JuxtaLearn DELIVERABLE Report D3.5 Service scenario documentation

The purpose of Deliverable 3.5 is to provide guidelines to creating juxtaposed performance, particularly to advise non-drama teachers on what to do and how to manage performance in stage 3 of the JuxtaLearn process. Building on pedagogies of threshold concepts and juxtaposed learning, it explains the performance steps, orchestrating learning through participative video making and story making with peers. It provides guidance for teachers, offering resources that include suggested lesson plans and example timings. Thus, in the absence of a shared touchable with JuxtaLearn software, it suggests a practical additional and alternative to using the software of WP4 touch table

Don’t throw rocks from the side-lines: A sociomaterial exploration of organizational blogs as boundary objects

Purpose Social media such as blogs are being widely used in organizations in order to undertake internal communication and share knowledge, rendering them important boundary objects. A root metaphor of the boundary object domain is the notion of relatively static and inert objects spanning similarly static boundaries. A strong sociomaterial perspective allows the immisciblity of object and boundary to be challenged, since a key tenet of this perspective is the ongoing and mutually-constituted performance of the material and social. Design/methodology/approach The aim of our research is to draw upon sociomateriality to explore the operation of social media platforms as intra-organizational boundary objects. Given the novel perspective of this study and its social constructivist ontology, we adopt an exploratory, interpretivist research design. This is operationalized as a case study of the use of an organizational blog by a major UK government department over an extended period. A novel aspect of the study is our use of data released under a Freedom of Information request. Findings We present three exemplar instances of how the blog and organizational boundaries were performed in the situated practice of the case study organization. We draw on literature on boundary objects, blogs and sociomateriality in order to provide a theoretical explication of the mutually-constituted performance of the blog and organizational boundaries. We also invoke the notion of ‘extended chains of intra-action’ to theorise changes in the wider organization. Originality/value Adoption of a sociomaterial lens provides a highly novel perspective of boundary objects and organizational boundaries. The study highlights the indeterminate and dynamic nature of boundary objects and boundaries, with both being in an intra-active state of becoming, challenging conventional conceptions. The study demonstrates that specific material-discursive practices arising from the situated practice of the blog at the respective boundaries were performative, reconfiguring the blog and boundaries and being generative of further changes in the organization

Making a Killing, Bob Torres

San Francisco, AK Press, 2007 Full Text You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere. -Shevek, in The Dispossessed, by Ursula K. LeGuin In a testament to his ability to draw on diverse authors and theories, Bob Torres opens the final chapter of Making a Killing: The Political Economy of Animal Rights with a quote from a science fiction novel, and in so doing he successfully draws together many of the themes of his work. LeGuin's character Shevek hails from a society organized by property-less relationships, complete gender equality and communal living. Shevek travels to the capitalist planet Urras and finds a materially wealthy society plagued by repression, alienation and radical inequality. His revolutionary ideas are quickly shot down. For Torres, Shevek represents a social anarchist perspective that entails a daily commitment to living and embodying the principles that one wants to see practiced in the world. Far from beginning his academic career as an animal rights activist, Torres, assistant professor of sociology at St Lawrence University and co-host of the popular Vegan Freak Radio podcast, originally studied agricultural science. It was a "dairy production" class that initially led him to think more seriously about animal oppression, and the logistics of the commodification of sentient beings under capitalism. Torres was taught to view animals as producers. He learned how a farmer survives in the "go big or go home" world of agribusiness: by squeezing every last bit of production out of animals for the least possible input. Capitalism relies on alienation between "producers" (in this case, cows) and their "products" (their calves, their milk, and eventually, their own bodies), creating a mental distance between consumers and producers that obscures underlying power relations and exploitation. Torres' experiences with production agriculture disrupted this mental distance by revealing the process by which sentient beings become "living machines" for the profit and enjoyment of humans. Torres situates his analysis of animal exploitation and advocacy within broader discussions of Marxist political economy, social ecology, social anarchism, and abolitionist animal rights theory. He challenges all of his readers, regardless of their political inclinations and thoughts on the status of nonhuman animals, to make connections between different forms of oppression, and to examine the power relationships that underlie their attitudes and consumer choices. He implores the Left to consider animals within broader liberation struggles but reserves some of his most powerful critique for the "animal rights" movement itself. He chastises animal advocates who fail to work in solidarity with other anti-oppression movements and whose means are inconsistent with their desired ends. Torres maintains that if capitalism, commodification, and property relations are inextricably linked to animal exploitation, then working from within this paradigm is not a recipe for effective activism. According to Torres, the animal rights movement in its current incarnation as the "Animal Rights Industry" has lost sight of itself and its long-term goals and has been co-opted to the point where it can no longer target exploitation at its foundation. He argues that the movement has become dominated by multi-million dollar organizations with enormous operating budgets that work directly with agribusiness in pursuit of endless welfare reforms. He points to the ongoing "love affair" between animal protection organizations and corporations like Whole Foods, and argues that these alliances actually make animal exploitation more profitable. Despite all of the rhetoric about "compassion", corporations' primary responsibility is towards shareholders. For example, rather than encouraging concerned consumers to stop eating animal products, Whole Foods caters to a niche market willing to pay a premium for "happy meat". Drawing on the abolitionist animal rights theory of Gary Francione, Torres shows how this phenomenon actually perpetuates animal exploitation by reinforcing the idea that animals are property, thereby legitimating their commodification. As the (legal and conceptual) property of humans, animals' subjectivity, their interests in not suffering, and the fulfillment of their natural needs and behaviours all become secondary to the interests of property owners. For these reasons, welfare reforms and anti-cruelty laws inevitably fail to protect the interests of animals. Having argued that we cannot buy a revolution for animals by donating to our favourite animal protection corporation or by purchasing ever more "humane" animal products, Torres maintains that anyone can use their own strengths and talents to bring about social change - all that is needed is a commitment to making a change consistent with one's own principles. Torres empowers his readers to seek affinity with other social movements and to strive for fundamental societal change that strikes at the roots of all hierarchy and domination. Recognizing animal exploitation as a needless form of domination, Torres advocates veganism as a direct refusal to participate in the consumption, enslavement, and subjugation of animals for human ends. Veganism is a daily, lived expression of that ethical commitment, and it embodies the change that animal rights movement seeks to implement

