologists with experience in software to support the use of SM in crisis response, from many countries. The study topics are described, and results are presented for both Round 1 (N = 36) and Round 2 (N = 29) of the study, including a ranked list of the top 16 useful features. The top four features include: viewing SM data as classified by geographic location with map-based display; viewing SM data as generated by categories of users; dynamically extracting emerging information; and automatically processing SM images to identify relevant ones.
This article suggests a scenario-based approach to properly managing risks during the lifetime of a project. Our proposal aims at giving managers a structured process to predicting the impact of the ...occurrence of multiple risks that can affect project performance. This is a product of combining Cross-Impact Analysis (CIA) and Interpretive Structural Modeling (ISM) mechanics, which improve the predictive capacity of existing risk analysis techniques. In order to validate their risk predictions, we compare them with a sample of real projects carried out in an engineering company. The findings show a high explanatory capacity to forecast project risk influences.
This book provides the most current and comprehensive overview available today of the critical role of information systems in emergency response and preparedness. It includes contributions from ...leading scholars, practitioners, and industry researchers, and covers all phases of disaster management - mitigation, preparedness, response, and recovery. 'Foundational' chapters provide a design framework and review ethical issues. 'Context' chapters describe the characteristics of individuals and organizations in which EMIS are designed and studied. 'Case Study' chapters include systems for distributed microbiology laboratory diagnostics to detect possible epidemics or bioterrorism, humanitarian MIS, and response coordination systems. 'Systems Design and Technology' chapters cover simulation, geocollaborative systems, global disaster impact analysis, and environmental risk analysis. Throughout the book, the editors and contributors give special emphasis to the importance of assessing the practical usefulness of new information systems for supporting emergency preparedness and response, rather than drawing conclusions from a theoretical understanding of the potential benefits of new technologies.
Delphi: A brief look backward and forward Linstone, Harold A.; Turoff, Murray
Technological forecasting & social change,
11/2011, Letnik:
78, Številka:
9
Journal Article
Recenzirano
In response to a request by the guest editors, we have set down our thoughts regarding the evolution of Delphi, beginning with our immersion in the subject in the late 1960s and concluding with some ...rumination about its future. Our focus is on the changing roles of Delphi. Most importantly, with the profound impact of the internet on organizational and community planning systems, it will foster a new age of participation through communication, coordination, and collaboration.
Are there any differences in outcomes between traditional classroom-based university courses and courses delivered via ALN, which feature extensive on-line interaction among students? Under what ...conditions are ALN courses most effective? What can be done to improve the publishability of ALN evaluations, and counter the attacks of critics?After providing background on the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) Virtual Classroom (VC) projects, this paper describes three studies that address the issue of the importance of collaborative learning strategies to the success of ALN for students. A three-year longitudinal field study of 26 courses that are part of an undergraduate degree in Information Systems compared the process and outcomes of learning using an on-line anytime/anywhere environment to those for comparison sections taught in the traditional classroom. An embedded field experiment looked at the separate and joint effects of working on-line versus in the classroom and of working individually versus in groups. Semi-structured interviews with experienced ALN faculty probed their pedagogy and their perceptions of whether or not students learned, on the average, more, less, or about the same as in their traditional sections. The results support the premise that when students are actively involved in collaborative (group) learning on-line, the outcomes can be as good as or better than those for traditional classes, but when individuals are simply receiving posted material and sending back individual work, the results are poorer than in traditionalclassrooms.
Previous research has indicated that the creative task of deciding upon the initial specifications for a software system can benefit from a structured process to guide group interaction in ...face-to-face meetings, and can benefit from computer support. This 2×2 experiment is the first to look at the joint effects of a distributed asynchronous computer conferencing mode of communication (CC, as compared with face-to-face), and a structured process, on software design outcomes. Subjects were teams of graduate students in computer science and business, who designed an automated post office as a course assignment. The quality of solution produced by the CC groups was judged to be marginally higher, while CC groups were rated as considerably more creative. There were no main effects for the structured/unstructured factor, or any significant interactions.
In this paper we analyze how to apply cross-impact modeling for developing collaborative scenarios in Emergency Preparedness. Scenarios can enhance the understanding of emergency teams about the ...factors which are involved in the definition of an emergency plan and how different actors participate in it. The version of Cross-Impact Analysis described aims at contributing to this goal through allowing the collaborative development of scenarios out of large event sets. This ultimately reduces the complexity for estimating a working model. In order to illustrate this research effort hypothetical results of a dirty bomb attack scenario exercise are presented, along with the final estimates of relationships based on four rounds of individual estimates followed by discussion of differences in the perceived relationships, in order to achieve a “consensus” model. The purpose of this exercise is to demonstrate the ability of a group to create a working model of the scenario that may be used to examine the consequences of various assumptions about preparedness, plans, and the actions taken during the crisis situation. The method may be used as either a planning tool and/or a training tool. We discuss the process for collecting inputs from a collaborative group and how to improve the consistency of the group inputs in a Delphi-like feedback process. Suggestions for improving details of the wording of items in order to minimize misunderstandings and miscommunication are included, along with suggestions for future extensions to this research.
► We propose cross-impact modeling for developing collaborative scenarios. ► We apply our proposal to a dirty bomb attack scenario exercise. ► We discuss the process for collecting inputs from a collaborative group. ► We demonstrate how to create a consistent working model for emergency situations. ► We demonstrate how to explore different courses of action.
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