Lionhearts of the Playworld : An ethnographic case study of the development of agency in play pedagogy

This is an ethnographic case study of the creation and emergence of a playworld – a pedagogical approach aimed at promoting children’s development and learning in early education settings through the use of play and drama. The data was collected in a Finnish experimental mixed-age elementary school classroom in the school year 2003-2004. In the playworld students and teachers explore different social and cultural phenomena through taking on the roles of characters from a story or a piece of literature and acting inside the frames of an improvised plot. The thesis takes under scrutiny the notion of agency in education. It produces theoretically grounded empirical knowledge of the ways in which children struggle to become recognized and agentive actors in early education settings and how their agency develops in their interaction with adults. The study builds on the activity theoretical and sociocultural tradition and develops a methodological framework called video-based narrative interaction analysis for studying student agency as developing over time but manifesting through the situational material and discursive local interactions. The research questions are: 1. What are the children’s ways of enacting their agency in the playworld? 2. How do the children’s agentive actions change and develop over the spring? 3. What are the potentials and challenges of the playworld for promoting student agency? 4. How do the teachers and the children deal with the contradiction between control and agency in the playworld? The study consists of a summary part and four empirical articles which each have a particular viewpoint. Articles I and II deal with individual students’ paths to agency. In Article I the focus is on the role of resistance and questioning in enabling important spaces for agency. Article II takes a critical gender perspective and analyzes how two girls struggled towards recognition in the playworld. It also illuminates the role of imagination in developing a sense of agency. Article III examines how the open-ended and improvisational nature of the playworld interaction provided experiences and a sense of ‘shared agency’ for the students and teachers in the class. Article IV turns the focus on the teachers and analyzes how their role actions in the playworld helped the children to enact agency. It also discusses the challenges that the teachers faced in this work and asks what makes the playworld activity sustainable in the class. The summary part provides a critical literature review on the concept of agency and argues that the inherently contradictory nature of the phenomenon of agency has not been sufficiently theorized. The summary part also locates the playworld intervention in a historical frame by discussing the changing conceptions of adulthood and childhood in the West. By focusing on the changing role of play and art in both adults’ and children’s contemporary lives, the thesis opens up an important but often neglected perspective on the problem of promoting student agency in education. The results illustrate how engaging in a collectively imagined and dramatized pretend play space together with the children enabled the teachers to momentarily put aside their “knower” positions in the classroom. The fictive roles and the narrative plot helped them to create a necessary incompleteness and open-endedness in the activity that stimulated the children’s initiatives. This meant that the children too could momentarily step out of their traditional classroom positions as pupils and initiate action to further the collective play. Engaging in this kind of unconventional activity and taking up and enacting agency was, however, very challenging for the participating children and teachers. It often contradicted the need to sustain control and order in the classroom. The study concludes that play- and drama-based pedagogies offer a unique but undeveloped potential for developing educational spaces that help teachers and children deal with the often contradictory requirements of schooling.

The Gendered Social Organisation of Defence: Two Ethnographic Case Studies in the Finnish Defence Forces

In Finland the organising of defence is undergoing vast restructuring. Recent legislation has redefined the central tasks of the Finnish Defence Forces. At the same time, international security cooperation, economic pressures and new administrative paradigms have steered the military towards new ways of organising. National defence is not just politics and principles; to a large extent it is also enacted in day-to-day life in organisations. The lens through which these realities of defence are analysed in this study is gender. How is the security sector – and national defence as part of it – organised in the changing security environment? What is the new division of labour between different societal actors in the face of security challenges? What happens ‘at work’ within the military and the defence sector more broadly? How does gender affect the way in which defence is organised and understood, and how do the changes in the organising of security affect gender relations? The thesis searches for answers to these questions in the context of two organisational settings in the male-dominated defence sector. The case study on a Finnish peacekeeping unit in the Balkans opens a critical view on men’s social practices and the everyday life of crisis management organisations. In the second case study, reorganising of provisioning in the Finnish Defence Forces turns out to be a complicated process where different power relations and social divisions intermingle. Tallberg’s extensive ethnographic fieldwork in the two focal organisations has produced a detailed set of data that lays the basis for critical analysis and policy development in terms of defence organising, cooperation around peace and security issues, and gender equality in organisations. Observations and results are provided for understanding social networks, militarisation, authority relations, care, public-private partnerships, personnel policies, career planning, and humour.

