1,720,955 research outputs found
Perceptions of Chinhoyi University of Technology’s staff and students regarding the Communication Skills course
No full textThis study explores the myriad of perceptions, perspectives, attitudes, approaches and conceptions about the module Communication Skills (CUACE101) which is a campus-wide compulsory course taught to all Chinhoyi University of Technology first year first semester (1.1) students. The motivating factor for this study has been an endless debate on the merits of the course to a university curriculum whose niche and mandate is predominantly technology-oriented, hence the need to establish the rationale for a communication course appropriately packaged to yield not only a fully qualified graduate but also a wholesome citizen whose harmonious combination of well-accentuated faculties fits them for an indelible impress on a career terrain tilted in the direction of twenty-first century global imperatives. The research thus motivates for a perceptive shift from a fragmented and compartmentalized view of a university graduate, embracing rather the merits of higher education’s systemic vision driven by a synthesis of multi-disciplinary curriculum design dynamics. Inspired by the Reconstructionist philosophy, this qualitative exploratory study yields a taxonomy of themes and trends by respondents from various disciplines at Chinhoyi University of Technology, necessitating a broad-based and holistic approach to university curriculum programming. The global currents have triggered a paradigm shift from the instruction of communication as a course in commonplace literacy fundamentals (reading, speaking and writing skills) to a more nuanced discipline that factors in a host of globalization-compliant dynamics like information literacy skills, critical thinking skills, people skills, cultural literacy, technopreneurial skills, communicative competence and corporate wisdom. The study deploys focus group discussions (for CUACE101 students) and CUT schools deans questionnaires, triangulating qualitative methods to establish key internal stakeholder perceptions on the campus-wide course (Communication Skills). The study’s findings map out a blue-print for influencing policy and practice in curriculum design, implementation and review</jats:p
NOVEL-FILM INTERFACE AND POSTCOLONIAL DYSTOPIA: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TSITSI DANGAREMBGA’S NOVEL AND FILM, NERVOUS CONDITIONS AND NERIA
No full textThis paper comparatively and contrastively explores two art forms, the novel and film, by the same artist, Tsitsi Dangarembga, with a view to gauging their effectiveness in conÂfiguring Zimbabwe’s postcolonial dispensation. What is gained and what is lost when an artist shifts from one art form to another? Dangarembga belongs to the protest tradition of Zimbabwean postcolonial artists and the conceptual fibre of this tradition is notably the dystopian themes like disillusionment, cultural confusion, sex-role stereotyping, as well as social power relations. Dangarembga’s canonical novel, Nervous conditions (1988), and the highest grossing film in Zimbabwean history, Neria (1993), are both sterling atÂtempts within the feminist tradition. The film and novel mirror a society in the throes of an epochal transition, the sense of impending change giving the works the commonality of an apocalyptic vision. Against a backdrop shaped by the interplay of historical, culÂtural and colonial forces, the works become perceptive anthropological windows into a society replete with multiple contradictions. In both her novel and her film, Dangarembga equips her protagonists, Tambudzai and Neria respectively, with a self-defining voice that questions and subverts the status quo. Salient manifestations of toxic masculinity in this patriarchal society account for the subtlety with which Dangarembga critiques gender relations within and without the boundaries of race and class. The protagonists in both works undergo rigorous struggles from which they ultimately emerge as different persons. This paper focuses on the nature of this struggle and its concomitant change.</jats:p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe 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
Full text link“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
Full text linkWe 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
Full text linkWe 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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