Building Commons Governance for a Greener Economy

Much recent work in ecological economics and political ecology, including calls for “de-growth” in the transition towards more sustainable economies, focuses on commons as a promising paradigm for sustainable governance institutions.  The vision involves people who depend on or have an interest in a resource or asset, working together co-operatively to use that asset for production, service provision, and exchange which creates value and well-being while integrating ecological care, justice, and long-term planning to the best of diverse communities’ abilities. This includes institutions such as co-ops, land trusts, and non-market or beyond-market collective ways of organizing production, distribution, consumption, and waste or materials management.Developing such collective institutions requires nurturing the skills and abilities needed to create and maintain them: empathy, communication and listening skills, a sense of shared purpose, creativity, dispute resolution across differences, long-term vision, environmental awareness and stewardship, among others. Transformative education praxis and transdisciplinarity facilitate the growth of these skills and abilities in children and adults, as Paulo Freire and other transformative learning practitioners have shown (Gadotti 2009; O’Sullivan 1999;Gutierrez & Prado 1998). Transformative pedagogy, including both eco-pedagogy and transdisciplinarity, is foundational as human society evolves institutions for sustainability such as commons.This research was supported by the International Development Research Centre, grant number IDRC GRANT NO. 106002-00

Ecofeminism, Commons, and Climate Justice

Much recent work in ecological economics, degrowth, climate justice, and political ecology focuses on ‘commons’ as an emergent paradigm for sustainable governance institutions to address or rectify ecological crisis. This paper summarizes definitions and typologies of commons, give some examples of commons which help to further climate justice, and discusses these ideas from an ecofeminist perspective.his research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, FRN IDRC and SSHRC File Agreement No. 2017-008

Using the Internet to improve university education: Problem-oriented web-based learning and the MUNICS environment

Up to this point, university education has largely remained unaffected by the developments of novel approaches to web-based learning. The paper presents a principled approach to the design of problem-oriented, web-based learning at the university level. The principles include providing authentic contexts with multimedia, supporting collaborative knowledge construction, making thinking visible with dynamic visualisation, quick access to content resources via Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), and flexible support by tele-tutoring. These principles are used in the Munich Net-based Learning In Computer Science (MUNICS) learning environment, which is designed to support students of computer science to apply their factual knowledge from the lectures to complex real-world problems. For example, students can model the knowledge management in an educational organisation with a graphical simulation tool. Some more general findings from a formative evaluation study with the MUNICS prototype are reported and discussed. E.g., the students' ignorance of the additional content resources is discussed in the light of the well-known finding of insufficient use of help systems in software applicationsBislang wurden neuere Ansätze zum web-basierten Lernen in nur geringem Maße zur Verbesserung des Universitätsstudiums genutzt. Es werden theoretisch begründete Prinzipien für die Gestaltung problemorientierter, web-basierter Lernumgebungen an der Universität formuliert. Zu diesen Prinzipien gehören die Nutzung von Multimedia-Technologien für die Realisierung authentischer Problemkontexte, die Unterstützung der gemeinsamen Wissenskonstruktion, die dynamische Visualisierung, der schnelle Zugang zu weiterführenden Wissensressourcen mit Hilfe von Informations- und Kommunikationstechnologien sowie die flexible Unterstützung durch Teletutoring. Diese Prinzipien wurden bei der Gestaltung der MUNICS Lernumgebung umgesetzt. MUNICS soll Studierende der Informatik bei der Wissensanwendung im Kontext komplexer praktischer Problemstellungen unterstützen. So können die Studierenden u.a. das Wissensmanagement in einer Bildungsorganisation mit Hilfe eines graphischen Simulationswerkzeugs modellieren. Es werden Ergebnisse einer formativen Evaluationsstudie berichtet und diskutiert. Beispielsweise wird die in der Studie festgestellte Ignoranz der Studierenden gegenüber den weiterführenden Wissensressourcen vor dem Hintergrund des häufig berichteten Befunds der unzureichenden Nutzung von Hilfesystemen beleuchte

