Filipino Diaspora in Australia and the 'Language Question'

This article examines the politics of language use of minority groups such as Philippines-born migrants in Australia. In the context of multicultural Australia which celebrates 'difference' but also insists on the dominance of Anglo culture, bi-lingulism of migrant groups raises questions of usability and identity. The Philippines-born community appears to be safeguarded from the birthing difficulties that many ethnic groupings experience. This, however, comes at a price that questions the community's understanding of their identity

The impact of an operation and management intervention on toilet usability in schools in the Philippines: a cluster randomised controlled trial.

BACKGROUND: Access to usable water, sanitation and hygiene provision in schools is included within indicators in the Sustainable Development Goals. Progress towards these indicators is dependent on developing an understanding of which intervention components are most effective to operate and maintain usable services. This study aimed to determine the impact of a school toilet operation and management intervention in the Philippines on toilet usability and student and teacher satisfaction, adjusted for clustering at school level. METHODS: In a non-blinded cluster randomised controlled trial, we compared improvements in usability and cleanliness of school toilets among those schools receiving a low-cost, replicable intervention. Toilet usability was measured based on Sustainable Development Goal indicators related to school sanitation defined by the UNICEF/WHO Joint Monitoring Programme for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. Intervention schools received consumables, support kits, and structured tools designed to facilitate operation and maintenance of sanitation facilities. The primary outcome, toilet usability and cleanliness, was compared through a difference-in-difference analysis of toilet usability. Secondary outcomes of student and teacher satisfaction were measured through a survey at endline. All outcomes were adjusted for clustering at school level. RESULTS: 20 eligible schools in the Batangas region of the Philippines were randomly selected and allocated to either control or intervention group. We found that non-classroom toilets were 48% more likely to meet quality benchmarks in intervention schools, but this was not statistically significant. When including in-classroom toilets in the analysis, there were no significant differences in toilet usability - defined as accessible, functional, private and of high quality - between intervention and control schools. When stratified by toilet location, children in the intervention group clusters expressed a minor, but statistically significant increase in overall satisfaction with sanitation facilities (p = 0.035). CONCLUSION: Water, sanitation and hygiene interventions in schools focusing on operation and maintenance showed potential to improve toilet usability, but universal achievement of SDG targets may require additional efforts addressing toilet infrastructure. TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT03204175, June 2017 prior to participant enrolment

E-governance at the Local Government Level in the Philippines: An Assessment of City Government Websites

The application of information and communication technology for improving governance by enhancing government's role in service delivery, public administration, and promotion of participatory democracy has been gaining momentum in many parts of the world. In Philippine local government, this has been witnessed lately in the significant rise in web presence of many cities. To what extent have local governments in the Philippines implemented e-governance using websites as their medium? This study attempted to answer this question by looking into the resources and services that city governments provide to citizens and other groups in society through their websites. An assessment of the content of their websites indicated, however, the minimal adoption of e-governance as well as the underutilization of websites as e-governance tools.local government unit, information and communications technology (ICT), e-governance, government websites

E-governance at the Local Government Level in the Philippines: An Assessment of City Government Websites

The application of information and communication technology for improving governance by enhancing government's role in service delivery, public administration, and promotion of participatory democracy has been gaining momentum in many parts of the world. In Philippine local government, this has been witnessed lately in the significant rise in web presence of many cities. To what extent have local governments in the Philippines implemented e-governance using websites as their medium? This study attempted to answer this question by looking into the resources and services that city governments provide to citizens and other groups in society through their websites. An assessment of the content of their websites indicated, however, the minimal adoption of e-governance as well as the underutilization of websites as e-governance tools.information and communications technology (ICT), e-governance, government websites, Local Government Units (LGUs)

Towards a digital money structure for illiterate users

In developing countries, although money is becoming digital in the form of mobile money, it is not easily used by millions of illiterate users in their everyday transactions. Digitization of material money thus poses a challenge to many users. Existing mobile money systems and platforms represent money in terms of simple numbers, like 13, 50, 0.78, 23.64, 80 etc. This way of money representation is almost unusable by illiterate users, unless they depend on others' help. The literature has overlooked the different metadata inscribed on material money (like icons or images, colour, security means, and serial numbers etc). However, these metadata enable illiterate users to identify different currency notes. The material properties of money bills also enable illiterates do simple maths like addition, subtraction, division, and counting. However, current mobile money solutions have not considered money bill's metadata. Such absence of metadata made money bill identification and transactions difficult for illiterates. The work described in this paper uses the theory of digital objects and theory of non-material technological objects and presents a theoretical presentation for the structure of digital money, to be used in digital ecosystem

Digital Governance Implementation and Institutional Performance of State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) in the Philippines

Many governments around the globe have adopted digital governance as a strategy to promote public service. State-owned higher learning institutions particularly in the Philippines are seen investing on this kind of technology. This paper examines the digital governance implementation and institutional performance of State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) in the Philippines. Data regarding digital governance are obtained from the respective website of each SUC through the use of a questionnaire. Websites are evaluated in terms of content, usability, services, citizen participation and privacy/security. Institutional performance is obtained through the CHED Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 60, series of 2007. A total of 107 SUCs are subjected in this paper. It is found out that digital governance in SUCs was on its early and middle stages of digital governance with focus on content and usability features. SUCs advocates instruction, research, extension and production as their major functions with varying levels. There is a positive substantial relationship between digital governance and institutional performance of SUCs. Digital governance is seen being adopted by some SUCs as an innovative tool in learning, promoting citizen participation and advocating peace. Keywords: digital governance, SUCs, institutional performance, e-governanc

Driver’s Distraction and Understandability of Using GPS Navigation

GPS navigation is available on smartphone application providing turn-by-turn navigation instruction on smartphones and the distraction from GPS usage while driving also became an issue. In this paper, we present the strategy to mitigate the level of distraction by manipulating the type of display visual (2D and 3D) and placement (right, steer and left). We conducted field experiments in left-hand real traffic with 12 subjects. Our result illustrated that 3D conditions implied much fewer frequency of eye glances (FOG) than 2D conditions. Furthermore, steer conditions has much higher FOG than right and left placement conditions, but we found no significant effects on the ease of understanding (EOU) for visual display difference and the number of error for all conditions