Equal Couples in Equal Houses : Cultural perspectives on Swedish solar and bio-pellet heating design

Knowing how to design a heating system that will work mechanically is quite different from knowling how to design a system that users perceive as responsive to their domestic practices and values. In this chapter, social anthropologist Henning argues that the challenge for designers involved in the development or marketing of green buildings with heating systems that are based on renewable sources of energy is to see things from the perspective of those who are supposed to live in these buildings. The chapter focuses on three culture-specific aspects of Swedish households and single-family houses: perceptions of house and home, of private and public space, and of male and female space. Through these three angles, some clues are given as to how design, performance and location of solar and bio-pellet heating systems could be made to resonate with predominant experiences, habits and ways of thinking among both men and women.

Fan Culture as an Informal Learning Environment : Presentation of a NGL project

Fan culture is a subculture that has developed explosively on the internet over the last decades. Fans are creating their own films, translations, fiction, fan art, blogs, role play and also various forms that are all based on familiar popular culture creations like TV-series, bestsellers, anime, manga stories and games. In our project, we analyze two of these subculture genres, fan fiction and scanlation. Amateurs, and sometimes professional writers, create new stories by adapting and developing existing storylines and characters from the original. In this way, a "network" of texts occurs, and writers step into an intertextual dialogue with established writers such as JK Rowling (Harry Potter) and Stephanie Meyer (Twilight). Literary reception and creation then merge into a rich reciprocal creative activity which includes comments and feedback from the participators in the community. The critical attitude of the fans regarding quality and the frustration at waiting for the official translation of manga books led to the development of scanlation, which is an amateur translation of manga distributed on the internet.  Today, young internet users get involved in conceptual discussions of intertextuality and narrative structures through fan activity. In the case of scanlation, the scanlators practice the skills and techniques of translating in an informal environment. This phenomenon of participatory culture has been observed by scholars and it is concluded that they contribute to the development of a student’s literacy and foreign language skills. Furthermore, there is no doubt that the fandom related to Japanese cultural products such as manga, anime and videogames is one of the strong motives for foreign students to start learning Japanese. This is something to take into pedagogical consideration when we develop web-based courses. Fan fiction and fan culture make it ​​possible to have an intensive transcultural dialogue between participators throughout the world and is of great interest when studying the interaction between formal and informal learning that puts the student in focus

En beskrivning av informationsmiljö därdatumstyrda förhållanden råder : En fallstudie av en myndighet och dess informationsmiljö med rättsakter

In this study a case study was conducted at the Transport Agency. The government agency is seeking better alternatives to its current ways of keeping track of important dates stated in legal documents. The agency wants to explore the possibility for an IT-solution for keeping track on those dates. In the case study change analysis was conducted on the vehicle type approval process. Qualitative interviews were conducted with a section manager, vehicle type and component approvers, and with a system administrator and a system manager at the Transport Agency in Borlänge. The study describes an information environment in an organization in which date-controlled conditions apply and challenges with such an environment.The study also provides a proposal for designing an IT-solution for such an environment. The result that emerged showed that the information environment in terms of the legal documents and the institutions’ (EU and UNECE) websites where they are distributed is challenging for keeping track on dates. The challenges of the websites are that they are limited and complicated in terms of information search. The challenges with the legal documents are that date-controlled conditions apply. In other words, the dates themselves determine which dates and what applies and not. The legal documents are also many, retroactive, refer to each other and contain regulations for different kinds of areas, which makes difficult to find the relevant dates. The design proposal that emerged was made based on the existing IT environment at the Transport Agency. It was proposed that important key concepts are identified, categorized and realized in a database with searchability on the most important common concepts as denominators, and that it the information conforms with E-message. The developed database was based on date, date type, vehicle category, legal document, minor version and other info. A web interface was created in ASP.NET and C # for access to the database, with the message that a webbbased IT-solution should be considered.

Using locally available components and local knowledge to build sustainable stand-alone power systems

The aim of this paper is to point out benefits as well as disadvantages associated with the use of locally available, not necessarily standardized, components in stand-alone electrical power systems at rural locations. Advantages and challenges arising when the direct involvement in design, construction and maintenance of the power system is reserved to people based in the area of implementation are discussed. The presented research is centered around one particular PV-diesel hybrid system in Tanzania; a case study in which technical and social aspects related to the particular power system are studied.

