Assessing the Performances of a Cultural Institution through Non-Financial Key Performance Indicators

This article aims to apply the Balanced Scorecard performance measurement tool to evaluate the activity of the Museum of History, Culture and Christian Spirituality from the Lower Danube, through indicators of a non-financial nature, grouped in three perspectives: educational, stakeholder satisfaction and organizational development. The Balanced Scorecard Designer software validates the fact that the Museum of Christian History, Culture and Spirituality from the Lower Danube is a museum that recorded high performance during the evaluated period, namely the first six months of the current year. The usefulness of this managerial tool has been proven in practical application, and the results obtained will stimulate the efficiency of resources, in order to redirect them for the improvement of organizational management on those sectors that recorded lower values

Reflexions on Cultural Bias and Adaption

SvenskMud1 is an Internet-accessible Multi-User Domain (MUD) system. But, in contrast to 99% of all Internet-accessible MUDs, SvenskMud is not a global community. SvenskMud is instead the first vernacular (i.e. non-English speaking) MUD in the world, and the only Swedish-speaking MUD in Sweden today. This paper problematizes four questions regarding cultural attitudes and their relationship to CMC technologies. Moving from the historical and the general to the present and the specific I will in turn discuss the following questions: (1) how have American cultural attitudes (historically) shaped the development and use of CMC technologies? (2) how do cultural attitudes (today) shape the implementation and use of CMC technologies? (3) how do cultural attitudes manifest themselves in the implementation and use of MUDs? (4) how do cultural attitudes manifest themselves in the implementation\ud and use of SvenskMud

Virtual reality in theatre education and design practice - new developments and applications

The global use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has already established new approaches to theatre education and research, shifting traditional methods of knowledge delivery towards a more visually enhanced experience, which is especially important for teaching scenography. In this paper, I examine the role of multimedia within the field of theatre studies, with particular focus on the theory and practice of theatre design and education. I discuss various IT applications that have transformed the way we experience, learn and co-create our cultural heritage. I explore a suite of rapidly developing communication and computer-visualization techniques that enable reciprocal exchange between students, theatre performances and artefacts. Eventually, I analyse novel technology-mediated teaching techniques that attempt to provide a new media platform for visually enhanced information transfer. My findings indicate that the recent developments in the personalization of knowledge delivery, and also in student-centred study and e-learning, necessitate the transformation of the learners from passive consumers of digital products to active and creative participants in the learning experience

Are economic ideas a sustainable commons? A study of the exchange of creative economics

In this essay I claim that productive markets need not necessarily involve clearly defined and enforced property rights, upon which a price system can be used to allocate resources. I shall pursue this thought by an examination of the mechanisms that facilitate the exchange of economic ideas, and link academic norms to the emerging theoretical justification for open source software, and “free culture”.economic ideas, commons, free culture, journals

Discourses on ICT and development.

Research on ICT and development (ICTD) involves assumptions on the nature of ICT innovation and on the way such innovation contributes to development. In this article I review the multidisciplinary literature on ICTD and identify two perspectives regarding the nature of the ICT innovation process in developing countries - as transfer and diffusion and as socially embedded action - and two perspectives on the development transformation towards which ICT is understood to contribute - progressive transformation and disruptive transformation. I then discuss the four discourses formed by combining the perspectives on the nature of IS innovation and on the development transformation. My review suggests that ICTD research, despite its remarkable theoretical capabilities to study technology innovation in relation to socio-economic context, remains weak in forming convincing arguments on IT-enabled socio-economic development.

Cultural Environmentalism and Beyond

This article is part of a symposium issue entitled Cultural Environmentalism @ 10, occuring on the tenth anniversary of Prof. Boyle\u27s book, Shamans, Software, and Spleens. In this article Prof. Boyle offers his thoughts on the failings, limitations, occasional promise, and possible future of the ideas discussed in the symposium including both the work on cultural environmentalism and the surrounding ideas on authorship, the rhetoric of economic analysis, the structure of intellectual property scholarship, and the jurisprudence of the public domain

Niche Modeling: Ecological Metaphors for Sustainable Software in Science

This position paper is aimed at providing some history and provocations for the use of an ecological metaphor to describe software development environments. We do not claim that the ecological metaphor is the best or only way of looking at software - rather we want to ask if it can indeed be a productive and thought provoking one.Comment: Position paper submitted to: Workshop on Sustainable Software for Science: Practice and Experiences (WSSSPE) SC13, Sunday, 17 November 2013, Denver, CO, US