3659 research outputs found
Sort by
Formation of a transdisciplinary community of practice in rural areas, with an interactive database of co-created knowledge: A case study in Noto, Japan
Get PDFMany rural areas suffer from severe depopulation, and the absence of a university is one reason for outmigration. Where research and education are valued, however, such rural areas can attract scholars and students visiting from universities and other external institutions. Scholarly outputs of research, such as research articles and project reports, particularly those from community-based research (CBR), can themselves become an asset for use by local communities. We consider that CBR can contribute to asset-based community development (ABCD) when a transdisciplinary community of practice (TDCOP) emerges and drives the processes of collaborative creation and use of the knowledge. A particularly critical mechanism, which is currently lacking, is to allow the local community to collect knowledge outputs and make them easily available to interested actors within and outside of the community. We assume that a core tool in this mechanism is an interactive database. It can be equipped with a user interface, allowing enjoyable and active searches, and possibly a mechanism by which users themselves can contribute to gradual development of the database. We formed a study group of researchers and practitioners to conduct a case study in the Noto region of Japan. We identified the existing assets in Noto, including the knowledge created through CBR, and then collected and shared our own experiences and practices, as well as lessons learned from other regions in Japan, to explore the principles of designing a database. A CBR database should not only be a static inventory of past research, but also capable of facilitating new cycles of knowledge co-creation. With a comprehensive and easily accessible inventory of knowledge in place, we conclude that there is high potential in enabling CBR itself to be an asset, which can help achieve ABCD in rural communities
Impact of Dam Collapses on Violence in Minas Gerais, Brazil
Get PDFThe mining sector, over a number of centuries, has become a strong cultural attribute of Minas Gerais. Due to its mining reserves, the state has the biggest concentration of tailings dams built to retain mining waste. This led to large-scale accidents in the last decade – in Mariana (in October 2015) and in Brumadinho (in January 2019). These accidents have shifted the debate about mining in the region, and more widely changed the leading forces among society, bringing a new equilibrium to social relationships. The objective of this paper, as part of a monitoring effort, is to assess the impacts of these accidents on crime and violence as a new face of extractivism. The results can be used to design better responses in terms of welfare programs or compensation efforts, leading to a better and more responsible extractivism
Migration, Brokerage and Recruitment: Examining the Socio-cultural Factors Surrounding Thai Phi-noy Undocumented Migrant Workers in South Korea
Get PDFThis research examines the unskilled labor migration using private intermediaries in South Korea. The study also reviews the Employment Permit System of South Korea in this regard. The empirical study took place in South Korea with a supplementary trip visiting the migration origin, Bangkok, Thailand. A qualitative method was used with the predominant part being a semi-structured interview with Thai undocumented workers in Daegu. This research fills the gap in the existing body of research by uncovering the process of undocumented labor migration in the discourse of culture of migration. The tolerant practice of the Thai Government towards undocumented workers has set an example to prospective Thai migrant workers who follow the undocumented path to go to Korea. The unique fuzzy attitude of some Thais led them to try their luck without a concrete plan to go to work in South Korea on a whim. The informal brokers find their role even they are excluded in the Employment Permit System of South Korea. They actively convey a positive but biased image of an easy path of undocumented labor migration as an alternative to the formal procedure
"Lights under a Bushel": a digest of highly cited papers from Construction Economics and Building
Get PDFThere are times when a new editor ponders the iron triangle of quality submissions, readership, and citations, and how to improve them. It was during such a musing that a colleague from UTS/OJS pointed out that this journal had produced a suite of highly cited papers that was continuing to grow. They went on to illustrate the point with a list that stopped at a lower limit of 30 citations, observing that there was every likelihood that further good, recently published papers would continue this habit, given sufficient time (3-5 years).
Grateful for their observations I scanned the list and was buoyed by the thoughts that these papers were a product of their time (i.e. highly relevant, reflecting topics of contemporary and ongoing concern), clearly well executed – conceptually and methodologically – and written in an engaging style. They were, and self-evidently continue to be read and cited, though the issue of growing our readership continues to be a challenge.
In a world of burgeoning journal titles, many of which appear to be predatory in nature it can become necessary to remind readers of this tome that it is a valuable venue for the best of their research. The cost to publish and quality of the publication should be evident from its homepage, but that quality research within its pages can achieve high citation rates only becomes apparent once the reader searches for topics of interest to them. This digest is simply a reminder of what this journal – and those who support it with their time and effort – is all about.
This selection of papers has been assembled from issues since the journal transferred online and adopted its current title. To reiterate, an arbitrary cut-off of 30 citations (Scopus) has been applied for the sake of brevity, though it is clear that there are more recent papers that are on target to match and exceed this citation score in the near future. Moreover, only bibliographic details and abstracts are included in this section; DOIs take the interested reader to the full paper.
Please enjoy this retrospective
A novel instrument for the community-centered assessment of outcomes resulting from visits by foreign student groups
Get PDFAcademic institutions in the United States have increasingly emphasised Community-Based Global Learning (CBGL) programs within international contexts. These programs are assumed to have positive outcomes, but often lack substantive assessment data to support their claims. Although meaningful program evaluation has increasingly become a priority, these investigations frequently overlook the views, opinions and goals of community organisations and community members. At present, few brief quantitative instruments are available to assess higher education CBGL project outcomes from the perspective of community partners. Here we detail the initial use of the Community Benefit Survey (CBS), a novel 17-item instrument designed to help fill this gap, within the context of a unique CBGL program in rural Sri Lanka. The CBS demonstrated value in facilitating equitable community assessment and centring the voices of community members. The CBS possesses significant utility in describing the benefits of student group/community partnerships and can be generalised for use across a wide variety of domestic and international contexts
A practice-based guide for creating STEM service learning courses
Get PDFThis practice-based article describes two undergraduate service learning (SL) courses in STEM disciplines: economics and neuroscience. We share our experiences to encourage other instructors to develop their STEM SL courses. The top five majors by degree completion in order of popularity are computer science, economics, public policy, biology and engineering at our institution, Duke University, Durham, NC (Spicer 2023); four of these are STEM, yet they represent less than 20 percent of our SL courses (Whiteman 2023). This under-representation has resulted in fewer resources that are STEM SL- specific. The resources for SL in the social sciences are well established, but do not necessarily translate well to STEM SL courses.
