Slacktivists or Activists?: Identity Work in the Virtual Disability March

Protests are important social forms of activism, but can be inaccessible to people with disabilities. Online activism, like the 2017 Disability March, has provided alternative venues for involvement in accessible protesting and social movements. In this study, we use identity theory as a lens to understand why and how disabled activists engaged in an online movement, and its impact on their self-concepts. We interviewed 18 disabled activists about their experiences with online protesting during the Disability March. Respondents' identities (as both disabled individuals and as activists) led them to organize or join the March, evolved alongside the group's actions, and were reprioritized or strained as a result of their involvement. Our findings describe the values and limitations of this activism to our respondents, highlight the tensions they perceived about their activist identities, and present opportunities to support further accessibility and identity changes by integrating technology into their activist experiences

Multi-level governance of natural resources: tools and processes for water and biodiversity governance in Europe - a European research and training network

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Assessing Communities of Practice in health policy : A conceptual framework as a first step towards empirical research

Peer reviewe

Ethnography, education and on-line research

This paper is an attempt to establish the methodological basis for carrying out ethnographies of online education communities, in particular in the Continuing Professional Development VITAL project co-ordinated by the Faculty of Education and Language Studies at The Open University www.vital.ac.uk/ A much shorter earlier draft version of this paper was given at the Qualitative Research For Web 2.0/3.0: The Next Leap! 25 & 26 March 2010 in Berlin. Organised by Merlien. The arguments and references in this paper are almost all to be found in two books 'one authored and one edited – by Professor Christine Hine of Surrey University, UK (Hine 2000; Hine 2005)

A business model perspective for ICTs in public engagement

This is the post-print version of the Article. The official published article can be accessed from the link below - Copyright @ 2012 ElsevierPublic institutions, in their efforts to promote meaningful citizen engagement, are increasingly looking at the democratic potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Previous studies suggest that such initiatives seem to be impeded by socio-technical integration barriers such as low sustainability, poor citizen acceptance, coordination difficulties, lack of understanding and failure to assess their impact. Motivated by these shortcomings, the paper develops and applies a business model perspective as an interceding framework for analysis and evaluation. The underlying principle behind this approach is that it is not technology per se which determines success, but rather the way in which the businessmodel of the technological artifact is configured and employed to achieve the strategic goals. The business model perspective is empirically demonstrated with the case of an online petitioning system implemented by a UK local authority. The case illustrates the importance of considering ICTs in public engagement from a holistic view to make them more manageable and assessable

Towards improved performance and interoperability in distributed and physical union catalogues

Purpose of this paper: This paper details research undertaken to determine the key differences in the performance of certain centralised (physical) and distributed (virtual) bibliographic catalogue services, and to suggest strategies for improving interoperability and performance in, and between, physical and virtual models. Design/methodology/approach: Methodically defined searches of a centralised catalogue service and selected distributed catalogues were conducted using the Z39.50 information retrieval protocol, allowing search types to be semantically defined. The methodology also entailed the use of two workshops comprising systems librarians and cataloguers to inform suggested strategies for improving performance and interoperability within both environments. Findings: Technical interoperability was permitted easily between centralised and distributed models, however the various individual configurations permitted only limited semantic interoperability. Significant prescription in cataloguing and indexing guidelines, greater participation in the Program for Collaborative Cataloging (PCC), consideration of future 'FRBR' migration, and greater disclosure to end users are some of the suggested strategies to improve performance and semantic interoperability. Practical implications: This paper informs the LIS research community and union catalogue administrators, but also has numerous practical implications for those establishing distributed systems based on Z39.50 and SRW, as well as those establishing centralised systems. What is original/value of the paper?: The paper moves the discussion of Z39.50 based systems away from anecdotal evidence and provides recommendations based on testing and is intimately informed by the UK cataloguing and systems librarian community

New Frontiers of Social Investment: Learning from the InterCement Experience

This is a case study done by the Dom Cabral Foundation evaluating the presence of Camargo Corrêa Institute programs and InterCement company Camargo Corrêa Group, in the municipality of Pedro Leopoldo (MG)