1,720,953 research outputs found
Quality culture and its role in service delivery at a university of technology
No full textThesis (MTech (Quality))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019.Customer satisfaction is a topic of global interest in higher education and it also forms the backdrop of the research presented in this thesis. This study focuses on the employees (academics and non-academics) in the Faculty of Education at a South African university of technology (UoT) who play a key role in providing the services that their customers receive. The study is underpinned by the understanding that in order for the customer’s experience of service provision to be positive, a healthy relationship between the customer and the service provider is critical.
The organization, in this case a higher education institution, has to have a sense of quality culture in order for the service provider to maintain a good relationship with a customer. Quality culture assessment can help to better understand complex organizational culture and its impact on service delivery. Quality culture assessment also helps to direct the implementation of organizational changes for better service delivery structures. The type of quality culture dominant in an organization may positively or negatively affect service quality, employee performance and motivation. As a result, the service delivery experience of the customer may be influenced. Quality culture affects the way in which employees interact with each other and with their customers. This study therefore, presents an inquiry into quality culture within a higher education context with the aim to evaluate quality culture within the Faculty of Education at a UoT using quality management principles (QMPs) as a framework. This study employed QMPs because of their increased effectiveness in enhancing customer satisfaction and improving customer loyalty. The quality management principles are: customer focus, leadership, engagement of people, process approach, improvements, evidence-based decisions and relationship management (ISO 9001, 2015:Online).
This study used a quantitative research approach and was designed as a survey case study. Data was collected through a structured questionnaire that was disseminated to all the academic and non-academic staff in the Faculty of Education at the UoT. Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software was used as a tool for data analysis. Findings in this study reveal that a safe working environment, communication between employees, communication between management and employees, in addition to good working relationships, may affect service quality in the Faculty of Education at the UoT. This implies that having a healthy working environment in an organization is beneficial for employees in order to perform their duties better and to provide quality services to their customers. In an organization with good quality culture, there is close cooperation between employees which leads to good service quality. If the institution under study is concerned with providing value to customers, it needs to consider improving customer value by formally applying QMPs throughout the organization. QMPs are central to the practice of quality management and service delivery. The findings of this study suggest that quality culture affects service quality in the Faculty of Education at the UoT as some of the quality management principles are lacking.
This study recommends that the Faculty of Education have a closer look at improving communication between employees, communication between management and employees, in addition to encouraging good working relationships as well as an enabling environment that allows employees to work efficiently. It is also recommended that quality culture be on the Faculty of Education’s agenda in order to enhance the service delivery experience of customers. The Faculty of Education should support a quality culture environment by providing appropriate structures such as service delivery structures within their organizations. These structures may be needed in order to facilitate, maintain and show commitment of staff members towards a quality culture environment and service delivery. Furthermore, these structures may contribute to quality culture by introducing new shared values and behavioural norms that might facilitate the long-term success and well-being of the organization. It is also recommended that the institution under study formally apply quality management principles throughout the organization for the purpose of improving customer value, customer experience and meeting customer needs
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
No full text“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
No full textWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Author Under Sail The Imagination of Jack London, 1893-1902
No full textIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- 1. Spirit Truth -- 2. From Absorption to Theatricality and Back Again -- 3. "I Will Build a New Present" -- 4. Sons as Authors -- 5. Fathers as Publishers -- 6. The Daughter as Author -- 7. Lovers as Authors -- 8. At Sea with the Family -- 9. Yellow News, Yellow Stories -- 10. The Return Home -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- About Jay WilliamsIn Author Under Sail, Jay Williams offers the first complete literary biography of Jack London as a professional writer engaged in the labor of writing. It examines the authorial imagination in London's work, the use of imagination in both his fiction and nonfiction, and the ways he defined imagination in the creative process in his business dealings with his publishers, editors, and agents. In this first volume of a two-volume biography, Williams traverses the years 1893 to 1902, from London's "Story of a Typhoon" to The People of the Abyss. The Jack London who emerges in the pages of Author Under Sail is a writer whose partnership with publishers, most notably his productive alliance with George Brett of Macmillan, was one of the most formative in American literary history. London pioneered many author models during the heyday of realism and naturalism, blurring the boundaries of these popular genres by focusing on absorption and theatricality and the representation of the seen and unseen. London created an impassioned, sincere, and extremely personal realism unlike that of other American writers of the time. Author Under Sail is a literary tour de force that reveals the full range of London as writer, creative citizen, and entrepreneur at the same time it sheds light on the maverick side of machine-age literature.Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, YYYY. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries
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