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1

Perin, Guido, Francesco Romagnoli, Fabrizio Perin, and Andrea Giacometti. "Preliminary Study on Mini-Modus Device Designed to Oxygenate Bottom Anoxic Waters without Perturbing Polluted Sediments." Environments 7, no. 3 (March 20, 2020): 23. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/environments7030023.

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The Tangential Guanabara Bay Aeration and Recovery (TAGUBAR) project derives its origins from a Brazilian government decision to tackle the planning and management challenges related to the restoration of some degraded aquatic ecosystems such as Guanabara Bay (state of Rio de Janeiro), Vitória Bay, and Espírito Santo Bay (state of Espírito Santo). This was performed by using the successful outcomes of a previous Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Directorate General for Cooperation and Development (i.e., Direttore Generale alla Cooperazione allo Sviluppo, MFA–DGCS) cooperation program. The general objective of the program was to contribute to the economic and social development of the population living around Guanabara, Vitória, and Espírito Santo Bays, while promoting the conservation of their natural resources. This objective was supposed to be achieved by investing money to consolidate the local authorities’ ability to plan and implement a reconditioning program within a systemic management framework in severely polluted ecosystems such as Guanabara Bay, where sediments are highly contaminated. Sediments normally represent the final fate for most contaminants. Therefore, it would be highly undesirable to perturb them, if one wishes to avoid contaminant recycling. In this context, we explored a bench-scale novel technology, called the module for the decontamination of units of sediment (MODUS), which produces an oxygenated water flow directed parallel to the sediment floor that is aimed to create “tangential aeration” of the bottom water column. The purpose of this is to avoid perturbing the top sediment layer, as a flow directed toward the bottom sediment would most probably resuspend this layer. Three kinds of tests were performed to characterize a bench-scale version of MODUS (referred to as “mini-MODUS”) behavior: turbulence–sediment resuspension tests, hydrodynamic tests, and oxygenation–aeration tests. In order to understand the functioning of the mini-MODUS, we needed to eliminate as many variables as possible. Therefore, we chose a static version of the module (i.e., no speed for the mini-MODUS as well as no water current with respect to the bottom sediment and no flume setting), leaving dynamic studies for a future paper. The turbulence tests showed that the water enters and exits the mini-MODUS mouths without resuspending the sediment surface at all, even if the sediment is very soft. Water flow was only localized very close to both mouth openings. Hydrodynamic tests showed an interesting behavior. An increase of low air flows produced a sharp linear increase of the water flow. However, a plateau was quickly reached and then no further increase of water flow was observed, implying that for a certain specific geometry of the equipment and for the given experimental conditions, an increase in the air flow does not produce any reduction of the residence time within the aeration reactor. Oxygenation–aeration tests explored three parameters that were deemed to be most important for our study: the oxygen global transfer coefficient, KLa; the oxygenation capacity, OC; and the oxygenation efficiency, OE%. An air flow increase causes an increase of both KLa and OC, while OE% decreases (no plateau was observed for KLa and OC). The better air flow would be a compromise between high KLa and OC, with no disadvantageous OE%, a compromise that will be the topic of the next paper.
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Juszczyk, Michał, Agnieszka Leśniak, and Krzysztof Zima. "Implementation of MCA Method for Identification of Factors for Conceptual Cost Estimation of Residential Buildings." Selected Scientific Papers - Journal of Civil Engineering 8, no. 1 (June 1, 2013): 25–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/sspjce-2013-0003.

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Abstract Conceptual cost estimation is important for construction projects. Either underestimation or overestimation of building raising cost may lead to failure of a project. In the paper authors present application of a multicriteria comparative analysis (MCA) in order to select factors influencing residential building raising cost. The aim of the analysis is to indicate key factors useful in conceptual cost estimation in the early design stage. Key factors are being investigated on basis of the elementary information about the function, form and structure of the building, and primary assumptions of technological and organizational solutions applied in construction process. The mentioned factors are considered as variables of the model which aim is to make possible conceptual cost estimation fast and with satisfying accuracy. The whole analysis included three steps: preliminary research, choice of a set of potential variables and reduction of this set to select the final set of variables. Multicriteria comparative analysis is applied in problem solution. Performed analysis allowed to select group of factors, defined well enough at the conceptual stage of the design process, to be used as a describing variables of the model.
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Luck, Susan L., and Stephanie Swartz. "The Textbook Didn’t Mention That: An Intercultural Experiential Exercise in Business Communication." Management Teaching Review 5, no. 3 (April 15, 2019): 231–45. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2379298119841302.

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Although many global MBA programs teach intercultural communication, what happens when the method for teaching that concept becomes mostly experiential? To answer that question, the authors took two very similar classes, both composed of working adults, a Business Communications course in Germany and a Managerial Communications course in the United States, and joined the students into a project that spread over several weeks and had a purposely vague deliverable. While the students believed that the policies and presentations were the most important aspect of the project, the actual aim of this exercise was for them to learn about intercultural communication by doing it. Based on weekly debriefs and a final debrief, group presentations, and individual papers, we concluded that students had increased their understanding of intercultural communication far beyond what they would have gained by merely studying intercultural theory.
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Olinsky, Alan, and Phyllis A. Schumacher. "Data Mining for Health Care Professionals." International Journal of Business Intelligence Research 1, no. 2 (April 2010): 30–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/jbir.2010040104.

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In this paper, the authors discuss a data mining course that was offered for a cohort of health care professionals employed by a hospital consortium as an elective in a synchronous online MBA program. The students learned to use data mining to analyze data on two platforms, Enterprise Miner, SAS (2008) and XLMiner (an EXCEL add-in). The final assignment for the semester was for the students to analyze a data set from their place of employment. This paper describes the projects and resulting benefits to the companies for which the students worked.
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Salvador, Alexandre Borba, and Ana Akemi Ikeda. "O uso de metodologias ativas de aprendizagem em MBA de marketing." Cadernos EBAPE.BR 17, no. 1 (March 2019): 129–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1679-395168522.

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Resumo Este artigo apresenta o relato de experiência de um estudo de caso único integrado que discute a aplicação de métodos ativos de aprendizagem. Seu objetivo é aprimorar o conhecimento sobre os benefícios e a operacionalização do planejamento e a aplicação de uma combinação de métodos ativos de ensino e aprendizagem em cursos de pós-graduação lato sensu e, consequentemente, proporcionar informações úteis para docentes e pesquisadores. A experiência ocorreu entre o início do segundo semestre de 2015 e o final do segundo semestre de 2017, no âmbito de uma disciplina de Marketing em curso de pós-graduação lato sensu - Master of Business Administration (MBA). A análise foi realizada a partir das informações levantadas em 14 turmas de 1 disciplina com 8 encontros, envolvendo sessões de problem-based learning (PBL), sessão de discussão de caso, projeto em grupo (project-oriented problem-based learning - POPBL) e aplicação de prova individual. Este artigo apresenta a operacionalização dos métodos ao longo da disciplina e os resultados observados destacam sua contribuição para atingir os objetivos de aprendizagem, destacando indícios de aproveitamento dos estudantes, de qualidade da relação professor-estudante e de avaliação da disciplina e do docente.
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Šiupšinskas, Giedrius, and Solveiga Adomėnaitė. "THE USE OF SOLAR ENERGY FOR PREPARING DOMESTIC HOT WATER IN A MULTI-STOREY BUILDING / SAULĖS ENERGIJOS PANAUDOJIMAS KARŠTAM VANDENIUI RUOŠTI DAUGIABUČIAME NAME." Mokslas - Lietuvos ateitis 5, no. 4 (December 31, 2012): 507–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.3846/mla.2012.81.

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The article analyses the possibilities of solar collectors used for a domestic hot water system and installed on the roofs of modernized multi-storey buildings under the existing climate conditions. A number of combinations of flat plate and vacuum solar collectors with accumulation tank systems of various sizes have been examined. Heat from the district heating system is used as an additional heat source for preparing domestic hot water. The paper compares calculation results of energy and economy regarding the combinations of flat plate and vacuum solar collectors and the size of the accumulation tank. The influence of variations in the main indicators on the final economic results has also been evaluated. Research has been supported applying EC FP7 CONCERTO program (‘‘Sustainable Zero Carbon ECO-Town Developments Improving Quality of Life across EU - ECO-Life’’ (ECO-Life Project) Contract No. TREN/FP7EN/239497/”ECOLIFE”). Santrauka Straipsnyje analizuojamos saulės kolektorių, skirtų karšto vandentiekio sistemai ant modernizuojamų daugiabučių namų stogų įrengti esamomis klimatinėmis sąlygomis galimybės. Nagrinėjamos įvairaus dydžio plokščiųjų ir vakuuminių saulės kolektorių su akumuliacinėmis talpyklomis sistemų kombinacijos. Kaip papildomas šilumos šaltinis karštam vandeniui pašildyti naudojama iš centralizuotų šilumos tinklų tiekiama šiluma. Lyginami plokščiųjų, vakuuminių saulės kolektorių ir akumuliacinio bako dydžio kombinacijų energinių ir ekonominių skaičiavimų rezultatai. Įvertinama kai kurių esminių rodiklių pokyčių įtaka galutiniams ekonominiams rodikliams.
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Li, Yuelin, Ying Li, Ying Pan, and Hongliang Han. "Work-task types, stages, and information-seeking behavior of strategic planners." Journal of Documentation 75, no. 1 (January 14, 2019): 2–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jd-01-2018-0015.

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine information-seeking behavior (ISB) of strategic planners in enterprise across different work-task types and stages.Design/methodology/approachA case study was conducted in a pharmaceutical company in China, labeled as T Company. One of the authors worked in the department of strategic planning of this company as an intern. The data were collected via participant observation and unstructured in-depth interviews. Open coding was performed to analyze the data.FindingsFour work-task stages were identified: project preparation, gathering, discovery and presentation, and strategy formulation. The results indicate that work-task types, work-task stages, and strategic planners’ work role or position affect their information needs, source selection, and seeking process. Task complexity, task familiarity, and task goal are of the most important task attributes that directly shape strategic planners’ ISB. Work role determines the extent to which strategic planners can access the information of the company. Internal information has priority, but external information is also important when internal information is not sufficient; both are equally important for strategic planning projects. Social media has been a very important channel to access, disseminate and share information. Workshops are an important approach to producing final project reports. Face-to-face discussion and information exchange play a critical role in the formulation of new strategies.Research limitations/implicationsThis is a case study with data collected from only one company in China. Some of the results may not be generalizable. However, it adds new knowledge to ISB research in enterprise, informs people how to provide better information services for strategic planners, and informs MBA education for students’ better information-seeking skills.Originality/valueThough myriad studies on ISB, little research has been done to examine strategic planners’ ISB from a business context, especially taking into account the effect of work-task types and stages.
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Zainul Anuar, Mus’ab Umair, Mohd Faisal Taha, Noor Mona Md Yunus, Siti Musliha Mat Ghani, and Azila Idris. "An Optimization Study of Carbon Dioxide Absorption into the Aqueous Solution of Monoethanolamine and Tetrabutylphosphonium Methanesulfonate Hybrid Solvent Using RSM-CCD Methodology." Processes 9, no. 7 (July 8, 2021): 1186. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/pr9071186.

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The main purposes of this project are to assess and to optimize the solubility of carbon dioxide (CO2) in an aqueous 30 wt% monoethanolamine-tetrabutylphosphonium methanesulfonate (MEA-[TBP][MeSO3]) new hybrid solvent. In this study, the viscosity and density of aqueous MEA-[TBP][MeSO3] hybrid solvents containing different amounts of [TBP][MeSO4] were determined. Meanwhile, Fourier Transform-Infrared (FT-IR) Spectroscopy was used to determine the presence of carbamate in aqueous MEA-[TBP][MeSO3] to prove that CO2 was absorbed by aqueous MEA-[TBP][MeSO3]. Response Surface Methodology (RSM) based on central composite design (CCD) was used to design the experiments and explore the effects of three independent parameters on the solubility of CO2 in aqueous MEA-[TBP][MeSO3]. The three independent parameters are concentration of [TBP][MeSO3] (2–20 wt.%), temperature (30–60 °C) and pressure of CO2 (2–30 bar). The experimental data was found to fit a quadratic equation using multiple regressions and analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA). The final empirical equation in terms of actual factors was deducted as mol fraction = 0.5316 − (2.76 × 10−4)A − (8.8 × 10−4)B + (8.48 × 10−3)C + (2.9 × 10−5)AB + (2.976 × 10−6)AC + (5.5 × 10−5)BC − (8.4 × 10−5)A2 − (3.3 × 10−5)B2 − (1.19 × 10−4)C2, whereby A = ionic liquid ([TBP][MeSO3]) concentration, B = temperature and C = CO2 pressure. An attempt was made to perform the experiments for solubility of CO2 in aqueous MEA-[TBP][MeSO3] to validate the removal of CO2 predicted by RSM. Based on a validation study, the experimental data showed a percentage error between 0.6% and 2.11% as compared to the predicted value of CO2 removal by RSM.
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Conaway, Roger N., Susan S. Easton, and Wallace V. Schmidt. "Strategies for Enhancing Student Interaction and Immediacy in Online Courses." Business Communication Quarterly 68, no. 1 (March 2005): 23–35. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1080569904273300.

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The increased demand for Internet courses, especially in schools of business, has raised questions about instructional interaction and teacher-student immediacy, which online courses may lack. Because current research suggests immediacy behaviors may indeed be present, we developed a strategy for measuring immediacy in an online MBA course and related the results to student grades on final team projects in the course. Learner-to-learner, noncontent-related statements showed minimal affective behavior, but that lack did not have a negative effect on grades. The study suggests that students do not automatically provide supportive feedback, compliment each other, and express appreciation or agreement unless the instructor builds a learning community and transfers interactive roles to the students themselves.
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Trifocals, Wearing. "Multiple Roles in Responding to Strategic Communications." Business Communication Quarterly 67, no. 3 (September 2004): 281–93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1080569904268124.

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Teaching communication to MBAs often involves focusing on corporate strategic discourse when student projects are intended to help companies move to a more advanced stage of development. This focus on corporate strategy—the language and concepts that concern the mission and direction that an organization should adopt—requires, in turn, that faculty enact several roles to assist students in developing their final assignments, strategic presentations, and reports. Faculty play the role of specialists in corporate strategy, communication specialists, and stand-ins for the primary audience(s) for these assignments. Working with students on these assignments underscores two important values in MBA education: providing students with the means to engage in discussion at the CEO level where decisions about the company’s strategic direction are made, and demonstrating to students that the strategic assignments they produce belong to a larger communication campaign for getting buy-in for corporate strategy. These teaching practices foster research projects as well.
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Thakurta, Rahul, and Mayank Gupta. "Evaluating the business value of IT requirements." Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies 4, no. 3 (September 1, 2014): 1–12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/eemcs-07-2013-0139.

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Subject area The case “Evaluating Business Value of IT Requirements” addresses a software/information technology (IT) project management concern of assessing value of specified project requirements upfront. Study level/applicability This newly designed case is suitable for the students of an undergraduate programme, an MBA programme and practitioners. Assignment questions are designed from the perspective of teaching this case to a business student audience. The case is ideally suited for the IT strategy course where approaches to identifying business value of software investments are discussed. Case overview Set in November 2011, the case begins with the dilemmas facing Mr Suneel as he tries to come up with an approach that could facilitate evaluation of business value of software at a relatively early stage of its development. Based on a review of available literary sources, he proposed a six-step approach that incorporates responses of both the project representatives and business representatives. The final result is a quantitative representation of business value that is expected to facilitate both the business and the project organisation to finalise on software features that contribute significantly in realising the intended business objectives. Expected learning outcomes To introduce the concept of business value and its associated dimensions; to introduce the concept of project scenarios and its constituents; to highlight the benefits of an early assessment of the business value; and to demonstrate how one can link software requirements to business value and the difficulties associated with the estimation process. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.
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Abildin, Yerniyaz, Nasser Madani, and Erkan Topal. "A Hybrid Approach for Joint Simulation of Geometallurgical Variables with Inequality Constraint." Minerals 9, no. 1 (January 4, 2019): 24. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/min9010024.

