98 research outputs found
Design interventions for re-conceptualising sustainable graphic design practices in Ghana
Thesis (DTech (Design))--Cape Peninsula University of Technology, 2019This research explored and examined graphic design practices through the lens of the Sustainability Development Analytical Grid. The exploration was meant to discover how graphic design practices are carried out - from idea inception to the delivery stage of graphic design products - in a developing nation. The essence of the exploration was to understand how graphic designers make design decisions and the effects of these design decisions in the pre-press, press and post-press activities from a sustainability perspective. In the examination, the first task was to probe the identified graphic design practices using the selected sustainability framework, to ascertain what the challenges are to sustainability in graphic design practices. The second task was to explore sustainable, emerging-design interventions and match them to the identified challenges within the same graphic design community. This served as a means for re-conceptualising sustainable graphic design for purposes of best practice in a particular developing nation. This research, thus, advances that aside from the environmental dimension, the social and economic dimensions of sustainability are also integral parts of sustainability, and thus the holistic nature of sustainability should be recognised as such in sustainable graphic design.
In the research study, empathic, contextual and ethnographic human-centred approaches were deployed through the interpretivist paradigm. The selected human-centred approaches were used with the aid of an amalgamation of the Sustainability Development Analytical Grid and Activity Theory to examine graphic design practices from a graphic design production perspective. Qualitative research methods were used. The data-gathering tools used were participant observation, interviews and document reviews to interrogate the nature of graphic design practices, the challenges to sustainability and the emerging-design interventions used by some designers to counter the challenges to sustainability. The research site was Asafo, a suburb of Kumasi in Ghana. The selected samples were four graphic design firms, 30 graphic designers, 15 creative directors, 30 clients and 30 graphic design products, all were selected purposively.
The results revealed several challenges to sustainability in graphic design practices such as lack of knowledge on proper disposal of printing machine chemicals, poor choice of printing paper without environmental considerations and weak ethics in the promotion of unapproved graphic design packages for food products. On the other hand, there were local, emerging-design interventions within the same graphic design community developed by the designers that countered most of the challenges to sustainability. The local design interventions supported the concept of cosmopolitan localism that gives graphic designers room to develop solutions that are local but have global essence. The study proposes that the future of holistic sustainable graphic design lies in local design interventions, implying that the developing nations have alternative solutions to their problems and must be allowed to develop their resilience through innovation
Information Security Governance Simplified
Security practitioners must be able to build cost-effective security programs while also complying with government regulations. Information Security Governance Simplified: From the Boardroom to the Keyboard lays out these regulations in simple terms and explains how to use control frameworks to build an air-tight information security (IS) program and governance structure. Defining the leadership skills required by IS officers, the book examines the pros and cons of different reporting structures and highlights the various control frameworks available. It details the functions of the security department and considers the control areas, including physical, network, application, business continuity/disaster recover, and identity management. Todd Fitzgerald explains how to establish a solid foundation for building your security program and shares time-tested insights about what works and what doesnât when building an IS program. Highlighting security considerations for managerial, technical, and operational controls, it provides helpful tips for selling your program to management. It also includes tools to help you create a workable IS charter and your own IS policies. Based on proven experience rather than theory, the book gives you the tools and real-world insight needed to secure your information while ensuring compliance with government regulations
The Localisation of Video Games
The present thesis is a study of the translation of video games with a particular emphasis on
the Spanish-English language pair, although other languages are brought into play when they offer a
clearer illustration of a particular point in the discussion. On the one hand, it offers a
descriptive analysis of the video game industry understood as a global phenomenon in entertainment,
with the aim of understanding the norms governing present game development and publishing
practices. On the other hand, it discusses particular translation issues that seem to be unique to
these entertainment products due to their multichannel and polysemiotic nature, in which verbal and
nonverbal signs are intimately interconnected in search of maximum game interactivity.
Although this research positions itself within the theoretical framework of Descriptive Translation
Studies, it actually goes beyond the mere accounting of current processes to propose changes
whenever professional practice seems to be unable to rid itself of old unsatisfactory habits. Of a
multidisciplinary nature, the present thesis is greatly informed by various areas of knowledge such
as audiovisual translation, software localisation, computer assisted translation and translation
memory tools, comparative literature, and video game production and marketing, amongst others.
The conclusions are an initial breakthrough in terms of research into this new area, challenging
some of the basic tenets current in translation studies thanks to its multidisciplinary approach,
and its solid grounding on current game localisation industry practice. The results can be useful
in order to boost professional quality and to promote the
training of translators in video game localisation in higher education centres.Open Acces
Providing computer-assisted, two-way feedback in formative assessment: an innovation supporting best educational practice
This thesis presents the design and development of an educational ICT innovation called the Quality Assessment System (QAS), intended to: increase the speed of providing useful, legible and consistent feedback, enhance student engagement in the analysis and improvement of their own work, and provide an easily-accessible, cumulative history of completed tasks and feedback.