Japanese Video Game Localization : A Case Study of Sony's Sairen Series

This thesis is a comparative case study in Japanese video game localization for the video games Sairen, Sairen 2 and Sairen Nyûtoransurêshon, and English-language localized versions of the same games as published in Scandinavia and Australia/New Zealand. All games are developed by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. and published exclusively for Playstation2 and Playstation3 consoles. The fictional world of the Sairen games draws much influence from Japanese history, as well as from popular and contemporary culture, and in doing so caters mainly to a Japanese audience. For localization, i.e. the adaptation of a product to make it accessible to users outside the original market it was intended for in the first place, this is a challenging issue. Video games are media of entertainment, and therefore localization practice must preserve the games’ effects on the players’ emotions. Further, video games are digital products that are comprised of a multitude of distinct elements, some of which are part of the game world, while others regulate the connection between the player as part of the real world and the game as digital medium. As a result, video game localization is also a practice that has to cope with the technical restrictions that are inherent to the medium. The main theory used throughout the thesis is Anthony Pym’s framework for localization studies that considers the user of the localized product as a defining part of the localization process. This concept presupposes that localization is an adaptation that is performed to make a product better suited for use during a specific reception situation. Pym also addresses the factor that certain products may resist distribution into certain reception situations because of their content, and that certain aspects of localization aim to reduce this resistance through significant alterations of the original product. While Pym developed his ideas with mainly regular software in mind, they can also be adapted well to study video games from a localization angle. Since modern video games are highly complex entities that often switch between interactive and non-interactive modes, Pym’s ideas are adapted throughout the thesis to suit the particular elements being studied. Instances analyzed in this thesis include menu screens, video clips, in-game action and websites. The main research questions focus on how the games’ rules influence localization, and how the games’ fictional domain influences localization. Because there are so many peculiarities inherent to the medium of the video game, other theories are introduced as well to complement the research at hand. These include Lawrence Venuti’s discussions of foreiginizing and domesticating translation methods for literary translation, and Jesper Juul’s definition of games. Additionally, knowledge gathered from interviews with video game localization professionals in Japan during September and October 2009 is also utilized for this study. Apart from answering the aforementioned research questions, one of this thesis’ aims is to enrich the still rather small field of game localization studies, and the study of Japanese video games in particular, one of Japan’s most successful cultural exports.

The Walls of Agios Donatos Zervochoriou : A case study of a fortress in Thesprotia, northwestern Greece

The study deals with the dating and the function of the fortress of Agios Donatos, which is located in the Kokytos river valley in Thesprotia, northwestern Greece. To solve the dating problem one had to use parallels found in research literature, preferably within as close range as possible. As most of the fortresses within a close proximity had not been adequately published, one had to use parallels within a larger area, throughout the Hellenistic world. Archaeological material found in trial trenches on site was used when possible. To think of the function of the site one had to study the site itself and its relation to the environment, and to compare the situation with the parallels found in research literature, mostly different archaeological survey projects in Greece and Asia Minor. The fortress was built during a period ranging from the final decades of the fourth century down to the mid-third century BC. Most likely it was built during the first quarter of the third century, that is the reign of Pyrrhus of Epirus when the area experienced a boom in fortress building activity. The function of the site was most likely to protect a trade route from the major port in the area to the central areas of the valley and on to Kalamas river, which was the major route on to Macedon. In the end an appendix dealing with the other fortified sites in Thesprotia has been compiled.