Using the Internet to improve university education

Up to this point, university education has largely remained unaffected by the developments of novel approaches to web-based learning. The paper presents a principled approach to the design of problem-oriented, web-based learning at the university level. The principles include providing authentic contexts with multimedia, supporting collaborative knowledge construction, making thinking visible with dynamic visualisation, quick access to content resources via information and communication technologies, and flexible support by tele-tutoring. These principles are used in the MUNICS learning environment, which is designed to support students of computer science to apply their factual knowledge from the lectures to complex real-world problems. For example, students may model the knowledge management in an educational organisation with a graphical simulation tool. Some more general findings from a formative evaluation study with the MUNICS prototype are reported and discussed. For example, the students' ignorance of the additional content resources is discussed in the light of the well-known finding of insufficient use of help systems in software applications

Resist, comply or workaround? An examination of different facets of user engagement with information systems

This paper provides a summary of studies of user resistance to Information Technology (IT) and identifies workaround activity as an understudied and distinct, but related, phenomenon. Previous categorizations of resistance have largely failed to address the relationships between the motivations for divergences from procedure and the associated workaround activity. This paper develops a composite model of resistance/workaround derived from two case study sites. We find four key antecedent conditions derived from both positive and negative resistance rationales and identify associations and links to various resultant workaround behaviours and provide supporting Chains of Evidence from two case studies

The Use of Audio in Minimal Access Surgery

In minimal access surgery (MAS) (also known as minimally invasive surgery), operations are carried out by making small incisions in the skin and inserting special apparatus into potential body cavities through those incisions. Laparoscopic MAS procedures are conducted in the patient’s abdomen. The aim of MAS is faster recovery, shorter hospitalisation and fewer major post-operative complications; all resulting in lower societal cost with better patient acceptability. The technique is markedly dependent on supporting technologies for vision, instrumentation, energy delivery, anaesthesia, and monitoring. However, in practice, much MAS continues to take longer and be associated with an undesirable frequency of unwanted minor (or occasionally major) mishaps. Many of these difficulties result precisely from the complexity and mal-adaptation of the additional technology and from lack of familiarity with it. A survey of South East England surgeons showed the two main stress factors on surgeons to be the technical difficulty of the procedure and time pressures placed on the surgeon by third parties. Many of the problems associated with MAS operations are linked to the control and monitoring of the equipment. This paper describes work begun to explore ergonomic enhancements to laparoscopic operating technology that could result in faster and safer laparoscopic operations, less surgeon stress and reduce dependence on ancillary staff. Auditory displays have been used to communicate complex information to users in a modality that is complementary to the visual channel. This paper proposes the development of a control and feedback system that will make use of auditory displays to improve the amount of information that can be communicated to the surgeon and his assistant without overloading the visual channel. Control of the system would be enhanced by the addition of voice input to allow the surgeon direct control

Co-operative Entrepreneurship : Co-operate for growth

Published with the support of the Scottish Government and the Economic & Social Research CouncilPublisher PD

Trends for the development of anthropocentric production systems in small less industrialised countries: The case of Portugal

This paper analyses the problems and trends of the introduction of anthropocentric production systems (APS) in small less industrialized member states of the European Union, specifically the case of Portugal, based on the report for the FAST-Anthropocentric Technology Assessment Project (Monitor Programme) on “Prospects and conditions for APS in Europe by the 21st century”. Research teams from all countries of the European Community, as well as researchers from USA, Japan and Australia were participating in this project. The aim of this paper is to characterize APS and to present some special considerations related to the socioeconomic factors affecting the prospects and conditions for APS in Portugal. APS is defined as a system based on the utilization of skilled human resources and flexible technology adapted to the needs of flexible and participative organization. Among socioeconomic factors, some critical aspects for the development of APS will be focused, namely technological infrastructure, management strategies, perceived impact of introduction of automated systems on the division of labor and organizational structure, educational and vocational training and social actors strategies towards industrial automation. This analysis is based on a sample of industrial firms, built up for qualitative analysis, and on case studies analysis that can be reference examples for further development of APS, and not just for economic policy purposes alone. We have also analyzed the type of existing industrial relations, the union and employer strategies and some aspects of public policies towards the introduction of new technologies in the order to understand the extent to which there exist obstacles to and favorable conditions for the diffusion of anthropocentric systems. Finally some recommendations are presented to stress the trends for the implementation and development of anthropocentric production systems in Portugal.production systems; Portugal; Technology Assessment; human resources; organization; management strategies; automation;