Reshaping the Museum of Zoology in Rome by Visual Storytelling and Interactive Iconography

This article summarizes the concept of a new immersive and interactive setting for the Zoology Museum in Rome, Italy. The concept, co-designed with all the museum’s curators, is aimed at enhancing the experiential involvement of the visitors by visual storytelling and interactive iconography. Thanks to immersive and interactive technologies designed by Centro Studi Logos, developed by Logosnet and known as e-REALâ and MirrorMeä, zoological findings and memoirs come to life and interact directly with the visitors in order to deepen their understanding, visualize stories and live experiences, and interact with the founder of the Museum (Mr. Arrigoni degli Oddi) who is now a virtualized avatar, or digital human, able to talk with the visitors. All the interactions are powered through simple hand gestures and, in a few cases, vocal inputs that transform into recognized commands from multimedia systems

Exploring the experiences of instructors teaching massive open online courses in tourism and hospitality: a mixed methods approach

Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have existed as a disruptive educational phenomenon for nine years. Grounded in the roots of distance education, open education, Open Educational Resources, and OpenCourseWare, MOOCs have now survived various critics and have continued growing globally. Reports about MOOCs in both the press and scholarly publications began to grow significantly in 2013 (Sánchez-Vera, Leon Urrutia, & Davis, 2015; Zancanaro & Domingues, 2017) and, since then, more and more researchers have joined the discussions, developing them to explore various new topics. To contribute to the literature of MOOC studies, this doctoral thesis begins with an in-depth analysis of the background, history, growth, and vision, and proposes a tentative definition of MOOCs. Meanwhile, by conducting bibliometric research to review MOOC studies conducted between 2015 and 2017, this thesis fills in the gap that has existed due to a lack of systematic reviews of MOOC literature since 2015. The results of the bibliometric research summarised the relevant MOOC research into nine categories, including learner focused, commentary and concepts, case reports or evaluations, pedagogy, curriculum and design, course object focused, provider focused, technology, systematic review of literature, and learning analytics and big data. They also suggested a limited amount of provider focused research, which became the research interest and focus of this thesis. In the centre of the Europe, Swiss universities have marched forward in the MOOC movement, together with other over 550 universities (Shah, 2016) around the world. Università della Svizzera italiana (USI; Lugano, Switzerland), a Swiss public university, became a MOOC provider in 2015 and offered the first MOOC in the topic of eTourism: eTourism: Communication Perspectives. This doctoral thesis is closely related to this university-level initiative, which was dedicated to producing the first pilot MOOC at USI. Therefore, the cases chosen by this thesis are positioned in the discipline of tourism and hospitality. The first MOOC with a large audience taught artificial intelligence in 2011 (Zancanaro & Domingues, 2017). Nowadays, MOOCs have broken the barrier of space and time to educate the masses in a wide range of subjects. However, the provision of MOOCs in the subject of tourism and hospitality did not appear until 2013, when two MOOCs from two American universities became available. In the past four years since these MOOCs were launched, the number of tourism and hospitality MOOCs available in the market has remained limited (Tracey, Murphy, & Horton-Tognazzini, 2016). This scarcity contradicts the fact that tourism and hospitality is the field that contributes the most to the employment of the global workforce. Pressing problems, such as high turnover, seasonality, and new global challenges have urged for solutions to quickly training people working in this area to become available (Cantoni, Kalbaska, & Inversini, 2009). A call for more studies about tourism and hospitality MOOCs has emerged. The combined reality of the lack of studies regarding MOOC providers, opportunities for first-hand experience of producing a tourism MOOC in a university, and the deficiency in both the research and practises of tourism and hospitality MOOCs has inspired the direction of this thesis in regard to exploring MOOC instructors’ experiences, using cases in the field of tourism and hospitality. It cumulates six studies, using a mixed methods approach, to tackle the two main research objectives: to investigate at large the tourism and hospitality MOOC provisions between 2008 and 2015 and to report the experiences of Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) when producing the eTourism MOOC. In order, the first two studies in Chapter 3 of this thesis focus on tourism and hospitality MOOCs in general and produce a big picture context for the other four studies in Chapter 4. The first study proposes a conceptual framework through which to describe and analyse the course design of a MOOC and applies it to 18 tourism and hospitality MOOCs produced between 2008 and 2015. The second study then continues to interview six tourism and hospitality MOOC instructors, to describe their experiences and perspectives of teaching MOOCs. After exploring a holistic view of the overall development of MOOCs in tourism and hospitality and gaining a deep understanding of the instructors behind these offerings, this thesis introduces the experiences of one single MOOC provider: Università della Svizzera italiana (USI) in Chapter 4. It first introduces its overall implementation process (Study 3), and further elaborates three phases of this process: how it selected a suitable MOOC platform at the beginning (Study 4); how it assessed learner engagement in the MOOC (Study 5); and, eventually, how it evaluated the performance of the MOOC (Study 6). This thesis was written mainly from the perspective of eLearning, with the intention of benefiting its community of scholars and practitioners. It has contributed to the literature by developing a framework with which to review MOOCs (in Study 1), the implementation process of producing MOOCs (in Study 2), practical review schema of MOOC platforms (in Study 4), the MOOC Learner Engagement Online Survey (in Study 5), and how to use the Kirkpatrick model to evaluate MOOCs (in Study 6). These conceptual frameworks and experiential tools can benefit future researchers and practitioners. Meanwhile, due to its intimate connection with the field of tourism and hospitality, by directly using its cases, the research outputs of the six studies can also benefit the tourism and hospitality education and training sector as a reference for further action