Cycles of Engagement: how public sector clients and their consultants engage on IT projects

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how public sector clients engage with external clients on information technology projects. It does so by gathering documentary and interview information from clients and consultants on five public sector IT projects. The data were analysed using thematic and template analysis, resulting in a potential model of how project participants build engaged relationships. Little research has investigated the client-consultant relationship on IT projects and a literature review revealed little theoretical basis to model engagement between participants arriving new to a project with no pre-existing relationships. By drawing on related literature and qualitative research data, the thesis develops a conceptual model of engagement with components that explain engaged relationships in terms of interaction between conditions and behaviours. Emerging behaviours are identified as sharing, sense making and adapting and these behaviours arise from conditions of environment, participants and expertise. Sharing and sense making behaviours reinforce each other, and lead to adapting, and a consequence of adapting is the potential to change conditions. Adapting conditions alters behaviours, which in turn can alter conditions, thus implying that once started, engagement is a dynamic self-replicating phenomenon with cycles that a manager or consultant can identify and alter for the benefit of the project. The research contributes to theory by offering an understanding of the phenomenon of engagement between participants on projects, demonstrating the self-reinforcing role of conditions and behaviours and adding to theories of client-consultant relationships. The research findings offer consultants and their clients a means to identify how they can deliberately alter engagement to improve a project’s process

Engagement in public sector IT projects

Public sector information technology projects are important for delivering government policy, and one reason for their failure is lack of effective engagement between stakeholders. But current literature is unclear on what engagement is. The study examined engagement in five cases of successful project development, collecting data though documentation and semi structured interviews with internal clients and external IT consultants. Thematic and template analysis was used. Findings identified six interacting components of engagement to be three conditions of environment, participants and expertise that afford three interacting and cycling behaviours of sharing, sense making and adapting. The research thus contributes an original model of engaged behaviour that draws attention to components that help enactment of engagement between participants on IT projects

Disability Inclusion and Library Collections: Initiatives for Greater Access for All

One of the core values of librarianship as expressed through ALA’s Code of Ethics is providing equitable service and access to all library users. This is further enforced by federal laws such as the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which includes Section 508 requiring federal agencies to make their electronic and information technology (EIT) accessible to people with disabilities. While there has been much said about accessibility within library scholarship, this paper takes a unique holistic approach at applying the accessibility maturity model to library collections and services through covering a number of initiatives that Texas A&M University Libraries have taken to try to ensure that accessibility is considered when reviewing new subscriptions and services. These include the creation of a pilot program to collect VPATs from vendors and the development of accessibility and accommodation plans

JuxtaLearn D3.2 Performance Framework

This deliverable, D3.2, for Work Package 3 incorporating the pedagogy from WP2 and orchestration factors mapped in D3.1 reviews aspects of performance in the context of participative video making. It reviews literature on curiosity and engagement characteristics of interaction mechanisms for public displays and anticipates requirements for social network analysis of relevant public videos from WP6 task 6.3. Thus, to support JuxtaLearn performance it proposes a reflective performance framework that encompasses the material environment and objects required, the participants, and the knowledge needed

Artistic participatory video-making for science engagement

This paper uses theatre to frame reflexive discussions on the use of participatory video making for science engagement. The ‘JuxtaLearn’ research project is presented as a case-study that focuses on performance concepts such as audience, purpose, improvisation or final production as a lens for supporting technology-enabled creative exploration. Three different approaches were taken to creative participatory video making processes: co-creation by learners, as a communication tool for researchers and as a public engagement tool. Differing expectations about the timing and aim of the research process created considerable debate among the research team regarding the control of and purpose of filmmaking. It was not the topic of debate within the film that was deemed controversial, but more who, when and in what ways these debates occurred. Theatrical and HCI concepts of audience, performance ownership, improvisation and storyboarding, boundary object creation, participation and boundary creatures are foci of debate within the project

Client and consultant engagement in public sector IS projects

Engagement between clients and consultants has been identified as important in public sector IT projects. However, current literature is not clear what constitutes engagement, and how this is related to other concepts such as cooperation and collaboration. This study proposes a model of engagement based on a range of related extant literature. Five case studies of IT projects in the public sector in the UK are analysed in order to empirically validate and extend the proposed model. The validated model suggests that engagement can be understood as three conditions (environment, participants, expertise) and three behaviours (sharing, sense-making and adapting) that dynamically interact in self-reinforcing cycles. The model represents a starting point for academics interested in the future development of a theory of engagement and is of value to practising managers and consultants in either a diagnostic or prescriptive mode to increase the effectiveness of their joint IT endeavours

Sharing video making objects to create, reflect & learn

Creative performance through participative video (PV) making is a means to engage students in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects, arousing the curiosity of learners and their audience. This paper focusses on the role of video creation artefacts as boundary objects stimulating reflection and deeper understanding. Based on this theory we explain how This paper describes objects for engaging students in a video making process that supports enhanced reflection and understanding of specific topics of study