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The concept of Open Educational Resources (OER) is a major breakthrough in education, which promotes sharing, adaptation and contextualisation of course content. Promotion of using OER can be very cost effective, since development of new course content would be both expensive and time consuming. However, awareness raising and capacity building of teachers and learners is crucial, in order to exploit the full potential of OER.

The Faculty of Education at the Open University of Sri Lanka, initiated a research project to create an Online Learning Environment (OLE) on OER for science education, witha view to raise awareness, develop competencies and enhance adapting, adoption and creation of OER by teachers. This is developed in Moodle Learning Management System, as a supplementary material for science teachers enrolled in a distance mode professional development programme. The research team, together with a group of science teachers and teacher educators, who are their students, is engaged in this action research conducted in several stages: analysis, design, development, implementation and evaluation. This paper discusses the first three stages, concerning the following objectives: to identify sources of OER for science education, to make key design decisions of the OLE, and to design and develop the OLE on OER for science education.

The analysis of need, learner, task and context, resulted in making decisions on information, instruction, interaction and interface design. Some initial design decisions are: Structuring of information on finding, using and creating OER related to teaching science, while making it relevant and meaningful for teachers; Use of exploratory instructional strategies enabling teachers to select OER; Incorporate frequent interactions encouraging teachers to adopt, adapt, create and share OER; and Use of different media elements to make the visual layout motivating. A prototype will be pilot tested with science teachers with a view to revise and improve the OLE on OER. Allowing student teachers/teacher educators to work collaboratively with their instructors, as a team, enable both parties to face challenges together, in this novel experience of designing and developing an OLE on OER.

The increasing urgency to address climate change in construction has made green construction (GC) and sustainability critical topics for academia and industry professionals. However, the volume of literature in this field has made it impractical to rely solely on traditional systematic evidence mapping methodologies.

This study employs machine learning (ML) techniques to analyze the extensive evidence-base on GC. Using both supervised and unsupervised ML, 5,462 relevant papers were filtered from 10,739 studies published from 2010 to 2022, retrieved from the Scopus and Web of Science databases.

Key themes in GC encompass green building materials, construction techniques, assessment methodologies and management practices. GC assessment and techniques were prominent, while management requires more research. The results from prevalence of topics and heatmaps revealed important patterns and interconnections, emphasizing the prominent role of materials as major contributors to the construction sector. Consistency of the results with VOSviewer analysis further validated the findings, demonstrating the robustness of the review approach.

Unlike other reviews focusing only on specific aspects of GC, use of ML techniques to review a large pool of literature provided a holistic understanding of the research landscape. It sets a precedent by demonstrating the effectiveness of ML techniques in addressing the challenge of analyzing a large body of literature. By showcasing the connections between various facets of GC and identifying research gaps, this research aids in guiding future initiatives in the field.

This paper aims to analyze the current state of tourism in Sri Lanka and make practical suggestions for the future.

The paper is written in the context of a strategic question: “how might post-war Sri Lanka develop inbound tourism?” An analytical approach is taken to discuss potential growth of tourism in Sri Lanka from 2013 to 2016.

26 years of war affected tourism in Sri Lanka negatively and a dramatic turnaround came when the war ended in 2009. In 2012 most tourist generating countries indicated significant growth. In 2012 Sri Lanka passed two milestones in its tourism history by emerging as a “Million Tourist Destination” and a “Billion Dollar Export Income Earner”. However, from 1,005,605 tourists in 2012, the number who utilized tourist services and facilities is established as 725,000. Sri Lanka is now aiming to attract 2.5 million tourists by 2016. The paper debates that this target is not realistic.

To further develop tourism, Sri Lanka must develop a practical plan with realistic targets. In conclusion, the authors suggest a ten-point plan.

This paper aims to learn from the present and plan for the future. A former Marketing Director of the national tourism authority of Sri Lanka joined hands with an international hospitality and tourism educator to co-write this paper to advocate for a practical approach in forecasting realistic targets for tourism growth in Sri Lanka.