Learning in and through drama : The necessity to use multiple theoretical perspectives in order to understand how learning takes place in drama

The complexity of learning implies that learning seldom is about just one thing. It can be said that learning processes are interdisciplinary. Within educational contexts, learning is not limited to constructed school subjects. In drama education, learning is simultaneously about drama as aesthetic expression and content because drama always is about something. The mainly focus can be on form, content or social aspects. The different aspects are always present, but may be more or less foreground or the background depending on the purpose of education. How do development concerning understanding of form, content, and social interaction, interact in a learning process in drama? My research is based on the view that learning at the same time takes place as an individual, internal process and a socially situated, inter-subjective process. Can learning in drama imply learning that can be transferred between different situations, a transformative learning and if so, how? Transformative learning includes cognitive, affective and corporal and social action aspects and means that the individual's frames of reference are transformed, evolved, to become more insightful and flexible which implies a change of personality. It leads to an integrated knowledge that can be applied in different contexts.   In the paper that will be presented at the conference, theories about how we learn in drama will be discussed in relation to my empirical research concerning drama and learning.

Movies, Mind and Meaning : Studying Audience and Favourite Films

Construction of identity and meaning is becoming increasingly important in both media studies and religion scholarship. (Lövheim, 2004) Meaning construction outside traditional religion has become more interesting for religious studies and what individuals in the audience do with all messages circulated through media in everyday life has attended increasing interest within media studies (Stout and Buddenbaum, 2001). Motion pictures, soap operas and advertising are all examples of media contents which generate ideas among its audience which to a various degree are used as resources within the construction of identity (Jansson, 2001). The investigation of what modern humankind’s world views look like and what components they are composed of, in this context seems to be an important topic of investigation (Holm and Björkqvist, 1996). The ways in which the development of media has effected the daily lives of individuals is interest as is the nature of the self and the ways in which the process of self-formation is affected by the profusion of mediated materials (Thompson, 1995). Film and religion are my interest within this larger frame. The topic is not exactly new but the combination of film and religion has during the last ten years resulted in a rapidly growing number of books by scholars interested in this field (Lyden, 2003). One growing focus is on the role that films can and do play within the emerging and developing valuesystem of people in the West today (Marsh, 2004). The British theologian Clive Marsh’s point of departure is very similar to my own. Viewers bring to a film life-experience, immediate concerns and worldviews and the exploration of this interplay between movies and the interpreting process of meaning making is the very focus in this paper. Theoretically, the semeiological model of Alf Linderman is combined with cultural cognitive approaches used by a number of Scandinavian media scholars developing perspectives in audience theory (Linderman, 1996, Höijer and Werner, 1998). 13 individuals, their favourite movie and what it means to them in their life My aim is to examine how individuals comprehend film and what the meaning process look like. In this paper I present the outcome of 13 interviews with young people about their favourite film. I suggest how it is possible to interpret how they interrelate film comprehension with their personal beliefs and their culturally constructed worldview from a sociocognitive point of view. Examples of films chosen range from Disneys Lion King (1994), sciencefiction and fantasy successes like The Matrix (1999) and Lord of the Rings (2001) or the next best movie ever according to www.IMdb.com The Shawshank Redemption (1994) as well as the Swedish blockbuster Så som i himmelen (2004), aka “As in Heaven”.

Attitudes Towards and Uses of the Japanese Adverbzenzen by Swedish Learners of Japanese

The word zenzen is an adverb that is used frequently in daily conversational Japanese. From the Meiji period (1868-1912) until the early Showa period (1924-1989) the word was used together with both affirmative and negative words to form expressions. In the early Showa period the grammatical rules in education changed so that the only acceptable use was together with a negative word. From the 1990’s onward, the use together with an affirmative word has made a comeback especially among younger Japanese people. However even though the usage together with an affirmative word has made a comeback and was considered normal once in history, in today’s society it is still considered as slang and thus not recommended usage in formal situations. Foreign language learners however, tend not to learn a language only by textbooks but also by imitating the language of native Japanese speakers and Japanese popular culture. This may lead to a confusion regarding what words are acceptable to use in conversations. Therefore in this study, an online survey that examines the usage and attitudes regarding the word zenzen aimed at Japanese language learners at Swedish universities was conducted. The results of the survey showed that although a majority of the learners showed a good understanding of the usage, more than half of the learners displayed a feeling of confusion regarding the usage of the word. The gender comparison regarding the usage showed no major differences. Having lived in Japan, having Japanese friends whom you speak Japanese with regularly and length of Japanese study was associated with an increased understanding of the usage. Regular consumption of Japanese popular culture, however, was not associated with an increased understanding of the usage. A literature analysis was also conducted to examine the attitudes regarding the usage of zenzen in a variety of books with topics including business language and books aimed at Japanese language teachers. The results showed that zenzen used together with a negative word was considered as the norm while zenzen used together with an affirmative word was not recommended to be used in formal situations. When recommending proper usage of the word zenzen together with an affirmative word to foreign learners of Japanese, hijou-ni and totemo was seen as better alternatives to zenzen in a formal situation.

