<p dir="ltr">The Higher Learning Commission (HLC) clarified and revised the credentialing standards for concurrent enrollment (CE) instructors of liberal arts courses in 2015 with an implementation date of 2017. With the revised credentialing standards resulting in roughly two out every three CE instructors needing additional graduate level coursework to maintain their CE credentials, HLC created a five-year grace period, followed by multiple extensions, for CE instructors to update their credentials. However, during this period only approximately half of the CE instructors completed the additional coursework. The possible loss of half of the total number of liberal arts CE instructors under HLC accreditation places many CE programs’ sustainability in jeopardy.</p><p dir="ltr">This dissertation encompasses two studies that investigated why CE instructors did or did not complete the additional coursework needed to maintain the CE credentials, a topic that has yet to be explored in research. The first study investigated the issue directly from the CE instructor perspective. The second study on the topic was approached through the lens of CE high school administrators. Principal-agent theory was the theorical framework from which data and findings were viewed and produced. Implications for the CE field, future research angles on the topic, and policy recommendations are offered.</p>

Wytheville Community College implemented the Dual Credit English program in 1988 following the Virginia Community College System's adoption of the Virginia Plan for Dual Enrollment. Essentially, the program allows qualified high school seniors to enroll in the college's freshman-level ENG 111: College Composition I and ENG 112: College Composition II courses while simultaneously completing senior English. The guarantee of college credit for students who earn at least a "C" average and other cost-saving and time-saving features have contributed to the increased popularity of the program in recent years. This institutional study examines multiple facets of the program and determines program strengths and weaknesses. The dissertation provides historical data on the rationale for the program and presents perspectives from various constituencies involved in the program, including community college administrators, high school administrators, community college English faculty, dual credit English faculty, program graduates, and currently enrolled dual credit English students. The study found that both the community college and high schools are committed to providing dual credit English courses that are of comparable quality to the college's regular freshman composition courses. Generally, students and graduates reported a high rate of satisfaction with the program. Students benefit monetarily from the program because the public school systems, not individual students, pay tuition costs. Also, students save time by accumulating college credits while still enrolled in high school and, thus, are often able to complete college degrees in a shorter time frame. Articulation agreements guarantee the transferability of dual credit English courses to most state-supported colleges and universities. The study also discusses relevant administration issues such as curriculum development, placement policies and procedures, faculty selection, and program evaluation. Administrators strongly support the program, pointing out that it helps build student confidence and encourages students to consider higher education opportunities. Faculty perception varies, with community college faculty expressing concerns about student preparation and philosophical issues related to combining senior English with freshman composition. Dual credit English faculty, on the other hand, generally expressed more positive views, noting many of the same benefits students had cited. The final chapter summarizes program successes, identifies concerns, and makes recommendations for improvements in the dual credit English program. / Ed. D.

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We manipulated delay and magnitude of reinforcers in two concurrent schedules of reinforcement to decrease a prevalent behavior while increasing another behavior already in the participant's repertoire. The first experiment manipulated delay, implementing a five second delay between the behavior and delivery of reinforcement for a behavior targeted for decrease while no delay was implemented after the behavior targeted for increase. The second experiment manipulated magnitude, providing one piece of food for the behavior targeted for decrease while two pieces of food were provided for the behavior targeted for increase. The experiments used an ABAB reversal design. Results suggest that behavior can be decreased without the use of extinction when contingencies favor the desirable behavior.

The present study investigated how engaging in a behavior that is potentially incompatible with covert verbal behavior, singing aloud, affected the percent of correct responses and reaction time during equivalence tests as compared to engaging in a behavior considered compatible with covert verbal behavior, alternating foot tapping, during testing. Results varied between participants with some participants showing higher accuracies in the incompatible condition and some in the compatible condition. Performance in terms of accuracy and reaction time were correlated, with higher accuracies in the compatible condition being correlated with faster reaction times in the compatible condition. Limitations discussed include a low number of participants due to COVID-19, the covert nature of the behavior of interest, the length of time required to complete the experiment, and the challenges to monitoring the incompatible behavior due to social distancing requirements. Potential future research is discussed in light of these limitations.

