Peacekeeping, 1965: The Canadian Military’s Viewpoint

Peacekeeping has become a growth industry over the last few years, both in terms of the proliferation of missions and the numerous academic analyses of them. However, the historical context in which contemporary developments are unfolding is often lost in the shuffle. This certainly seems to be true in Canada, where the past apparently holds little relevance for the present when it comes to peacekeeping

\u3cem\u3eTrue Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898–1960\u3c/em\u3e by David Jay Bercuson [Review]

Review of David Bercuson, True Patriot: The Life of Brooke Claxton, 1898-1960. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994

Use the Difficulty through Schwierigkeit: Antiusability as Value-driven Design

In the style of a polemic discursive essay, Antiusability (also known as Schwierigkeit) is introduced as a radical design paradigm to reawaken dedicated awareness of the user-system interface through challenge. A philosophical work in flux, it is described as a kind of science (or logic) of difficulty with an underpinning that promotes the generic greater good in usability per se

Blogs as a third place : The emergence of online alcoves sharing common interests

An abbreviated case study in narrative form of a weblog is presented. Preliminary observations in an ongoing longitudinal study suggest that the blog, whose discourse engages in the niche interest area of film music appreciation, is a representative example of an emergent social network dubbed in sociological terms as a “third place.” This is deemed to be an unanticipated consequence for a medium originally intended primarily for personal publishing

e-Inclusion Through Text Messaging: The Emergence of an Administrative Ecology Within an University Student Population Via The Use of a Mobile Academic Information Delivery System

The investigation evaluated the impact of incorporating mobile technology and in particular the introduction of on-demand Short Messaging Service (SMS) – also known as text messaging - into the information exchange between universities and the students. The impact of the technology on the creation of a new mode of information exchange that augments the existing student learning experience was assessed. The pilot of the application used SMS mobile technology to improve student ‘on-demand’ access to information relating to their subject schedules and assessment performance and institutional provision of information to students. This innovative use of the emerging technology enabled ‘push-pull’ communication with the student body and provided a means of keeping pace with the marketplace and stakeholder demands in terms of communication mode

SMS - Push First and Then Students Will Pull Administrative Information in Higher Education?

This paper describes the pilot of a Short Messaging Service (SMS) technology in the higher education environment dynamic two-way ‘push-pull’ transfer of information between students and academics. Assessment results and reminders were pushed to students and access was provided to information relating to their subject schedules and assessment performance. Both qualitative and quantitative data were collected using an online student survey underpinned by the Davis’s (1989, 1993) Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and focus groups for staff and student participants. The pilot and subsequent review enabled an evaluation of the benefits of SMS in relation to supporting student services, specifically scheduling information and assessment feedback. This paper discusses student and staff uptake of the ‘push-pull’ SMS prototype

The Long Tail of Blogging: A Nurturing Mechanism for Sustainable Online Communities with Niche Interests

A qualitative study of the motivating factors behind sustainable weblogs is presented, based on the dissection of group behavioural characteristics in the common practice of two niche interest music blogs. Preliminary observations suggest that the emerging business consumer demographic known as the “long tail” (Anderson, 2006) is at play in the ecology of the blogosphere