Graduate Catalog 2014-2015

This catalog is an informative guide to graduate programs and other useful information about university services and policies

Enhancing the capabilities of small producers in developing countries to meet global challenges: an investigation into the contribution of international craft development initiatives.

Worldwide, externally supported craft development initiatives aim to enhance the capability of local craft producers to succeed in globalized markets. However, the contribution that these organizations make towards the abilities of local actors remains unclear. Following a hermeneutic reflection on literature, empirical field experience derived from the African and South Pacific contexts and a multiple case study analysis of craft development organizations, the research investigates the pre-conceptions that lie behind approaches adopted in craft development initiatives. Two emerging elements of particular importance have been identified. Firstly, the Western ideological notion of craft, influenced particularly by the Arts and Crafts movement, and secondly the ethos of social design, built on the legacy of the appropriate technology movement. It is argued that both of these have a constraining impact on the development of indigenous design skills that underpin successful participation in global markets. Noting that craft covers a wide range of practices, the research at hand furthermore identifies a category of craft that has become the epitome of Non-Western craft. These decorative and exotic artifacts are labor-intensive to produce, making them only marginally profitable for the makers. Yet there is an apparent emphasis on the promotion of this category within international craft development initiatives. The research concludes that the current practice of craft development initiatives cannot fully contribute to the development of the response capability of the local craft producers. Enhancing the impact of these initiatives would require serious reconsideration of product strategies and a re-think of the premises under which initiatives are undertaken. A new approach is suggested, one that examines design within a framework of social, economic and ecological sustainability, taking into consideration such socio-cultural issues as the peoples right to economic freedoms and the use of capabilities, building on the work of the economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen

Enhancing the capabilities of small producers in developing countries to meet global challenges: an investigation into the contribution of international craft development initiatives.

Worldwide, externally supported craft development initiatives aim to enhance the capability of local craft producers to succeed in globalized markets. However, the contribution that these organizations make towards the abilities of local actors remains unclear. Following a hermeneutic reflection on literature, empirical field experience derived from the African and South Pacific contexts and a multiple case study analysis of craft development organizations, the research investigates the pre-conceptions that lie behind approaches adopted in craft development initiatives. Two emerging elements of particular importance have been identified. Firstly, the Western ideological notion of craft, influenced particularly by the Arts and Crafts movement, and secondly the ethos of social design, built on the legacy of the appropriate technology movement. It is argued that both of these have a constraining impact on the development of indigenous design skills that underpin successful participation in global markets. Noting that craft covers a wide range of practices, the research at hand furthermore identifies a category of craft that has become the epitome of Non-Western craft. These decorative and exotic artifacts are labor-intensive to produce, making them only marginally profitable for the makers. Yet there is an apparent emphasis on the promotion of this category within international craft development initiatives. The research concludes that the current practice of craft development initiatives cannot fully contribute to the development of the response capability of the local craft producers. Enhancing the impact of these initiatives would require serious reconsideration of product strategies and a re-think of the premises under which initiatives are undertaken. A new approach is suggested, one that examines design within a framework of social, economic and ecological sustainability, taking into consideration such socio-cultural issues as the peoples right to economic freedoms and the use of capabilities, building on the work of the economist and Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen

Digital Personalization in Early Childhood

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Digital personalization is an emerging interdisciplinary research field, with application to a variety of areas including design, education and publication industry. This book focuses on children’s education and literacy resources, which have undergone important changes with the ‘personalization revolution’ in the early 21st century. The author develops original insights from educational research and her own studies concerned with digital and non-digital personalization, to discuss in a clear and critical way the thinking, research issues and practical implications of this new field. She scrutinises the character of technology-based personalized education to substantiate the claim that the current models of personalized education tend to be technology- and business-driven, with little pedagogical understanding of the social value of personalization. Research involving touchscreens, personalized books and 2-8-year olds is interrogated for its impact on children’s development of language, creativity, identity, as well as family dynamics and classroom dialogue. The literature available on digital and non-digital personalization is discussed in relation to five key themes of personalized education, the so-called 5As: autonomy, authorship, aesthetics, attachment and authenticity. It is argued that the 5As need to be anchored in humanist principles for a sustainable pedagogy and practice. Based on the insights from research with typically and atypically developing children, Kucirkova proposes personalised pluralisation, as a pedagogical framework of personalized education for the future. The book aims to help scholars and professionals understand the connections between personalization and literacy, personalization and education, and personalization and wider socio-moral issues