Ett av de företag som ligger i framkant vad gäller hållbar utveckling är WSP, vilket är ett av världens ledande analys- och teknikkonsultföretag. De har ett globalt innovations- och hållbarhetsprogram som ger stöd i ett arbete med att framtidssäkra sina uppdrag: Future Ready. Problemet är att det i dagsläget inte är helt självklart för en teknisk konsult att erbjuda ett kunderbjudande som även innehåller mjuka värden. Branschens företag ställs inför utmaningen att förflyttas från en traditionell domänexpertis till att vara den som även aktivt minskar den osäkerhet som finns hos kunder, partners och medarbetare vad gäller hållbarhetsfrågor. Därför är syftet med detta arbete att bidra till en ökad förståelse för drivkrafterna och hindren för att lyckas med denna typ av förändring och implementering. Detta arbete vilar på en konceptuell modell, bestående av olika teoriområden, vilken är en potentiell utvecklingsprocess för en teknisk konsult att gå från traditionell domänexpertis till ledande inom innovation. De tre övergripande teoriområdena är Concurrent Engineering (CE), Designdriven innovation (DI) och kulturförflyttning. CE är en metod som bygger på ett samverkande arbetssätt för att utvidga den kontextuella förmågan med avseende på värdeerbjudanden, DI bygger på ökandet av värdet av domänexpertisen vilket ökar den innovativa förmågan och kulturförflyttningen antas ske parallellt med dessa eftersom man i och med den här förflyttningen ändrar fokus från endast hårda värden till att även inkludera mjuka. För att genomföra detta arbete har en kvalitativ metod och Mode 2 i huvudsak tillämpats. Dessutom har en litteraturstudie genomförts och insamling av empiriskt material har skett genom en processkartläggning samt intervjustudie. Analysen för litteraturstudien genomfördes iterativt och intervjustudien utgick från en analysmodell som författaren själv tagit fram, baserat på ett antal nyckelord och teman. Den största drivkraften för att implementera ett arbete med Lead in innovation är tid. Tid är den gemensamma nämnaren vad gäller problematik i dagsläget som identifierades kopplat till de tre teoriområdena. Det största hindret för implementering av CE är det specifika arbetssättet som ”låser fast” medarbetarna till specifika projektdagar. För DI handlar det om det innovativa tankesättet som är svårt att påverka. Angående kulturförflyttningen handlar det om komplexiteten som finns i och med att den tillhör det dolda och därmed är svår att ta till sig. Även om det här arbetet kräver fortsatta studier för att vara genomförbart så belyser det många nya intressanta synvinklar och förslag på en möjlig utvecklingsprocess. Därmed bör detta arbete betraktas som ett bidrag till ett incitament att påbörja en resa för såväl WSP som andra företag eller organisationer att gå från traditionell domänexpertis till Lead in innovation. / One of the companies at the forefront of sustainable development is WSP, which is one of the world's leading analysis and engineering consulting companies. They have a global innovation and sustainability program with the aim to see and analyze the future more clearly: Future Ready. The problem is that it is not always obvious for a technical consultant how to offer and increase the soft values towards the customer. The industry's companies are faced with the challenge of moving from a traditional domain expertise to be the one who also actively reduces the uncertainty that exists among customers, partners and employees in terms of sustainability issues. Therefore, the purpose of this work is to contribute to an increased understanding of the driving forces and obstacles to succeed with this type of change and implementation. This work rests on a conceptual model, of different theory areas, which is a potential development process for a technical consultant to move from traditional domain expertise to leading innovation. The theory is based upon Concurrent Engineering (CE), Design-driven Innovation (DI) and cultural movement. CE is a method that is based on a collaborative approach to expand the contextual ability regarding value offering, DI is based on how to increase the domain expertise value, which increases the innovative ability and the cultural movement is assumed to be parallel to these because this movement changes focus from only hard to even soft values. To carry out this work, a qualitative method and Mode 2 have mainly been applied. In addition, a literature study has been conducted and the collection of empirical material has been done through a process mapping and interview study. The analysis for the literature study was carried out iteratively and the interview study was based on an analysis model which the author herself produced, based on several keywords and themes. The biggest driving force for implementing work with Lead in innovation is time. Time is the common denominator regarding the current problem areas and seen as an interlinkage between the three areas within this project. The biggest obstacle to implementing CE is the specific way of working that "locks in" the employees to specific project days. DI requires every employee to think innovative, which can be hard to achieve. Due to the fact that the culture is hidden, it is hard to grasp which indeed makes it hard to overcome. Although this work requires continued studies to be feasible, it highlights many new interesting perspectives and proposals for a possible development process. Thus, this work should be regarded as a contribution to an incentive to start a journey for both WSP and other companies or organizations to move from traditional domain expertise to Lead in innovation.