Lithics after Stone Age in East Africa : Wadh Lang'o case study

Tutkielmassa käsitellään kiviesineiden käytön jatkumista kivikauden jälkeen Itä-Afrikassa. Rautakauden alku Itä- ja Etelä-Afrikassa liitetään perinteisesti bantuheimojen migraatioon näille alueille. Tämä vallitseva teoria otettiin tässä tutkimuksessa lähtökohdaksi. Afrikasta tunnetaan runsaasti sekä etnografisia että arkeologisia esimerkkejä kiviteknologian säilymisestä paikoin 1900-luvun loppupuolelle. Nämä liittyvät usein perimätiedon perusteella "kivikautisten" metsästäjä-keräilijöiden ja rautakautisten maanviljelijä- ja karjanhoitajayhteisöjen rinnakkaiseloon. Tutkimuskysymystä lähestytään sekä julkaistun että primääriaineiston kautta. Alussa esitellään kirjallisuudesta löytyviä esimerkkejä myöhäisestä kiviesineiden käytöstä, minkä jälkeen käydään tarkemmin läpi Malawin alueelta julkaistu aiheeseen liitettävissä oleva arkeologinen aineisto. Tätä käytetään vertailuaineistona tutkimuksen pääasiallista tapaustutkimusta käsiteltäessä. Pääasiallisena tapaustutkimuksena toimii Viktoria-järven läheisyydessä sijaitsevan Wadh Lang'o:n asuinpaikan kiviesineistön analyysi. Wadh Lang'o:sta tunnetaan pitkä kulttuurisekvenssi, joka kattaa alueen myöhäiskivikautiset ja rautakautiset kulttuurivaiheet. Stratigrafisen aineiston perusteella kiviesineet ovat säilyneet asuinpaikalla käytössä ainakin keskisen rautakauden alkuun. Varhaisimmassa vaiheessa asuinpaikkaa on asuttanut Oltome-kulttuuriin kuuluva väestö. Suurimmat muutokset materiaalisessa kulttuurissa analyysin kattamana aikana ovat aiheutuneet seuraavan kulttuurivaiheen, Elmenteitan-kulttuurin, myötä. Kiviesineistön perusteella Elmenteitan-keramiikan ilmaantuminen asuinpaikalle on liitettävissä idästäpäin Itä-Afrikan hautavajoaman suunnalta tapahtuneeseen migraatioon. Jatkuvuuden puolesta puhuvat esimerkiksi tehdyt kiviraaka-aine valinnat. Vaikuttaa, että edeltänyt Oltome-keraaminen väestö on säilyttänyt vaikutuksensa asuinpaikalla vielä tänäkin aikana. Varhaisrautakautisen Urewe-keramiikan ilmestymiseen asuinpaikalle ei näyttäisi olevan liitettävissä mitään suurisuuntaista migraatiota, toisin kuin vallalla oleva teoria bantumigraatiosta antaisi olettaa. Mahdollisesti uusi keramiikka on omaksuttu spesialistien, esimerkiksi seppien, muuton myötä tai vaeltavien kauppiaiden vaikutuksesta. Kiviesineistö osoittaa jatkuvuutta esimerkiksi mikroliittien morfologisten piirteiden ja käytettyjen raaka-aineiden perusteella. Mahdollisesti Elmenteitan-kulttuurin karjanhoitoa harjoittanut väestö on kyennyt estämään bantusiirtolaisten muuton alueelleen. Rauta ei vaikuta olleen asuinpaikalla missään vaiheessa erityisen yleistä, eikä paikalta tunneta merkkejä raudanvalmistuksesta. Tutkielman lopussa esitellään kaksi vaihtoehtoista mallia, joiden pohjalta myöhäinen kiviesineiden käyttö voisi selittyä. Niistä ensimmäinen perustuu konventinaaliseen käsitykseen, jossa rautakauden alku nähdään bantumigraation seurauksena. Toinen malli perustuu varhaisrautakautisten kulttuuripiirteiden leviämiseen diffuusion avulla. Wadh Lang'o:n tapaustutkimus näyttäisi puhuvan diffuusion puolesta, mutta toisilla alueilla, esimerkiksi Malawissa, migraatio vaikuttaa olevan todennäköisin selitysmalli. Avainsanat: arkeologia, kiviteknologia, Itä-Afrikka, Oltome, Elmenteitan, Urewe, bantumigraatio, myöhäiskivikausi, rautakausi