REVIEWING OUTSOURCING CONTROVERSY IN INDONESIA (An Exploratory Study of Human Resources Outsourcing Practice in Semarang City)

Outsourcing in Indonesia is still a controversy. The different concept of outsourcing between employers (vendors and users), employees/outsourced workers, and government makes another problem in outsourcing implementation, especially in industrial relationship either in enterprise and macro level. This study aims to determine the concept of outsourcing of each element of the tripartite, the problems that arise in the implementation, and solutions from each party, in dealing with the practice of the working system. The problems under study, based on specific issues related to industrial relations, including: wages, welfare programs, health and safety, discrimination, job security, and dispute resolution, and termination of employment. This qualitative research is an exploratory, with the data collection methods: focus group discussions, observations, interviews, and study documentation. The data collected from employers (vendors and users), the national unions, worker outsourcing, and government within the scope of Semarang city. The results showed that the problems that arise due to differences in each party's conception of the tripartite elements. Uncertainty rules of outsourcing is a major problem, giving rise to labor flexibility in the implementation, which implies profitable for each party, especially the workers of outsourcing. In the end, the regulation enforcement related to the implementation of the outsourcing firm is badly needed, to compromise the disputes of workers and employer interests

In your hands & self-portrait:Introductory spatial design exercises in the first-year studio

This paper considers the discrepancies in the visual literacy of students prior to entering spatial design education at a public higher-educational institution. Because the school subjects Visual Arts and Engineering Graphics and Design provide feeder skills to visual literacy, students with exposure to these subjects tend to have higher visual literacy than students who are unlikely to have received exposure to these subjects. This is problematic because Visual Arts and Engineering Graphics and Design are not on offer in all public South African schools.As educators from a public higher-educational institution endeavouring to provide equitable learning opportunities, how do we, through spatial design education, relate to first-year students with an awareness of differences in student’readiness’ impacted by schooling opportunities? What role can spatial design exercises play in alleviating these discrepancies while engaging all students in the first-year studio

Hearing the Voices of the Deserters: Activist Critical Making in Electronic Literature

Critical making is an approach to scholarship which combines discursive methods with creative practices. The concept has recently gained traction in the digital humanities, where scholars are looking for ways of integrating making into their research in ways that are inclusive and empowering to marginalized populations. This dissertation explores how digital humanists can engage critical making as a form of activism in electronic literature, specifically in the interactive fiction platform Twine. The author analyzes the making process of her own activist Twine game The Deserters and embeds the project within digital humanities discourses on activism and social justice, hypertext, electronic literature, critical making, and hacker culture. The Deserters is a text-based digital game based on the experiences of the author\u27s family as refugees from East Germany. The player\u27s objective in the game is to research a family\u27s history by searching the game-world for authentic documents, including biographical writings, journal entries, photographs, and records, thereby retracing historical events through personal experience. The Deserters aims at inspiring a compassionate and empathetic stance towards immigrants and refugees today. The author reflects on the ethical, narrative, aesthetic, and technical choices she made throughout the creation process of The Deserters to create a critical activist game. The results of the analysis demonstrate that Twine offers a unique environment for composing politically impactful personal narratives. From the project, the author derives best practices for activist critical making, which emphasize the importance for makers to imagine the needs and perspectives of their audience. The work expands digital humanities\u27 theoretical and practical toolkit for critical making