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Learning Project Management. The case of further education in Norway
No full textTo succeed in the international labor market, the competence of the workforce is crucial. The need to continually update competence has put life-long learning to the top of the political and research agenda internationally, and higher education plays a key role in the effort to manage this challenge.
As working life is changing rapidly, so must businesses and the public sector. In a wide range of organizations and industries, project work is now a common practice and a main catalyst for change. Hence, competence in project management is highly wanted, and has resulted in many courses offered by higher educational institutions.
This paper examines the spreading of further education courses on project management and project work offered by public higher educational institutions in Norway. The focus is on which professional fields dominate the teaching of project management and what forms of learning they apply. The study maps the extent to which student active learning is implemented in the course design by looking at which methods of assessment are utilized.
The findings show that the professional fields of business administration as well as engineering and technology dominate teaching in project management and project work. There are also indications of widespread use of student active learning in courses of project management, although it is not consistent and how it is implemented in practice needs further investigation
Understanding support for European Protected Areas: A review of the literature and proposing a new approach
No full textAbstract: Protected Areas are the most widely applied policy tool for biodiversity conservation. In Europe, protected areas are expected to significantly increase as the new EU Biodiversity strategy sets an ambitious target of 30% of land and 30% of water to be protected by 2030. Despite the popularity of this environmental policy, understanding variations in the level of public support for protected areas remains underexplored. This is an important area of research, considering that, in order for protected areas to be effective, they need to be supported by most users, including local communities and visitors. In this paper, we reviewed theoretical and empirical evidence explaining the level of support for protected areas and proposed a new approach when designing and designating protected areas in Europe. This approach models the process of the introduction of a new protected area as a policy intervention within a socio-ecological system. Specifically, it models how protected area social outcomes or impacts are conditioned and contextualised by numerous intervening factors relating to the social context and governance and management system to influence local actors’ attitude and active support for the protected area. This new approach aims to assist policy makers, conservation practitioners and scientists to plan actions that assist in increasing the level of public support for protected areas in the context of the post 2020 Biodiversity Strategy of the European Union. Keywords: protected area management; natural resource management; public participation; biodiversity conservation; EU biodiversity strategy; public acceptance; social acceptability; social effectivenes
«Det finnes en sang for alt!» Ansattes begrunnelser for sang i barnehage og skole – en empirisk studie
No full textThis chapter is based on two studies which aim to provide knowledgeabout the position of singing in Norwegian kindergartens and schools: (a) a nationalquantitative cross-sectional survey with kindergarten teachers and primary school/lower secondary school teachers, and (b) case studies in selected kindergartens andschools, where the data collection consisted of participatory observation and interviews with leaders and teachers. The chapter presents an attempt to incorporateboth studies into a triangulation design where different types of data material anddifferent analysis methods (quantitative and qualitative) are combined to investigate the question “why sing?” – that is, how singing is justified in kindergartenand school. Furthermore, we ask if different views on the functions of singing correlate with teachers’ personal characteristics (e.g., educational background, musicalexpertise, age, gender) and with the extent to which teachers sing with their children/students. Theoretical perspectives are grounded in music education philosophy with emphasis on Øivind Varkøy’s (2015) justification categories. The resultsshow that employees in Norwegian kindergartens and schools justify singing withseveral arguments that are placed within and across Varkøy’s categories. We find aclear consensus among the participants in our sample that singing is particularlyrelevant for extra-musical functions (e.g., learning a language, building a community). The least emphasized, however, are arguments connected with curricula andthe development of the singing voice
The Dynamics of Profitability among Salmon Farmers—A Highly Volatile and Highly Profitable Sector
No full textSalmon farming stands out from many other industries with its very high profitability, but it is also highly volatile. The main question is whether the profit of individual firms is stable, or whether profitable firms change from year to year. The purpose of this article is to apply the theory of profit persistence to answer this question for salmon farming in Norway. By using panel data from 2010 to 2019, available from public statistics, we study the relative deviation from the average profits. We estimate the speed of adjustment to the profit norm by using a dynamic GMM estimator. We find a high degree of convergence to the average profit among salmon farmers. For companies belonging to the group with below-average profit, there is a positive correlation between growth and profitability and a negative link between debt ratio and deviation of profit rate. Our finding is that although the Norwegian aquaculture industry has large profits, there is large volatility in the profits of this industry. This is useful knowledge for investors, lenders, public authorities and others who need to know something about the risk in the aquaculture industry
Vitenskapelig publisering ved HVL 2021
No full textHVL rapporterte i 2021 inn 1060 vitenskapelige publikasjoner, som gav 896,6 poeng. Det var en økning på 18 % i antall publikasjoner (158 stykker) og 13% i poeng (101,2) sammenlignet med året før. Økningen er større enn den var fra 2019 til 2020.
De 1060 publikasjonene til HVL fordeler seg som følger: 891 periodikaartikler, 165 antologikapitler og 4 monografier. Av disse var 846 stykker (80%) på nivå 1, 214 stykker (20%) på nivå 2. Andelen er omtrent som i 2020.
Nivå 2-andelen basert på forfatterandeler, heller enn hele publikasjoner, var 14,2%. Det er marginalt høyere enn i 2020(13,9%), men fortsatt nest lavest blant de statlige institusjonene, bare foran USN (12,7%).
Utviklingen fra 2020 til 2021 var ujevn og ulik på fakultetene. FLKI hadde en betydelig økning, på 34% i antall rapporterte publikasjoner og 29% i antall poeng sammenlignet med 2020. FIN hadde også økning, med 20% flere publikasjoner og 15% flere poeng. FHS rapporterte nøyaktig samme antall publikasjoner som i 2020, men hadde en nedgang på 11% i antall poeng. FØS fortsatte sin nedgang, med 13% reduksjon i antall publikasjoner og 7% i poeng sammenlignet med 2020.