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Geometallurgical variables have a significant impact on downstream activities of mining projects. Reliable 3D spatial modelling of these variables plays an important role in mine planning and mineral processing, in which it can improve the overall viability of the mining projects. This interdisciplinary paradigm involves geology, geostatistics, mineral processing and metallurgy that creates a need for enhanced techniques of modelling. In some circumstances, the geometallurgical responses demonstrate a decent intrinsic correlation that motivates one to use co-estimation or co-simulation approaches rather than independent estimation or simulation. The latter approach allows us to reproduce that dependency characteristic in the final model. In this paper, two problems have been addressed, one is concerning the inequality constraint that might exist among geometallurgical variables, and the second is dealing with difficulty in variogram analysis. To alleviate the first problem, the variables can be converted to new variables free of inequality constraint. The second problem can also be solved by taking into account the minimum/maximum autocorrelation factors (MAF) transformation technique which allows defining a hybrid approach of joint simulation rather than conventional method of co-simulation. A case study was carried out for the total and acid soluble copper grades obtained from an oxide copper deposit. Firstly, these two geometallurgical variables are transferred to the new variables without inequality constraint and then MAF analysis is used for joint simulation and modelling. After back transformation of the results, they are compared with traditional approaches of co-simulation, for which they showed that the MAF methodology is able to reproduce the spatial correlation between the variables without loss of generality while the inequality constraint is honored. The results are then post processed to support probabilistic domaining of geometallurgical zones.
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Rastogi, Parag, and Radharani Sharma. "Intrim Business Associates: taking on global consulting goliaths." Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies 5, no. 1 (March 3, 2015): 1–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/eemcs-03-2014-0055.

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Subject area Entrepreneurship, Strategic Marketing, Retail Management. Study level/applicability It may be used in marketing/strategy/organisation behaviour courses of MBA programmes as well as in specific executive education programmes dealing with business strategy, sales and marketing, entrepreneurship and organisation behaviour. Case overview In 2002, Rajan Chhibba co-founded Intrim Business Associates (IBA), a niche strategy consulting firm in India. IBA pitched for a consulting assignment for retail strategy/implementation with a steel manufacturer in India, where they were pitched against a large global consulting firm. After conducting a diagnostic study and reaching a stage where IBA had almost got the project, the client put forth a demand which was make-or-break for IBA. The case puts forth the questions faced by Rajan Chhibba at the time of replying to the client: How was IBA different from global consulting firms? Was IBA willing to compromise on quality of the project to reduce costs? Was reduction of price the only option for getting the project? What factors should Rajan Chhibba consider before making his final pitch? Expected learning outcomes This case may help students to: appreciate an entrepreneur's smart strategy up against formidable competition, analyse the resources crunch an entrepreneur faces and how he overcomes them, understand how organisations learn from their experience and appreciate the challenges in a competitive environment. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.
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Romanicheva, E. S. "FROM COMMENTED READING TO READING WITH A COMMENTARY: A NEW PARADIGM OF DEVELOPING THE INSTRUCTIONAL TECHNIQUE (PAPER 3)." Pedagogical IMAGE 14, no. 4 (2020): 585–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.32343/2409-5052-2020-14-4-585-596.

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Abstract. The Introduction to the paper raises a research question, why a classical text needs another commentary if the addressee of the commentary is a school-age reader. The question becomes a starting point in the discourse on how text commenting is used in school practice today and what new types of commentaries appear in the school lesson. Materials and methods. Search for an answer to the question raised employs methods of comparison and collation of sources to clarify the dissimilarity between the technique of commented reading and that of reading with commentaries, and establish a conceptual difference. The main body of the paper contains a description of the research results. An analysis of the experience of E.S. Abelyuk (a teacher and methodologist from Moscow) presented in methodological publications allowed the conclusion that the possibilities of using the technique of readers’ commenting in today’s school have significantly grown: it can be a research project, either a group project or an individual one; while the methodology developed by E.S. Abelyuk that, essentially, appears to be both research work and project-oriented work, could be used by teachers to support learners’ research and projects. The hypothesis put forward is tested by the analysis of practices pursued by M.A. Pavlova (a teacher from Moscow). She proposes readers’ commentary as a form of final work. According to her task, learners have to write a commentary on the poetic essay ‘L.N.Tolstoy’ (little known to contemporary readers) by V.V. Nabokov. It is noteworthy that while writing their commentaries, learners should demonstrate their abilities to use the Internet resources. Teacher’s assistance to learners in mastering the practices is also a contemporary tutorial objective. The final part of the paper presents a commentary on ‘One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich’’ written by A.I. Knyazhitsky, a methodologist from Moscow. He commented on the story by addressing the literary investigation of ‘The Gulag Archipelago’ and some other documents. In his commentary, the methodologist assumed that considering other texts via commentary creates a context where the studied fiction is read to the maximum effect, and it is up to the learner who reads it to choose the depth of ‘plunging’ into the text. Having created the commentary on the story, A.I. Knyazhitsky splendidly accomplished the most challenging tutorial objective: to describe the technique that combines the commentary of a text and its close reading and fills it with substance. The paper demonstrates this on a specific fragment of the story. The conclusion states that commentary is one of the best known and most effective instructional techniques to teach reading and understanding of a literary text, but the content of the commentary on texts and the commented texts themselves can and should vary. Commentary as an instructional technique should be considerably enriched, in particular, based on an analysis of teachers’ best practices and their further testing and technification. Keywords: instructional technique, commented reading, close reading, reading with a commentary, types of commentaries.
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Morfoulaki, Maria, and Jason Papathanasiou. "Use of PROMETHEE MCDA Method for Ranking Alternative Measures of Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning." Mathematics 9, no. 6 (March 11, 2021): 602. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/math9060602.

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One of the most crucial steps during the implementation of a Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan (SUMP) as well the relevant transportation projects is the final measures and policies’ selection that will be realized in order for the plan to achieve the study area targets. There are many methodologies that have been used for a specific purpose, with cost-effective and cost–benefit analysis being the most popular. According to the new specifications of SUMPs, the co-creation and co-planning of the future measures taking into account the opinions of all the relevant stakeholders and groups of citizens is the main parameter that will ensure the success of the planning. For this reason, MCA is the methodology proposed to be used for collecting and analyzing the different opinions. The aim of the current work is to prove, through a targeted Greek survey, the effectiveness of the MCA, not only to merge the different opinions and priorities of the stakeholders but also to highlight and rank realistically the most important sustainable mobility measures that should be implemented in an urban area. The work proposes and tests a specific methodological framework based on the use of the preference ranking organization method for enrichment of evaluations (PROMETHEE) method.
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Koul, Saroj, and Mayank Arora. "Coping with capacity expansion: Go-Goal Hydro's panache." Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies 2, no. 2 (May 25, 2012): 1–7. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/20450621211228392.

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Subject area Operations management. Study level/applicability This case study is intended for MBA, final year industrial engineering and 1st year PhD students, for use in graduate engineering, post graduate and executive level management programs. The case study illustrates operational and participative management control system in a matrix and flexible organization structure. Case overview Satish Arora (CEO) and Praveen Arora (Director Finance), a husband and wife team, own and operate Go-Goal Hydro Power Ltd (Go-GoalHPL) as a small medium enterprise (SME). Go-GoalHPL renovates hydro power generating machines up to 250 MW rating. Their current renovation/overhauling projects are located at different sites in India. Go-GoalHPL has grown its business by pursuing new avenues that include execution of major renovation projects and construction of new projects on a turnkey basis. Go-GoalHPL's management, despite their on-going successes, are concerned about severe capacity shortages if immediate actions were not taken. They have identified three capacity expansion options: continue current operating practices and obtain additional production space; undertake a make-versus-buy study and consider outsourcing parts; and implement world-class manufacturing techniques through adoption of focused factories. The first two options represented simple incremental changes while the third presents a radical alternative that required a major reorganization of the company operations and support functions. Expected learning outcomes These include knowledge about competitiveness, corporate survival, sustainable business, operations management, productivity, performance. Supplementary materials Teaching notes are available for faculty. Please consult your librarian.
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Hodgetts, Michael. "Philip Harris (1926-2018)." British Catholic History 34, no. 03 (April 12, 2019): 371–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/bch.2019.1.

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Philip Harris, who died on 21 July 2018 at the age of ninety-one, was born in Woodford, Essex, and educated at St Anthony’s School in Woodford (1932-7), St Ignatius College in London (1937-44), Birkbeck College, London, and the Institute of Historical Research. In 1953 he was awarded an M.A. for a thesis on ‘English Trade with the Eastern Mediterranean in the Late 16th Century’. From 1947 onwards he was on the staff of the British Museum (of which the Library was then part), becoming Assistant Secretary in 1959, Deputy Superintendent of the Reading Room in 1963 and Deputy Keeper in 1966. He was in charge in turn of the Acquisitions, the English and North European, and the West European Branches of the Department of Printed Books. In 1998 he published his History of the British Museum Library, the fruit of more than ten years’ research after his ‘retirement’ in 1986.1 His final project there, almost complete when he died, was on the Old Royal Library donated to the Museum by George II.2 At his funeral the first reading was read by a former head of the Chinese Department there.
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Vargas-Halabí, Tómas, and Ronald Mora-Esquivel. "Adaptación y dimensionalidad de la escala DOCS en el contexto organizacional costarricense: aplicación de la entrevista cognitiva y el análisis factorial confirmatorio/ Adaptation and Dimensionality of the DOCS Scale in the Costa Rican Organizational Context: An Application of the Cognitive Interview and of Confirmatory Factor Analysis." Revista Costarricense de Psicología 36, no. 2 (December 20, 2017): 199. http://dx.doi.org/10.22544/rcps.v36i02.06.

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<p><em><strong>Español</strong></em></p><p>El presente estudio tiene como objetivo presentar la utilidad de la Entrevista Cognitiva como herramienta para ajustar, al contexto organizacional costarricense, la escala Denison (DOCS, por sus siglas en inglés) para medir la cultura organizacional previamente adaptada a Valencia, España, por Bonavia, Prado y Barberá (2009). La DOCS fue desarrollada, de forma original en inglés por Denison (1984), Denison &amp; Mishra (1995) y Fey &amp; Denison (2003). Para la adaptación, se aplicó la Entrevista Cognitiva a una muestra de 15 individuos con cargos de supervisión o gerencia en organizaciones con 25 o más empleados. Con base en los resultados de las entrevistas, se ajustó el lenguaje de la escala al contexto nacional. Posteriormente, esta última se aplicó en dos muestras de participantes con características similares, pero provenientes de dos poblaciones diferentes, concretamente: a) 314 estudiantes, de un total de 445, de las Maestrías en Administración de Empresas y de Gestión de Proyectos del Instituto Tecnológico de Costa Rica que, para su admisión, requieren experiencia profesional previa, preferiblemente en cargos de supervisión y gerencia; b) 368 gerentes de un marco muestral de 1743 empresas provenientes de diversas asociaciones empresariales nacionales. En ambas muestras se efectuaron 8 análisis factoriales confirmatorios utilizando el software EQS 6.3, con el fin de explorar la dimensionalidad de la escala adaptada y depurar la versión final. Los resultados confirman que la Entrevista Cognitiva fue una herramienta valiosa en este proceso y que la escala final (denominada DOCSCR-V2) muestra un adecuado funcionamiento en el contexto organizacional costarricense.</p><p><em><strong>English</strong></em></p><p>The present study aims to present the Cognitive Interview as a useful pre-test tool for adapting the Denison Organizational Culture Survey (DOCS) to the Costa Rican business context, it was previously adapted in Valencia, Spain by Bonavia, Prado &amp; Barberá (2009). The DOCS scale was originally developed in English by Denison (1984), Denison &amp; Mishra (1995) and Fey &amp; Denison (2003). The Cognitive Interview was applied to a sample of 15 individuals with supervisory or managerial positions in organizations with 25 or more employees. Based on the results of the interviews the scale was adjusted to local parlance. It was then applied in two samples, with similar characteristics, but belonging two different populations: a) 314 students drawn from 445 active students enrolled in Master’s Programs (MBA and Project Management) at the Costa Rican Institute of Technology, whose prerequisite for admission stipulates experience in professional positions, preferably supervisory and managerial, and; b) 368 managers drawn from a sampling frame of 1743 companies from various business associations. Eight types of confirmatory factor analyses were performed using EQS 6.3 software in order to explore the dimensionality of the adapted scale and to debug the final version. The Cognitive Interview was confirmed as a valuable tool in this process and the final scale (denominated DOCSCR-V2) demonstrated adequate functioning in the Costa Rican organizational context.</p>
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Schweer Rayner, Cynthia, Camilla Thorogood, and Francois Bonnici. "VillageReach: innovating for improved health care at the “last mile”." Emerald Emerging Markets Case Studies 10, no. 4 (November 23, 2020): 1–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/eemcs-10-2019-0262.

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Learning outcomes The learning outcomes are to understand the definition of public value and the strategic drivers behind public value creation, understand the nature of social innovation in the public sector, identify the critical opportunities and challenges involved in sustaining innovation in the public sector and identify the role that non-profit organizations can play in supporting and sustaining social innovation. Case overview/synopsis This case puts participants in the shoes of a global health innovator’s leadership team as the organization approaches a funding crisis. The organization, VillageReach, is on a quest to expand across the public health system of Mozambique and experiences a funding dilemma. The case reveals the challenges of working with governments to achieve large-scale, systemic change. It explores the conundrum of using international donor funding to embed new practices in government service delivery. Ultimately, it asks participants to choose between the pursuit of new, small-scale innovative projects and the large-scale rollout of a national programme. Complexity academic level This teaching case is written for courses focused on social entrepreneurship, social innovation and social change. It can also be used in courses focused on non-profit management and public sector innovation. Specifically, the teaching case is suitable for two audiences: social enterprise and non-profit managers focused on strategy, development and operations (the case focuses on an enterprise that relies primarily on donor funding) and health-care managers and administrators. Generally, the case is suitable for undergraduates in their final year of study as well as graduate-level business and public administration courses, including MBA, MPH, MPA, EMBA and Executive Education courses. Supplementary materials Teaching Notes are available for educators only. Subject code CSS 3: Entrepreneurship.
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Ceriyantina, Dian Tri. "The Politeness of English Teacher's Utterances Inside and Outside Classroom." ELT Forum: Journal of English Language Teaching 8, no. 2 (November 30, 2019): 143–51. http://dx.doi.org/10.15294/elt.v8i2.31809.

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ABSTRACT Ceriyantina,D.T. The Politeness of Teacher’s Utterance Inside and Outside The Learning Process. Final Project. English Department, Faculty of Language and Arts, Semarang State University. Advisor: Dr. Hendi Pratama,M.A Keyword: Politeness, Utterance, Pragmatic, Teacher. This study is about politeness of the teacher’s utterance entitled: The Politeness of Teacher’s Utterances Inside and Outside The Learning Process. The aim of this study is to find out the strategy and the dominant maxim of politeness that used by teacher inside and outside the learning process. This study was a descriptive qualitative study to describe the result of the analyzing of teacher’s utterance. I used teacher’s utterance inside and outside the learnig process as the object of the study. In collecting data, i record the teacher’s utterance inside the learning process then transcript the result of the record. After that, the data will be analyzed with the type of pooliteness and clasified into the maxim of politeness. The result of the analyze teacher’s utterance inside the learning process contain pf 73 utterances with ten maxims of politeness by Leech (2014). After going through data analysis process, it can be concluded that seven maxims of politeness used by English teacher inside the learning process. The maxims that used are Tact with percentage 47,95%, Obligation S to O with percentage 27,29%, Generosity with percentage 17,80%, Approbation with percentage 2,74%, Modesty with percentage 1,37%, Obligation O to S with percentage 1,37%, Sympathy with percentage 1,37%. Meanwhile, the result of the analyze teacher’s utterance outside the learning process contain of 20 utterance with five maxims, the maxim that used are Tact with percentage 50%, Generosity with percentage 15%, Modesty with percentage 15%, Approbation with percentage 10%, Obligation os S to O with percentage 10%. Based on the result of the procedure, the writer cab conclude that the dominant type of the maxim that used by English teacher inside and outside the learning process. The writer also use analysis method to analyze the data so that can be found the reason of the classification result.
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Pfister, Christian, Gwenaelle Gravis, Geraldine Pignot, Aude Flechon, Michel Soulie, Christine Chevreau, Laurent Guy, et al. "Randomized phase III study of gemcitabine and cisplatin (GC) versus dose dense methotrexate, vinblastine, doxorubicin and cisplatin (DD-MVAC) in the perioperative setting for patients with locally advanced transitional cell cancer of the bladder: The French GETUG/AFU V05 VESPER trial." Journal of Clinical Oncology 36, no. 6_suppl (February 20, 2018): TPS530. http://dx.doi.org/10.1200/jco.2018.36.6_suppl.tps530.

