1,720,954 research outputs found
Assessing the impact of integrated service delivery on poverty and employment creation: a case study of Operation Sukuma Sakhe in the eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality.
Get PDFM.A. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 2014.Following the declaration of War on Poverty campaign by former president Thabo Mbeki in 2008, a number of provinces engaged in a process of aligning their long and short-term service delivery objectives with those of the campaign. In KwaZulu-Natal this engagement produced what is today known as Operation Sukuma Sakhe (OSS). OSS came into existence in 2009 and it aims to fast tract services delivery by promoting participatory democracy where the gap between government (service providers) and KwaZulu-Natal citizens (end-users of services) is significantly reduced. OSS, inter alia, promotes integrated services delivery, integrated planning and participation of end-users of government services in decision-making.
The provincial government, district municipalities, local municipalities and wards each form the structure of overall arrangement of OSS. The Youth Ambassadors and Community Care Givers are the foot soldiers in OSS and their role is mainly to profile households in order to identify community needs. The study was conducted to assess the effectiveness of OSS as a mechanism used to address poverty and unemployment in KwaZulu-Natal.
The findings of this study suggest that all the OSS structures have already been set-up in the EThekwini Municipality but are marred with operational challenges such as absenteeism of key stakeholders, lack of necessary resources and other deficiencies and challenges. Indeed OSS has contributed meaningfully to job creation as there are Youth Ambassadors who are employed and given about R 1500 monthly stipend. OSS can also be commended for reducing the severity of poverty in the Municipality where poverty alleviation projects are afoot such as the One Home One garden campaign and communal gardens just to name a few. What transpired from the focus group discussions with different focus groups that form part of the study sample is that OSS is a viable model but it still needs to be reform especially in terms of creating a monitoring and evaluation unit and a system of accountability to ensure that members behave in acceptable standards
A first-year commuter student network framework for student success: a case study
Get PDFThesis (Ph.D.(Higher Education Studies))--University of the Free State, 2024First-year commuter students face various challenges as they transition and adjust to the academic, social, and emotional environments of university life. These challenges highlight the crucial role of peer relationships and networks, as informed by Tinto's student integration theory. Building on these conclusions, this study's primary objective was to develop a framework for a supportive peer network that addresses the academic, emotional, and social needs of first-year commuter students.
To achieve this, I conducted an analysis of key documents, particularly annual reports, from seven South African universities to gain insights into their support systems for first-year commuter students. These analyses revealed that while several programmes catered to the needs of first-year commuter students (see 5.2 and 5.3), the primary focus was on academic support. The integration of social and emotional well-being for these students was notably underemphasised, with limited evidence on how these programmes influenced the adjustment of first-year commuter students.
Chapter 6 of this study serves as the focal point of analysis, exploring the success stories and best practices related to the academic, social and emotional transitions of first-year commuter students. It also examines the role of peer mentor programmes in supporting their adjustment. During the empirical research, eight focus-group discussions were conducted with first-year commuter students at the University of the Free State (UFS). These discussions were organised by gender and campus, following an appreciative inquiry framework that aims to highlight and build on positive experiences and strengths.
The findings underscore the critical role of peer relationships and support in addressing the challenges faced by first-year commuter students during their transition to university life. In the Discovery step of the AI 4D framework, participants highlighted various success stories and best practices that facilitated their adjustment (see 6.2). Conversely, in the Dreaming step, participants identified opportunities for growth to improve the adjustment experience for first-year commuter students (see 6.6). Building on these insights, the Designing (see 7.2) and Delivery steps (see 7.4) proposed a five-pillar mentoring framework and an implementation plan.
By proposing the five-pillar mentoring framework and the accompanying implementation plan (see 7.4.1), the study offers a practical solution to enhance the effectiveness of peer mentor programmes. This framework aims to create a supportive peer network that ensures first-year commuter students receive the necessary guidance, support, and resources to thrive throughout their university journey
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
Author-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
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