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Customised executive education, designed for and delivered to individual client companies by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), differs in important ways from award-bearing courses. One area in which these differences are surprisingly extensive is in the use of technology. We explore the impact of technology-enhanced learning (TEL) on course design, delivery and evaluation of customised executive education. In doing so, we contrast this form of learning with MOOCs, which use TEL in a different way, for a different audience.

We begin with the ‘two-client’ problem. In customised executive programmes, course design is done collaboratively between the HEI and the corporate client, reflecting the particular learning needs of the selected participants as perceived by the commissioning client. We find that the level of TEL in any programme will reflect the learning needs, and also the level of TEL sophistication, of both client and academics.

We then consider the successful integration of TEL into customised executive education. TEL can enrich a course great, but will also mean a loss of academic control, as a significant amount of the learning will be peer-to-peer, and much of the information-gathering can take place outside the classroom.

We conclude with the outcomes and success measures of customised executive education. The institutional disruption of TEL to the HEI is considerable, as their traditional business model is based on rewarding academics for research and for classroom-hours. This needs to be rethought where the classroom element is reduced, but there is constant online interaction with participants.

Previous research has shown that paramedics form intuitive impressions based on limited “pre-arrival” dispatch information and this subsequently affects their diagnosis. However, this observation has never been experimentally studied.

This was an experimental study of 83 Australian undergraduate paramedics and 65 Australian paramedics with median 14 years' experience (Range: 1–32 years). Participants responded to written vignettes in two parts that aimed to induce an intuitive impression by placing participants under time pressure and with a secondary task, followed by a diagnosis made without distraction or time pressure. The vignettes varied the likelihood of Acute Coronary Syndrome (ACS) and measured self-reports of typicality and confidence. Answer fluency, which is the ease with which the answer comes to mind, was also measured.

More participants exposed to the likely pre-arrival vignette recorded a final diagnosis of ACS, than those exposed to unlikely pre-arrival information (0.85 [95%CI: 0.78, 0.90] vs 0.74 [95%CI: 0.66, 0.81]; p = 0.03). This effect was greater in paramedics with more than 14 years' experience (0.94 [95%CI: 0.78, 0.99] vs 0.67 [95%CI: 0.48, 0.81]; p = 0.01). Answer fluency and confidence were associated with the impression, while the impression and confidence were associated with final diagnosis.

The authors have experimentally shown that pre-arrival information can affect subsequent diagnosis. The most experienced paramedics were more likely to be affected.

This is the first experimental study of diagnostic decision-making in paramedics and paramedic students.

Last November we published an article entitled ‘Corrosion in Singapore,’ by Major P. A. Cartwright, a Senior Scientific Officer of the Operational Research Unit at GHQ., FARELF. Problems of packaging and storage in the tropics, as viewed from the receiving end, were discussed. One reader of this article was Mr. Toby James, of the Rootes Group, Coventry, and he has sent us the following observations based on trials, mainly concerned with the packing of motor‐car parts in this country, and from reports on the condition of shipments on arrival at their destinations.

The increased involvement of adults at risk in the safeguarding process has become a prominent issue within English safeguarding policy. However, there is evidence to suggest that actual levels of involvement are still low. The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a PhD study in relation to the benefits of advocacy in supporting this involvement in adult safeguarding for older people.

Participants in the study included advocates and social workers who had experience of working with older people through the safeguarding process within two North East England local authorities. A critical realist approach through in-depth interviews was taken with all the participants.

The research findings in relation to the benefits of advocacy in supporting older people going through safeguarding processes are reported. The practical limitations and factors which help and hinder advocacy support within the process are also considered. The theoretical implications for power, empowerment, and advocacy are also explored.

A key limitation of this research is that it did not include older people who had been through safeguarding amongst the participants.

Key implications for practice and policy are discussed.

The paper provides an overview and critique of empowerment in adult safeguarding and the role that advocates play in promoting this key principle.

This chapter outlines research conducted by Karan Vickers-Hulse (KVH) as part of an educational professional doctorate; Marcus Witt (MW) was one of her supervisory team. Participants were from two initial teacher education (ITE) routes (School Direct and university-led) leading to a PGCE primary teacher qualification. The research was set within the context of continuously evolving policy on the training of teachers and the subsequent impact on developing a professional identity. The introduction of new ITE routes in England (DfE, 2015) aimed to offer a wider range of pathways into teaching, attract more applicants and mitigate the impact of teacher shortages. The research discussed in this chapter explored the experiences of trainees on these routes and the impact on their professional identity formation. This chapter begins with an overview of the literature in the field of professional identity formation, followed by a discussion of the chosen methodology and methods. This chapter concludes with several recommendations for teacher training providers as well as recommendations for future research that may be useful for doctoral students interested in the field of professional identity formation.

This chapter provides an illustration of doctoral case study research and insights to how practitioner research can capture the localised impact of policy shifts.

For geographers doing qualitative research, autobiographical narratives offer a discrete avenue into life experiences, everyday lived geographies, and intimate connections between places and identities. Yet these valuable sources remain mostly untapped by geographers and largely unconsidered in methodological treatises. This article seeks to elicit the benefits of using autobiographical data, especially with regard to stigmatised sexual minorities in Western societies. Qualitative research among gay men, lesbians and bisexuals (GLB) is sometimes difficult; due to the ongoing marginalisation experienced by sexual minorities in contemporary Western societies, subjects are often difficult to locate and reticent to participate in research. But autobiographical writing has a long history in Western GLB subcultures, and offers an unobtrusive means to explore the interpenetration of stigmatised sexuality and space, of GLB identity and place. A keen awareness of the power of geography of spaces of concealment, resistance, connection, emergence and affirmation underpins the content and form of GLB autobiographical writing. I demonstrate this in part through the example of my own research into gay male spatiality in Australia. At the same time we need to be aware of the generic limitations of autobiographies. Nevertheless, this article calls for wider attention to autobiographical sources, especially for geographical research into marginalised groups.

The paper seeks to build a theoretical argument on social enterprise applications in an urban facilities management (urban FM) setting, by exploring the concepts of urban FM and its underlying philosophy.

The paper is based on an extensive literature review within and around the concept of urban FM and its relationship with social enterprise principles, forming a basis for further research in this area.

Urban FM could be used as a mechanism to develop the sustainable design and management of community facilities operations by taking social enterprise as an approach to seek a new service delivery model.

There is limited literature relating to urban FM, and it is one of the new critical alignments in FM that is waiting to be explored further. However, within this new exploration of urban FM knowledge, the paper considers a sustainable way of managing community facilities, raising important social implications for the FM industry,

The paper argues that the concept of urban FM and social enterprise principles can be applied in their relationship towards managing community facilities in a sustainable way.