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TPS530 Background: Radical cystectomy remains the gold standard treatment for invasive non metastatic transitional cell cancer of the bladder. Perioperative chemotherapy (adjuvant ou neoadjuvant) has been developed to increase overall survival. However, the chemotherapy administration time and optimal chemotherapy regimen are not yet determined. As DD-MVAC has been shown to be associated with higher response rates in bladder metastatic disease, also a better efficacy can be suspected in the perioperative setting. Methods: We designed a randomized phase III study to compare the efficacy of GC and DD-MVAC in term of progression-free survival in patients for whom chemotherapy has been decided, before or after radical cystectomy (disease defined by a T2, T3 or T4a N0 M0 stadification for patients receiving neoadjuvant chemotherapy or pT3 or pT4 or pN+ and M0 for patients receiving adjuvant chemotherapy). Secondary endpoints include overall survival, side effects, response rate in the neoadjuvant setting. Main exclusion criteria were histological variants (pure adenocarcinoma or pure epidermoid carcinoma or pure or mixed small-cell neuro-endocrine carcinoma) and ventricular ejection fraction under 50%. The total number of patients projected was 500 based on the median progression-free survival rate of 50% at 3 years observed in patients treated with GC (standard arm A) in the perioperative setting. An absolute improvement of 10% (HR = 0.74) was expected with DD-MVAC (experimental arm B) with a = 0.05 and b = 0.20. In October 2017, 460 patients have been included. An interim analysis is planned after the occurrence of 174 events. With an estimated uniform accrual rate of 140 patients per year for 3.5 years and exponential survival, the final analysis is expected to occur 8 years after the start of the trial. Concomitant ancillary study has also started, focusing on the identification of subgroups for muscle invasive bladder tumors sensitivity to neoadjuvant chemotherapy, as suggested by the recent MDA classification. Clinical trial information: NCT 018 12369.
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Gatti, S., L. Cianfruglia, T. Galeazzi, A. Palpacelli, S. Quattrini, C. Quatraccioni, G. Catassi, et al. "P378 Oxidative status and antioxidant capacity in children and adults with IBD: preliminary results of the OxIBDiet trial." Journal of Crohn's and Colitis 15, Supplement_1 (May 1, 2021): S392—S393. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/ecco-jcc/jjab076.502.

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Abstract Background Redox imbalance is involved in several aspects of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). The OxIBDiet (NCT04513015) is a multicentre, 2-phases project involving IBD children and adults with the following aims: 1. To evaluate oxidative status of IBD subjects. 2. To estimate the effects of an antioxidant diet in IBD patients. Preliminary results are shown in this abstract. Methods The total antioxidant capacity, lipid peroxidation and the degree of protein oxidation were measured respectively through the ferric reducing ability of plasma (FRAP, µmol/equivalent FeSO4), serum levels of the thiobarbituric acid reactive substances (TBARs, µmol MDA) and advanced Oxidation Protein Products (AOPP, µmol/g protein). Reactive oxygen species (ROS, Arbitrary Units) and activities (nmol/min/mg of protein) of the main antioxidant enzymes, superoxide dismutase (SOD), glutathione peroxidase (GPX), glutathione reductase (GR), glutathione S-Transferase (GST) and catalases (CAT) were evaluated in PMNs cells. Oxidative stress markers were correlated with demographic variables and clinical parameters. Results Fifteen adults (mean age: 36.2 ±11.4 years, 47% female, 67% in remission) and thirty five children (mean age: 14.13 ±2.2 years, 60% female, 65% in remission) with IBD have been enrolled so far. FRAP was significantly reduced in IBD children compared to healthy controls (median values: 212.1 vs. 248.3, p=0.0001) and to IBD adults (median value: 281, p&lt;0.001), while no difference was observed between adults with IBD and the control group (p= 0.1). ROS levels did not differ in IBD children compared to adults and controls. The activity of GPX and CAT enzymes was increased in children with IBD in comparison to controls (p:0.02 and 0.001, respectively) while the activity of the other enzymes (GST, GR and SOD) and levels of lipid peroxidation and protein oxidation was not different between the 2 groups. Overall in the IBD group (children plus adults) FRAP was positively correlated with age (r=0.40, p=0.006), male gender (r=0.33, p=0.03) and use of biologics (r=0.47, p=0.001) and inversely correlated to disease activity based on clinical scores (r= -0.38, p=0.009). No correlation was found between FRAP and serum C-reactive protein or calprotectin levels. Conclusion The total antioxidant capacity (FRAP) is significantly impaired in IBD children respect to IBD adults and to healthy controls, thus suggesting an early involvement of oxidative stress in IBD pathogenesis. Moreover, the activity of the main antioxidant enzymes (GPx and CAT) in IBD children is increased, as a possible compensation for redox imbalance. Final results will clarify the involvement of antioxidant cascade in IBD pathogenesis and in therapeutic approach.
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Alrayes, H., M. Alazmi, K. Alderaan, M. Alghamdi, N. Alghanim, A. Alhazmi, N. Alkhadhrawi, et al. "AB0566 CONSENSUS-BASED RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF PSORIATIC ARTHRITIS IN THE KINGDOM OF SAUDI ARABIA." Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases 80, Suppl 1 (May 19, 2021): 1320.1–1320. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/annrheumdis-2021-eular.298.

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Background:Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) is a chronic inflammatory condition associated with psoriasis. The common clinical features of PsA include peripheral arthritis, dactylitis, enthesitis, spondylitis, skin and nail disease1. Considering the heterogeneous course of disease and the different patient characteristics, there is a need to standardize management of PsA patients. At present, no established guidelines are available on PsA care pathway in Saudi Arabia.Objectives:To provide consensus-based guidance to all Saudi health care providers (HCPs) on the management of PsA patients including referral pathway, definition of remission and treat-to-target approach.Methods:A Delphi technique was used to understand PsA patient care pathway. In first step, a targeted literature review was conducted and a survey questionnaire including 16 questions was developed to explore PsA patient journey. In second step, this questionnaire was submitted to 127 HCPs and 33 of them provided their response. In third step, a panel of 12 experts including 10 rheumatologists, 1 dermatologist and 1 general physician reviewed the available evidence along with survey results to align on final recommendations.Results:The most common management guidelines recommended for PsA were European League against Rheumatism (EULAR, 100% agreed) and American College of Rheumatology (ACR, 100% agreed). Psoriasis Epidemiology Screening Tool (PEST) was recommended by 67% of experts as validated screening tool for PsA in dermatology clinic. The laboratory investigations included were C-reactive protein (CRP, 100%), erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR, 100%), complete blood count (92%), urea and creatinine (92%), liver function (92%), rheumatoid factor (56%) and X-ray of affected joints (75%). For patients with additional symptoms of back pain, X-ray of sacroiliac joints and human leukocyte antigen B27 (HLA-B27) test to be included. Only rheumatologists should recommend a magnetic resonance imaging based on the individual clinical picture. The agreement criteria for HCPs for referring patient to a rheumatologist were presence of psoriasis (100%) and one of the following features: dactylitis [100%], joint pain [100%], arthritis [100%], nail dystrophy [91%]. Patient with active arthritis should be referred to rheumatologist within 4 weeks. The referral pathway agreed by the experts for PsA patients is presented in Figure 1. Majority of experts (57%) defined clinical remission as absence of disease activity in all facets of disease assessed using the disease activity in psoriatic arthritis (DAPSA) or minimal disease activity (MDA) index. For treat-to-target, 71% of experts agreed on EULAR recommendations2. For remission and treat-to-target, experts identified a need for more clear definition.Conclusion:This expert consensus aimed to provide guidance to Saudi HCPs on standardizing diagnosis and care of PsA patients. Most experts recommended PEST as validated screening tool for PsA along with laboratory investigations such as CRP, ESR, X-ray, etc. Referral to a rheumatologist should be considered for patient with presence of psoriasis and one of the other defining features for PsA. There is a need for more clear definition of remission and treat-to-target.References:[1]Ogdie A, et al. Rheum Dis Clin North Am. 2015;41(4):545–568.[2]Gossec L, et al. Ann Rheum Dis. 2020;79:700–712.Figure 1.Referral pathway for psoriatic arthritis patients CRP: C-reactive protein; ESR: Erythrocyte sedimentation rate; CBC: Complete blood count; HLA-B27: Human leukocyte antigen B27; PEST: Psoriasis Epidemiology Screening ToolAcknowledgements:This project was supported by Novartis Saudi Ltd., Saudi Arabia and the Saudi Society for Rheumatology. We would also like to thank Dr. Xenofon Baraliakos for his support.Disclosure of Interests:Hanan Alrayes: None declared., Mansour Alazmi Speakers bureau: Pfizer, Abbvie, Khaled Alderaan: None declared., Mushabab Alghamdi: None declared., Nayef Alghanim: None declared., Ahmed Alhazmi: None declared., Nadeer Alkhadhrawi: None declared., Mohammad Almohideb Speakers bureau: Novartis, Abbvie, Celgene, Lilly, Jansen and Sanofi, Grant/research support from: Sanofi and Abbvie, Suzan Attar Speakers bureau: Lectures in symposium about different diseases in rheumatology and management, Grant/research support from: Research in recruiting patient, Zyad ahmed Alzahrani Speakers bureau: Pfizer, Novartis, MSD, Janssen, Abbvie, Lilly, Consultant of: Pfizer, Novartis, MSD, Janssen, Abbvie, Lilly, Mohamed Bedaiwi: None declared., Nancy Zakaria Employee of: Novartis, Hussein Halabi: None declared.
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Schwede, Indrek. "Jalgpalli populaarsus Eesti Vabariigi spordielus 1920–40 [Abstract: The Popularity of Football in the Sporting Life of the Republic of Estonia in 1920–1940]." Ajalooline Ajakiri. The Estonian Historical Journal, no. 3/4 (June 16, 2020): 331–63. http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/aa.2019.3-4.02.

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Attention has not hitherto been turned intently to the popularity of particular branches of sports in the research of the history of Estonian sports. It has more intuitively been believed that the most popular branch of sports in the pre-war Republic of Estonia (1918–1940) was football. The conspicuously extensive coverage of football in the periodical press has provided grounds for this belief. Compared to other sports games and the more major individual branches, football had the most international matches at the level of national teams, which attracted thousands of spectators. Estonian clubs annually hosted squads from neighbouring countries. Professional clubs mainly from Central Europe brought thousands of spectators to the stadiums in the latter half of the 1920s and in the early 1930s. Rivalries between squads at home were also of great interest to the public and the media. The other primary ball games, basketball and volleyball, started being played in Estonia some ten years after football, and their position was weaker internationally as well: contacts between countries were infrequent. The international basketball association was established in 1932 and its analogue in volleyball was founded in 1947. Track and field, the largest branch of individual athletics, also could not compete with football in terms of matches and international contacts. This article is the first more serious attempt to compare the popularity of branches of sports in Estonia in the 1920s and 1930s. I compared the more major branches of sports in four categories: the number of participants in the particular branch of sports, the sizes of audiences, their ability to cope economically (balance sheets and revenue reports), and their position in the print media. The fact that there are gaps in the data in both the archives and in periodicals, and that the information for different years does not always match, made comparison of the numbers of participants difficult. The methodology used for ascertaining the number of participants was also not necessarily the same. An adequate comparison to the more important individualsports branches is complicated to arrive at because until 1933, the Eesti Kerge-, Raske- ja Veespordiliit (Estonian Association of Track and Field, Heavy Athletics and Aquatic Sports) was the umbrella organisation for major branches of sports such as track and field, wrestling, weightlifting, boxing, swimming, diving, gymnastics and cycling, whereas the last two sports branches are not even mentioned in the association’s name. Conclusions can nevertheless be drawn concerning the number and proportions of persons active in different branches of sports based on indirect data. I compared the size of the membership of the separate sports associations and the number of participants in the Estonian championships of the three largest sports games (football, basketball, volleyball). Periodicals proved to be the most reliable in ascertaining the numbers of spectators since they unfailingly noted the larger attendance numbers based on spectator ticket information or visual observation. The sketchy information on attendance at competitions in individual sports is a problem, but from the standpoint of this article’s research problem, the fact that before World War II there was not a single large sports arena in Estonia is important. The gymnasiums that were in use accommodated slightly over 500 spectators in total. This means that a thousand and more spectators could gather only at stadiums, where primarily football matches and track and field competitions were held. The print media reported the numbers of spectators at those competitions. I compared the attendance numbers for football and track and field competitions, and calculated the average number of spectators. There are gaps in the balance sheets and revenue reports of the separate sports associations for the period under consideration, yet the Eesti Spordi Keskliit (Central Association of Estonian Sports) published them in its yearbooks for 1935–1939, which makes it possible to draw correct conclusions concerning the economic viability of the separate sports associations. While I used the method of source criticism for the preceding three categories, I studied the representation of branches of sports in print media together with Kristjan Remmelkoor using content analysis. We focused exclusively on print media because that was the primary means of mass communication at that time, and it covered the entire period under consideration, unlike radio, which began broadcasting for the first time in 1926. On the basis of circulation numbers, we selected two dailies with nationwide circulation that were published in Tallinn (Vaba Maa was published only until 1938, thus it was replaced for final comparison with another Tallinn daily paper Uus Eesti) and one daily from southern Estonia for content analysis. We studied the newspaper issues from the years 1921, 1925, 1930, 1935 and 1939. Based on the pilot project, we identified the branches of sports that were reported the most and worked out a methodology on the basis of which to search for and categorise branches of sports. After six months, I carried out a repeat analysis for one month of each year that was under consideration. The repeat analysis covered all four dailies. The results differed by 3.97%. Thereat in comparing the two branches of sports that were reported on most, the difference in football was 0.69% and 0.43% in track and field. It became evident as a result of the study that compared to basketball and volleyball, there were almost four times more football enthusiasts. Compared to the other more popular individual sports, we can indirectly conclude that football was the branch of sports with the largest number of enthusiasts. Football had the most spectators in Estonia in the interwar period because branches of sports practiced in indoor conditions could not fit more than 500 spectators into gymnasiums, since there was no large sports arena. Football had the largest audiences when considering the track and field competitions and football matches held at stadiums. In 1935–1939, the Eesti Jalgpalli Liit (Estonian Football Association) was Estonia’s most prosperous separate sports association. It became evident on the basis of content analysis that the two most widely reported branches of sports in print media were football, and track and field. Thereat the number of reports on track and field grew in the latter half of the 1930s and surpassed the figures for football. At the same time, the number of texts on Estonian football was the largest over the entire period that has been studied. The greatest number of texts on football were in journalistic genres that required absorbed reading, which stood out better in newspapers. Due to these circumstances, football became the most popular branch of sports in Estonia in the interwar period. The Estonian national squad’s international match against Latvia held on 18 June 1940 characterises football’s symbolic capital. This match that took place at Kadriorg stadium at a turning point in history evolved into a nationalist demonstration against the Soviet Union’s occupying regime. The crowd went from the stadium to Kadriorg Palace, where President Konstantin Päts was under the guard of the foreign regime. This match and the events that followed it are etched in the people’s collective memory. They have made their way into many published memoirs and also into belles-lettres, and have been echoed in both poetry and prose.
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Wysong, Scott, Sandra Blanke, Jude Olson, and Rosemary Maellaro. "Leveraging Orientation and Learning Transfer to Launch Capstone Consulting Projects." Management Teaching Review, August 11, 2021, 237929812110345. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23792981211034504.