"Current approaches to design are often serial and iterative in nature, leading to poor quality of design and reduced productivity. Complex artifacts are designed by groups of experts, each with his/her own area of expertise. Hence design can be modeled as a cooperative multi-agent problem-solving task, where different agents possess different expertise and evaluation criteria. New techniques for Concurrent Design, which emphasize parallel interaction among design experts involved, are needed. During this concurrent design process, disagreements may arise among the expert agents as the design is being produced. The process by which these differences are resolve to arrive at a common set of design decisions is called Negotiation. The main issues associated with the negotiation process are, whether negotiation should be centralized or distributed, the language of communication and the negotiation strategy. The goals of this thesis are to study the work done by various researchers in this field, to do a comarative analysis of their work and to design and implement an approach to handle negotiation between expert agents in an existing Concurrent Engineering Design System."

"Concurrent Engineering (CE) has already initiated a cultural change in the design and manufacturing of new products. It is expected to lead to better engineered and faster built products. But, in order for a company to take advantage of the power of CE, the members of product development teams have to be educated in the CE method of product development and how decisions made about one aspect of a design can affect other aspects. They also have to be educated in the usefulness of the tools that can be used for CE. Those tools include intelligent agents which can be used to offer design suggestions and criticisms. The goal of this project is to build a computer system which will simulate a design environment and demonstrate the essential aspects of CE, in a way that they can be intuitively understood. It is supported by a grant from the Competitive Product Development Institute at the Digital Equipment Corporation."

På Saab Dynamics genomförs metodikprojektet MBD ILS &amp; Systemsäkerhet. Metodikprojektet genomförs för att skapa optimala förutsättningar för Concurrent Engineering (CE), som i stora drag handlar om att involvera fler funktioner redan tidigt i designfasen eller konstruktionsprocessen, även kallat integrerad produktutveckling, för att på så sätt inkludera livscykelperspektivet i större utsträckning under utvecklingsprocessen. Examensarbetet utfördes som en del av metodikprojektet och uppgiften var att utföra en nulägesanalys för att undersöka informationsutbytet, som är en förutsättning för CE, mellan disciplinerna Mekanik och ILS (Integrated Logistic Support). Nulägesanalysen genomfördes som en kvalitativ undersökning i form av intervjuer med de anställda på Saab Dynamics för att få fram deras upplevelser och åsikter om det nuvarande informationsutbytet. Intervjumaterialet sammanställdes och analyserades i förhållande till CE, för att ta fram punkter som representerade det nuvarande informationsutbytet och förbättringsbehov. Informationsutbytet ansågs vara bristfälligt i förhållande till CE. De anställda upplevde en avsaknad av beskrivningar och riktlinjer för informationsutbytet i gränssnittet mellan Mekanik och ILS. De förbättringsbehov som identifierades rör behov av återkoppling, ansvarstagande, förståelse och insikt i varandras arbete, som är faktorer som har stor påverkan på CE. För vidare arbete anses en intressant aspekt vara att undersöka olika typer och storlekar av projekt för att se hur informationsutbytet varierar. Även intervjuer med projektledare anses kunna tillföra ett bredare perspektiv på nuläget. / Saab Dynamics is implementing the methodology project MBD ILS &amp; Systemssäkerhet. The project has the purpose of creating the optimum conditions required for Concurrent Engineering (CE). CE generally concerns the early involvement of all necessary functions during the product development process, which makes it possible to include the lifecycle perspective at a larger extent. CE is comparable to, the more common approach, integrated product development. The bachelor thesis was a part of the methodology project to analyse the exchange of information, which is a fundamental prerequisite for CE, between the disciplines Mechanics and ILS (Integrated Logistic Support). The analysis was characterized as a qualitative analysis. Interviews were carried out with the employees at Saab Dynamics to emphasize their opinions and point of view of the current information exchange. The data were collected and analysed relative CE to describe a representation of the current information exchange and the needs for improvement. The detected information exchange were considered to be lacking in compassion to CE. The employees experienced an absence of descriptions and guidelines for the information exchange in the interface between Mechanics and ILS. The need for improvements are concerning the need of feedback, accountability and insight in the other disciplines work, which are factors with great influence on the success of CE. For further studies, an interesting aspect would be to investigate different types and sizes of projects to be able to see how the information exchange varies. Also, interviews with project managers would add a broader perspective of the current information exchange and work flow.