A framework for ICT-based knowledge sharing in sustainable rural development : the case of Gilgit-Baltistan, Pakistan

Some 50% of the people in the world live in rural areas, often under harsh conditions and in poverty. The need for knowledge of how to improve living conditions is well documented. In response to this need, new knowledge of how to improve living conditions in rural areas and elsewhere is continuously being developed by researchers and practitioners around the world. People in rural areas, in particular, would certainly benefit from being able to share relevant knowledge with each other, as well as with stakeholders (e.g. researchers) and other organizations (e.g. NGOs). Central to knowledge management is the idea of knowledge sharing. This study is based on the assumption that knowledge management can support sustainable development in rural and remote regions. It aims to present a framework for knowledge management in sustainable rural development, and an inventory of existing frameworks for that. The study is interpretive, with interviews as the primary source for the inventory of stakeholders, knowledge categories and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) infrastructure. For the inventory of frameworks, a literature study was carried out. The result is a categorization of the stakeholders who act as producers and beneficiaries of explicit and indigenous development knowledge. Stakeholders are local government, local population, academia, NGOs, civil society and donor agencies. Furthermore, the study presents a categorization of the development knowledge produced by the stakeholders together with specifications for the existing ICT infrastructure. Rural development categories found are research, funding, agriculture, ICT, gender, institutional development, local infrastructure development, and marketing & enterprise. Finally, a compiled framework is presented, and it is based on ten existing frameworks for rural development that were found in the literature study, and the empirical findings of the Gilgit-Baltistan case. Our proposed framework is divided in four levels where level one consists of the identified stakeholders, level two consists of rural development categories, level three of the knowledge management system and level four of sustainable rural development based on the levels below. In the proposed framework we claim that the sustainability of rural development can be achieved through a knowledge society in which knowledge of the rural development process is shared among all relevant stakeholders.

Modeling and illustrating requirement prioritization in public e-service development from a value-based perspective

A major problem in e-service development is the prioritization of the requirements of different stakeholders. The main stakeholders are governments and their citizens, all of whom have different and sometimes conflicting requirements. In this paper, the prioritization problem is addressed by combining a value-based approach with an illustration technique. This paper examines the following research question: How can multiple stakeholder requirements be illustrated from a value-based perspective in order to be prioritizable? We used an e-service development case taken from a Swedish municipality to elaborate on our approach. Our contributions are: 1) a model of the relevant domains for requirement prioritization for government, citizens, technology, finances and laws and regulations; and 2) a requirement fulfillment analysis tool (RFA) that consists of a requirement-goal-value matrix (RGV), and a calculation and illustration module (CIM). The model reduces cognitive load, helps developers to focus on value fulfillment in e-service development and supports them in the formulation of requirements. It also offers an input to public policy makers, should they aim to target values in the design of e-services.

Systemutveckling för riskbaserad tillsyn : Hur verksamhetsanalys på praktikteoretisk grund kan användas för kravfångst