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This orientation session was designed to prepare students for their final MBA Capstone project, leverage lessons learned from graduates, transfer prior learning about teams and project management, and launch consulting projects with actual clients. Companies have used orientation sessions to onboard new employees for many years to improve productivity and innovation. Comparatively, the use of student orientation sessions is an understudied area. Our exploratory survey of 68 Capstone students on the completion of their course indicates that they benefit from this session, and subsequently have demonstrated marked improvement in teamwork and client deliverables according to their professors. This article addresses the elements of the orientation session that can be replicated and implemented by other professors teaching similar courses. We recommend that future research continue to examine this pedagogy.
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Shersher, David D., Maksim Kirtsman, Mikael Katz-Lavigne, Marcel A. Behr, and Makeda Semret. "Annotating the Mycobacterium avium Genome: A Project in Bioinformatics." McGill Journal of Medicine 7, no. 2 (December 1, 2004). http://dx.doi.org/10.26443/mjm.v7i2.383.

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Bioinformatic tools facilitate efficient processing and formatting of experimental data and are becoming essential to research in the biological sciences. Whole genome sequencing projects, combined with DNA microarray technology, have allowed genomic comparisons between and within species of microorganisms. The genome of Mycobacterium avium subsp. avium (MAA) has been sequenced by The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), but a final and annotated version has not yet been made available. The goal of this project was to annotate the sequence of MAA as a foundation for microarray-based genomic comparisons. We used software to identify and predict open reading frames (ORFs) present in this organism. The ORFs were then compared to those catalogued in two large, online genetic databases for other microorganisms and matched to homologous sequences, allowing the determination of putative functions for each predicted gene. The genome of MAA was determined to contain 4480 genes, the majority of which are homologous to genes found in other Mycobacterial species.
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Bretag, Tracey. "Editorial 8(1)." International Journal for Educational Integrity 8, no. 1 (July 7, 2012). http://dx.doi.org/10.21913/ijei.v8i1.780.

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I am pleased to welcome readers to Volume 8(1) of the International Journal for Educational Integrity. Academic integrity has been in the headlines in Australia this year, with the national Office for Learning and Teaching (OLT) calling for commissioned projects on academic integrity for the first time. The last issue of the IJEI included refereed papers from the 5th Asia Pacific Conference on Educational Integrity (Perth, Australia) and highlighted the work of an Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC) funded project, Australian academic integrity standards: Aligning policy and practice in Australian universities. The preliminary results of that project have resulted in the OLT providing $299,000 for an additional 12 month project entitled, Embedding and extending exemplary academic integrity policy and support frameworks across the higher education sector. The new project will begin in December 2012, and aims to extend and embed the five core elements of exemplary academic integrity policy identified by the ALTC project– access, approach, responsibility, detail and support – across the Australian higher education sector. Central to these elements is a commitment by providers to fostering a culture of academic integrity. As support is crucial to enact exemplary policy, the OLT project will develop resources accessible to both public and private higher education providers to embed these elements. Two critical areas identified by the ALTC project will be addressed in the new project. First, support systems will be developed for vulnerable student groups including international English as an Additional Language (EAL) students, and educationally "less prepared" students who struggle to understand the concept of academic integrity without assistance. Second, the lessons about exemplary academic integrity policy and support frameworks will be extended to include higher degree by research (HDR) students. It is apparent that policy makers at the highest levels, and across the various education sectors, are beginning to put academic integrity at the centre of teaching and learning. This, of course, is excellent news for all of us working in this important field. The current issue of the journal, like every issue published to date, includes commentary, research and recommendations for good practice from around the globe. The issue opens with an invited piece by Eric Duff Wrobbel from Southern Illinois University in the USA, which many of our North American readers may recall was in the news for, of all things, plagiarising the definition of plagiarism in their new plagiarism policy! Wrobbel takes a light-hearted approach to responding to the scandal, and conducts three informal studies which he shares with our readers. Of interest to Australian researchers on the ALTC project who are currently grappling with definitions of academic integrity, Wrobbel conducted a workshop with colleagues to come up with an original definition of plagiarism and found the task to be almost impossible. I think you will find Wrobbel's contribution both engaging and informative. Steve Williams, Margaret Tanner, Jim Beard and Georgia Hale, all from the University of Arkansas, USA, provide the first refereed paper in this issue. Williams and colleagues conducted a survey of 46 faculty members and 562 undergraduates. They found that 74% of faculty members believed academic misconduct had recently occurred in their classes, and this paralleled the 67% of undergraduates who admitted to academic misconduct in the past year. Not surprisingly, those students who admitted to having cheated viewed cheating as being significantly less serious than those who had not cheated. Williams et al provide some useful recommendations for addressing academic integrity issues on campus which are well supported by other researchers and practitioners working in this area. Lucia Zivcakova, Eileen Wood, Mark Baetz and Domenica De Pasquale, all from Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, also explored university teaching staff perceptions of academic integrity. The authors used an innovative methodology of interviewing staff following their observation of their students engaged in a 45-minute interactive presentation on academic integrity. They then conducted a qualitative analysis of faculty members' perceptions, beliefs and instructional concerns regarding academic integrity in their classrooms. Key findings from the analysis suggest that faculty members perceived themselves to be confident in their own understanding of what constitutes academic integrity; however, there were inconsistencies regarding whether their students had the requisite knowledge to make appropriate decisions. Only half of the faculty found that the presentation content enhanced their own knowledge of academic integrity. Faculty identified several methods they use to safeguard against academic misconduct, and identified the importance of both faculty and the institution providing a consistent and clear model to promote academic integrity in students. The final two refereed papers in this issue come from the United Kingdom. Neil Wellman and Julian Fallon (Cardiff Metropolitan University) report the preliminary findings of an action research project designed to address academic misconduct amongst postgraduate students in an international MBA programme. A two-pronged approach was implemented, beginning with a zero-tolerance policy requiring that all MBA assignments be submitted to the Turnitin text matching software and penalties resulting from any identified misconduct be widely publicised. The second, crucial element of the approach was a strengthening of the induction and study skills elements of the programme. In keeping with generally agreed best practice, the authors conclude that the dual strategy of prevention and cure was effective, resulting in an overall reduction in the rate of academic misconduct. Sharon McCulloch from Lancaster University provides the final paper in the issue. McCulloch makes the compelling case that although much of the research into source use by international students has tended to focus on issues of plagiarism, there has recently been recognition that their difficulties may be more pedagogical than moral. McCulloch reports on a small case study involving a group of Japanese postgraduate students. Analysis of five Pre-Master's dissertations written by these students, as well as interviews conducted with the writers, revealed that they varied in their ability to handle source material effectively. In many cases, their use of source material appeared to be symptomatic of weak authorial stance and apparent lack of a clear argument. Based on these findings, the study concludes with the recommendation that instruction on the use of source material focus to a greater extent on its rhetorical function in constructing knowledge. All the papers in this issue aim to share research findings with the clear intention of improving practice in all levels of the educative process, beginning with undergraduate students and extending to postgraduate scholars and teaching staff. I trust you will enjoy reading these articles and sharing the lessons with your colleagues. Tracey Bretag, Editor.
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Thanh Son, Vo. "The Process of Sustainable Development and the Linkage to the Social - Ecological Transformation in the World and in Vietnam." VNU Journal of Science: Policy and Management Studies 37, no. 1 (March 24, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.25073/2588-1116/vnupam.4293.

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Sustainable development is a global trend to build a prosperous society, especially to promote green growth towards ecological approach and based on sustainable use of natural resources in the context of climate change. This article, therefore, is an attempt to synthesize the sustainable development process in the world, from the initial awareness of the role of the environment in the development process in the 1980s, to the development of Agenda 21 in the 1990s, to develop and implement the 2030 agenda for sustainable development in the present time. The change in awareness and practice of sustainable development also demonstrates the trend of social-ecological transformation as a development trend and is an urgent requirement towards building a prosperous and sustainable society. Integrating sustainable development into international and national development policies can be considered as a form of promoting social-ecological transformation. The UNESCO’ system of Biosphere Reserves as a model for promoting sustainable development initiatives towards harmony between people and nature can be considered as a model of a social-ecological system. Vietnam as a country actively participating the sustainable development process in the world has made great efforts to build a prosperous and sustainable society. Keywords: Sustainable development, social - ecological transformation, Vietnam. References [1] United Nations, Agenda 2, United Nations Conference on Environment & Development Rio de Janerio, Brazil, 3 to 14 June 1992, pp. 351.[2] IUCN, UNEP, WWF, World Conservation Strategy: Living Resource Conservation for Sustainable Development, 1980, pp. 77.[3] United Nations, Our Common Future, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987.[4] Meadows, H. Donella, Meadows, L. Dennis, Randers, Jørgen; Behrens III, W. William, The Limits to Growth; A Report for the Club of Rome's Project on the Predicament of Mankind. New York: Universe Books, 1972.[5] IUCN, UNEP và WWF, Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living (in Vietnamse), Translation from original copy, Hanoi: Science and Technology Publishing House, 1993, pp. 240.[6] Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. Island Press, Washington, DC, 2005, pp. 102.[7] United Nations, Global Sustainable Development Report, 2015a, pp. 198.[8] United Nations, Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. A/RES/70/1, 2015b, pp. 40.[9] Liliane Danso-Dahmen, Philip Degenhardt (Eds.), Social-Ecological Transformation Perspectives from Asia and Europe. Published by the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung, 2019, pp. 111.[10] Bass Steve, Conceptual Frameworks for Integrating Sustainable Development Dimensions Paper for UNDESA/UNEP/UNDP Workshop on SD Integration tools, Geneva, 14-15 October 2015.[11] Cejudo, Guillermo M and Cynthia Michel, Addressing fragmented government action: Coordination, coherence, and integration. Paper to be presented at the 2nd International Conference in Public Policy, Milan, July 2015, pp. 22.[12] UN-DESA, Integrated Approaches to Sustainable Development Planning and Implementation. Report of the Capacity Building Workshop and Expert Group Meeting, Department of Economic & Social Affairs, 2015.[13] ESDN, Horizontal Policy Integration and Sustainable Development: Conceptual remarks and governance examples. ESDN Quarterly Report June 2009, http://www.sd-network.eu/quarterly%20reports/report%20files/pdf/2009-June-Horizontal_Policy_Integration_and_Sustainable_Development.pdf.[14] OECD, Guidance on Sustainability Impact Assessment. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010.[15] DFID, Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheets. April 1999, https://www.ennonline.net/dfidsustainableliving.[16] Adams, W.M, The Future of Sustainability: Re-thinking Environment and Development in the Twenty-first Century. Report of the IUCN Renowned Thinkers Meeting, 29-31 January 2006, pp. 18. https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/documents/Rep-2006-002.pdf.[17] J. Rockström et al., A safe operating space for humanity, Nature 461(7263), 2009a, 472–475.[18] J. Rockström et al., Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating Space for Humanity. Ecology and Society 14(2), 2009b, 32. [19] Steffen, Will, K. Richardson, J. Rockström, S.E. Cornell, I. Fetzer, E.M. Bennett, R. Biggs, S.R. Carpenter, Wim de Vries, Cynthia A. de Wit, Carl Folke, Dieter Gerten, J. Heinke, G.M. Mace, Linn M. Persson, Veerabhadran Ramanathan, B. Reyers, Sverker Sörlin, Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 347, 1259855 (2015). DOI: 10.1126/science.1259855.[20] Pisano, Umberto and Gerald Berger, Planetary Boundaries for Sustainable Development: From a conceptual perspective to national applications. ESDN Quarterly Report 30 – October 2013, ESDN Quarterly Report N.30. European Sustainable Development Network, 31 pages, http://www.sd-network.eu/quarterly%20reports/report%20files/pdf/2013-October-Planetary_Boundaries_for_SD.pdf[21] Raworth Kate, From Will these Sustainable Development Goals get us into the doughnut (aka a safe and just space for humanity)? Duncan Green’s discussion on Raworth’s doughnut and SDGs. 2014, http://oxfamblogs.org/fp2p/will-these-sustainable-development-goals-get-us-into-the-doughnut-aka-a-safe-and-just-space-for-humanity-guest-post-from-kate-raworth/[22] Vietnam, Implementation of Sustainable Development: National Report at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) (in Vietnamese), Ministry of Planning and Investment, Hanoi, May 2012, pp. 82.[23] Vietnam, Voluntary National Review on the Implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals ,Ministry of Planning and Investment, 2018, pp. 90 (in Vietnamese).[24] IMHEN, Integrating Climate Change into Socio-economic Development Plans Viet Nam Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Climate Change, Viet Nam Publishing House of Natural Resources, Environment and Cartography, Hanoi, 2012, pp.137 (in Vietnamese).[25] T. Thuc, H.T.L. Huong and D. M. Trang, Technical guidance on integrating climate change into development planning Viet Nam Institute of Meteorology, Hydrology and Climate Change, Viet Nam Publishing House of Natural Resources, Environment and Cartography, Hanoi, 2012, pp. 69 (in Vietnamese).[26] MPI and UNDP, A study on advanced strategic environmental assessment tools for the sustainability assessment of development planning projects, A project on "Strengthening capacity to integrate sustainable development and climate change in planning in Vietnam, Hanoi, 2011, pp. 79 (in Vietnamese).[27] Minister of the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Circular No. 02/2013/TT-BKHDT dated March 27, 2013 guiding the implementation of a number of contents of the Strategy for Sustainable Development in Vietnam for the period 2011-2020), 2013 (in Vietnamese).[28] V.T. Son and T.T. Phuong, Monitoring and evaluation criteria for management effectiveness for biosphere reserves: Practices in the world and applicability in Vietnam (in Vietnamese). Journal of Environment, Topic II, 2018, 12-15.[29] German MAB National Committee. Criteria for Designation and Evaluation of UNESCO Biosphere Reserves in Germany. Publisher: German National Committee for the UNESCO Programme “Man and the Biosphere” (MAB), 1996, pp. 65.[30] V.T. Son et al, Final report of the independent State-level scientific and technological project titled “Research on developing a set of criteria and procedures for monitoring and evaluating the efficiency of management of biosphere reserves in Vietnam”, Code DTLXH, 20/15.2018.
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Oben, Awu Isaac. "IMPLEMENTATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION OBJECTIVES TOWARDS THE ATTAINMENT OF CAMEROON’S VISION 2035 / MISE EN ŒUVRE DES OBJECTIFS DE L’ENSEIGNEMENT SUPÉRIEUR POUR LA RÉALISATION DE LA VISION 2035 DU CAMEROUN." European Journal of Education Studies 8, no. 8 (July 29, 2021). http://dx.doi.org/10.46827/ejes.v8i8.3864.