Building Bridges, Blurring Boundaries: The Milwaukee School in Environment-Behavior Studies

Along with the 40th anniversary of the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the 30th anniversary of our Ph.D. Program in Architecture represents another important benchmark in educational excellence. As one of the pioneering PhD programs in architecture dedicated to understanding the relationship between people and place, its influence has been considerable. Its 51 (and counting) graduates teach in architectural design and allied fields at major institutes and practice throughout the world. Their intellectual contributions, and those of the faculty, continue to shape Environment-Behavior Studies and the discipline of architecture as a whole. This book, a tribute to the many excellent students who have shared the Milwaukee experience, is a testament to their collective input for the design of settings for health care, education, the workplace, older people, and communities, and their insights about the role well-designed environments contribute to the quality of people’s lives.https://dc.uwm.edu/sarup_facbooks/1000/thumbnail.jp

The drivers of Corporate Social Responsibility in the supply chain. A case study.

Purpose: The paper studies the way in which a SME integrates CSR into its corporate strategy, the practices it puts in place and how its CSR strategies reflect on its suppliers and customers relations. Methodology/Research limitations: A qualitative case study methodology is used. The use of a single case study limits the generalizing capacity of these findings. Findings: The entrepreneur’s ethical beliefs and value system play a fundamental role in shaping sustainable corporate strategy. Furthermore, the type of competitive strategy selected based on innovation, quality and responsibility clearly emerges both in terms of well defined management procedures and supply chain relations as a whole aimed at involving partners in the process of sustainable innovation. Originality/value: The paper presents a SME that has devised an original innovative business model. The study pivots on the issues of innovation and eco-sustainability in a context of drivers for CRS and business ethics. These values are considered fundamental at International level; the United Nations has declared 2011 the “International Year of Forestry”

Factors Influencing Customer Satisfaction towards E-shopping in Malaysia

Online shopping or e-shopping has changed the world of business and quite a few people have decided to work with these features. What their primary concerns precisely and the responses from the globalisation are the competency of incorporation while doing their businesses. E-shopping has also increased substantially in Malaysia in recent years. The rapid increase in the e-commerce industry in Malaysia has created the demand to emphasize on how to increase customer satisfaction while operating in the e-retailing environment. It is very important that customers are satisfied with the website, or else, they would not return. Therefore, a crucial fact to look into is that companies must ensure that their customers are satisfied with their purchases that are really essential from the ecommerce’s point of view. With is in mind, this study aimed at investigating customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia. A total of 400 questionnaires were distributed among students randomly selected from various public and private universities located within Klang valley area. Total 369 questionnaires were returned, out of which 341 questionnaires were found usable for further analysis. Finally, SEM was employed to test the hypotheses. This study found that customer satisfaction towards e-shopping in Malaysia is to a great extent influenced by ease of use, trust, design of the website, online security and e-service quality. Finally, recommendations and future study direction is provided. Keywords: E-shopping, Customer satisfaction, Trust, Online security, E-service quality, Malaysia

The appraisal of Facebook online community: An exposition of mobile commerce in social media reviews

Peer reviewe

A cloud-based collaborative virtual learning environment for the higher education institutions in the Sultanate of Oman.