How to Succeed in Knowledge Transfer : Case Study of Scandinavian Alliance in Ukraine

The current study of Scandinavian multinational corporate subsidiaries in the rapidly growing Eastern European market, due to their particular organizational structure, attempts to gain some new insights into processes and potential benefits of knowledge and technology transfer. This study explores how to succeed in knowledge transfer and to become more competitive, driven by the need to improve transfer of systematic knowledge for the manufacture of product and service provisions in newly entered market. The scope of current research is exactly limited to multinational corporations, which are defined as enterprises comprising entities in two or more countries, regardless of legal forms and field of activity of those entities, and which operate under a system of decision-making permitting coherent policies and a common strategy through one or more decision-making centers. The entities are linked, by ownership, and able to exercise influence over the activities of the others; and, in particular, to share the knowledge, resources, and responsibilities with others. The research question is "How and to which extent can knowledge-transfer influence a company's technological competence and economic competitiveness?" and try to find out what particular forces and factors affect the development of subsidiary competencies; what factors influence the corporate integration and use of the subsidiary's competencies; and what may increase competitiveness of MNC pursuing leading position in entered market. The empirical part of the research was based on qualitative analyses of twenty interviews conducted among employees in Scandinavian MNC subsidiary units situated in Ukraine, using structured sequence of questions with open-ended answers. The data was investigated by comparison case analyses to literature framework. Findings indicate that a technological competence developed in one subsidiary will lead to an integration of that competence with other corporate units within the MNC. Success increasingly depends upon people's learning. The local economic area is crucial for understanding competition and industrial performance, as there seems to be a clear link between the performance of subsidiaries and the conditions prevailing in their environment. The linkage between competitive advantage and company's success is mutually dependent. Observation suggests that companies can be characterized as clusters of complementary activities such as R&D, administration, marketing, manufacturing and distribution. Study identifies barriers and obstacles in technology and knowledge transfer that is relevant for the subsidiaries' competence development. The accumulated experience can be implemented in new entered market with simple procedures, and at a low cost under specific circumstances, by cloning. The main goal is focused to support company prosperity, making more profits and sustaining an increased market share by improved product quality and/or reduced production cost of the subsidiaries through cloning approach. Keywords: multinational corporation; technology transfer; knowledge transfer; subsidiary competence; barriers and obstacles; competitive advantage; Eastern European market

Rural Income Generation and Diversification : A Case Study in Eastern Zambia

Rural income diversification has been found to be rather the norm than the exception in developing countries. Smallholder households tend to diversify their income sources because of the need to manage risks, secure a smooth flow of income, allocate surplus labour, respond to various kinds of market failures, and apply coping strategies. The Agricultural Household Model provides a theoretical rationale for income diversification in that rural households aim at maximising their utility. There are several elements involved, such as agricultural production for their own consumption and markets, leisure activities and income from non-farm sources. The aim of the present study is to enhance understanding of the processes of rural income generation and diversification in eastern Zambia. Specifically, it explores the relationship between household characteristics, asset endowments and income-generation patterns. According to the sustainable- rural-livelihoods framework, the assets a household possesses shape its capacity to seize new economic opportunities. The study is based on two surveys conducted among rural smallholder households in four districts of Eastern Province in Zambia in 1985/86 and 2003. Sixty-seven of the interviewed households were present in both surveys and this panel allows comparison between the two points of time. The initial descriptive analysis is complemented with an econometric analysis of the relationships between household assets and income sources. The results show that, on average, 30 per cent of the households income originated from sources outside their own agriculture. There was a slight increase in the proportion of non-farm income from 1985/86 to 2003, but total income clearly declined mainly on account of diminishing crop income. The land area the household was able to cultivate, which is often dependent on the available labour, was the most significant factor affecting both the household-income level and the diversification patterns. Diversification was, in most cases, a coping strategy rather than a voluntary choice. Measured as income/capita/day, all households were below the poverty line in 2003. The agricultural reforms in Zambia, combined with other trends such as changes in rainfall pattern, the worsening livestock situation and the incidence of human disease, had a negative impact on agricultural productivity and income between 1985/86 and 2003. Sources of non-farm income were closely linked to agriculture either upstream or downstream and the income they generated was not enough to compensate for the decline of agricultural income. Household assets and characteristics had a smaller impact on diversification patterns than expected, which could reflect the lack of opportunities in the remote rural environment.