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This study aimed at investigating the extent to which the Implementation of Higher Education Objectives (HEO) predicts the attainment of Cameroon’s Vision 2035. Specifically, the study was: (1) To find out whether the strengthening of gender equality is effectively ensuring the attainment of Cameroon's Vision 2035 with respect to poverty alleviation and national unity, and consolidation of democracy. (2) To find out whether the training of trainers and researchers is effectively ensuring the attainment of Cameroon's Vision 2035 with respect to poverty alleviation and national unity and consolidation of democracy. The study made use of two hypotheses, which were either accepted or rejected after analysis. The quantitative and qualitative (mixt method) design was used for this study. The population of the study consisted of all the final year students (potential graduates: B.Sc, B.Ed, M.A, M.Sc, M.Ed, Ph.D., and HND, etc.) from 14 Higher Institutes of Learning (HIL) in the South West Region of Cameroon. The sample consisted of 370 students chosen at random. 24 teachers were also interviewed. A questionnaire and an interview guide were used for data collection. The questionnaire was validated by 30 students who did not constitute part of the sample. Quantitative data were analyzed using the Pearson Product Moment Correlation Coefficient (statistical tool). Qualitative data were analyzed by using content analysis. The findings revealed that; the strengthening of gender equality is high hence guarantees the attainment of Cameroon's Vision 2035 with respect to poverty alleviation, and national unity, and consolidation of democracy. Results revealed that factors in favor of gender equality include; Policies adjustment leading to inclusive education, equity and increase in gender access, relatively equal opportunities in Science Departments, a relative change in teachers’ perception towards women education, the relative decrease in favoritism and increase in meritocracy rate in HE classrooms, increase in female leaders, teachers, and researcher to influence decision making leading to a relative balance in the inclusion of male and female students in major school projects, activities and decisions. On the contrary, results revealed that the mean for the training of trainers and researchers were found low as such does not guarantee the attainment of Cameroon's Vision 2035 with respect to poverty alleviation, and national unity and consolidation of democracy. Results revealed that, factors influencing the low level of Training of Trainers and Researchers in HE include; generally low-quality control and monitoring in HE, inadequate financial, material and human resources to effectively influence the training of trainers and researcher, poor research funding and management, low motivation of staff and students to attend seminars, ineffective research supervision, and duration for learners to gain required skills, poor feedback quality from research supervisors, contribute to the low level of Training of Trainers and Researchers in HE. The researcher concluded that the Implementation of HEO has a direct relationship with the attainment of Cameroon’s Vision 2035 yet some of the objectives are not effectively implemented. The better the implementation of HEO, the more HE can guarantee the attainment of Vision 2035. Some recommendations and suggestions for further study were made. Cette étude visait à déterminer jusqu’où la mise en œuvre des objectifs de l’enseignement supérieur prévoit la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun. Plus précisément, il s’agissait de: (1) déterminer si le renforcement de l’égalité des sexes garantit véritablement la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun concernant la réduction de la pauvreté, l’unité nationale et la consolidation de la démocratie. (2) Déterminer si la formation des formateurs et celle des chercheurs garantissent véritablement la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun en matière de lutte contre la pauvreté, d’unité nationale et de consolidation de la démocratie. L’étude a fait appel à deux hypothèses, acceptées ou rejetées après analyse. Cette étude a fait recours à une combinaison de méthodes quantitatives et qualitatives (approche mixte). La population de l’étude était composée de tous les étudiants de dernière année (diplômés potentiels: licences, masters, doctorats, BTS , etc.) de 14 instituts d’enseignement supérieur basés dans la région Sud-Ouest du Cameroun. L’échantillon était composé de 370 étudiants choisis au hasard. 24 enseignants ont également été interviewés. Un questionnaire et un guide d’interview ont été utilisés pour la collecte des données. Le questionnaire a été validé par 30 étudiants qui ne faisaient pas partie de l’échantillon. Les données quantitatives ont été analysées à l’aide du coefficient de corrélation de Pearson (outil statistique). Les données qualitatives ont été analysées en utilisant l’analyse du contenu. Les résultats ont révélé que: le renforcement de l’égalité des sexes est élevé, ce qui garantit la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun concernant la réduction de la pauvreté, l’unité nationale et la consolidation de la démocratie. Les résultats ont révélé que les facteurs suivants favorisent l’égalité des sexes: l’ajustement des politiques conduisant à une éducation inclusive ; l’équité et l’amélioration de l’accès des hommes et des femmes à l’égalité de chances dans les facultés de science ; le changement de la perception qu’ont les enseignants à l’égard de l’éducation des femmes ; la réduction du favoritisme et l’augmentation du taux de méritocratie en enseignement supérieur ; l’inclusion des étudiants et étudiantes dans les grands projets, les activités et les décisions académiques. Par contre, les résultats ont révélé que les moyens octroyés à la formation des formateurs et des chercheurs étaient faibles car ceux-ci ne garantissent pas la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun en ce qui concerne la lutte contre la pauvreté, l’unité nationale et de consolidation de la démocratie. Les résultats ont révélé que les facteurs suivants influencent le faible niveau de formation des formateurs et des chercheurs dans l’enseignement supérieur: le contrôle et le suivi dans l’enseignement supérieur qui généralement de mauvaise qualité ; les ressources financières, matérielles et humaines insuffisantes pour impacter efficacement la formation des formateurs et des chercheurs ; l’insuffisance du financement et de la gestion de la recherche ; la faible motivation du personnel et des étudiants à participer à des séminaires. L’inefficacité de la direction des recherches, la durée d’acquisition des techiniques nécessaires et les feedbacks de mausaise qualité venant des directeurs de recherche contribuent eux aussi, au faible niveau de la formation des formateurs et des chercheurs dans l’enseignement supérieur. Le chercheur a conclu que la mise en œuvre des objectifs de l’enseignement supérieur a un lien direct avec la réalisation de la Vision 2035 du Cameroun, cependant certains de ces objectifs ne sont pas véritablement mis en œuvre. Plus la mise en œuvre des objectifs de l’enseignement supérieur est effective, plus elle garantit la réalisation de la Vision 2035. Quelques recommandations et suggestions ont été faites en vue d’une étude plus approfondie. <p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/edu_01/0817/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>
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Michael, Rose. "Out of Time: Time-Travel Tropes Write (through) Climate Change." M/C Journal 22, no. 6 (December 4, 2019). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.1603.

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“What is the point of stories in such a moment”, asks author and critic James Bradley, writing about climate extinction: Bradley emphasises that “climatologist James Hansen once said being a climate scientist was like screaming at people from behind a soundproof glass wall; being a writer concerned with these questions often feels frighteningly similar” (“Writing”). If the impact of climate change asks humans to think differently, to imagine differently, then surely writing—and reading—must change too? According to writer and geographer Samuel Miller-McDonald, “if you’re a writer, then you have to write about this”. But how are we to do that? Where might it be done already? Perhaps not in traditional (or even post-) Modernist modes. In the era of the Anthropocene I find myself turning to non-traditional, un-real models to write the slow violence and read the deep time that is where we can see our current climate catastrophe.At a “Writing in the Age of Extinction” workshop earlier this year Bradley and Jane Rawson advocated changing the language of “climate change”—rejecting such neutral terms—in the same way that I see the stories discussed here pushing against Modernity’s great narrative of progress.My research—as a reader and writer, is in the fantastic realm of speculative fiction; I have written in The Conversation about how this genre seems to be gaining literary popularity. There is no doubt that our current climate crisis has a part to play. As Margaret Atwood writes: “it’s not climate change, it’s everything change” (“Climate”). This “everything” must include literature. Kim Stanley Robinson is not the only one who sees “the models modern literary fiction has are so depleted, what they’re turning to now is our guys in disguise”. I am interested in two recent examples, which both use the strongly genre-associated time-travel trope, to consider how science-fiction concepts might work to re-imagine our “deranged” world (Ghosh), whether applied by genre writers or “our guys in disguise”. Can stories such as The Heavens by Sandra Newman and “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom” by Ted Chiang—which apply time travel, whether as an expression of fatalism or free will—help us conceive the current collapse: understand how it has come to pass, and imagine ways we might move through it?The Popularity of Time TravelIt seems to me that time as a notion and the narrative device, is key to any idea of writing through climate change. “Through” as in via, if the highly contested “cli-fi” category is considered a theme; and “through” as entering into and coming out the other side of this ecological end-game. Might time travel offer readers more than the realist perspective of sweeping multi-generational sagas? Time-travel books pose puzzles; they are well suited to “wicked” problems. Time-travel tales are designed to analyse the world in a way that it is not usually analysed—in accordance with Tim Parks’s criterion for great novels (Walton), and in keeping with Darko Suvin’s conception of science fiction as a literature of “cognitive estrangement”. To read, and write, a character who travels in “spacetime” asks something more of us than the emotional engagement of many Modernist tales of interiority—whether they belong to the new “literary middlebrow’” (Driscoll), or China Miéville’s Booker Prize–winning realist “litfic” (Crown).Sometimes, it is true, they ask too much, and do not answer enough. But what resolution is possible is realistic, in the context of this literally existential threat?There are many recent and recommended time-travel novels: Kate Atkinson’s 2013 Life after Life and Jenny Erpenbeck’s 2014 End of Days have main characters who are continually “reset”, exploring the idea of righting history—the more literary experiment concluding less optimistically. For Erpenbeck “only the inevitable is possible”. In her New York Times review Francine Prose likens Life after Life to writing itself: “Atkinson sharpens our awareness of the apparently limitless choices and decisions that a novelist must make on every page, and of what is gained and lost when the consequences of these choices are, like life, singular and final”. Andrew Sean Greer’s 2013 The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells also centres on the WorldWar(s), a natural-enough site to imagine divergent timelines, though he draws a different parallel. In Elan Mastai’s 2017 debut All Our Wrong Todays the reality that is remembered—though ultimately not missed, is more dystopic than our own time, as is also the way with Joyce Carol Oates’s 2018 The Hazards of Time Travel. Oates’s rather slight contribution to the subgenre still makes a clear point: “America is founded upon amnesia” (Oates, Hazards). So, too, is our current environment. We are living in a time created by a previous generation; the environmental consequence of our own actions will not be felt until after we are gone. What better way to write such a riddle than through the loop of time travel?The Purpose of Thought ExperimentsThis list is not meant to be comprehensive. It is an indication of the increasing literary application of the “elaborate thought experiment” of time travel (Oates, “Science Fiction”). These fictional explorations, their political and philosophical considerations, are currently popular and potentially productive in a context where action is essential, and yet practically impossible. What can I do? What could possibly be the point? As well as characters that travel backwards, or forwards in time, these titles introduce visionaries who tell of other worlds. They re-present “not-exactly places, which are anywhere but nowhere, and which are both mappable locations and states of mind”: Margaret Atwood’s “Ustopias” (Atwood, “Road”). Incorporating both utopian and dystopian aspects, they (re)present our own time, in all its contradictory (un)reality.The once-novel, now-generic “novum” of time travel has become a metaphor—the best possible metaphor, I believe, for the climatic consequence of our in/action—in line with Joanna Russ’s wonderful conception of “The Wearing out of Genre Materials”. The new marvel first introduced by popular writers has been assimilated, adopted or “stolen” by the dominant mode. In this case, literary fiction. Angela Carter is not the only one to hope “the pressure of the new wine makes the old bottles explode”. This must be what Robinson expects: that Ken Gelder’s “big L” literature will be unable to contain the wine of “our guys”—even if it isn’t new. In the act of re-use, the time-travel cliché is remade anew.Two Cases to ConsiderTwo texts today seem to me to realise—in both senses of that word—the possibilities of the currently