Tele-education Process Modelling supported by the ODP Enterprise Viewpoint Language

This paper reports on applying the ODP enterprise viewpoint in the domain of tele-education. The work is conducted as part of a research activity that aims at designing a tele-education system to support planning, execution and evaluation of dynamic distributed educational processes. We explore the ODP enterprise viewpoint as a basis for communication and co-operation between educational scientists and ODP systems designers involved in the design process. Our application of the enterprise viewpoint involves four main steps. First, an educational language is proposed to describe educational processes in generic terms. Second, a set of appropriate enterprise language concepts is selected. Third, a relationship is established between the educational language and enterprise language concepts. Fourth, an educational process is modelled in terms of an entity-oriented model and a behaviour-oriented model. It is hoped that the experience gained in this exercise will provide useful feedback to both the educational and ODP communitie

The commodity chain of the household: from survey design to policy and practice

Data collection and analysis and policy formulation all require a social unit to be defined, generally called the household. Multidisciplinary evidence shows that households as defined by survey practitioners often bear little resemblance to lived socio-economic units. This study examines how a shared language, the 'household', can generate misunderstandings because different groups with distinctive understandings of the term 'household' are often unaware that others may be using ‘household’ differently. Results from 4 interlinked and iterative methods are presented: review of household survey documentation (1950s-present); ethnographic ground-truthing fieldwork; in-depth key informant interviews; and modelling. Results show that whereas data collectors have a clear idea of what a `household` is, data users are often unaware of the nuances of the constraints imposed by data collection. This has implications for policy planning and practice. What interviewees consider when they think of their household can differ systematically from data collectors' definitions

What is Specific about Art/Cultural Projects?

The present issue focuses on the contribution made by art/cultural initiatives to the development of multiple identity in some of the European cities having in mind the subjectivity of the artists and plurality of the surrounding cultures. The art/cultural projects (AES- Russia, Europe Art Train – Holland, Life Station – Austria and some others) with intercultural dimension have a special character to offer because: they are dealing with meaning, and enable dialogue between people in different social groups. The examples will be taken from different European countries, which aim to reinterpret the reality of life, to show, answer, and question its contradictions. The attention will be focused on their political, educational and aesthetic contribution to the community construction having in mind their desire for new intercultural policy and practices. Every artist crosses borders daily but those who choose to cross cultural borders (language, expression, music, tradition) enter into a fertile, but dangerous field. Artists do not aim specifically to produce multicultural work but since they are living in specific time, and since art is rooted in real life, the realities of everyday life are transposed into their work. This paper is fundamentally interested in the role that art projects can play in a modern society and promotes the initiative that links an artistic dimension to a form of interactive social urban situation. All projects are representing ‘laboratories’ that use public spaces. It is more than obvious that the social and the economic fields are not separated from the cultural one beside the tendency that is putting them in opposition as artists and the world rather than artists in the world. In the last two decades, the world of the arts has economised rapidly. Increasingly, artists have turned the economy into a subject of their own work. Art/cultural projects engage people’s creativity, and so lead to problem-solving. They encourage questioning, and the imagination of possible future actions. They offer self-expression, which is an essential characteristic of the active citizen. Some experiences from the art/cultural field are shifting attention towards the people themselves: their imagination, motivation, demands, fantasies and only then the city is becoming a cultural product, a community construction.Intercultural actions, Policy agenda, Art/cultural projects, Networking aspects