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the themes and aims of this Accounting, Auditing & Accountability (AAAJ) special issue and comments on the papers included in the issue. The paper provides a thematic outline along which the future researchers can undertake more empirical research examining how neoliberalism shapes, and shaped by, management accounting.

This entails a brief review of the previous critical accounting works that refer to liberalism and neoliberalism to identify and highlight the specific themes and trajectories of neoliberal implications of management accounting has been and can be explored. This is followed by a brief commentary on the papers the authors have included in this special issue; these commentaries explain how these papers capture various dimensions of enabling and enacting neoliberal governmentality.

The authors found that management accounting is now entering new territories beyond its conventional disciplinary enclosures of confinement, reconfiguring its functionalities to enable and enact a circulatory mode of neoliberal governmentality. These new functionalities then produce and reproduce entrepreneurial selves in myriad forms of social connections, networks and platforms within and beyond formal organizational settings, amid plethora of conducts, counter-conducts and resistances and new forms of identities and subjectivities.

This review can be read in relation to the papers included in the special issue as the whole issue will inspire more ideas, frameworks and methodologies for further studies.

There is little research reviewing and commenting how management accounting now being enacted and enabled with new functionalities operating new territories and reconfiguring forms of governmentality. This paper inspires a new agenda on this project.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of the tourism sector in the Amazon regions of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, and Suriname and then discuss the manner in which tourism activity assists the protection of the Amazon rainforests. The paper also describes the manner in which the first World Hospitality and Tourism Themes Roundtable on Tourism in the Amazon is organized in 2009.

Teams of researchers from the Ministries of Tourism, the private sector and academia in the Member Countries of Treaty for Amazon Cooperation collaborated to address, in ten‐page papers, the question “Does sustainable tourism offer solutions for the protection of the Amazon rainforest?”

The paper provides valuable information on the current state of tourism policy and practice in the Amazon Member Countries. It also articulates the challenges that attend the development of sustainable tourism as a mechanism for the protection of the Amazon.

Tourism policy officials and managers, should benefit from the discussions of the prospects and challenges that attend the practice of sustainable tourism in the Amazon region. They will also find interesting guidelines and recommendations for action based upon the many destinations and tourism regions under examination.

The issue of sustainable tourism and the rainforest is very topical and this paper will be of immense value to scholars, researchers and tourism practitioners.

The current National Early Warning System for Sri Lanka (NEWS: SL) was established after the devastations of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. Although early warning (EW) systems and evacuation procedures are in place, several areas which need improvements have been emphasized in recent studies carried out in the country. Therefore, this paper aims to outline the gaps in existing EW and EP related to tsunami and other coastal hazards with a special focus on the use of social media for disaster communication based on age groups.

This study has drawn on a review of past studies carried out by the same research team to identify the scope of the study. In addition to that, a conceptual framework was developed for the use of social media in the event of a disaster. Based on this conceptual framework, an online questionnaire was administered to identify the current status of the use of social media in Sri Lanka during a disaster situation. In total, 408 responses were collected and analyzed using the binary logistic regression method to evaluate the variation of different predictors associated with the use of social media for disaster communication.

Findings of the study revealed that the use of social media for disaster communication depends on the previous experience of users and their age. The gender of users does not affect the use of social media for disaster communication. Therefore, the accuracy and timeliness of disaster information distributed via social media should be improved further to enhance the use of social media for disaster communication. Moreover, the findings have highlighted unaddressed issues in areas such as governance; communication of technical agencies; evacuation and shelters; and response of the community.

This paper has identified key areas that need attention in the process of enhancing the use of social media for disaster communication. More use of technological platforms such as social media for receiving disaster-related information can address issues such as bottlenecks in communication, poor awareness and lack of last-mile dissemination. Furthermore, this paper has proposed recommendations for addressing the identified gaps in the overall EW mechanisms and EP pertaining to tsunamis and other coastal hazards to enhance the coastal disaster resilience in Sri Lanka.

This paper aims to present practical answers to the strategic question: “How might post-war Sri Lanka develop inbound tourism?” It attempts to capture the essence of contributions by 12 experts on aspects on tourism of Sri Lanka, for the Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes (WHATT) issue on Sri Lanka in 2013.