popular, but actually ancient, time-travel conceit. At the Melbourne Writers Festival last year Ted Chiang identified the oracle in The Odyssey as the first time traveller: they—the blind prophet Tiresias was transformed into a woman for seven years—have seen the future and report back in the form of prophecy. Chiang’s most recent short story, “Anxiety is the Dizziness of Freedom”, and Newman’s novel The Heavens, both of which came out this year, are original variations on this re-newed theme. Rather than a coherent, consistent, central character who travels and returns to their own time, these stories’ protagonists appear diversified in/between alternate worlds. These texts provide readers not with only one possible alternative but—via their creative application of the idea of temporal divergence—myriad alternatives within the same story. These works use the “characteristic gesture” of science fiction (Le Guin, “Le Guin Talks”), to inspire different, subversive, ways of thinking and seeing our own one-world experiment. The existential speculation of time-travel tropes is, today, more relevant than ever: how should we act when our actions may have no—or no positive, only negative—effect?Time and space travel are classic science fiction concerns. Chiang’s lecture unpacked how the philosophy of time travel speaks uniquely to questions of free will. A number of his stories explore this theme, including “The Alchemist’s Gate” (which the lecture was named after), where he makes his thinking clear: “past and future are the same, and we cannot change either, only know them more fully” (Chiang, Exhalation). In “Story of Your Life”, the novella that the film Arrival is based on, Chiang’s main character-narrator embraces a future that could be seen as dystopic while her partner walks away from it—and her, and his daughter—despite the happiness they will offer. Gary cannot accept the inevitable unhappiness that must accompany them. The suggestion is that if he had had Louise’s foreknowledge he might, like the free-willing protagonist in Looper, have taken steps to ensure that that life—that his daughter’s life itself—never eventuated. Whether he would have been successful is suspect: according to Chiang free will cannot foil fate.If the future cannot be changed, what is the role of free will? Louise wonders: “what if the experience of knowing the future changed a person? What if it evoked a sense of urgency, a sense of obligation to act precisely as she knew she would?” In his “story notes” Chiang says inspiration came from variational principles in physics (Chiang, Stories); I see the influence of climate calamity. Knowing the future must change us—how can it not evoke “a sense of urgency, a sense of obligation”? Even if events play out precisely as we know they will. In his talk Chiang differentiated between time-travel films which favour free will, like Looper, and those that conclude fatalistically, such as Twelve Monkeys. “Story of Your Life” explores the idea that these categories are not mutually exclusive: exercising free will might not change fate; fatalism may not preclude acts of free will.Utopic Free Will vs. Dystopic Fate?Newman’s latest novel is more obviously dystopic: the world in The Heavens is worse each time Kate wakes from her dreams of the past. In the end it has become positively post-apocalyptic. The overwhelming sadness of this book is one of its most unusual aspects, going far beyond that of The Time Traveler’s Wife—2003’s popular tale of love and loss. The Heavens feels fatalistic, even though its future is—unfortunately, in this instance—not set but continually altered by the main character’s attempts to “fix” it (in each sense of the word). Where Twelve Monkeys, Looper, and The Odyssey present every action as a foregone conclusion, The Heavens navigates the nightmare that—against our will—everything we do might have an adverse consequence. As in A Christmas Carol, where the vision of a possible future prompts the protagonist to change his ways and so prevent its coming to pass, it is Kate’s foresight—of our future—which inspires her to act. History doesn’t respond well to Kate’s interventions; she is unable to “correct” events and left more and more isolated by her own unique version of a tortuous Cassandra complex.These largely inexplicable consequences provide a direct connection between Newman’s latest work and James Tiptree Jr.’s 1972 “Forever to a Hudson Bay Blanket”. That tale’s conclusion makes no “real” sense either—when Dovy dies Loolie’s father’s advisers can only say that (time) paradoxes are proliferating—but The Heavens is not the intellectual play of Tiptree’s classic science fiction: the wine of time-travel has been poured into the “depleted” vessel of “big L” literature. The sorrow that seeps through this novel is profound; Newman apologises for it in her acknowledgements, linking it to the death of an ex-partner. I read it as a potent expression of “solastalgia”: nostalgia for a place that once provided solace, but doesn’t any more—a term coined by Australian philosopher Glen Albrecht to express the “psychic or existential distress caused by environmental change” (Albrecht et al.). It is Kate’s grief, for a world (she has) destroyed that drives her mad: “deranged”.The Serious Side of SpeculationIn The Great Derangement Ghosh laments the “smaller shadow” cast by climate change in the landscape of literary fiction. He echoes Miéville: “fiction that deals with climate change is almost by definition not the kind that is taken seriously by serious literary journals; the mere mention of the subject is often enough to relegate a novel or short story to the genre of science fiction” (Ghosh). Time-travel tales that pose the kind of questions handled by theologians before the Enlightenment and “big L” literature after—what does it mean to exist in time? How should we live? Who deserves to be happy?—may be a way for literary fiction to take climate change “seriously”: to write through it. Out-of-time narratives such as Chiang and Newman’s pose existential speculations that, rather than locating us in time, may help us imagine time itself differently. How are we to act if the future has already come to pass?“When we are faced with a world whose problems all seem ‘wicked’ and intractable, what is it that fiction can do?” (Uhlmann). At the very least, should writers not be working with “sombre realism”? Science fiction has a long and established tradition of exposing the background narratives of the political—and ecological—landscapes in which we work: the master narratives of Modernism. What Anthony Uhlmann describes here, as the “distancing technique” of fiction becomes outright “estrangement” in speculative hands. Stories such as Newman and Chiang’s reflect (on) what readers might be avoiding: that even though our future is fixed, we must act. We must behave as though our decisions matter, despite knowing the ways in which they do not.These works challenge Modernist concerns despite—or perhaps via—satisfying genre conventions, in direct contradiction to Roy Scranton’s conviction that “Narrative in the Anthropocene Is the Enemy”. In doing so they fit Miéville’s description of a “literature of estrangement” while also exemplifying a new, Anthropocene “literature of recognition” (Crown). These, then, are the stories of our life.What Is Not ExpectedChiang’s 2018 lecture was actually a PowerPoint presentation on how time travel could or would “really” work. His medium, as much as his message, clearly showed the author’s cross-disciplinary affiliations, which are relevant to this discussion of literary fiction’s “depleted” models. In August this year Xu Xi concluded a lecture on speculative fiction for the Vermont College of Fine Arts by encouraging attendees to read—and write—“other” languages, whether foreign forms or alien disciplines. She cited Chiang as someone who successfully raids the riches of non-literary traditions, to produce a new kind of literature. Writing that deals in physics, as much as characters, in philosophy, as much as narrative, presents new, “post-natural” (Bradley, “End”) retro-speculations that (in un- and super-natural generic traditions) offer a real alternative to Modernism’s narrative of inevitable—and inevitably positive—progress.In “What’s Expected of Us” Chiang imagines the possible consequence of comprehending that our actions, and not just their consequence, are predetermined. In what Oates describes as his distinctive, pared-back, “unironic” style (Oates, “Science Fiction”), Chiang concludes: “reality isn’t important: what’s important is your belief, and believing the lie is the only way to avoid a waking coma. Civilisation now depends on self-deception. Perhaps it always has”. The self-deception we need is not America’s amnesia, but the belief that what we do matters.ConclusionThe visions of her “paraself” that Nat sees in “Anxiety Is the Dizziness of Freedom” encourage her to change her behaviour. The “prism” that enables this perception—a kind of time-tripped iPad that “skypes” alternate temporal realities, activated by people acting in different ways at a crucial moment in their lives—does not always reflect the butterfly effect the protagonist, or reader, might expect. Some actions have dramatic consequences while others have minimal impact. While Nat does not see her future, what she spies inspires her to take the first steps towards becoming a different—read “better”—person. We expect this will lead to more positive outcomes for her self in the story’s “first” world. The device, and Chiang’s tale, illustrates both that our paths are predetermined and that they are not: “our inability to predict the consequences of our own predetermined actions offers a kind of freedom”. The freedom to act, freedom from the coma of inaction.“What’s the use of art on a dying planet? What’s the point, when humanity itself is facing an existential threat?” Alison Croggon asks, and answers herself: “it searches for the complex truth … . It can help us to see the world we have more clearly, and help us to imagine a better one”. In literary thought experiments like Newman and Chiang’s artful time-travel fictions we read complex, metaphoric truths that cannot be put into real(ist) words. In the time-honoured tradition of (speculative) fiction, Chiang and Newman deal in, and with, “what cannot be said in words … in words” (Le Guin, “Introduction”). These most recent time-slip speculations tell unpredictable stories about what is predicted, what is predictable, but what we must (still) believe may not necessarily be—if we are to be free.ReferencesArrival. Dir. Dennis Villeneuve. Paramount Pictures, 2016.Albrecht, Glenn, et al. “Solastalgia: The Distress Caused by Environmental Change.” Australasian Psychiatry (Feb. 2007): 41–55. Atwood, Margaret. “The Road to Ustopia.” The Guardian 15 Oct. 2011 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/14/margaret-atwood-road-to-ustopia>.———. “It’s Not Climate Change, It’s Everything Change.” Medium 27 July 2015. <https://medium.com/matter/it-s-not-climate-change-it-s-everything-change-8fd9aa671804>.Bradley, James. “Writing on the Precipice: On Literature and Change.” City of Tongues. 16 Mar. 2017 <https://cityoftongues.com/2017/03/16/writing-on-the-precipice-on-literature-and-climate-change/>.———. “The End of Nature and Post-Naturalism: Fiction and the Anthropocene.” City of Tongues 30 Dec. 2015 <https://cityoftongues.com/2015/12/30/the-end-of-nature-and-post-naturalism-fiction-and-the-anthropocene/>.Bradley, James, and Jane Rawson. “Writing in the Age of Extinction.” Detached Performance and Project Space, The Old Mercury Building, Hobart. 27 July 2019.Chiang, Ted. Stories of Your Life and Others. New York: Tor, 2002.———. Exhalation: Stories. New York: Knopf, 2019.Carter, Angela. The Bloody Chamber. London: Gollancz, 1983. 69.Croggon, Alison. “On Art.” Overland 235 (2019). 30 Sep. 2019 <https://overland.org.au/previous-issues/issue-235/column-on-art/>.Crown, Sarah. “What the Booker Prize Really Excludes.” The Guardian 17 Oct. 2011 <https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2011/oct/17/science-fiction-china-mieville>.Driscoll, Beth. The New Literary Middlebrow: Tastemakers and Reading in the Twenty-First Century. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.Erpenbeck, Jenny. Trans. Susan Bernofsky. The End of Days. New York: New Directions, 2016.Gelder, Ken. Popular Fiction: The Logics and Practices of a Literary Field. London: Routledge, 2014.Ghosh, Amitav. The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable. India: Penguin Random House, 2018.Le Guin, Ursula K. “Introduction.” The Left Hand of Darkness. New York: Ace Books, 1979. 5.———. “Ursula K. Le Guin Talks to Michael Cunningham about Genres, Gender, and Broadening Fiction.” Electric Literature 1 Apr. 2016. <https://electricliterature.com/ursula-k-le-guin-talks-to-michael- cunningham-about-genres-gender-and-broadening-fiction-57d9c967b9c>.Miller-McDonald, Samuel. “What Must We Do to Live?” The Trouble 14 Oct. 2018. <https://www.the-trouble.com/content/2018/10/14/what-must-we-do-to-live>.Oates, Joyce Carol. Hazards of Time Travel. New York: Ecco Press, 2018.———. "Science Fiction Doesn't Have to be Dystopian." The New Yorker 13 May 2019. <https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/05/13/science-fiction-doesnt-have-to-be-dystopian>.Prose, Francine. “Subject to Revision.” New York Times 26 Apr. 2003. <https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/books/review/life-after-life-by-kate-atkinson.html>.Robinson, Kim Stanley. “Kim Stanley Robinson and the Drowning of New York.” The Coode Street Podcast 305 (2017). <http://www.jonathanstrahan.com.au/wp/the-coode-street-podcast/>.Russ, Joanna. “The Wearing Out of Genre Materials.” College English 33.1 (1971): 46–54.Scranton, Roy. “Narrative in the Anthropocene Is the Enemy.” Lithub.com 18 Sep. 2019. <https://lithub.com/roy-scranton-narrative-in-the-anthropocene-is-the-enemy/>.Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. Walton, James. “Fascinating, Fearless, and Distinctly Odd.” The New York Review of Books 9 Jan. 2014: 63–64.Uhlmann, Anthony. “The Other Way, the Other Truth, the Other Life: Simpson Returns.” Sydney Review of Books. 2 Sep. 2019 <https://sydneyreviewofbooks.com/macauley-simpson-returns/>. Xu, Xi. “Speculative Fiction.” Presented at the International MFA in Creative Writing and Literary Translation, Vermont College of Fine Arts, Vermont, 15 Aug. 2019.
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31