Advances in cloud computing have made it possible for collaborative environments to be developed for educational services. However, some HEIs are still using traditional VLE tools which receive minimal utilisation by users mostly for uploading and downloading course materials. This study focuses on challenges and concerns that limit or even prohibit the use of a cloud-based collaborative virtual learning environment (CBCVLE). More specifically, this study considers the influences of Omani culture upon utilisation of CBCVLEs. A mixed methods research approach is adopted which includes a preliminary study, a questionnaire-based survey, and a set of interviews. The issues are identified by reviewing the related literature and the surveys and grouping them under five headings: (1) ICT infrastructure and services, (2) operational environment, (3) user’s experience and expectations, (4) factors affecting the use and acceptance, and (5) cultural influences. The findings indicate lack of sufficient ICT infrastructure and services, as well as insufficient financial resources in some higher education institutions for establishing their own ICT infrastructures. Moreover, the findings highlight users’ experience as an important influence for utilisation of CBCVLEs. Regarding the operational environment, a wide range of concerns and challenges are identified by participants in the surveys. A number of issues are found to have an effect on the use of VLE tools and collaborative environments. Factors affecting the use and acceptance of a CBCVLE are also identified and classified as motivators or deterrents. Most importantly, cultural influences are found to be critical and vital for the use of CBCVLE. Family, religion, language, customs and traditions and gender can have a critical effect on users’ participation in collaborative projects. The study’s findings contribute to a better understanding and promotion of high utilisation and acceptance of CBCVLEs. A novel framework is proposed which incorporates key elements and their relationships associated with a cloud-based collaborative environment. The framework aims to mitigate issues and factors influencing low utilisation and the acceptance of CBCVLEs

Strategy as evolving interpretation: a closer look at the organisational impact of the Euro

Recent strategy formation process literature has claimed organisations increasingly have to adjust dynamically their characteristics to the requirements of the environment by constantly changing their strategies and strategic capabilities (e.g. Brown & Eisenhardt, 1997; Bartlett & Ghoshal, 1998; Mintzberg, 1994). Behind these claims lies the interest to develop an interdisciplinary view of strategy that captures the interplay between the company and its business environment. This thesis makes a marked contribution to this debate by arguing that a key component in a firm’s strategic response to a change in market conditions is the result of the interpretation people develop about the event itself. It is argued that this development is a context dependent process, with outcomes emerging not merely as a product of bounded rational debates, but also shaped by the interest, commitment, and perception of individual organisational members. This study therefore argues that an understanding of the development of this cognition/action relationship is critical. This research seeks to shed light on the question: “How do managers of multinational firms perceive and respond to the impact of the Euro over time?” A qualitative case study methodology was used to examine the context dependent cognition/action relationship in eight multinational organisations by tracing the intended strategy before the event took place, and compare it with the realised strategy after the Euro was introduced. In total 87 interviews and 16 focus group discussions were conducted to capture the plausible and coherent explanations. Our study suggests the probability of firms introducing new strategies quickly and proactively depends on the anticipation, interpretation and capability of managers to recognise and to exploit changes. Motivation to do so is based on the perceived match or mismatch of the developments with the strategy in use prior to change

Towards a Model of Follower Development: Exploring the Success Differentials in Leader and Follower Development Outcomes as Experienced by Bankers in Nigeria.

The aim of this qualitative study was to understand the leader and follower development experiences of middle-level managers in the Nigerian banking industry regarding developing followers into leaders. I used two research questions to explore the perception and treatment of followers and the levels of leader and follower development as influences on the development of followers into leaders. The research was set in Nigeria, with a purposive sample of middle-level managers in the Nigerian banking industry. I used a descriptive phenomenological technique to conduct long, deep interviews with 12 middle-level managers via Zoom video and then transcribed them with Otter.ai software. My findings indicate that followers are treated very poorly in the Nigerian banking sector and are perceived as work tools and people with no choice by industry leaders. In addition, leader development is prioritized over follower development, which has been relegated to academic and job-specific training programs that lack leadership skills development. Followers are not intentionally and strategically developed into leaders but rather leaders emerge from those who meet deposit mobilization targets. Banks use the funds mobilized to build their asset base and for trading and lending. Leader development is prioritized, and despite being undertaken through expensive offshore executive training programs, outcomes of the learning points from these programs are not being applied to improve organizations in the industry and their staff because of the leaders’ lackadaisical attitude toward training attendance. The followers, however, attain valuable outcomes from their training programs, which help with performance appraisal and service improvement processes