The Culture of Women's Housework : A Case Study of Bihar, India

This study examines gendered housework in India, particularly in Bihar. The perspective adopted in the study was in part derived from the data but also from sociological literature published both in Western countries and in India. The primary attention is therefore paid to modern and traditional aspects in housework. The aim is not to compare Indian practices to those of Western societies, but rather to use Western studies as a fruitful reference point. In that light, Indian housework practices appear to be traditional. Consequently, traditions are given a more significant role than is usually the case in studies on gendered housework, particularly in Western countries. The study approaches the topic mainly from the socio-cultural perspective; this provides the best means to understand the persistence of traditional habits in India. To get a wide enough picture of the division of labour, three methods were applied in the study: detailed time-use data, questionnaire and theme interviews. The data were collected in 1988 in two districts of Bihar, one rural and the other urban. The different data complement each other well but also bring to light contradictory findings: on a general level Biharian people express surprisingly modern views on gender equality but when talking in more detail (theme interviews) the interviewees told about how traditional housework practices still were in 1988. In the analysis of the data set four principal themes are discussed. Responsibility is the concept by which the study aims at understanding the logic of the argumentation on which the persistence of traditional housework practices is grounded. Contrary to the Western style, Biharian respondents appealed not to the principle of choice but to their responsibility to do what has to be done. The power of tradition, the early socialization of children to the traditional division of labour and the elusive nature of modernity are all discussed separately. In addition to the principle of responsibility, housework was also seen as an expression of affection. This was connected to housework in general but also to traditional practices. The purity principle was the third element that made Biharian interviewees favour housework in general, but as in the case of affection it too was interwoven with traditional practices. It seems to be so that if housework is in general preferred, this leads to preferring the traditional division of labour, too. The same came out when examining economic imperatives. However, the arguments concerning them proved to be rational. In analysing them it became clear that the significance of traditions is also much dependent on the economics: as far as the average income in India is very low, the prevalence of traditional practices in housework will continue. However, to make this work, cultural arguments are required: their role is to mediate more smoothly the iron rules of the economy. Key words: family, gendered housework, division of labour, responsibility, family togetherness, emotion, economy of housework, modernity, traditionality

Governance theory as a framework for empirical research : a case study on local environmental policy-making in Helsinki, Finland

Governance has been one of the most popular buzzwords in recent political science. As with any term shared by numerous fields of research, as well as everyday language, governance is encumbered by a jungle of definitions and applications. This work elaborates on the concept of network governance. Network governance refers to complex policy-making situations, where a variety of public and private actors collaborate in order to produce and define policy. Governance is processes of autonomous, self-organizing networks of organizations exchanging information and deliberating. Network governance is a theoretical concept that corresponds to an empirical phenomenon. Often, this phenomenon is used to descirbe a historical development: governance is often used to describe changes in political processes of Western societies since the 1980s. In this work, empirical governance networks are used as an organizing framework, and the concepts of autonomy, self-organization and network structure are developed as tools for empirical analysis of any complex decision-making process. This work develops this framework and explores the governance networks in the case of environmental policy-making in the City of Helsinki, Finland. The crafting of a local ecological sustainability programme required support and knowledge from all sectors of administration, a number of entrepreneurs and companies and the inhabitants of Helsinki. The policy process relied explicitly on networking, with public and private actors collaborating to design policy instruments. Communication between individual organizations led to the development of network structures and patterns. This research analyses these patterns and their effects on policy choice, by applying the methods of social network analysis. A variety of social network analysis methods are used to uncover different features of the networked process. Links between individual network positions, network subgroup structures and macro-level network patterns are compared to the types of organizations involved and final policy instruments chosen. By using governance concepts to depict a policy process, the work aims to assess whether they contribute to models of policy-making. The conclusion is that the governance literature sheds light on events that would otherwise go unnoticed, or whose conceptualization would remain atheoretical. The framework of network governance should be in the toolkit of the policy analyst.