Burns, Alex. "Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism." M/C Journal 10, no. 6 (April 1, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.2723.

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“Journalists have to begin a new type of journalism, sometimes being the guide on the side of the civic conversation as well as the filter and gatekeeper.” (Kolodzy 218) “In many respects, citizen journalism is simply public journalism removed from the journalism profession.” (Barlow 181) 1. Citizen Journalism — The Latest Innovation? New Media theorists such as Dan Gillmor, Henry Jenkins, Jay Rosen and Jeff Howe have recently touted Citizen Journalism (CJ) as the latest innovation in 21st century journalism. “Participatory journalism” and “user-driven journalism” are other terms to describe CJ, which its proponents argue is a disruptive innovation (Christensen) to the agenda-setting media institutions, news values and “objective” reportage. In this essay I offer a “contrarian” view, informed by two perspectives: (1) a three-stage model of theory-building (Carlile & Christensen) to evaluate the claims made about CJ; and (2) self-reflexive research insights (Etherington) from editing the US-based news site Disinformation between November 1999 and February 2008. New media theories can potentially create “cognitive dissonance” (Festinger) when their explanations of CJ practices are compared with what actually happens (Feyerabend). First I summarise Carlile & Christensen’s model and the dangers of “bad theory” (Ghoshal). Next I consider several problems in new media theories about CJ: the notion of ‘citizen’, new media populism, parallels in event-driven and civic journalism, and mergers and acquisitions. Two ‘self-reflexive’ issues are considered: ‘pro-ams’ or ‘professional amateurs’ as a challenge to professional journalists, and CJ’s deployment in new media operations and production environments. Finally, some exploratory questions are offered for future researchers. 2. An Evaluative Framework for New Media Theories on Citizen Journalism Paul Carlile and Clayton M. Christensen’s model offers one framework with which to evaluate new media theories on CJ. This framework is used below to highlight select issues and gaps in CJ’s current frameworks and theories. Carlile & Christensen suggest that robust theory-building emerges via three stages: Descriptive, Categorisation and Normative (Carlile & Christensen). There are three sub-stages in Descriptive theory-building; namely, the observation of phenomena, inductive classification into schemas and taxonomies, and correlative relationships to develop models (Carlile & Christensen 2-5). Once causation is established, Normative theory evolves through deductive logic which is subject to Kuhnian paradigm shifts and Popperian falsifiability (Carlile & Christensen 6). Its proponents situate CJ as a Categorisation or new journalism agenda that poses a Normative challenged and Kuhnian paradigm shift to traditional journalism. Existing CJ theories jump from the Descriptive phase of observations like “smart mobs” in Japanese youth subcultures (Rheingold) to make broad claims for Categorisation such as that IndyMedia, blogs and wiki publishing systems as new media alternatives to traditional media. CJ theories then underpin normative beliefs, values and worldviews. Correlative relationships are also used to differentiate CJ from the demand side of microeconomic analysis, from the top-down editorial models of traditional media outlets, and to adopt a vanguard stance. To support this, CJ proponents cite research on emergent collective behaviour such as the “wisdom of crowds” hypothesis (Surowiecki) or peer-to-peer network “swarms” (Pesce) to provide scientific justification for their Normative theories. However, further evaluative research is needed for three reasons: the emergent collective behaviour hypothesis may not actually inform CJ practices, existing theories may have “correlation not cause” errors, and the link may be due to citation network effects between CJ theorists. Collectively, this research base also frames CJ as an “ought to” Categorisation and then proceeds to Normative theory-building (Carlile & Christensen 7). However, I argue below that this Categorisation may be premature: its observations and correlative relationships might reinforce a ‘weak’ Normative theory with limited generalisation. CJ proponents seem to imply that it can be applied anywhere and under any condition—a “statement of causality” that almost makes it a fad (Carlile & Christensen 8). CJ that relies on Classification and Normative claims will be problematic without a strong grounding in Descriptive observation. To understand what’s potentially at stake for CJ’s future consider the consider the parallel debate about curricula renewal for the Masters of Business Administration in the wake of high-profile corporate collapses such as Enron, Worldcom, HIH and OneTel. The MBA evolved as a sociological and institutional construct to justify management as a profession that is codified, differentiated and has entry barriers (Khurana). This process might partly explain the pushback that some media professionals have to CJ as one alternative. MBA programs faced criticism if they had student cohorts with little business know-how or experiential learning (Mintzberg). Enron’s collapse illustrated the ethical dilemmas and unintended consequences that occurred when “bad theories” were implemented (Ghoshal). Professional journalists are aware of this: MBA-educated managers challenged the “craft” tradition in the early 1980s (Underwood). This meant that journalism’s ‘self-image’ (Morgan; Smith) is intertwined with managerial anxieties about media conglomerates in highly competitive markets. Ironically, as noted below, Citizen Journalists who adopt a vanguard position vis-a-vis media professionals step into a more complex game with other players. However, current theories have a naïve idealism about CJ’s promise of normative social change in the face of Machiavellian agency in business, the media and politics. 3. Citizen Who? Who is the “citizen” in CJ? What is their self-awareness as a political agent? CJ proponents who use the ‘self-image’ of ‘citizen’ draw on observations from the participatory vision of open source software, peer-to-peer networks, and case studies such as Howard Dean’s 2004 bid for the Democrat Party nominee in the US Presidential election campaign (Trippi). Recent theorists note Alexander Hamilton’s tradition of civic activism (Barlow 178) which links contemporary bloggers with the Federalist Papers and early newspaper pamphlets. One unsurfaced assumption in these observations and correlations is that most bloggers will adopt a coherent political philosophy as informed citizens: a variation on Lockean utilitarianism, Rawlsian liberalism or Nader consumer activism. To date there is little discussion about how political philosophy could deepen CJ’s ‘self-image’: how to critically evaluate sources, audit and investigation processes, or strategies to deal with elites, deterrence and power. For example, although bloggers kept Valerie Plame’s ‘outing’ as a covert intelligence operative highly visible in the issues-attention cycle, it was agenda-setting media like The New York Times who the Bush Administration targeted to silence (Pearlstine). To be viable, CJ needs to evolve beyond a new media populism, perhaps into a constructivist model of agency, norms and social change (Finnemore). 4. Citizen Journalism as New Media Populism Several “precursor trends” foreshadowed CJ notably the mid-1990s interest in “cool-hunting” by new media analysts and subculture marketeers (Gibson; Gladwell). Whilst this audience focus waned with the 1995-2000 dotcom bubble it resurfaced in CJ and publisher Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 vision. Thus, CJ might be viewed as new media populism that has flourished with the Web 2.0 boom. Yet if the boom becomes a macroeconomic bubble (Gross; Spar) then CJ could be written off as a “silver bullet” that ultimately failed to deliver on its promises (Brooks, Jr.). The reputations of uncritical proponents who adopted a “true believer” stance would also be damaged (Hoffer). This risk is evident if CJ is compared with a parallel trend that shares its audience focus and populist view: day traders and technical analysts who speculate on financial markets. This parallel trend provides an alternative discipline in which the populism surfaced in an earlier form (Carlile & Christensen 12). Fidelity’s Peter Lynch argues that stock pickers can use their Main Street knowledge to beat Wall Street by exploiting information asymmetries (Lynch & Rothchild). Yet Lynch’s examples came from the mid-1970s to early 1980s when indexed mutual fund strategies worked, before deregulation and macroeconomic volatility. A change in the Web 2.0 boom might similarly trigger a reconsideration of Citizen Journalism. Hedge fund maven Victor Niederhoffer contends that investors who rely on technical analysis are practicing a Comtean religion (Niederhoffer & Kenner 72-74) instead of Efficient Market Hypothesis traders who use statistical arbitrage to deal with ‘random walks’ or Behavioural Finance experts who build on Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky). Niederhoffer’s deeper point is that technical analysts’ belief that the “trend is your friend” is no match for the other schools, despite a mini-publishing industry and computer trading systems. There are also ontological and epistemological differences between the schools. Similarly, CJ proponents who adopt a ‘Professional Amateur’ or ‘Pro-Am’ stance (Leadbeater & Miller) may face a similar gulf when making comparisons with professional journalists and the production environments in media organisations. CJ also thrives as new media populism because of institutional vested interests. When media conglomerates cut back on cadetships and internships CJ might fill the market demand as one alternative. New media programs at New York University and others can use CJ to differentiate themselves from “hyperlocal” competitors (Christensen; Slywotzky; Christensen, Curtis & Horn). This transforms CJ from new media populism to new media institution. 5. Parallels: Event-driven & Civic Journalism For new media programs, CJ builds on two earlier traditions: the Event-driven journalism of crises like the 1991 Gulf War (Wark) and the Civic Journalism school that emerged in the 1960s social upheavals. Civic Journalism’s awareness of minorities and social issues provides the character ethic and political philosophy for many Citizen Journalists. Jay Rosen and others suggest that CJ is the next-generation heir to Civic Journalism, tracing a thread from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention to IndyMedia’s coverage of the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” (Rosen). Rosen’s observation could yield an interesting historiography or genealogy. Events such as the Southeast Asian tsunami on 26 December 2004 or Al Qaeda’s London bombings on 7 July 2005 are cited as examples of CJ as event-driven journalism and “pro-am collaboration” (Kolodzy 229-230). Having covered these events and Al Qaeda’s attacks on 11th September 2001, I have a slightly different view: this was more a variation on “first responder” status and handicam video footage that journalists have sourced for the past three decades when covering major disasters. This different view means that the “salience of categories” used to justify CJ and “pro-am collaboration” these events does not completely hold. Furthermore, when Citizen Journalism proponents tout Flickr and Wikipedia as models of real-time media they are building on a broader phenomenon that includes CNN’s Gulf War coverage and Bloomberg’s dominance of financial news (Loomis). 6. The Mergers & Acquisitions Scenario CJ proponents often express anxieties about the resilience of their outlets in the face of predatory venture capital firms who initiate Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) activities. Ironically, these venture capital firms have core competencies and expertise in the event-driven infrastructure and real-time media that CJ aspires to. Sequoia Capital and other venture capital firms have evaluative frameworks that likely surpass Carlile & Christensen in sophistication, and they exploit parallels, information asymmetries and market populism. Furthermore, although venture capital firms such as Union Street Ventures have funded Web 2.0 firms, they are absent from the explanations of some theorists, whose examples of Citizen Journalism and Web 2.0 success may be the result of survivorship bias. Thus, the venture capital market remains an untapped data source for researchers who want to evaluate the impact of CJ outlets and institutions. The M&A scenario further problematises CJ in several ways. First, CJ is framed as “oppositional” to traditional media, yet this may be used as a stratagem in a game theory framework with multiple stakeholders. Drexel Burnham Lambert’s financier Michael Milken used market populism to sell ‘high-yield’ or ‘junk’ bonds to investors whilst disrupting the Wall Street establishment in the late 1980s (Curtis) and CJ could fulfil a similar tactical purpose. Second, the M&A goal of some Web 2.0 firms could undermine the participatory goals of a site’s community if post-merger integration fails. Jason Calacanis’s sale of Weblogs, Inc to America Online in 2005 and MSNBC’s acquisition of Newsvine on 5 October 2007 (Newsvine) might be success stories. However, this raises issues of digital “property rights” if you contribute to a community that is then sold in an M&A transaction—an outcome closer to business process outsourcing. Third, media “buzz” can create an unrealistic vision when a CJ site fails to grow beyond its start-up phase. Backfence.com’s demise as a “hyperlocal” initiative (Caverly) is one cautionary event that recalls the 2000 dotcom crash. The M&A scenarios outlined above are market dystopias for CJ purists. The major lesson for CJ proponents is to include other market players in hypotheses about causation and correlation factors. 7. ‘Pro-Ams’ & Professional Journalism’s Crisis CJ emerged during a period when Professional Journalism faced a major crisis of ‘self-image’. The Demos report The Pro-Am Revolution (Leadbeater & Miller) popularised the notion of ‘professional amateurs’ which some CJ theorists adopt to strengthen their categorisation. In turn, this triggers a response from cultural theorists who fear bloggers are new media’s barbarians (Keen). I concede Leadbeater and Miller have identified an important category. However, how some CJ theorists then generalise from ‘Pro-Ams’ illustrates the danger of ‘weak’ theory referred to above. Leadbeater and Miller’s categorisation does not really include a counter-view on the strengths of professionals, as illustrated in humanistic consulting (Block), professional service firms (Maister; Maister, Green & Galford), and software development (McConnell). The signs of professionalism these authors mention include a commitment to learning and communal verification, mastery of a discipline and domain application, awareness of methodology creation, participation in mentoring, and cultivation of ethical awareness. Two key differences are discernment and quality of attention, as illustrated in how the legendary Hollywood film editor Walter Murch used Apple’s Final Cut Pro software to edit the 2003 film Cold Mountain (Koppelman). ‘Pro-Ams’ might not aspire to these criteria but Citizen Journalists shouldn’t throw out these standards, either. Doing so would be making the same mistake of overconfidence that technical analysts make against statistical arbitrageurs. Key processes—fact-checking, sub-editing and editorial decision-making—are invisible to the end-user, even if traceable in a blog or wiki publishing system, because of the judgments involved. One post-mortem insight from Assignment Zero was that these processes were vital to create the climate of authenticity and trust to sustain a Citizen Journalist community (Howe). CJ’s trouble with “objectivity” might also overlook some complexities, including the similarity of many bloggers to “noise traders” in financial markets and to op-ed columnists. Methodologies and reportage practices have evolved to deal with the objections that CJ proponents raise, from New Journalism’s radical subjectivity and creative non-fiction techniques (Wolfe & Johnson) to Precision Journalism that used descriptive statistics (Meyer). Finally, journalism frameworks could be updated with current research on how phenomenological awareness shapes our judgments and perceptions (Thompson). 8. Strategic Execution For me, one of CJ’s major weaknesses as a new media theory is its lack of “rich description” (Geertz) about the strategic execution of projects. As Disinfo.com site editor I encountered situations ranging from ‘denial of service’ attacks and spam to site migration, publishing systems that go offline, and ensuring an editorial consistency. Yet the messiness of these processes is missing from CJ theories and accounts. Theories that included this detail as “second-order interactions” (Carlile & Christensen 13) would offer a richer view of CJ. Many CJ and Web 2.0 projects fall into the categories of mini-projects, demonstration prototypes and start-ups, even when using a programming language such as Ajax or Ruby on Rails. Whilst the “bootstrap” process is a benefit, more longitudinal analysis and testing needs to occur, to ensure these projects are scalable and sustainable. For example, South Korea’s OhmyNews is cited as an exemplar that started with “727 citizen reporters and 4 editors” and now has “38,000 citizen reporters” and “a dozen editors” (Kolodzy 231). How does OhmyNews’s mix of hard and soft news change over time? Or, how does OhmyNews deal with a complex issue that might require major resources, such as security negotiations between North and South Korea? Such examples could do with further research. We need to go beyond “the vision thing” and look at the messiness of execution for deeper observations and counterintuitive correlations, to build new descriptive theories. 9. Future Research This essay argues that CJ needs re-evaluation. Its immediate legacy might be to splinter ‘journalism’ into micro-trends: Washington University’s Steve Boriss proclaims “citizen journalism is dead. Expert journalism is the future.” (Boriss; Mensching). The half-lives of such micro-trends demand new categorisations, which in turn prematurely feeds the theory-building cycle. Instead, future researchers could reinvigorate 21st century journalism if they ask deeper questions and return to the observation stage of building descriptive theories. In closing, below are some possible questions that future researchers might explore: Where are the “rich descriptions” of journalistic experience—“citizen”, “convergent”, “digital”, “Pro-Am” or otherwise in new media? How could practice-based approaches inform this research instead of relying on espoused theories-in-use? What new methodologies could be developed for CJ implementation? What role can the “heroic” individual reporter or editor have in “the swarm”? Do the claims about OhmyNews and other sites stand up to longitudinal observation? Are the theories used to justify Citizen Journalism’s normative stance (Rheingold; Surowiecki; Pesce) truly robust generalisations for strategic execution or do they reflect the biases of their creators? How could developers tap the conceptual dimensions of information technology innovation (Shasha) to create the next Facebook, MySpace or Wikipedia? References Argyris, Chris, and Donald Schon. Theory in Practice. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1976. Barlow, Aaron. The Rise of the Blogosphere. Westport, CN: Praeger Publishers, 2007. Block, Peter. Flawless Consulting. 2nd ed. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass/Pfeiffer, 2000. Boriss, Steve. “Citizen Journalism Is Dead. Expert Journalism Is the Future.” The Future of News. 28 Nov. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://thefutureofnews.com/2007/11/28/citizen-journalism-is-dead- expert-journalism-is-the-future/>. Brooks, Jr., Frederick P. The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering. Rev. ed. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1995. Campbell, Vincent. Information Age Journalism: Journalism in an International Context. New York: Arnold, 2004. Carlile, Paul R., and Clayton M. Christensen. “The Cycles of Building Theory in Management Research.” Innosight working paper draft 6. 6 Jan. 2005. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.innosight.com/documents/Theory%20Building.pdf>. Caverly, Doug. “Hyperlocal News Site Takes A Hit.” WebProNews.com 6 July 2007. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.webpronews.com/topnews/2007/07/06/hyperlocal-news- sites-take-a-hit>. Chenoweth, Neil. Virtual Murdoch: Reality Wars on the Information Superhighway. Sydney: Random House Australia, 2001. Christensen, Clayton M. The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997. Christensen, Clayton M., Curtis Johnson, and Michael Horn. Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2008. Curtis, Adam. The Mayfair Set. London: British Broadcasting Corporation, 1999. Etherington, Kim. Becoming a Reflexive Researcher: Using Ourselves in Research. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2004. Festinger, Leon. A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1962. Feyerabend, Paul. Against Method. 3rd ed. London: Verso, 1993. Finnemore, Martha. National Interests in International Society. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1996. Geertz, Clifford. The Interpretation of Cultures. New York: Basic Books, 1973. Ghoshal, Sumantra. “Bad Management Theories Are Destroying Good Management Practices.” Academy of Management Learning & Education 4.1 (2005): 75-91. Gibson, William. Pattern Recognition. London: Viking, 2003. Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Cool-Hunt.” The New Yorker Magazine 17 March 1997. 20 Feb. 2008 http://www.gladwell.com/1997/1997_03_17_a_cool.htm>. Gross, Daniel. Pop! Why Bubbles Are Great for the Economy. New York: Collins, 2007. Hoffer, Eric. The True Believer. New York: Harper, 1951. Howe, Jeff. “Did Assignment Zero Fail? A Look Back, and Lessons Learned.” Wired News 16 July 2007. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/news/2007/07/assignment_ zero_final?currentPage=all>. Kahneman, Daniel, and Amos Tversky. Choices, Values and Frames. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2000. Keen, Andrew. The Cult of the Amateur. New York: Doubleday Currency, 2007. Khurana, Rakesh. From Higher Aims to Hired Hands. Princeton, NJ: Princeton UP, 2007. Kolodzy, Janet. Convergence Journalism: Writing and Reporting across the News Media. Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 2006. Koppelman, Charles. Behind the Seen: How Walter Murch Edited Cold Mountain Using Apple’s Final Cut Pro and What This Means for Cinema. Upper Saddle River, NJ: New Rider, 2004. Leadbeater, Charles, and Paul Miller. “The Pro-Am Revolution”. London: Demos, 24 Nov. 2004. 19 Feb. 2008 http://www.demos.co.uk/publications/proameconomy>. Loomis, Carol J. “Bloomberg’s Money Machine.” Fortune 5 April 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2007/04/16/ 8404302/index.htm>. Lynch, Peter, and John Rothchild. Beating the Street. Rev. ed. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994. Maister, David. True Professionalism. New York: The Free Press, 1997. Maister, David, Charles H. Green, and Robert M. Galford. The Trusted Advisor. New York: The Free Press, 2004. Mensching, Leah McBride. “Citizen Journalism on Its Way Out?” SFN Blog, 30 Nov. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://www.sfnblog.com/index.php/2007/11/30/940-citizen-journalism- on-its-way-out>. Meyer, Philip. Precision Journalism. 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. McConnell, Steve. Professional Software Development. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2004. Mintzberg, Henry. Managers Not MBAs. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2004. Morgan, Gareth. Images of Organisation. Rev. ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006. Newsvine. “Msnbc.com Acquires Newsvine.” 7 Oct. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://blog.newsvine.com/_news/2007/10/07/1008889-msnbccom- acquires-newsvine>. Niederhoffer, Victor, and Laurel Kenner. Practical Speculation. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Pearlstine, Norman. Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007. Pesce, Mark D. “Mob Rules (The Law of Fives).” The Human Network 28 Sep. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 http://blog.futurestreetconsulting.com/?p=39>. Rheingold, Howard. Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution. Cambridge MA: Basic Books, 2002. Rosen, Jay. What Are Journalists For? Princeton NJ: Yale UP, 2001. Shasha, Dennis Elliott. Out of Their Minds: The Lives and Discoveries of 15 Great Computer Scientists. New York: Copernicus, 1995. Slywotzky, Adrian. Value Migration: How to Think Several Moves Ahead of the Competition. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1996. Smith, Steve. “The Self-Image of a Discipline: The Genealogy of International Relations Theory.” Eds. Steve Smith and Ken Booth. International Relations Theory Today. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press, 1995. 1-37. Spar, Debora L. Ruling the Waves: Cycles of Discovery, Chaos and Wealth from the Compass to the Internet. New York: Harcourt, 2001. Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds. New York: Doubleday, 2004. Thompson, Evan. Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007. Trippi, Joe. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. New York: ReganBooks, 2004. Underwood, Doug. When MBA’s Rule the Newsroom. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Wark, McKenzie. Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events. Bloomington IN: Indiana UP, 1994. Wolfe, Tom, and E.W. Johnson. The New Journalism. New York: Harper & Row, 1973. Citation reference for this article MLA Style Burns, Alex. "Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism." M/C Journal 10.6/11.1 (2008). echo date('d M. Y'); ?> <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/10-burns.php>. APA Style Burns, A. (Apr. 2008) "Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism," M/C Journal, 10(6)/11(1). Retrieved echo date('d M. Y'); ?> from <http://journal.media-culture.org.au/0804/10-burns.php>.
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32

Burns, Alex. "Select Issues with New Media Theories of Citizen Journalism." M/C Journal 11, no. 1 (June 1, 2008). http://dx.doi.org/10.5204/mcj.30.