Denna studie har utförts vid en myndighet som bedriver statlig tillsyn över det svenska järnvägssystemet. När myndigheten beslutade att deras tillsyn skulle vara riskbaserad uppstod behov att se över och eventuellt förändra myndighetens verksamhetsprocesser utifrån ett riskbaserat synsätt. Arbetet med denna licentiatavhandling, som har skett i form av praktikforskning, har sin grund i två förändringsprojekt som var starkt påverkade av den bärande idén om riskbaserad tillsyn. Av denna anledning fanns ett behov att karaktärisera riskbaserad tillsyn. Detta skedde med hjälp av verksamhetsanalys på praktikteoretisk grund vars resultat formulerades i en verksamhetsteori för riskbaserad tillsyn. På ett övergripande plan handlar riskbaserad tillsyn om att integrera riskhantering i myndighetens tillsynsprocesser. Denna licentiatavhandling är skriven inom ämnet informationssystemsutveckling och det problem som undersöks är hur man kan fånga kraven på ett verksamhetsstödjande informationssystem med hjälp av en verksamhetsanalys på praktikteoretisk grund. Tesen för arbetet är att de krav som identifieras i en verksamhetsanalys på praktikteoretisk grund bör kunna användas i det fortsatta kravarbetet. Därför är spårbarhet mellan verksamhetsanalysens dokumentation och den fortsatta kravhanteringen i ett systemutvecklingsprojekt en viktig egenskap. Spårbarheten undersöks genom att två av myndighetens utvecklingsprojekt som var inriktade på att utveckla både verksamheten och nya informationssystem analyseras. Att uppnå spårbarhet är en del av tillvägagångssättet när informationssystem utvecklas. I denna licentiatavhandling beskrivs tillvägagångssättet utifrån tre metodegenskaper: arbetssätt (vilka frågor som ställs), notation (hur kraven dokumenteras) och arbetsformer (vilka tekniker för datainsamling som används). Det är alltså inte bara spårbarhet (som ingår i metodegenskapen notation) som är intressant att studera närmare utan hela tillvägagångssättet i verksamhetsanalysen. Studien har bedrivits i form av praktikforskning och det innebär att tre bidrag har producerats: 1) ett bidrag till den lokala praktiken, dvs. till myndigheten; 2) ett bidrag till den generella praktiken, dvs. till andra verksamheter som bedriver statlig tillsyn men även praktiker som arbetar med verksamhets- respektive systemutveckling inkluderas i den generella praktiken; samt 3) ett bidrag till akademin. Bidraget till den lokala praktiken är genomförandet av utvecklingsprojekten och deras resultat. Bidraget till den generella praktiken inom verksamhetsutveckling är verksamhetsanalysen som resulterar i en verksamhetsteori för riskbaserad tillsyn. Bidraget till praktiker inom systemutveckling är kravanalysen som visar hur en verksamhetsanalys på praktikteoretisk grund kan användas för att fånga krav på ett verksamhetsstödjande informationssystem. Kravanalysen öppnar även för möjligheter att söka efter krav på ett informationssystem utan att verksamhetsanalysen fokuserar informationssystemet. Bidraget till akademin består också av kravanalysen som med hjälp av fyra kravkategorier härleder spårbarhet mellan verksamhetsteorin för riskbaserad tillsyn och kravdokumentation från de studerade projekten. Det andra bidraget till akademin är ett önskvärt tillvägagångssätt för att genomföra en praktikteoretisk verksamhetsanalys för riskbaserad tillsyn.

Capability outcomes from educational and ICT capability inputs : an analysis of ICT use in informal education in Kenya

In the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) ICT use in education is well studied. Education is often seen as a pre-requisite for development and ICTs are believed to aid in education, e.g. to make it more accessible and to increase its quality. In this paper we study the access and use of ICT in a study circle (SC) education program in the south coast of Kenya. The study is qualitative reporting results based on interviews and observations with SC participants, government officers and SC coordinators and teachers. The study builds on the capability approach perspective of development where individuals’ opportunities and ability to live a life that they value are focused. The aim of the study is to investigate the capability outcomes enabled through the capability inputs access and use of ICT in education as well as the factors that enabled and/or restricted the outcomes. Findings show that many opportunities have been enabled such as an increase in the ability to generate an income, learning benefits, community development and basic human development (e.g. literacy and self-confidence). However, conversion factors such as a poorly developed infrastructure and poor IT literacy prevent many of the individuals from taking full advantage of the ICT and the opportunities it enables. 

Pedagogical Methods in Web-Based Language Teaching

This paper presents a research project that is being conducted at Dalarna University in Sweden. The aim is to study the following: 1) The quality of online language education compared with that of campus education, and 2) Advantages and disadvantages of online language education and how the disadvantages might be overcome. The project consists of two parts: pedagogical methods in online language education from the teachers’ point of view and from the students’ point of view. The first part was conducted in 2012 and various characteristics (benefits and difficulties) of online language education were identified. Flexibility and wider opportunities were general benefits, while lack of physical co-presence, difficulty in having lively debates/discussions, and high dropout rates were among the problems. The second part of the project (being conducted in 2014) aims to investigate how students experience online language learning. The goal is to explore alignments and misalignments between teachers’ perspectives and students’ perspectives, and to develop methods to enhance the quality of online education.