Growing up in Affiliation with a Religious Community : A Case Study of Seventh-day Adventist Youth in Finland

This study investigates how the religious community as a socialization context affects the development of young people's religious identity and values, using Finnish Seventh-day Adventism as a context for the case study. The research problem is investigated through the following questions: (1) What aspects support the intergenerational transmission of values and tradition in religious home education? (2) What is the role of social capital and the social networks of the religious community in the religious socialization process? (3) How does the religious composition of the peer group at school (e.g., a denominational school in comparison to a mainstream school) affect these young people s social relations and choices and their religious identity (as challenged versus as reinforced by values at school)? And (4) How do the young people studied negotiate their religious values and religious membership in the diverse social contexts of the society at large? The mixed method study includes both quantitative and qualitative data sets (3 surveys: n=106 young adults, n=100 teenagers, n=55 parents; 2 sets of interviews: n=10 young adults and n=10 teenagers; and fieldwork data from youth summer camps). The results indicate that, in religious home education, the relationship between parents and children, the parental example of a personally meaningful way of life, and encouraging critical thinking in order for young people to make personalized value choices were important factors in socialization. Overall, positive experiences of the religion and the religious community were crucial in providing direction for later choices of values and affiliations. Education that was experienced as either too severe or too permissive was not regarded as a positive influence for accepting similar values and lifestyle choices to those of the parents. Furthermore, the religious community had an important influence on these young people s religious socialization in terms of the commitment to denominational values and lifestyle and in providing them with religious identity and rooting them in the social network of the denomination. The network of the religious community generated important social resources, or social capital, for both the youth and their families, involving both tangible and intangible benefits, and bridging and bonding effects. However, the study also illustrates the sometimes difficult negotiations the youth face in navigating between differentiation and belonging when there is a tension between the values of a minority group and the larger society, and one wants to and does belong to both. It also demonstrates the variety within both the majority and the minority communities in society, as well as the many different ways one can find a personally meaningful way of being an Adventist. In the light of the previous literature about socialization-in-context in an increasingly pluralistic society, the findings were examined at four levels: individual, family, community and societal. These were seen as both a nested structure and as constructing a funnel in which each broader level directs the influences that reach the narrower ones. The societal setting directs the position and operation of religious communities, families and individuals, and the influences that reach the developing children and young people are in many ways directed by societal, communal and family characteristics. These levels are by nature constantly changing, as well as being constructed of different parts, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, each of which alters in significance: for some negotiations on values and memberships the parental influence may be greater, whereas for others the peer group influences are. Although agency does remain somewhat connected to others, the growing youth are gradually able to take more responsibility for their own choices and their agency plays a crucial role in the process of choosing values and group memberships. Keywords: youth, community, Adventism, socialization, values, identity negotiations

End-User Attitudes Towards EDM Use in Construction Project Work: Case Study

This article reports on a cross-sectional case study of a large construction project in which Electronic document management (EDM) was used. Attitudes towards EDM from the perspective of individual end users were investigated. Responses from a survey were combined with data from system usage log files to obtain an overview of attitudes prevalent in different user segments of the total population of 334 users. The survey was followed by semi-structured interviews with representative users. A strong majority of users from all segments of the project group considered EDM as a valuable aid in their work processes, despite certain functional limitations of the system used and the complexity of the information mass. Based on the study a model describing the key factors affecting end user EDM adoption is proposed. The model draws on insight from earlier studies of EDM enabled projects and theoretical frameworks on technology acceptance and success of information systems, as well as the insights gained from the case study.

