Information and communication technologies have long promised to provide quality education, improve health care, allow open government, and solve environmental issues. To realize this potential and influence policy-making and program design, the Singapore Internet Research Centre, supported by IDRC, created an innovative research capacity-building program, SIRCA. The program supports interdisci…
This book documents the regulatory framework covering quality assurance in distance education in several Asian countries. It draws on the experience of 16 distance education and e-learning institutions to reveal their main challenges in developing quality assurance systems. While offering solutions to these challenges, the book demonstrates that staff engagement is the key to creating a culture…
South African universities are mandated to promote scholarship that is socially and economically responsive to local contexts. The contribution of universities to innovation is a key driver of economic and social development, but should be more effectively harnessed to address poverty and inequality. Linking Universities and Marginalised Communities examines how South African universities en…
What role does gender play in scientific research and the development of technologies? This book provides methodological expertise, research experiences and empirical findings in the dynamic field of Science and Technology Studies. The authors, coming from computer science, social sciences, or cultural studies of science, discuss how to ask questions about gender and give examples for the appli…
In recent years, the Internet and other network technologies have emerged as a central issue for development in Latin America and the Caribbean. They have shown their potential to increase productivity and economic competitiveness, to create new ways to deliver education and health services, and to be driving forces for the modernization of the provision of public services. With an introduct…
Bulgaria’s cultural policy has experienced many transformations since the revolution. One of the most important is that at the beginning the conviction developed that those elements which could not support themselves because of the new market situation made no relevant social contribution. One of the aims of this thesis is to question what the reality of “cultural economy” is and how this…
This book offers a view of shifts in labour relations in various parts of the world over a breathtaking span, from 1500 to 2000, with a particular emphasis on colonial institutions.
Socially desirable responding (SDR) is an often-reported source of bias in survey interviews. It describes the tendency of a respondent to answer in a way that is socially desirable rather than to answer truthfully. This response bias also threatens the reliability and validity of survey-based environmental valuation techniques such as the Contingent Valuation Method (CVM). Therefore, the study…
The concept of ‘the commons’ has been used as a framework to understand resources shared by a community rather than a private entity, and it has also inspired social movements working against the enclosure of public goods and resources. One such resource is free (libre) and open source software (FLOSS). FLOSS emerged as an alternative to proprietary software in the 1980s. However, both the …
This open access book presents the outcomes of the “Design for Future – Managed Software Evolution” priority program 1593, which was launched by the German Research Foundation (“Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)”) to develop new approaches to software engineering with a specific focus on long-lived software systems. The different lifecycles of software and hardware platforms lead …