In many products a compromise between ground clearance and the required space to store the product has to be made. This problem attracted the attention of the authors of this thesis.The objective of this project is to develop a functioning solution to a foldable wheel. The solution should be applicable to several types of product groups. A limitation for this work has been made so that the work only covers solutions for lighter vehicles.The purpose is to drive this project forward, so that a solution can be found. Furthermore the purpose of the report is to clarify how the authors proceeded to design and construct the wheel according to a fixed specification. The authors of this project also wishes to develop their knowledge within the field of product development.Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) has been used as the underlying method on which this work was based. The work started with a preliminary study. Relevant specifications was established using the results from the study. The specifications was given a rang by the use of pairwise weighting, then a QFD was made using said requirements.The wheel was divided into three different areas. Solutions was developed to problems within each area, independently of one another. The project underwent three concept stages and three screening stages. During the third screening a final concept was chosen for further development.Strength simulations was performed in Solid Works, by using the results from the simulations adjustments to the design could be made.The authors succeeded in developing a wheel capable of a volume reduction by 70 %. When the wheel is dimensioned to fit an ordinary bike it weighs about 2.5kg and can take a radial load of over 1 000N. The final concept is called Arcas and is made up of four sections of a specially developed flexible arc-solution. The arc-solution enables the wheels curved surfaces to be straightened out when the wheel is about be stored.The authors consider that they have developed the knowledge in product development and also improved their ability to handle loose defined projects. It should be possible to further reduce the volume up to levels around 80 %. A detailed FEM analysis of the components should be of use. / Hos många produkter måste en kompromiss göras mellan markfrigång och krävt förvaringsutrymme. Detta problem uppmärksammades av författarna till denna uppsats.Målet med detta projekt är att är att ta fram en fungerande hjullösning på ett hoppfällbart hjul. Lösningen ska gå att applicera inom olika produktgrupper, dock har arbetet begränsats till att endast omfatta lösningar till lättare fordon.Syftet är att driva projektet framåt så att en lösning på problemet hittas. Vidare är syftet med rapporten att redogöra för hur författarna gått tillväga för att designa och konstruera hjulet enligt satta kriterier. Författarna vill även fördjupa sina kunskaper inom produktutveckling.Set-Based Concurrent Engineering (SBCE) har använts som övergripande metod i detta arbete. Arbetsprocessen började med en förstudie. Relevanta krav på produkten upprättades baserade på genomförd förstudie. Kraven viktades genom parvis viktning och en QFD upprättades med dessa krav. Hjulet delades upp i tre olika områden. Lösningar togs fram på problem inom de tre områdena oberoende av varandra. Projektet genomgick tre stycken konceptfaser och tre stycken sållningar. Vid den tredje sållningen valdes ett slutkoncept att arbeta vidare emot.Hållfasthetssimuleringar utfördes sedan i Solid Works, med hjälp av resultaten på dessa kunde justeringar av designen utföras.Författarna lyckades att ta fram ett hjul kapabelt av en volymminskning med 70 %. Då hjulet är dimensionerat för att passa en vanlig cykel väger det ca 2.5kg och klarar av en radiell last på över 1 000N. Det slutgiltiga konceptet heter Arcas och består av fyra sektioner av en speciellt utvecklad flexibel båglösning. Båglösningen tillåter hjulets krökta ytor att rätas ut när hjulet skall förvaras.Författarna anser sig ha fördjupat sina kunskaper inom produktutveckling och framförallt förbättrat förmågan att hantera projekt med lösa ramar. Det borde vara möjligt att öka graden av hoppfällning så att volymminskningen kommer upp i nivåer kring 80 %. En ingående FEM-analys på ingående komponenter skulle vara användbar.