Use of Document Management Systems - a Case Study of the Finnish Construction Industry

Triggered by the very quick proliferation of Internet connectivity, electronic document management (EDM) systems are now rapidly being adopted for managing the documentation that is produced and exchanged in construction projects. Nevertheless there are still substantial barriers to the efficient use of such systems, mainly of a psychological nature and related to insufficient training. This paper presents the results of empirical studies carried out during 2002 concerning the current usage of EDM systems in the Finnish construction industry. The studies employed three different methods in order to provide a multifaceted view of the problem area, both on the industry and individual project level. In order to provide an accurate measurement of overall usage volume in the industry as a whole telephone interviews with key personnel from 100 randomly chosen construction projects were conducted. The interviews showed that while around 1/3 of big projects already have adopted the use of EDM, very few small projects have adopted this technology. The barriers to introduction were investigated through interviews with representatives for half a dozen of providers of systems and ASP-services. These interviews shed a lot of light on the dynamics of the market for this type of services and illustrated the diversity of business strategies adopted by vendors. In the final study log files from a project which had used an EDM system were analysed in order to determine usage patterns. The results illustrated that use is yet incomplete in coverage and that only a part of the individuals involved in the project used the system efficiently, either as information producers or consumers. The study also provided feedback on the usefulness of the log files.

The Scholarly Journal Re-engineered: A Case Study of an Open Access Journal in Construction IT

Open access is a new model for the publishing of scientific journals enabled by the Internet, in which the published articles are freely available for anyone to read. During the 1990’s hundreds of individual open access journals were founded by groups of academics, supported by grants and unpaid voluntary work. During the last five years other types of open access journals, funded by author charges have started to emerge and also established publishers have started to experiment with different variations of open access. This article reports on the experiences of one open access journal (The Electronic Journal of Information Technology in Construction, ITcon) over its ten year history. In addition to a straightforward account of the lessons learned the journal is also benchmarked against a number of competitors in the same research area and its development is put into the larger perspective of changes in scholarly publishing. The main findings are: That a journal publishing around 20-30 articles per year, equivalent to a typical quarterly journal, can sustainable be produced using an open source like production model. The journal outperforms its competitors in some respects, such as the speed of publication, availability of the results and balanced global distribution of authorship, and is on a par with them in most other respects. The key statistics for ITcon are: Acceptance rate 55 %. Average speed of publication 6-7 months. 801 subscribers to email alerts. Average number of downloads by human readers per paper per month 21.

How do Researchers Find and Retrieve Scientific Publications – A Case study of the Impact of the Internet on the Construction IT and Construction Management Research Communities

The World Wide Web provides the opportunity for a radically changed and much more efficient communication process for scientific results. A survey in the closely related domains of construction information technology and construction management was conducted in February 2000, aimed at measuring to what extent these opportunities are already changing the scientific information exchange and how researchers feel about the changes. The paper presents the results based on 236 replies to an extensive Web based questionnaire. 65% of the respondents stated their primary research interest as IT in A/E/C and 20% as construction management and economics. The questions dealt with how researchers find, access and read different sources; how much and what publications they read; how often and to which conferences they travel; how much they publish, and what are the criteria for where they eventually decide to publish. Some of the questions confronted traditional and electronic publishing with one final section dedicated to opinions about electronic publishing. According to the survey researchers already download half of the material that they read digitally from the Web. The most popular method for retrieving an interesting publication is downloading it for free from the author’s or publisher’s website. Researchers are not particularly willing to pay for electronic scientific publications. There is much support for a scenario of electronic journals available totally freely on the Web, where the costs could be covered by for instance professional societies or the publishing university. The shift that the Web is causing seems to be towards the "just in time" reading of literature. Also, frequent users of the Web rely less on scientific publications and tend to read fewer articles. If available with little effort, papers published in traditional journals are preferred; if not, the papers should be on the Web. In these circumstances, the role of paper-based journals published by established publishers is shifting from the core "information exchange" to the building of authors' prestige. The respondents feel they should build up their reputations by publishing in journals and relevant conferences, but then make their work freely available on the Web.