Crossing Borders in Business and Economics Classrooms: Implementing Telecollaboration to Advance Diversity and 21st Century Skills

The emerging changes in global societies challenge businesses as teams work across borders. Consequently, higher education promotes student interaction from diverse cultural backgrounds using technological tools without restricting time, cost, motivation or mobility. In this regard, telecollaboration engages students in a learning process that develops 21st century skills with peers from diverse language, socio-cultural, and educational backgrounds. This article presents a telecollaboration project designed and implemented by Queens College, City University of New York, and Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, an online university in Barcelona, in which 196 Economics and Business undergraduate students from the United States and Mexico enhanced intercultural communication. The aim of this study was to identify the effectiveness of telecollaboration as a tool for advancing diversity and transversal skills. The results showed a positive effect but detected the need to raise awareness on the importance of intercultural skills as part of 21st century skills sought by employers

The study of Transboundary Groundwater Governance in the notion of Governmentality: in the case of Guaraní Aquifer

Although groundwater has traditionally supplied a significant portion of the water that humans use for drinking, agricultural and industrial purposes, it has not been a mainstream topic in environmental politics and in the environment policy-making process. This is despite the importance of the groundwater’s contribution to the development of local economies and the livelihood of people. Transboundary aquifers, in particular, play a key role in international politics and diplomatic relations. The International Shared Aquifer Resources Management (ISARM) initiative, which was institutionalized by the International Hydrological Program (IHP) of UNESCO, aims to improve the understanding of the multi-disciplinary issues related to groundwater governance. ISARM’s second phase, which began in 2011, focuses mainly on filling the gaps for effective groundwater management and on building a coherent and operative framework of action on groundwater governance. This framework will particularly provide rules and practices for decision- making and policy-making on groundwater and for the implementation of decisions and policies with cross-country and cross-sectoral stakeholders. In this paper, the governance of transboundary aquifers is discussed in light of Michel Foucault’s definition of governmentality, a key concept in environmental governance studies. This concept can be used to analyze environmental governance within a broader context, hence facilitating the design of policy strategies and legal mechanism that are both effective and practical. The case study described in this paper is the Guaraní aquifer system in South America. This aquifer system is one in which the notion of governmentality was used to respond to the challenges related to transboundary groundwater governance, and demonstrates the potential synergies that may emerge between ministries and other forms of governments horizontally and vertically when this approach is applied. It is hoped that this analysis will be of assistance to those who are considering regional-based governance mechanisms in other parts of the worl

Participatory development approach in local governance - its relevance for economic development: a case study of Sri Lanka

This research paper seeks to examine to what extent local governance iseffective in alleviating the vicious circle of poverty. Furthermore, traditional social relationships in Sri Lankan society are relatively and critically discussed in the notion of social capital. In Sri Lanka, local government institutions, administrative divisional secretaries, the Gramaseva division, civil society and the business community are the entities of local governance at the grass roots governance level that directly involve participation of the general public. The article studies the effect of Local Governance on poverty alleviation and observes people’s direct involvement in relation to their socio – economic development in the local governance political body. The Kasiwattapura at Polhena Gramaseva Division in the Matara Municipal Council is selected to study this theoretical component

Critical Investigation on Influences from Natural Science Theories and Ideas in Development of the Classical Anthropology

Anthropology has developed approximately over the two hundred years in the western world into separate new discipline of its own. Many theories have been formulated by classical anthropologist to explain and to study concepts of culture and human behavior. The sub-discipline, cultural anthropology emerged during the 19th century in the British then in USA. This paper presents critical investigation on to the major influences from natural science and related ideologies in the process of development of cultural anthropological theories to study concepts of culture. The historical comparative method was adopted for the said investigation. According to findings of the completed investigation, it is with enough evidences that reveal the magnitudes of the impact from natural science ideologies to develop the theories of classical anthropology. It was possible to conclude this paper with that there was enormous trend to use empirical approaches also to study human cultures and related behaviors from early ear of the discipline, anthropology, mainly due to the fact that most anthropologists have borrowed ideas from natural science in formulation of anthropological theories. KEYWORDS: Classical Anthropology, Idea, Natural Science, Schoo

Characterisation of the Rota Wewa tank cascade system in the vicinity of Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

A complex and sustainable watershed management strategy was implemented in Sri Lanka during the ancient Anuradhapuraperiod, from the 5th century BC to the 11th century AD. Like modern watershed management strategies, it focused on flood prevention, soil erosion control, water quality control and water storage for irrigation. Tank cascade systems were the key element of these ancient watershed management installations. The wewas investigated were constructed in valleys characterised by fluvial accumulation. Sedimentological analyses of these tank cascade systems show that a precise age determination and the reconstruction of sediment and water f luxes as triggered by human-environment interactions are difficult. This is caused by theshallow character of the wewas leading to the steady redeposition of the tank sediments by wave motions during the wet season and agricultural use of the desiccated wewas during the dry season. Beyond, the sediments analysed allow to distinguish between the weathered parent bedrock and the overlying sediments. A differentiation between wewa deposits and the underlying fluvial deposits remains challenging