The QAS has been developed to a proof-of-concept stage as a Microsoft Word add-in, which can be used on digital or handwritten work, and has functions to administer resubmissions.
The prototype system was evaluated at a tertiary institution in the field of English for Speakers of Other Languages. I used observations, interview methods, and a Wizard-of-Oz experiment to simulate full use of the software.
The research found that:
- the QAS could foster the rapid provision of consistent, clear feedback;
- the facility to provide digital feedback on handwritten work safeguarded the desire of some students to continue writing their tasks by hand;
- the handling of resubmitted tasks and the comparison of feedback on the first and second submissions (or any other pair of user-selected tasks) was considered very useful;
- some students were emotional attached to handwritten feedback and believed that feedback mediated by computer showed a lack of teacher care for the students;
- administrators believed the QAS would be useful for resolving student-teacher disputes, and as a tool to enhance the robustness of the quality self-assessment system the faculty adhered to.
While I acknowledge the need for caution in interpreting the fieldwork results of small samples, this research places systemisation tools such as the QAS firmly on the agenda for closer investigation
Texas Register
A weekly publication, the Texas Register serves as the journal of state agency rulemaking for Texas. Information published in the Texas Register includes proposed, adopted, withdrawn and emergency rule actions, notices of state agency review of agency rules, governor's appointments, attorney general opinions, and miscellaneous documents such as requests for proposals. After adoption, these rulemaking actions are codified into the Texas Administrative Code
Engaging Practice in Communication Education: Institutional Politics, Knowledge Economy, and State Power
A grave concern in communication education scholarship is that research in practice plays second fiddle to theory. Little is known about the phenomenology of practice in communication pedagogy, and how it shapes and is shaped by programmatic assessment in particular. This dissertation attempts to explore the complexity of practice in communication education in a non-Western culture. The project demonstrates that the organizational culture that gives rise to the work of communication program administrators is always filtered and enacted through the interplay of institutional politics, the global knowledge economy, and state power. Using two public universities in Ghana, I argue, based on interpretive ethnographic fieldwork, that communication education is undergoing a shift from an instrumentalist, objectivist paradigm to a humanistic pedagogy of critical awareness. The latter, however, remains, largely unmapped in the field. Using ideas of practice that meet at the intersection of phenomenology and critical theory, I show how discursive practices of communication faculty as well as regimes of control owned by the state shape knowledge work in this epistemic community. The crystallized data, i.e., direct participant observations, in-depth interviews with faculty, minutes, memos, and curricula of two communication departments, accreditation manuals, and legal and policy documents about higher education in Ghana, raise concerns to make communication education in that cultural space more Afrocentric. This move, I argue, is crucial for engendering the strategic partnership of African communication researchers in the web of global scholarship. To this end, I call for a pedagogy of transcultural competence informed by a dialectical calculus between local interests and global exigencies
The Kagiso-Shanduka trust educational innovation: an exploration of the initiation phase of the KST whole-school development model in the Free State province
A dissertation submitted to the University of the Witwatersrand
in fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Education
Johannesburg, 2018This study explored the initiation phase of the Kagiso-Shanduka Trust (KST) whole-schooldevelopment
model, which is implemented in Fezile Dabi (FD) education district in the Free
State Province, South Africa. The research was conceptualised and conducted between 2015
and 2016. I employed a qualitative research methodology and case-study approach to collect
data to answer my research questions. The data sources emerged from interviews conducted
with five participants who I purposively selected. They are executive members from KST and
a senior official from Fezile Dabi District in the Free State Department of Education. I
interviewed each participant separately at their places of work. The study identifies the nature
of processes and the factors that influenced the adoption of the KST W-SD model. I used the
concepts of engagement and mobilisation to unpack the processes and the factors in the
initiation phase of the KST W-SD model because they are key concepts that provides
descriptive data. These data point out the direction and intensity the change is taking and
determine the sustainability elements in the initiation of a change project. Engagement and
mobilisation are conscious efforts that bring about insights on the totality of a change project
and the adaptations instituted in the initiation phase of a change project. The following findings
emerged from the study: 1) there are conditions that gave rise to the need for the model, 2)the
model was conceptualised by each organisation individually (KT and FS), then in a dual
partnership (KST) and in a tripartite (PPP) through stakeholder engagement and mobilisation,
3) the descriptions fits the conceptualisation, 4)stakeholder engagement and mobilisation
created awareness, interest, problem solving opportunities and ownership during interactions
of partners, 5) the model was consequently consolidated with six elements, 6) the model
elements are integrated and provide a comprehensive package for whole school development,
and 7) the model is a product of investment on organisational capacities and capabilities
developed over a period of time as well as shared interest and purpose. It is recommended that
more research involving private, public partnerships be conducted more frequently on current
educational innovation models.MT 201
Northeastern Illinois University, 2014-2015
https://neiudc.neiu.edu/catalogs/1055/thumbnail.jp
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