Når det gjelder poeng per UFF-årsverk har HVL økt fra 0,69 i 2020 til 0,73 i 2021. Det er en økning på 6%, nøyaktig det samme som fra 2019 til 2020. Med det ligger HVL akkurat på gjennomsnittet for de statlige høgskolene, og for første gang ikke under.
HVL hadde 1227,23 UFF-årsverk (mot 1150,91 i 2020) og 658 publiserende forfattere (mot 633 i 2020). De forfatterne som publiserte hentet i snitt inn 1,3 poeng hver, det er en økning på 0,1 poeng sammenlignet med de to foregående årene.
Kvinneandelen av UFF-årsverk ved HVL ligger stabilt på 60%. I 2021 var andelen poeng tjent av kvinner 41% og kvinneandelen av forfatterandeler 51%. Det er i begge tilfeller en økning sammenlignet med året før, for første gang siden 2017.
Andelen publikasjoner og poeng med internasjonalt samarbeid gikk noe ned fra 2020.
HVL hadde en liten økning i samlet andel publikasjoner med åpen tilgang
Det norske pengemarkedet :
No full textDette memoet beskriver de viktigste delene av det norske pengemarkedet. Siden 2019 har banker med konto i Norges Bank rapportert sine transaksjoner i pengemarkedet til Norges Banks pengemarkedsrapportering (RPD). Memoet beskriver strukturen i de ulike markedene, og bruker Norges Banks aggregerte statistikk basert på bankenes rapportering til RPD til å illustrere omsetning og utestående volum i de ulike delene av pengemarkedet
A statistical analysis of Norges Bank’s forecasts
No full textIn this paper, we perform a statistical analysis of the forecasting properties of Norges Bank’s macroeconomic forecasts in the period 1998 – 2019. As a part of the analysis we assess Norges Bank’s forecasts against similar forecasts by Statistics Norway and forecasts from simple models. The review shows that Norges Bank’s projections have stood up well compared with Statistics Norway’s projections and have generally been better than forecasts from simple models, especially in the short run. The projections were for the most part unbiased, but for wages and CPI inflation adjusted for tax changes and excluding energy prices (CPI-ATE), the projections were too high one and two years ahead. The productivity growth projections were too high at all horizons. Exchange rate projections based on "random walk" models were better than Norges Bank’s projections
Frontfagets betydning for lønnsdannelsen i private tjenestnæringer
No full textI denne analysen ser vi nærmere på i hvilken utstrekning lønnsutviklingen i industrien driver lønnsutviklingen i de ulike tjenesteytende næringene i privat sektor, i tråd med prediksjonen fra frontfagsmodellen. Spesielt studerer vi om lønnsevnen i den enkelte tjenestenæring, definert som verdien av bruttoproduktet per arbeidstime, også har betydning. Vi finner at lønnsutviklingen i frontfaget er den viktigste forklaringsfaktoren også på disaggregert nivå, men egen lønnsevne har også (signifikant) betydning i om lag halvparten av tjenestenæringene. Mens lønnsnivået for tjenestenæringene samlet over tid har vokst i samme takt som industrilønna, er dette i mindre grad tilfellet for den enkelte tjenestenæring
Zero Emission Neighbourhoods in Smart Cities. Definition, key performance indicators and assessment criteria: Version 3.0
No full textThis document outlines the definition, key performance indicators (KPI) and assessment criteria for the Research Centre on Zero Emission Neighbourhoods in Smart Cities (ZEN Research Centre). This third version of the ZEN definition builds upon previous versions of the ZEN definition. The GHG emissions (GHG), energy (ENE) and power (POW) categories have been further developed and refined through empirical research and iterative testing in the ZEN pilot areas. Table 2: ZEN assessment criteria and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) has been revised. Revision of mobility (MOB), economy (ECO), spatial qualities (QUA) and innovation (INN) categories has been performed. Innovation no longer contains ZEN assessment criteria or KPIs but is an important process that will be explored in subsequent versions of the ZEN definition report. The report is available as an English version (EN) and a Norwegian version (NO). Over 100 people involved in the ZEN research centre have contributed to this document
Synthesizing evidence from clinical trials with dynamic interactive argument trees
No full textBackground
Evidence-based medicine propagates that medical/clinical decisions are made by taking into account high-quality evidence, most notably in the form of randomized clinical trials. Evidence-based decision-making requires aggregating the evidence available in multiple trials to reach –by means of systematic reviews– a conclusive recommendation on which treatment is best suited for a given patient population. However, it is challenging to produce systematic reviews to keep up with the ever-growing number of published clinical trials. Therefore, new computational approaches are necessary to support the creation of systematic reviews that include the most up-to-date evidence.We propose a method to synthesize the evidence available in clinical trials in an ad-hoc and on-demand manner by automatically arranging such evidence in the form of a hierarchical argument that recommends a therapy as being superior to some other therapy along a number of key dimensions corresponding to the clinical endpoints of interest. The method has also been implemented as a web tool that allows users to explore the effects of excluding different points of evidence, and indicating relative preferences on the endpoints.
Results
Through two use cases, our method was shown to be able to generate conclusions similar to the ones of published systematic reviews. To evaluate our method implemented as a web tool, we carried out a survey and usability analysis with medical professionals. The results show that the tool was perceived as being valuable, acknowledging its potential to inform clinical decision-making and to complement the information from existing medical guidelines.
Conclusions
The method presented is a simple but yet effective argumentation-based method that contributes to support the synthesis of clinical trial evidence. A current limitation of the method is that it relies on a manually populated knowledge base. This problem could be alleviated by deploying natural language processing methods to extract the relevant information from publications