There are many reasons to adopt SL for STEM courses. It offers students the opportunity to give back to the community and to learn in meaningful ways outside of the classroom. As described by the American Association of Colleges & Universities (AAC&U 2022a), ‘working with community partners is good preparation for citizenship, work, and life.’
We describe two basic models, the direct and indirect SL model, and how these were used in our courses. Based on our practice-based experiences, we developed four stages for our colleagues to follow when creating their STEM SL course: (1) identify course objectives; (2) build mutually beneficial partnerships; (3) design assignments; and (4) integrate reflections. Our goal was to share the course structures we developed using these stages so that others could adopt them in their STEM disciplines
Front porch conversations: Methodological innovations to participatory action research and asset-based community development
Get PDFComplex public problems are resistant to top-down, technical solutions creating the need for new and innovative ways of approaching community. In response, many practitioners working in community development organisations have embraced community strengths- or asset-based approaches to community development, including Asset Based Community Development (ABCD). Similarly, those scholars committed to social change have started to include action research/learning and participatory approaches to their research design, including Participatory Action Research (PAR). This article describes a qualitative method that was developed by a non-profit practitioner working for a local Habitat for Humanity affiliate and a researcher from a land-grant university in Manhattan, Kansas to operationalise a neighbourhood revitalisation framework with a community conversation series called Front Porch Conversations. The qualitative method developed by the university-nonprofit partnership –called the Front Porch Development Procedure – serves as both a PAR-informed mode of inquiry and an ABCD-informed mode of development. This method provides an example of how university-community partnerships can approach changemaking in novel ways by considering ABCD and PAR approaches
Barriers to the Adoption of Digitalization in the Construction Industry: Perspectives of Owners, Consultants, and Contractors
Get PDFConstruction organizations are moving toward adopting digitalization in response to Industry 4.0. However, the slow adoption of digitalization has been observed. This study aimed to assess the level of digitalization adoption and evaluate the barriers to adopting digitalization in the Jordanian construction industry by all project parties in the public and private sectors. The study targets were achieved through a structured questionnaire using SPSS software for analysis through the following statistical tests: Normality test, Mann-Whitney U, Kruskal-Wallis H, and Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA). Most respondents used software at the design stage, and less than half did not use any software during the finishing stage. Regarding the barriers, twenty barriers to adopting digitalization were identified and grouped into five factors according to their importance: barriers related to the nature and system of the construction company, barriers related to the project parties, financial barriers, barriers related to system characteristics, and barriers related to construction project characteristics. Decision-makers should take the necessary measures to overcome such barriers depending on their importance. Previous studies have focused on the contractor\u27s adoption of digitalization while neglecting other parties. This contributed to the full adoption of digitalization from the contractor side, with a noticeable delay from other project parties. This study focused on revealing the most critical barriers to adopting digitalization in the Jordanian construction industry from all project parties\u27 perspectives based on their ranks. Furthermore, the study recommends effective strategies to overcome barriers as an update of past research
Fiscal decentralisation and public service delivery: evidence and lessons from sub-national governments in Kenya
Get PDFThis paper provides empirical evidence on the effects of fiscal decentralisation on public service delivery in devolved systems of government in Kenya. A qualitative study interviewed 126 respondents and held two focus group discussions with key stakeholders from within two of Kenya’s 47 counties: Kiambu and Nairobi City. The paper focuses on key elements of fiscal decentralisation, namely: expenditure responsibilities, revenue autonomy and borrowing powers. Public service delivery was examined using affordability as a key measure of the quality of services. Results show that fiscal decentralisation did not necessarily lead to more affordable public services as there were significant contextual factors such as corruption, legal structures, cultural values, belief systems, pressure to conform and change agents that moderated this relationship. Corruption made public services less affordable in both counties, while Nairobi Metropolitan Services emerged as a change agent that improved the affordability of specific public services within Nairobi City county. The paper outlines a conceptual framework for further research into implementation of fiscal decentralisation in Kenya and elsewhere, especially in Africa, and calls for more qualitative studies, especially longitudinal studies, case studies and ethnographic approaches to enrich knowledge in this field
Filling the gaps in local governance: an analysis of the structure and process of informal community governance in Ibadan, Nigeria
Get PDFThe Nigerian local government system’s failure is widely documented, yet little is known about an alternative governance framework that communities have developed to tend to their needs. Using a case study methodology, this paper investigates the structure and process of informal community governance by which communities in Ibadan, Nigeria, fill in the gaps in local government. Documents and key informant interviews with community leaders provided qualitative data. The findings reveal that informal community governance systems are functioning well in Ibadan. Their governance process is open to all, participatory democracy is visible, and corruption is not tolerated. While Nigeria’s official local government structure lacks the governance and democratic culture essential for meaningful, long-term local development, this paper’s analysis shows that those features are being nurtured in the local community setting. The findings serve to draw attention to the need to institutionalise community governance as a form of local government capable of addressing a wide range of present and emerging community needs
Data sources:
Access Repository Dashboard
Do you manage UTS ePRESS? Access insider analytics, issue reports and manage access to outputs from your repository in the CORE Repository Dashboard!