MondayMemory

 I remember I noticed Hill-Rom when eating at Hopkins (food was good at Hopkins - lunchboxes and all of it). I had a flashback to my days in rehab. I noticed Hill-Rom at rehab. Hill-Rom always reminds me of my hand hygiene paper. I really like that paper. That paper and course used economics principles (other posts in this blog provide further information). The use of economics may have been weird to some since I studied it for undergrad and not graduate school. There was a bit of finance. I did not stress the finance areas though.

This reminds me of my employment at Fannie Mae. It was "systems work" or technical work (information systems/information technology). It was audit-type work too. I am happy I used auditing principles a lot. Finance work was not the emphasis.

Decisions

 Trip down memory lane...

It is funny how things work out. I started training in accounting and economics when I signed up for the business stream in high school. I learned a lot and did well in the courses. I made good grades at the external exams. I was proud of the A in Principles of Accounting (CXC) and B in economics (GCE O Levels). I also did better in Accounting at GCE A Levels. There was no teacher for economics. I did not make the best grades. At first, I intended to obtain a degree in Accounting in college. I later changed my mind. I decided on economics.

Economics of IT

As I mentioned in a previous post, there is a lot of economics in my papers. There are numerous intersections between economics and IT in my papers (and ideas on the economics of IT).

I have a strong economics/business background. I was in the business stream in high school. I did economics at the O- and A-levels. Did you see my O- and A- level certificates? Search for 'certificate' in this blog to view. The grades are not shown.

I think my economics background gives me a competitive advantage (something different) in the IT world. I have technical knowledge as well as business knowledge.

Under-The-Hood

I created under-the-hood blogs to show how I prepared my papers. The blog for the Research Methods course was the first and one of my favorites. The link to the blog is: https://fmooresignatureassignment3.blogspot.com/. I used a lot of economics principles during the course.

The following blog post is an example of an under-the-hood post to show a typical day in the blogger's life (what tasks she completes and how):
https://www.thesunnysideupblog.com/2017/09/a-day-in-my-life/
I am thinking of making a Day In My Life blog post similar to this.

DID YOU KNOW?

A blog post should be cited in the following manner in academic documents, according to the APA Style 7th Edition:

Lastname, F. M. (Year, Month Date). Title of post. Publisher. URL

(One source on the APA 7th edition requirements: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/reference_list_electronic_sources.html)  

A-Levels

Preparing for the GCE A-Level examinations (at President's College) was tough. The school had trouble finding teachers and came up with out-of-the-box solutions. The Accounting class traveled to the University of Guyana for classes (a professional from the Accounting Department taught the class). Another lecturer visited the school to teach Statistics. We did not have an Economics teacher (O-Levels was much better).
 
The trip to UG was tiring but also fun. We traveled by minibus. I recall that the bus driver smiled a lot. He seemed pleased to have the job.

I learned a little bit about the UG campus then. We had classes in any available classroom in the Education building, which was at the front of the UG campus. We saw some of the hustle and bustle of the campus from that building. For some strange reason, I was interested in the trees near the front of the Education building. I learned that they were ackee trees.

Utils And Usability

Just today, I thought of the utils (utility) concept in economics. I believe it is the satisfaction derived from consuming a good or service. People enjoy (derive satisfaction) from consuming goods such as a burger or shoes. Consumers often consider the relative satisfaction/utility of goods when making purchasing decisions.

I thought of utils because of my recent review of research/studies on usability. In information technology (IT), researchers measure satisfaction/preference, ease of use, and so on for websites and products. For example, in one article, the researchers tested how consumers would respond to a new idea for banking websites. Would the consumer prefer the new idea, find if more useful? This is all related to the utils concept in economics. The IT approach to measuring user satisfaction may be useful for measuring utils.

Cross-Disciplinary Research

I found a great editorial on how to undertake great cross-disciplinary research:

How to undertake great cross-disciplinary research
By: Adam Lindgreen, C. Anthony Di Benedetto, Roderick J. Brodie, Michelvan der Borgh
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0019850120302583

I am all for cross-disciplinary research. In fact, it may be my "thing." I recall the different disciplines I touched on in my papers for the Research Methods course.
There was a paper on the decision to invest in people (human resources) vs. investing in technology to improve hand hygiene compliance. I discussed the impact of technology investment on performance or how technology may impact productivity and performance. This touches on technology as a factor of production (from economics). It also touches on finance since there is a rate of return of technology investments.
Another paper looked at how compensation of employees may affect the improvement of hand hygiene compliance and infection control. The relationship between compensation and performance was important. I used a lot of statistical analyses in the paper.

The blog for my Research Methods course that includes "under the hood" information on the papers is:
https://fmooresignatureassignment3.blogspot.com/