Explanation of the Using Pattern of Metal Resources in the North Central and Eastern provinces in the Early Period of Sri Lanka

Resources are very important for creating civilization. Archeological studiesshow that resources have been used during the primary societies. People in the stone ageof Sri Lanka had used different types of rocks for making their tools.Resources are very important for creating civilization. Archeological studiesshow that resources have been used during the primary societies. People in the stone ageof Sri Lanka had used different types of rocks for making their tools.For this research, we used collected data relating literature evidences andarcheological methods. The discovery of copper implements from the communities inAnuradhapura is now known as the copper magnetite deposit – one of the major sourcesfor this industry have been found at Seruwila. Recent ecological and archeologicalstudies indicate that copper was extracted from this deposit as early as the 7th centuryB.C.Mineral resources have been used in the 8th century BC in Sri Lanka. But noscientific investigation has been done on the subject. However this research focuses onhow Sri Lankan societies used mineral resources from the 8th century to the 1st centuryB.C.Key words: Creating civilization, Primary society, Mineral resources, Residentialommunitie

Barriers in participative water Governance: A critical analysis of community development approaches

Participatory approaches within development programs involving common-pool resources are intended to revive a community’s role in managing these resources. Certainly, to ensure the successful and equitable use of such resources, community participation is essential. However, in many cases, attempts at applying a participatory approach often fail to genuinely engage all subgroups within a community due to assumptions of homogeneity and a lack of understanding of the deep socio-political divisions between people. As a result, development programs can be plagued by these pre-existing power relations, potentially resulting in tokenistic community participation and the continuation of elite capture of natural resources to the same extent or worse than before a development program has begun. This in turn can negatively impact good governance and the fair distribution of a common pool resource. This paper explores the use of participatory approaches in water projects, assessing to what degree power relationships impact water management programs. Using a qualitative approach, the paper identifies key challenges of participatory water governance through case studies from Turkey, India, and Sri Lanka, exploring: lack of social trust, elite capture of participatory processes, power heterogeneity and imbalances at the micro-level, and a lack of inclusive participation in decision-making. Based on the analysis of these case studies, this paper argues that it is essential for participatory development interventions to understand socio-political power relations within a community—an inherently complex and contested space. The so-called “exit strategy” of a community project play a key role to decide the project sustainability that grants the “community ownership” of the project. Such an understanding can bring about greater success in development interventions attempting to address water-related issues.WOS:000768070000001Scopus - Affiliation ID: 60105072Science Citation Index Expanded - Social Sciences Citation IndexQ2ArticleUluslararası işbirliği ile yapılan - EVETMarch2022YÖK - 2021-22Şuba

What matters most? Stakeholders’ perceptions of river water quality

The need to integrate stakeholders’ views into environmental policy is increasingly gaining attention because this offers the opportunity to design sustainable and synergistic environmental strategies. Understanding and integrating the views of resource users into policy design and implementation could help address the most important challenges, gain community support, enhance project ownership, and avoid policies being rejected by local people. As a result, research in environmental management has focussed on stakeholders’ perceptions of river water quality and how to integrate such views into policy. While existing studies offer insights into the different ways in which stakeholders evaluate river water quality and potential factors influencing judgements, they appear to be limited in a number of ways. First, most of these studies focus on developed countries and may have limited contextual relevance to the developing world. Moreover, past studies focus on segments of society such as farmers and mainly on wastewater for agriculture. These shortcomings may limit our understanding of the topic and our ability to design effective policies to address water quality problems. Drawing on survey data from the Wenchi municipality in Ghana, we examine public perceptions of what constitute important measures of river water quality as well as factors influencing such judgements. Results suggest that while variables such as taste, colour, smell and litter are important, the presence of faecal matter in and/or around the river was rated the most important measure of river water quality while depth of river was the least important. Results further suggest that education, age, number of years a person had lived in a community, depth of river and the presence of aquatic vegetation influence water quality judgements. The findings of this research provide insights into what policymakers and regulators need to consider when attempting to influence behaviours in relation to water resources. We note, however, that while public perceptions of river water quality could guide water management policies, scientific measurements of water quality must not be replaced with stakeholder perceptions. This is because aspects such as ecological integrity may not be important to segments of the public but are an important aspect of water management. This is reinforced in the present study as there seems to be a lack of concern among the participants regarding river depth – an important factor for habitat provision and pollution dilution