Open and Distance Learning for Basic Education in South Asia: its potential for hard-to-reach children and children in conflict and disaster areas: Bangladesh and Sri Lanka Country Studies

These are the country studies for the UNICEF funded project which explores the ways in which, in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka various forms of open and distance learning could be developed to better meet the needs of marginalised children and those affected by natural disaster (Bangladesh) and by conflict (Sri Lanka)

Commonly Used External TAM Variables in e-Learning, Agriculture and Virtual Reality Applications

In recent years information and communication technologies (ICT) have played a significant role in all aspects of modern society and have impacted socioeconomic development in sectors such as education, administration, business, medical care and agriculture. The benefits of such technologies in agriculture can be appreciated only if farmers use them. In order to predict and evaluate the adoption of these new technological tools, the technology acceptance model (TAM) can be a valid aid. This paper identifies the most commonly used external variables in e-learning, agriculture and virtual reality applications for further validation in an e-learning tool designed for EU farmers and agricultural entrepreneurs. Starting from a literature review of the technology acceptance model, the analysis based on Quality Function Deployment (QFD) shows that computer self-efficacy, individual innovativeness, computer anxiety, perceived enjoyment, social norm, content and system quality, experience and facilitating conditions are the most common determinants addressing technology acceptance. Furthermore, findings evidenced that the external variables have a different impact on the two main beliefs of the TAM Model, Perceived Usefulness (PU) and Perceived Ease of Use (PEOU). This study is expected to bring theoretical support for academics when determining the variables to be included in TAM extensions

Institutional Conditions for National Technology Capabilities: A Comparative Study of Technology Catch-up in Korea and Japan

What determines technology capabilities and catch-up of countries? Why do the patterns, speed and performance of innovation differ across countries? This thesis seeks to address these questions by linking institutional, organisational and sectoral features of innovation in Korea and Japan which are regarded as the most successful cases of technology catchup. Despite the widespread recognition that innovators are susceptible to institutional conditions and contextual influences, previous empirical studies have not used contextual factors as determinants of innovation. On the other hand, institutional analysis of innovation has addressed national diversity and historical patterns of change based on thick description and qualitative evidence. This thesis provides a new way of explaining the underlying of dynamics of innovation by empirically examining direct correlations between country-specific institutional characteristics and technology capabilities and by testing causal relationships between technology input and output. This thesis employs the national innovation system (NIS) and the late industrialiser perspectives to perform three sets of empirical analyses. The first indentifies key institutional and policy determinants of national technology capabilities based on five sets of cross-sectional data, consisting of 37 high-income countries and 32 middle-income countries. The second examines specific institutional conditions for causal relationships between technology input and output based on time-series data of Korea and Japan. The third investigates technological catchup occurrence, speed and performance to indentify productivity and technology gaps as well as delaying and contributing factors. The findings of the thesis have significant relevance to innovation strategy and policy of other catching-up countries in the process of building indigenous technology capabilities

Review of Environmental Monitoring by Means of Radio Waves in the Polar Regions: From Atmosphere to Geospace

The Antarctic and Arctic regions are Earth's open windows to outer space. They provide unique opportunities for investigating the troposphere–thermosphere–ionosphere–plasmasphere system at high latitudes, which is not as well understood as the mid- and low-latitude regions mainly due to the paucity of experimental observations. In addition, different neutral and ionised atmospheric layers at high latitudes are much more variable compared to lower latitudes, and their variability is due to mechanisms not yet fully understood. Fortunately, in this new millennium the observing infrastructure in Antarctica and the Arctic has been growing, thus providing scientists with new opportunities to advance our knowledge on the polar atmosphere and geospace. This review shows that it is of paramount importance to perform integrated, multi-disciplinary research, making use of long-term multi-instrument observations combined with ad hoc measurement campaigns to improve our capability of investigating atmospheric dynamics in the polar regions from the troposphere up to the plasmasphere, as well as the coupling between atmospheric layers. Starting from the state of the art of understanding the polar atmosphere, our survey outlines the roadmap for enhancing scientific investigation of its physical mechanisms and dynamics through the full exploitation of the available infrastructures for radio-based environmental monitoring

Citizen Science: Reducing Risk and Building Resilience to Natural Hazards

Natural hazards are becoming increasingly frequent within the context of climate change—making reducing risk and building resilience against these hazards more crucial than ever. An emerging shift has been noted from broad-scale, top-down risk and resilience assessments toward more participatory, community-based, bottom-up approaches. Arguably, non-scientist local stakeholders have always played an important role in risk knowledge management and resilience building. Rapidly developing information and communication technologies such as the Internet, smartphones, and social media have already demonstrated their sizeable potential to make knowledge creation more multidirectional, decentralized, diverse, and inclusive (Paul et al., 2018). Combined with technologies for robust and low-cost sensor networks, various citizen science approaches have emerged recently (e.g., Haklay, 2012; Paul et al., 2018) as a promising direction in the provision of extensive, real-time information for risk management (as well as improving data provision in data-scarce regions). It can serve as a means of educating and empowering communities and stakeholders that are bypassed by more traditional knowledge generation processes. This Research Topic compiles 13 contributions that interrogate the manifold ways in which citizen science has been interpreted to reduce risk against hazards that are (i) water-related (i.e., floods, hurricanes, drought, landslides); (ii) deep-earth-related (i.e., earthquakes and volcanoes); and (iii) responding to global environmental change such as sea-level rise. We have sought to analyse the particular failures and successes of natural hazards-related citizen science projects: the objective is to obtain a clearer understanding of “best practice” in a citizen science context

Adopting a Theory of Change Approach for ICT4D Project Impact Assessment - The Case of CMES Project

Part 1: Pushing the Boundaries - New Research Methods, Theory and Philosophy in ICT4DInternational audienceA compendium of impact assessment (IA) frameworks are available to understand the impact of ICT4D initiatives in Low Income Countries. However, existing frameworks do not adequately address the unique challenges of IA for ICT4D, especially the multi-level and time variant characteristics of the IA. To address these challenges, we propose the use of Theory of change (ToC) as a generic framework for IA of ICT4D projects. Based on the seminal work by Weiss [8], we argue that ToC can be viewed both as a methodology and a deep critical reflection process. We demonstrate the ToC approach for IA using a case study of an ICT4D project for LICs