143,413 research outputs found
Recommended from our members
Argument maps as policy memories for informed deliberation: A research note
This is an eGISE network paper. A significant area within eGovernment is concerned with systems to
support democratic policy formation and decision making processes. In modern government, both
local and national, consultation with interested parties is an important element in maintaining the
democratic process. To date online consultation tools have has used existing software tools, which are
simple text based tools that were not tailored to the process. This project proposes to develop an
online tool that will visualise the issues and arguments graphically as the consultation process
proceeds. Using Discourse Analysis and Ontological Engineering it will create Argument Maps that
will server not only to inform participants but also the archive record of the consultation â the Policy
Memory. We hypothesise that such a tool would allow citizens to be come more engaged with policy
formation and enhance democratic participation
Collective Decision Dynamics in the Presence of External Drivers
We develop a sequence of models describing information transmission and
decision dynamics for a network of individual agents subject to multiple
sources of influence. Our general framework is set in the context of an
impending natural disaster, where individuals, represented by nodes on the
network, must decide whether or not to evacuate. Sources of influence include a
one-to-many externally driven global broadcast as well as pairwise
interactions, across links in the network, in which agents transmit either
continuous opinions or binary actions. We consider both uniform and variable
threshold rules on the individual opinion as baseline models for
decision-making. Our results indicate that 1) social networks lead to
clustering and cohesive action among individuals, 2) binary information
introduces high temporal variability and stagnation, and 3) information
transmission over the network can either facilitate or hinder action adoption,
depending on the influence of the global broadcast relative to the social
network. Our framework highlights the essential role of local interactions
between agents in predicting collective behavior of the population as a whole.Comment: 14 pages, 7 figure
Big data in higher education: an action research on managing student engagement with business intelligence
This research aims to explore the value of Big Data in student engagement management. It presents an action research on applying BI in a UK higher education institution that has developed and implemented a student engagement tracking system (SES) for better student engagement management. The SES collects data from various sources, including RFID tracking devices across many locations in the campus and student online activities. This public funded research project has enhanced the current SES with BI solutions and raised awareness on the value of the Big Data in improving student experience. The action research concerns with the organizational wide development and deployment of Intelligent Student Engagement System involving a diverse range of stakeholders. The activities undertaken to date have revealed interesting findings and implications for advancing our understanding and research in leveraging the benefit of the Big Data in Higher Education from a socio-technical perspective
Citizen participation and awareness raising in coastal protected areas. A case study from Italy
In this chapter, part of the research carried out within the SECOA project
(www.projectsecoa.eu) is presented. Attention is devoted to methods and tools used for
supporting the participatory process in a case of environmental conflict related to the definition
of boundaries of a coastal protected area: the Costa Teatina National Park, in Abruzzo, central
Italy. The Costa Teatina National Park was established by the National Law 93/2001. Its territory
includes eight southern Abruzzo municipalities and covers a stretch of coastline of approximately
60 km. It is a coastal protected area, which incorporates land but not sea, characterized by the
presence of important cultural and natural assets. The Italian Ministry of Environment (1998)
defines the area as âwinding and varied, with the alternation of sandy and gravel beaches, cliffs,
river mouths, areas rich in indigenous vegetation and cultivated lands (mainly olives), dunes and
forest treesâ. The park boundaries were not defined by the law that set it up, and their
determination has been postponed to a later stage of territorial negotiation that has not ended yet
(Montanari and Staniscia, 2013). The definition of the park boundaries, indeed, has resulted in an
intense debate between citizens and interest groups who believe that environmental protection
does not conflict with economic growth and those who believe the opposite. That is why the
process is still in act and a solution is far from being reached. In this chapter, the methodology
and the tools used to involve the general public in active participation in decision making and to
support institutional players in conflict mitigation will be presented. Those tools have also proven
to be effective in the dissemination of information and transfer of knowledge. Results obtained
through the use of each instrument will not be presented here since this falls outside the purpose
of the present essay. The chapter is organized as follows: in the first section the importance of the
theme of citizen participation in decision making will be highlighted; the focus will be on
participation in the processes of ICZM, relevant to the management of coastal protected areas. In
the second section a review of the most commonly used methods in social research is presented;
advantages and disadvantages of each of them will be highlighted. In particular, the history and
the evolution of the Delphi method and its derivatives are discussed; focus will be on the
dissemination value of the logic underlying such iterative methods. In the third section the tools
used in the case of the Costa Teatina National Park will be presented; strengths and weaknesses
will be highlighted and proposals for their improvement will be advanced. Discussion and
conclusions follow
- âŠ