Designing Support to Facilitate Learning in Powerful Electronic Learning Environments

This themed issue reflects current developments in instructional design for powerful electronic learning environments. It presents a compilation of contributions to a combined special interest group (sig) meeting (2006) of Instructional Design and Learning and Instruction with Computers. Both sigs are part of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI). The sig-meeting focused on the design of powerful electronic learning environments for complex learning. The articles in this issue describe how to design support to help learners during complex individual or collaborative learning. This introduction provides the context for the issue and a short overview of the contributions

Introduction special issue : considerations and recommendations for reporting on writing interventions in research publications

This article is an introduction to the special issue on how to report on writing interventions in research publications. The six contributions included in this special issue systematically describe a broad range of writing interventions aimed at learning to write in primary, secondary, and higher education. Based on these contributions and on earlier recommendations of scholars in the field of writing intervention research, we established a set of recommendations for reporting key elements of writing interventions. These elements include characteristics of the context of the intervention, theories and/orempirical studies of writing, learning to write and teaching writing, and design principles of the intervention at both a macro and micro-level. These recommendations can be considered as a checklist for authors, reviewers, and editors when reporting or reviewing intervention studies

The Comparative Politics of Colonialism and Its Legacies: An Introduction

What are the causes and consequences of colonial rule? This introduction to the special issue "Comparative Politics of Colonialism and Its Legacies" surveys recent literature in political science, sociology, and economics that addresses colonial state building and colonial legacies. Past research has made important contributions to our understanding of colonialism's long-term effects on political, social, and economic development. Existing work emphasizes the role of critical junctures and institutions in understanding the transmission of those effects to present-day outcomes and embraces the idea of design-based inference for empirical analysis. The four articles of this special issue add to existing research but also represent new research trends: increased attention to (1) the internal dynamics of colonial intervention; (2) noninstitutional transmission mechanisms; (3) the role of context conditions at times of colonial intervention; and (4) a finer-grained disaggregation of outcomes, explanatory factors, and units of analysis

Current Perspectives on Research Ethics in Qualitative Research

In this article, we provide a brief introduction to the special issue on research ethics in qualitative research. We describe the general context within which our idea emerged to organize a special issue and present its design and, for purposes of transparency, some particulars with respect to the selection and review process. We sketch some of the common themes that are shared across parts of the paper set, including critical analysis of ethics codes and ethics reviews, the intricacies of informed consent, confidentiality and anonymity in qualitative research and questions of vulnerability

Paying attention: Toward a critique of the attention economy

This is the introduction to the special issue of Culture Machine co-edited by the authors and drawn from the 2010 conference of the same name co-convened by the Digital Cultures Research Centre for the European Science Foundaiton (see www.payingattention.org). At 10,000 words it represents a substantial rescoping of and re-engagement in critical examinations of the attention economy in the context of today's rapidly emerging realtime, ubiquitous, online digital technoculture. The introductory essay reviews the major formulations of attention and experience as economic, cultural and design themes (from Goldhaber, Beller and Franck to the more recent neo-marxist (Terranova, Marrazzi, Lazzarato) and neurologically informed approaches (Hayles, Malabou). it then lays out the ground of the special issues updating and re-focussing of this work on the current and emerging digital technocultural media sphere of smart devices, the pervasive mediation of experience, and the massive financial speculation in the attention capturing potential of social networking media. the special issue includes an interview by Kinsley with Peer2peer co-founder, Michel Bauwens, and essays by key theorists of attention Jonathan Beller, Bernard Stiegler, Tiziana Terranova, and several papers on topics from Facebook, Free and Open Software, the ecological costs of our attentional technics, to the problematic role of digital social networking in Istanbul's recent European City project

Guest Editorial. The Role of Gesture in Designing

International audienceThis paper introduces the special issue of AIEDAM on the role of gesture in designing. It starts with the context of the papers submitted and a summary of the papers accepted. We then introduce gesture studies, one of the two main domains with which this special issue is concerned. We do not introduce design research: we suppose the readers of AIEDAM are familiar with this domain. After this general introduction to the domain of gesture studies, we provide an overview of gestures in design, that is, the research environment of the papers in this special issue. We then discuss some dimensions on which these papers differ---and are related.Cet article constitue l'introduction à ce numéro spécial d'AIEDAM sur le rôle du geste dans la conception. Il commence avec une présentation du contexte des textes soumis et un résumé des articles acceptés. Nous introduisons ensuite les études sur le geste, l'un des deux principaux domaines auxquels ce numéro spécial est dédié. Nous n'introduisons pas la recherche sur la conception: nous supposons que les lecteurs d'AIEDAM sont familiers avec ce domaine. Après cette introduction générale, nous donnons un aperçu des gestes dans la conception, qui est le contexte de recherche des articles dans ce numéro spécial. Nous discutons ensuite des dimensions sur lesquelles ces textes diffèrent - et sont liés

