Traditional academic discourse in qualitative studies is devoid of the subjective individual, and lacks the particulars of experience and the lifelikeness that evokes meaning when…
Abstract
Purpose
Traditional academic discourse in qualitative studies is devoid of the subjective individual, and lacks the particulars of experience and the lifelikeness that evokes meaning when researchers address real‐life problems. This paper aims to explore the value and application of utilizing narrative inquiry in nursing research. As a result, this review seeks to argue that understanding the lived experience allows nurse researchers an “insider view” and a deeper understanding of health and social issues that arises from the relationship between the participant and researcher. Additionally this paper aims to highlight some of the challenges and tensions in narrative work including the researcher's self‐reflection within the research process.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper takes the form of a literature review.
Findings
This paper highlights some of the challenges and tensions in narrative work including the researcher's self‐reflection within the research process. It argues that understanding the lived experience allows nurse researchers an “insider view” and a deeper understanding of health and social issues that arises from the relationship between the participant and researcher.
Originality/value
This original article presents an argument that suggests narrative inquiry in nursing research offers a particular way of caring about how knowledge is produced and the importance of the relationship between the researcher and the co‐researcher.
Details
Keywords
Gisele Mazon, João Marcelo Pereira Ribeiro, Carlos Rogerio Montenegro de Lima, Brenda Caroline Geraldo Castro and José Baltazar Salgueirinho Osório de Andrade Guerra
This paper aims to analyze the sustainability approach within higher education institutions. Universities, as institutions of knowledge, play an important and strategic role in…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to analyze the sustainability approach within higher education institutions. Universities, as institutions of knowledge, play an important and strategic role in maximizing social and economic benefits in a hands-on way. However, some studies on sustainable development and HEIs reveal a distancing between students and the application of sustainable initiatives in universities. This fact differs from the premises of the Talloires Declaration, which points to students as a community and as global leaders and ambassadors for sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper mapped the approaches, present in the literature, used to develop sustainable campuses and in particular the apparent dichotomy between the changes indicated as top-down or bottom-up in HEIs. To that end, scientific articles focused on sustainable actions in HEIs were analyzed to identify implementation approaches for sustainable development and student involvement in the process.
Findings
Results have shown that sustainability promotion models in universities generally occur in a top-down manner, where students are receptors and not sources of development for sustainable policies in universities. Thus, the authors highlight the importance of students becoming central players in sustainable initiatives.
Originality/value
The article becomes original when it identifies the dichotomy between top-down and bottom-up approaches. It does so through multidimensional scaling and exploratory factorial analysis in scientific articles on the topic Sustainability Funding in Higher Education. These findings show that, unlike what is discussed in the literature, sustainability promotion in universities generally occurs in a top-down manner, where students are receptors and not active agents in promoting sustainability. In response to this, the authors discussed the importance of the bottom-up approach, where they are key players.
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BRENDA M. RIMMER and ARTHUR GREEN
Of significance for patents information during the past decade or so have been the major changes in patents legislation, improvements to the publications of the principal…
Abstract
Of significance for patents information during the past decade or so have been the major changes in patents legislation, improvements to the publications of the principal patenting systems, and the transforming effects of computerized databases. The review covers these changes and outlines the current publication procedures of the European Patent Convention, Patent Cooperation Treaty, and the major national systems. The importance of the patent specification as a source of information, and developments during this period in its construction and bibliographic data are explained. Official and non‐official publications associated with the specification are covered. Particular emphasis is given to computer databases covering patents, since they now form a powerful, numerous and growing means of searching specifications in the majority of subject fields. Reference is made to efforts to increase general awareness of the value of patents as information and to improve their availability by schemes such as the UK's Patents Information Network.
A discussion of the nature of information is undertaken by bringing together the views of Brenda Dervin and Karl Popper on subjectivity and objectivity as these relate to…
Abstract
A discussion of the nature of information is undertaken by bringing together the views of Brenda Dervin and Karl Popper on subjectivity and objectivity as these relate to information use. It is shown that while they take different routes, they come to similar positions. From the historical development of information science, some work on the problem of information management is selected to show the relevance of the philosophical discussion to the practice. The overall purpose is to establish information as an existent with which librarians and information scientists work in a peculiar way, resulting in the acts of classification and indexing as applied in information retrieval systems (or libraries). The nature of information and its relationship to human activities is seen to be fundamental to the practice and principles of the profession as well as the science. I use the word ‘librarian’ to indicate the intermediary since the word ‘intermediary’ can carry the meaning ‘human and/or non‐human’. Here we are concerned with human problems.
In 1984, Local P‐9 of the United Food and Commercial Worker's Union (UFCW) launched a publicity campaign to protest wage cuts at the George A. Hormel Company of Austin, Minnesota…
Abstract
In 1984, Local P‐9 of the United Food and Commercial Worker's Union (UFCW) launched a publicity campaign to protest wage cuts at the George A. Hormel Company of Austin, Minnesota. This corporate campaign was followed in August, 1985, by a bitter strike. After P‐9 had been striking for nearly a year, the international officers of the UFCW placed the local P‐9 union in trusteeship, replaced its officers, and negotiated a new labor contract.
Any librarian who has been faced with the problem of cataloguing the course unit booklets supplied by the Open University as the framework of its teaching will have discovered how…
Abstract
Any librarian who has been faced with the problem of cataloguing the course unit booklets supplied by the Open University as the framework of its teaching will have discovered how bibliographically intractable they are. This article seeks first to describe some of the problems thus encountered, and secondly to describe how one institution has attempted to solve them.
Mike Cornford, Ruth Kerns, Terry Hanstock, Edwin Fleming, Allan Bunch and Tony Joseph
With its traditional good timing and aplomb the Library Association will ensure that next year's subscription demands arrive with this year's Christmas cards. As I gently spar…
Abstract
With its traditional good timing and aplomb the Library Association will ensure that next year's subscription demands arrive with this year's Christmas cards. As I gently spar with my conscience over whether to maintain my record of unbroken membership I feel that it is quite in order to question whether the LA is a cost‐effective, efficiently‐run, value for money organisation.
Brenda Scholtz, Andre P. Calitz and Thabo Tlebere
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory for evaluating social media usage in higher education. The paper reports on a social media…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory for evaluating social media usage in higher education. The paper reports on a social media awareness campaign which was designed and implemented in a higher education context as extra-curricular content.
Design/methodology/approach
A case study research approach was used and the theoretical model was adopted in a South African higher education institution where a social media campaign was conducted to improve environmental awareness. The activities of the environmental awareness campaign were conducted using popular social media such as Facebook and YouTube. The U&G theory was used to evaluate social media usage before and after the campaign. Three gratifications (or factors) of the U&G were used, namely coordination, immediate access and social presence.
Findings
The findings revealed an increase in environmental knowledge during the campaign and a positive correlation was found between activity on the social media campaign and environmental knowledge. However, the ratings for the U&G gratifications were lower in the post-test evaluation than in the pre-test evaluation for all three factors. This low rating could indicate that the use of social media for these gratifications and the acceptance of social media used for extra-curricular educational purposes are low. Through qualitative feedback three other factors that influenced the usage and acceptance of the campaign social media were identified, namely: time, attitude and a fast internet connection.
Research limitations/implications
One limitation of the study was the relatively small sample size of 72 students in one higher education institution.
Practical implications
The findings of the study still provide deeper insight into students’ usage of social media for extra-curricular education and the theoretical model can be used in other studies on social media usage.
Originality/value
Whilst several studies have investigated social media use for learning, there is limited research which explores the usage and acceptance of social media for extra-curricular knowledge.