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Cyber threat: its origins and consequence and the use of qualitative and quantitative methods in cyber risk assessment
Get PDFPurpose - Consumers increasingly rely on organisations for online services and data storage while these same institutions seek to digitise the information assets they hold to create economic value. Cybersecurity failures arising from malicious or accidental actions can lead to significant reputational and financial loss which organisations must guard against. Despite having some critical weaknesses, qualitative cybersecurity risk analysis is widely used in developing cybersecurity plans. This research explores these weaknesses, considers how quantitative methods might address the constraints, and seeks the insights and recommendations of leading cybersecurity practitioners on the use of qualitative and quantitative cyber risk assessment methods.
Design/methodology/approach - The study is based upon a literature review and thematic analysis of in-depth qualitative interviews with 16 senior cybersecurity practitioners representing financial services and advisory companies from across the world.
Findings - While most organisations continue to rely on qualitative methods for cybersecurity risk assessment, some are also actively using quantitative approaches to enhance their cybersecurity planning efforts. The recommendation of this paper is that organisations should adopt both a qualitative and quantitative cyber risk assessment approach.
Originality/value - This work provides the first insight into how senior practitioners are using and combining qualitative and quantitative cybersecurity risk assessment, and highlights the need for in-depth comparisons of these two different approaches
Developmental Trajectories of Reading Ability in Adolescents with Intellectual Disabilities
Get PDFIndividuals with ID often struggle with decoding and reading comprehension, and some studies indicate that these students do not progress beyond the early stages of decoding development. The aim of this study was to investigate the developmental trajectories of reading abilities in relation to mental age in a sample of 136 adolescents with mild, non-specific ID. Decoding and reading comprehension, together with their predictors of phonological awareness, RAN, phonological working memory, and vocabulary, were fitted against mental age. The results showed that, after 105 months, there was an unexpected plateau in the development of decoding, phonological awareness, rapid automatised naming (RAN), and phonological working memory in this sample, while reading comprehension and vocabulary continued to show growth in relation to mental age. The implications of these different trajectories are discussed in relation to developmental models of disability, and possible reasons for the plateau in decoding are suggested
‘Your Analysis Is as Useless as Your Ovaries’: Women Football Fans’ Experiences on Social Media
No full textThis article provides an original contribution to the field of sports fandom by investigating the experiences of women supporters of men’s football on X (formerly Twitter). Drawing on data from an online survey of 1,624 women supporters of UK-based men’s football teams, the study examines their digital interactions, gendered challenges, and subsequent coping strategies. Significantly, this study is the first to apply and extend Pope et al.’s (2022) Model of Men’s Performances of Masculinities, offering a new theoretical perspective and refinement of the original model. Through a thematic analysis, the results reveal the gendered dynamics that shape this specific sporting environment, highlighting the crucial role of social media in facilitating football-related discussions and promoting fan communities. At the same time, the study exposes the gender-based stereotypes, abuse, and discrimination that women face when expressing their identities and opinions within male-dominated football spaces. These insights not only advance understanding of gendered interactions in sports fandom but also call for enhanced measures to ensure safer online environments for women football fans
The final hurdle: a case study of an intervention to encourage and support students in their resit or resubmission
No full textAt The Open University, UK, students are offered the opportunity to re-submit the final assignment of a module they have failed but came close to passing. In order to improve pass and retention rates, enhanced support was offered to these students by the School of Languages and Applied Linguistics during the academic year 2017–18, helped by extra funding. The purpose of this paper is to report on this enhanced student support as a case study for the utility of others. A dedicated forum was set up on each module website with tutors engaged to moderate the forum between the results and the resubmission/resit date. Tutors were to produce documents to post and brief guidance webcasts, and the resultant upskilling and community sharing of good practice turned out to provide them with a significant professional development benefit. The intervention was tied in with SST (Student Support Team) activity. A comparison with previous and subsequent years of pass figures at the second chance indicates some success
Virtue ethics and being a researcher: Introduction to ethical decision-making
No full textWhilst the main body of this book focuses on illustrating the British Educational Research Association’s fifth edition of its ethical guidelines for educational research (BERA, 2024) in action, this chapter steps back to set the scene by looking at how culturally situated values affect how researchers enact any set of guidelines. It does so by taking a meta-ethical viewpoint to explore the basis for how and why researchers and those who participate in their studies might value different virtues and vices in their own lives and those of others. Virtue ethics is a framework which offers one way of looking globally at what might be expected of a researcher and a researcher can expect of those they interact with, as they seek to put into practice any set of ethical guidelines they have chosen to take advice from. The chapter explores commonalities and divergences in different cultural expressions of virtuous living to leave a reader with an awareness of how different views of virtuous behaviour, might inform decisions made in the course of research
Exploring ‘employability’ and its impact on student agency and identity
Get PDFThis study examines how students interact with the concept of ‘employability’ during their academic journey and how it shapes their student agency and identity. The research was conducted within The Open University and with two students from a post-1992 university. This unique inclusion adds a diverse and rich perspective to the study.
‘Employability’ has emerged as a crucial topic in contemporary Higher Education discourse. However, a noticeable gap exists in the literature regarding student perspectives on ‘employability’. Students are often portrayed as mere consumers or recipients of ‘employability’ to serve political or employer interests. This leads to a one-sided understanding of ‘employability’ that tends to sideline student voices and perceptions. By focussing on student perspectives, this research aims to bridge this gap and amplify student voices in the 'employability' discourse, thereby enhancing the understanding of this complex concept.
This research fills a significant void in the literature and provides a unique platform for students to express their views on 'employability '. By creating a space for students using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA), this research explores student perceptions of ‘employability’ by analysing data from 11 semi-structured interviews. The interviews and subsequent analysis underscore that ‘employability’ is not a term that students readily relate to or understand beyond that it is about affording opportunity and advantage in the labour market. More useful for the students is the time to reflect on their entire HEI experience and understand how their motivations develop over time and in unexpected ways. A narrative solely focused on ‘employability’ offers limited opportunity for meaningful engagement. This research, therefore, suggests that it is high time to review and reframe these narratives, moving beyond the ‘employability’ lens to ensure a more comprehensive understanding of the topic
No full textThe 5th in a series of bulletins from the social work and IPA research network featuring research summarie
Public Engagement
No full textThe National Coordinating Centre for Public Engagement (NCCPE) was established in the United Kingdom (UK) in 2008 to advocate for the role of public engagement in building a more inclusive higher education sector. One of the first tasks undertaken by the NCCPE was to work across the UK university sector to define public engagement. This encyclopaedia entry redefines this influential concept to take account of who is routinely included and excluded, and how are minoritised groups supported to engage