Emissions trading in China: emerging experiences and international lessons

China has implemented emissions trading schemes in seven cities and provinces, and is planning a national cap-and-trade scheme. The seven pilot schemes show marked differences in design and operate in very diverse economic circumstances. Challenges encountered in the pilot schemes include the risk of over-allocation of emissions permits, unpredictable underlying growth trends, robust measurement and verification procedures, and the interaction with regulation in the energy sector. In addition, experiences from developed countries’ emissions trading schemes, in particular the EU ETS, can help inform the decisions about the design of a future Chinese national scheme. We find that Chinese policymakers will need to pay particular attention to the operation of emissions trading in a heavily regulated electricity sector. Setting emission caps in the context of a national emissions intensity target creates specific difficulties. Related price developments are uncertain and depend largely on underlying emissions growth rates. The option of auctioning permits and using the proceeds for other purposes is not taken into consideration extensively. Finally, implementing reliable systems for monitoring, reporting and verification of emissions remains a major task. This paper serves as an introduction to the special issue “Emissions trading in China” and draws on insights from the papers in the special issue.Grants by the Robert Bosch Foundation under the program “Sustainable Partners—Partners for Sustainability”, the Australian Research Council and the Australian government supported different parts of the project

Agricultural Structures and Mechanization

In our globalized world, the need to produce quality and safe food has increased exponentially in recent decades to meet the growing demands of the world population. This expectation is being met by acting at multiple levels, but mainly through the introduction of new technologies in the agricultural and agri-food sectors. In this context, agricultural, livestock, agro-industrial buildings, and agrarian infrastructure are being built on the basis of a sophisticated design that integrates environmental, landscape, and occupational safety, new construction materials, new facilities, and mechanization with state-of-the-art automatic systems, using calculation models and computer programs. It is necessary to promote research and dissemination of results in the field of mechanization and agricultural structures, specifically with regard to farm building and rural landscape, land and water use and environment, power and machinery, information systems and precision farming, processing and post-harvest technology and logistics, energy and non-food production technology, systems engineering and management, and fruit and vegetable cultivation systems. This Special Issue focuses on the role that mechanization and agricultural structures play in the production of high-quality food and continuously over time. For this reason, it publishes highly interdisciplinary quality studies from disparate research fields including agriculture, engineering design, calculation and modeling, landscaping, environmentalism, and even ergonomics and occupational risk prevention

Old and New Challenges for Welfare Regimes: A Global Perspective

Purpose This paper presents an introduction to the special issue titled “Old and New Challenges for Welfare Regimes: A Global Perspective” Design/methodology/approach The authors of the special issue combine case studies and comparative analysis across America, Asia, Africa and Europe. The authors were invited to develop their studies with a focus on one or more of three axes: (1) Institutional and governance challenges surrounding the implementation and expansion of social welfare programs; (2) State of the art and diversity across emerging welfare states; (3) Challenges associated with migration and demographic pressures. Findings Articles in this special issue contribute to our understanding of recent challenges and transformations of welfare regimes, with special attention to the following policy areas: youth-emancipation, the reduction of poverty and income inequality, social protection and taxation, the role of historical institutionalism to better understand social policy implementation and expansion, the lack of transformative social protection in ‘New Right’ governments, determinants of social equality and the transformative effect of migration into welfare states. Originality To our knowledge, the existing publications on transformations and challenges of welfare regimes are still very much centered around a Western-European context. The global perspective and diversity of policy areas covered aims to shed light on the important lessons and policy implications from less traditional welfare state

Race and place

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to introduce the special issue on Race and Place. Design/methodology/approach The approach used by the authors is to combine an overview of sociological debates on place within a framework that makes the case for a relational approach to race, space and place. Findings The overview provides an account of place in sociology, of the relationality of race and place, and the making of race and place in sociological work. Originality/value The Introduction sets the papers in context, providing a short account of each of them; it also aims to present an argument for attention to race and place in sociology in a setting characterised by racism and reaction. Keywords Racism, Space, Relational, Post-racial, Racializatio