Full text
Abstract:
“Journalists have to begin a new type of journalism, sometimes being the guide on the side of the civic conversation as well as the filter and gatekeeper.” (Kolodzy 218) “In many respects, citizen journalism is simply public journalism removed from the journalism profession.” (Barlow 181) 1. Citizen Journalism — The Latest Innovation? New Media theorists such as Dan Gillmor, Henry Jenkins, Jay Rosen and Jeff Howe have recently touted Citizen Journalism (CJ) as the latest innovation in 21st century journalism. “Participatory journalism” and “user-driven journalism” are other terms to describe CJ, which its proponents argue is a disruptive innovation (Christensen) to the agenda-setting media institutions, news values and “objective” reportage. In this essay I offer a “contrarian” view, informed by two perspectives: (1) a three-stage model of theory-building (Carlile & Christensen) to evaluate the claims made about CJ; and (2) self-reflexive research insights (Etherington) from editing the US-based news site Disinformation between November 1999 and February 2008. New media theories can potentially create “cognitive dissonance” (Festinger) when their explanations of CJ practices are compared with what actually happens (Feyerabend). First I summarise Carlile & Christensen’s model and the dangers of “bad theory” (Ghoshal). Next I consider several problems in new media theories about CJ: the notion of ‘citizen’, new media populism, parallels in event-driven and civic journalism, and mergers and acquisitions. Two ‘self-reflexive’ issues are considered: ‘pro-ams’ or ‘professional amateurs’ as a challenge to professional journalists, and CJ’s deployment in new media operations and production environments. Finally, some exploratory questions are offered for future researchers. 2. An Evaluative Framework for New Media Theories on Citizen Journalism Paul Carlile and Clayton M. Christensen’s model offers one framework with which to evaluate new media theories on CJ. This framework is used below to highlight select issues and gaps in CJ’s current frameworks and theories. Carlile & Christensen suggest that robust theory-building emerges via three stages: Descriptive, Categorisation and Normative (Carlile & Christensen). There are three sub-stages in Descriptive theory-building; namely, the observation of phenomena, inductive classification into schemas and taxonomies, and correlative relationships to develop models (Carlile & Christensen 2-5). Once causation is established, Normative theory evolves through deductive logic which is subject to Kuhnian paradigm shifts and Popperian falsifiability (Carlile & Christensen 6). Its proponents situate CJ as a Categorisation or new journalism agenda that poses a Normative challenged and Kuhnian paradigm shift to traditional journalism. Existing CJ theories jump from the Descriptive phase of observations like “smart mobs” in Japanese youth subcultures (Rheingold) to make broad claims for Categorisation such as that IndyMedia, blogs and wiki publishing systems as new media alternatives to traditional media. CJ theories then underpin normative beliefs, values and worldviews. Correlative relationships are also used to differentiate CJ from the demand side of microeconomic analysis, from the top-down editorial models of traditional media outlets, and to adopt a vanguard stance. To support this, CJ proponents cite research on emergent collective behaviour such as the “wisdom of crowds” hypothesis (Surowiecki) or peer-to-peer network “swarms” (Pesce) to provide scientific justification for their Normative theories. However, further evaluative research is needed for three reasons: the emergent collective behaviour hypothesis may not actually inform CJ practices, existing theories may have “correlation not cause” errors, and the link may be due to citation network effects between CJ theorists. Collectively, this research base also frames CJ as an “ought to” Categorisation and then proceeds to Normative theory-building (Carlile & Christensen 7). However, I argue below that this Categorisation may be premature: its observations and correlative relationships might reinforce a ‘weak’ Normative theory with limited generalisation. CJ proponents seem to imply that it can be applied anywhere and under any condition—a “statement of causality” that almost makes it a fad (Carlile & Christensen 8). CJ that relies on Classification and Normative claims will be problematic without a strong grounding in Descriptive observation. To understand what’s potentially at stake for CJ’s future consider the consider the parallel debate about curricula renewal for the Masters of Business Administration in the wake of high-profile corporate collapses such as Enron, Worldcom, HIH and OneTel. The MBA evolved as a sociological and institutional construct to justify management as a profession that is codified, differentiated and has entry barriers (Khurana). This process might partly explain the pushback that some media professionals have to CJ as one alternative. MBA programs faced criticism if they had student cohorts with little business know-how or experiential learning (Mintzberg). Enron’s collapse illustrated the ethical dilemmas and unintended consequences that occurred when “bad theories” were implemented (Ghoshal). Professional journalists are aware of this: MBA-educated managers challenged the “craft” tradition in the early 1980s (Underwood). This meant that journalism’s ‘self-image’ (Morgan; Smith) is intertwined with managerial anxieties about media conglomerates in highly competitive markets. Ironically, as noted below, Citizen Journalists who adopt a vanguard position vis-a-vis media professionals step into a more complex game with other players. However, current theories have a naïve idealism about CJ’s promise of normative social change in the face of Machiavellian agency in business, the media and politics. 3. Citizen Who? Who is the “citizen” in CJ? What is their self-awareness as a political agent? CJ proponents who use the ‘self-image’ of ‘citizen’ draw on observations from the participatory vision of open source software, peer-to-peer networks, and case studies such as Howard Dean’s 2004 bid for the Democrat Party nominee in the US Presidential election campaign (Trippi). Recent theorists note Alexander Hamilton’s tradition of civic activism (Barlow 178) which links contemporary bloggers with the Federalist Papers and early newspaper pamphlets. One unsurfaced assumption in these observations and correlations is that most bloggers will adopt a coherent political philosophy as informed citizens: a variation on Lockean utilitarianism, Rawlsian liberalism or Nader consumer activism. To date there is little discussion about how political philosophy could deepen CJ’s ‘self-image’: how to critically evaluate sources, audit and investigation processes, or strategies to deal with elites, deterrence and power. For example, although bloggers kept Valerie Plame’s ‘outing’ as a covert intelligence operative highly visible in the issues-attention cycle, it was agenda-setting media like The New York Times who the Bush Administration targeted to silence (Pearlstine). To be viable, CJ needs to evolve beyond a new media populism, perhaps into a constructivist model of agency, norms and social change (Finnemore). 4. Citizen Journalism as New Media Populism Several “precursor trends” foreshadowed CJ notably the mid-1990s interest in “cool-hunting” by new media analysts and subculture marketeers (Gibson; Gladwell). Whilst this audience focus waned with the 1995-2000 dotcom bubble it resurfaced in CJ and publisher Tim O’Reilly’s Web 2.0 vision. Thus, CJ might be viewed as new media populism that has flourished with the Web 2.0 boom. Yet if the boom becomes a macroeconomic bubble (Gross; Spar) then CJ could be written off as a “silver bullet” that ultimately failed to deliver on its promises (Brooks, Jr.). The reputations of uncritical proponents who adopted a “true believer” stance would also be damaged (Hoffer). This risk is evident if CJ is compared with a parallel trend that shares its audience focus and populist view: day traders and technical analysts who speculate on financial markets. This parallel trend provides an alternative discipline in which the populism surfaced in an earlier form (Carlile & Christensen 12). Fidelity’s Peter Lynch argues that stock pickers can use their Main Street knowledge to beat Wall Street by exploiting information asymmetries (Lynch & Rothchild). Yet Lynch’s examples came from the mid-1970s to early 1980s when indexed mutual fund strategies worked, before deregulation and macroeconomic volatility. A change in the Web 2.0 boom might similarly trigger a reconsideration of Citizen Journalism. Hedge fund maven Victor Niederhoffer contends that investors who rely on technical analysis are practicing a Comtean religion (Niederhoffer & Kenner 72-74) instead of Efficient Market Hypothesis traders who use statistical arbitrage to deal with ‘random walks’ or Behavioural Finance experts who build on Amos Tversky and Daniel Kahneman’s Prospect Theory (Kahneman & Tversky). Niederhoffer’s deeper point is that technical analysts’ belief that the “trend is your friend” is no match for the other schools, despite a mini-publishing industry and computer trading systems. There are also ontological and epistemological differences between the schools. Similarly, CJ proponents who adopt a ‘Professional Amateur’ or ‘Pro-Am’ stance (Leadbeater & Miller) may face a similar gulf when making comparisons with professional journalists and the production environments in media organisations. CJ also thrives as new media populism because of institutional vested interests. When media conglomerates cut back on cadetships and internships CJ might fill the market demand as one alternative. New media programs at New York University and others can use CJ to differentiate themselves from “hyperlocal” competitors (Christensen; Slywotzky; Christensen, Curtis & Horn). This transforms CJ from new media populism to new media institution. 5. Parallels: Event-driven & Civic Journalism For new media programs, CJ builds on two earlier traditions: the Event-driven journalism of crises like the 1991 Gulf War (Wark) and the Civic Journalism school that emerged in the 1960s social upheavals. Civic Journalism’s awareness of minorities and social issues provides the character ethic and political philosophy for many Citizen Journalists. Jay Rosen and others suggest that CJ is the next-generation heir to Civic Journalism, tracing a thread from the 1968 Chicago Democratic Convention to IndyMedia’s coverage of the 1999 “Battle in Seattle” (Rosen). Rosen’s observation could yield an interesting historiography or genealogy. Events such as the Southeast Asian tsunami on 26 December 2004 or Al Qaeda’s London bombings on 7 July 2005 are cited as examples of CJ as event-driven journalism and “pro-am collaboration” (Kolodzy 229-230). Having covered these events and Al Qaeda’s attacks on 11th September 2001, I have a slightly different view: this was more a variation on “first responder” status and handicam video footage that journalists have sourced for the past three decades when covering major disasters. This different view means that the “salience of categories” used to justify CJ and “pro-am collaboration” these events does not completely hold. Furthermore, when Citizen Journalism proponents tout Flickr and Wikipedia as models of real-time media they are building on a broader phenomenon that includes CNN’s Gulf War coverage and Bloomberg’s dominance of financial news (Loomis). 6. The Mergers & Acquisitions Scenario CJ proponents often express anxieties about the resilience of their outlets in the face of predatory venture capital firms who initiate Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) activities. Ironically, these venture capital firms have core competencies and expertise in the event-driven infrastructure and real-time media that CJ aspires to. Sequoia Capital and other venture capital firms have evaluative frameworks that likely surpass Carlile & Christensen in sophistication, and they exploit parallels, information asymmetries and market populism. Furthermore, although venture capital firms such as Union Street Ventures have funded Web 2.0 firms, they are absent from the explanations of some theorists, whose examples of Citizen Journalism and Web 2.0 success may be the result of survivorship bias. Thus, the venture capital market remains an untapped data source for researchers who want to evaluate the impact of CJ outlets and institutions. The M&A scenario further problematises CJ in several ways. First, CJ is framed as “oppositional” to traditional media, yet this may be used as a stratagem in a game theory framework with multiple stakeholders. Drexel Burnham Lambert’s financier Michael Milken used market populism to sell ‘high-yield’ or ‘junk’ bonds to investors whilst disrupting the Wall Street establishment in the late 1980s (Curtis) and CJ could fulfil a similar tactical purpose. Second, the M&A goal of some Web 2.0 firms could undermine the participatory goals of a site’s community if post-merger integration fails. Jason Calacanis’s sale of Weblogs, Inc to America Online in 2005 and MSNBC’s acquisition of Newsvine on 5 October 2007 (Newsvine) might be success stories. However, this raises issues of digital “property rights” if you contribute to a community that is then sold in an M&A transaction—an outcome closer to business process outsourcing. Third, media “buzz” can create an unrealistic vision when a CJ site fails to grow beyond its start-up phase. Backfence.com’s demise as a “hyperlocal” initiative (Caverly) is one cautionary event that recalls the 2000 dotcom crash. The M&A scenarios outlined above are market dystopias for CJ purists. The major lesson for CJ proponents is to include other market players in hypotheses about causation and correlation factors. 7. ‘Pro-Ams’ & Professional Journalism’s Crisis CJ emerged during a period when Professional Journalism faced a major crisis of ‘self-image’. The Demos report The Pro-Am Revolution (Leadbeater & Miller) popularised the notion of ‘professional amateurs’ which some CJ theorists adopt to strengthen their categorisation. In turn, this triggers a response from cultural theorists who fear bloggers are new media’s barbarians (Keen). I concede Leadbeater and Miller have identified an important category. However, how some CJ theorists then generalise from ‘Pro-Ams’ illustrates the danger of ‘weak’ theory referred to above. Leadbeater and Miller’s categorisation does not really include a counter-view on the strengths of professionals, as illustrated in humanistic consulting (Block), professional service firms (Maister; Maister, Green & Galford), and software development (McConnell). The signs of professionalism these authors mention include a commitment to learning and communal verification, mastery of a discipline and domain application, awareness of methodology creation, participation in mentoring, and cultivation of ethical awareness. Two key differences are discernment and quality of attention, as illustrated in how the legendary Hollywood film editor Walter Murch used Apple’s Final Cut Pro software to edit the 2003 film Cold Mountain (Koppelman). ‘Pro-Ams’ might not aspire to these criteria but Citizen Journalists shouldn’t throw out these standards, either. Doing so would be making the same mistake of overconfidence that technical analysts make against statistical arbitrageurs. Key processes—fact-checking, sub-editing and editorial decision-making—are invisible to the end-user, even if traceable in a blog or wiki publishing system, because of the judgments involved. One post-mortem insight from Assignment Zero was that these processes were vital to create the climate of authenticity and trust to sustain a Citizen Journalist community (Howe). CJ’s trouble with “objectivity” might also overlook some complexities, including the similarity of many bloggers to “noise traders” in financial markets and to op-ed columnists. Methodologies and reportage practices have evolved to deal with the objections that CJ proponents raise, from New Journalism’s radical subjectivity and creative non-fiction techniques (Wolfe & Johnson) to Precision Journalism that used descriptive statistics (Meyer). Finally, journalism frameworks could be updated with current research on how phenomenological awareness shapes our judgments and perceptions (Thompson). 8. Strategic Execution For me, one of CJ’s major weaknesses as a new media theory is its lack of “rich description” (Geertz) about the strategic execution of projects. As Disinfo.com site editor I encountered situations ranging from ‘denial of service’ attacks and spam to site migration, publishing systems that go offline, and ensuring an editorial consistency. Yet the messiness of these processes is missing from CJ theories and accounts. Theories that included this detail as “second-order interactions” (Carlile & Christensen 13) would offer a richer view of CJ. Many CJ and Web 2.0 projects fall into the categories of mini-projects, demonstration prototypes and start-ups, even when using a programming language such as Ajax or Ruby on Rails. Whilst the “bootstrap” process is a benefit, more longitudinal analysis and testing needs to occur, to ensure these projects are scalable and sustainable. For example, South Korea’s OhmyNews is cited as an exemplar that started with “727 citizen reporters and 4 editors” and now has “38,000 citizen reporters” and “a dozen editors” (Kolodzy 231). How does OhmyNews’s mix of hard and soft news change over time? Or, how does OhmyNews deal with a complex issue that might require major resources, such as security negotiations between North and South Korea? Such examples could do with further research. We need to go beyond “the vision thing” and look at the messiness of execution for deeper observations and counterintuitive correlations, to build new descriptive theories. 9. Future Research This essay argues that CJ needs re-evaluation. Its immediate legacy might be to splinter ‘journalism’ into micro-trends: Washington University’s Steve Boriss proclaims “citizen journalism is dead. Expert journalism is the future.” (Boriss; Mensching). The half-lives of such micro-trends demand new categorisations, which in turn prematurely feeds the theory-building cycle. Instead, future researchers could reinvigorate 21st century journalism if they ask deeper questions and return to the observation stage of building descriptive theories. In closing, below are some possible questions that future researchers might explore: Where are the “rich descriptions” of journalistic experience—“citizen”, “convergent”, “digital”, “Pro-Am” or otherwise in new media?How could practice-based approaches inform this research instead of relying on espoused theories-in-use?What new methodologies could be developed for CJ implementation?What role can the “heroic” individual reporter or editor have in “the swarm”?Do the claims about OhmyNews and other sites stand up to longitudinal observation?Are the theories used to justify Citizen Journalism’s normative stance (Rheingold; Surowiecki; Pesce) truly robust generalisations for strategic execution or do they reflect the biases of their creators?How could developers tap the conceptual dimensions of information technology innovation (Shasha) to create the next Facebook, MySpace or Wikipedia? References Argyris, Chris, and Donald Schon. Theory in Practice. 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New York: The Free Press, 2004. Mensching, Leah McBride. “Citizen Journalism on Its Way Out?” SFN Blog, 30 Nov. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 < http://www.sfnblog.com/index.php/2007/11/30/940-citizen-journalism- on-its-way-out >. Meyer, Philip. Precision Journalism. 4th ed. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002. McConnell, Steve. Professional Software Development. Boston, MA: Addison-Wesley, 2004. Mintzberg, Henry. Managers Not MBAs. San Francisco, CA: Berrett-Koehler, 2004. Morgan, Gareth. Images of Organisation. Rev. ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2006. Newsvine. “Msnbc.com Acquires Newsvine.” 7 Oct. 2007. 20 Feb. 2008 < http://blog.newsvine.com/_news/2007/10/07/1008889-msnbccom- acquires-newsvine >. Niederhoffer, Victor, and Laurel Kenner. Practical Speculation. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2003. Pearlstine, Norman. Off the Record: The Press, the Government, and the War over Anonymous Sources. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2007. 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Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007. Trippi, Joe. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. New York: ReganBooks, 2004. Underwood, Doug. When MBA’s Rule the Newsroom. New York: Columbia University Press, 1993. Wark, McKenzie. Virtual Geography: Living with Global Media Events. Bloomington IN: Indiana UP, 1994. Wolfe, Tom, and E.W. Johnson. The New Journalism. New York: Harper & Row, 1973.
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