Having analyzed the key findings and recommendations made in eight preceding papers on the same theme issue, the author integrates innovative suggestions in order to provide a succinct response to the strategic question.

While providing an overview of the key trends and challenges of tourism in post-war Sri Lanka, this paper proposes innovative solutions to those challenges. At the end of the paper 11 final concluding suggestions which have incorporated 71 suggestions from other sections of this paper are made to all policy makers and stakeholders of tourism industry of Sri Lanka. Based on relevant discussions, conclusions, suggested innovative solutions and assumptions, the paper provides a helicopter view of the potential for future tourism development in Sri Lanka up to the year 2026.

This paper provides fresh perspectives on many relevant issues by analyzing inputs, viewpoints, comments, and suggestions from subject experts. These inputs make this paper valuable to the readers. Industry professionals, consultants, researchers, academics and students with interests in tourism in Sri Lanka or similar tourism destinations around the world would benefit from this paper.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the work in progress by the Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR) in Ecuador, in collaboration with other national and international entities, to develop a sustainable tourism product in the Amazon region of the Republic of Ecuador.

The paper discusses the main tourism trends in Ecuador over the past decade and then gives quantitative data regarding tourism resources in the six provinces of the Ecuadorian Amazon. This is followed by a discussion of the partnerships, national, and international, enacted by the MINTUR to advance the development of sustainable tourism. The paper ends with an insight into the form of tourism deemed most desirable as a means of creating economic and human welfare benefits as well as environmental sustainability.

The paper is a clear presentation of a country committed to the task of “advantaging” a particular region – the Amazon – through the adoption of policies and the implementation of a strategic plan that aims at optimizing development based on the natural, ecological, and cultural wealth of the region.

Tourism planners, entrepreneurs, and operators would derive much benefit from the concepts advanced and strategies explained in this paper.

With its discussion of the strong Ecuadorian base in community and ecological tourism this paper offers some fresh perspectives on the planning complexities to be addressed in the development of sustainable tourism as a mechanism for rainforest protection.

This paper aims to identify the specific parameters in developing a framework to assess the structural vulnerability of hospital buildings in Sri Lanka against tsunami. Along with that, the adaptability and suitability of the existing global frameworks in the Sri Lankan context are to be assessed.

In this study, Papathoma tsunami vulnerability assessment (PTVA)-4 model was used as the base in developing the abovementioned framework. Its adaptability and suitability in assessing hospital buildings in the country were considered under the case studies conducted in six selected hospitals in the Southern coastal belt of Sri Lanka. Under these case studies, data collection was done using the Rapid Visual Screening method where assessments were carried out through visual observations. The collected data were analyzed according to the aforementioned model for its suitability in evaluating the structural vulnerability of hospitals in Sri Lanka, against tsunami hazard.

From these case studies, it was identified that the use of the PTVA-4 model alone was insufficient to assess the structural vulnerability of the hospital buildings against the tsunami. Therefore, the model must be further improved with more relevant assessing attributes related to hospitals, suitable for the Sri Lankan context.

This paper identifies the specific structural assessment parameters required in assessing hospitals in the coastal belt of Sri Lanka, considering tsunami as the main hazard condition.

Drawing on the ideas of postcolonial hybridity and postcolonial feminism, the purpose of this paper is to explore a contextual variant of neoliberalism, which the authors call postcolonial neoliberalism. It unpacks the peculiarities of hybridised practices of management controls therein to reflect on its construction and consequences.

A seven-month ethnographic study was carried out in a Sri Lankan tea estate to understand both the nature and the practices of these controls.

Postcolonial neoliberalism has been animated by a hybrid form of management controls encompassing colonial action controls, postcolonial cultural controls and neoliberal results controls. This created an emancipatory space for female workers to engage in some confrontations to attain some compromises.

The message is that the hybridised controls are central to the construction of this form of postcolonial neoliberalism and to its reproduction. However, as these controls accompany a gendered form, female workers find a condition of possibility for some emancipatory potentials within the neoliberal development policy.