Hygiene and Sanitation Software: An Overview of Approaches

A review of the state of the art in methods and techniques for sanitation and hygiene behaviour change, and other non-hardware aspects of sanitation programming. Includes introductory text and detailed entries on more than 20 approaches and techniques, with key references, summary information on effectiveness and implementation and an assessment of when different approaches should be used

The Political Economy Of Sanitation: How Can We Increase Investment and Improve Service For The Poor?

This report presents the results of a Global Economic and Sector Work (ESW) Study on the Political Economy of Sanitation in Brazil, India, Indonesia, and Senegal that was conducted by the Water and Sanitation Program (WSP) and the World Bank. Its purpose is to help WSP and the World Bank -- through a better understanding of the political economy of sanitation -- in their efforts to support partner countries and development practitioners in the design, implementation, and effectiveness of operations that aim to provide pro-poor sanitation investments and services to improve health and hygiene outcomes

The Influence of Dependency Networks on Developer Attraction in Open Source Software Ecosystems

Open source software projects rely on the continuous attraction of developers and therefore access to the pool of available developer resources. In modern software ecosystems, these projects are related through technical dependencies. In this study, we investigate the influence of these dependencies on a project’s ability to attract developers. We develop and test our hypothesis by observing the dependency networks and repository activities of 1832 projects in the JavaScript ecosystem. We find that dependencies to other projects have a positive effect on developer attraction while we did not find an effect of dependencies from other projects. Our study contributes theoretically and practically to the understanding of developer attraction and highlights the role of technical interdependencies in software ecosystems

Sustainability of Open Source Software Projects: On the Influence of Technical Interdependencies in Software Ecosystems on Developer Participation

In the community-based model of open source software (OSS) development, OSS projects are built and maintained by developers that voluntarily contribute their skills, knowledge, and time, thus making them dependent on their continued participation. Therefore, the question of how projects can attract and retain developers is of major concern for their sustainability. OSS projects are embedded into a complex network of technical interdependent projects that emerges from building upon and reusing existing software components. In these so-called software ecosystems, the issue of sustained participation is not only a concern of a single project but also other dependent projects. However, the role and influence of these interdependencies between projects have so far been neglected by Information Systems researchers. This dissertation thus asks: _How do technical interdependencies in software ecosystems influence the sustainability of open source software projects?_ To answer this question, this dissertation consists of three independent empirical studies that focus on three aspects of how technical interdependencies influence developer participation and thus contribute to the sustainability of open source projects: (1) the ability to attract developers, (2) the influences on developers' participation decision, and (3) the retention of developers in a project. This dissertation finds that OSS projects attract more developers when depending on other projects and their ability to retain developers increases with the number of shared developers with other technical interrelated projects. Furthermore, the participation decisions of developers are also positively influenced by these technical relations. Together, these studies contribute to the body of knowledge on developer participation by highlighting the role of technical interdependencies for the overall sustainability of open source projects

Coordinative Entities: Forms of Organizing in Data Intensive Science

Scientific collaboration is a long-standing subject of CSCW scholarship that typically focuses on the development and use of computing systems to facilitate research. The research presented in this article investigates the sociality of science by identifying and describing particular, common forms of organizing that researchers in four different scientific realms employ to conduct work in both local contexts and as part of distributed, global projects. This paper introduces five prototypical forms of organizing we categorize as coordinative entities: the Principal Group, Intermittent Exchange, Sustained Aggregation, Federation, and Facility Organization. Coordinative entities as a categorization help specify, articulate, compare, and trace overlapping and evolving arrangements scientists use to facilitate data intensive research. We use this typology to unpack complexities of data intensive scientific collaboration in four cases, showing how scientists invoke different coordinative entities across three types of research activities: data collection, processing, and analysis. Our contribution scrutinizes the sociality of scientific work to illustrate how these actors engage in relational work within and among diverse, dispersed forms of organizing across project, funding, and disciplinary boundaries

Silver Surfers : Social Inclusion or Exclusion in a Digital World

Funded and commissioned by Microsoft's Unlimited Potential Programme, with contributions from Citizens Online and UH. This report was the output from the project.When one considers the population profile of a country, no longer is the emphasis upon mortality rates of younger people. As the years progress, enhancements to the quality of life have led to an increasingly ageing society. The emphasis globally has changed to provision for all age groups as a result. In this report, we determine how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are being introduced through programmes by a variety of agencies into the lives of one particular population group – the silver surfer. The context of this report is the United KingdomFinal Published versio

Strategies to improve the quality of initial teacher education for teachers in the education and training sector (further education and skills)

This report details the Inquiring Teachers, Inquiring Learners project which was developed to support partner institutions to develop and apply a culture of action research within their organisation. The underlying principle of the project was professionalism and in particular the promotion and development of teachers’ professional identities and attitudes as the key to the enhancement of student learning, above all, a vision of the ‘inquiring teacher’. Inquiring teachers it is felt are more likely to develop inquiring learners. Teachers are best placed to know about their subjects and their learners’ needs within their local contexts. The project aimed to support partners of the School of Education to develop the skills and knowledge to define and undertake an action research project that would contribute to improving ITE within their context.Education and Training Foundatio

FDTL voices : drawing from learning and teaching projects

This publication draws on insights and experiences from individuals and teams within learning and teaching development projects in higher education. It considers lessons learnt from the processes, outcomes and tangible outputs of the projects across the spectrum of the FDTL initiative, with the intention that colleagues can draw on and benefit from this experience. The overriding theme at the heart of every FDTL project has been the desire to achieve some form of positive and meaningful change at the level of the individual, institution or discipline. The continuing legacy of the programme has been to create wider community involvement as projects have engaged with the higher education sector on multiple levels - personal, institutional, practice, and policy. This publication has remained throughout a collaborative endeavour, supported by Academy colleagues. It is based around the four themes emerging from the initiative as a whole: • Sectoral/Organisational Change • Conceptual Change • Professional and Personal Development Partnership and • Project Managemen

Open Source Software and Performance: A Fit Perspective

Although Open Source Software (OSS) is popular, its continued use in organizations remains an issue, as evidenced by users reporting frequent problems, experiencing hold-ups, and running into implementation and integration issues. Often, it is argued that fit between the person’s task, values and work demands pose challenges for the successful use of OSS. In this context, this study draws on the concepts of task-technology fit and person-organization fit to develop a model to explore how different dimensions of fit interact with each other to influence OSS user’s productivity and innovation performance. Survey data was collected from OSS users to test the proposed model. Results of the analysis show that when there is fit between an individual’s OSS skills and the nature of the task to be performed (demand-ability fit), an OSS user’s productivity performance increases, whereas, his innovation performance decreases. Further, when the organization’s OSS values matches that of the individual user’s (value-based fit), his task productivity decreases. Implications of the results suggest that organizations that intend to use OSS for a long time need to recruit employees keeping in mind the nature of their OSS projects and the demands and priorities of the tasks performed in the organization