Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Design agency'
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Carlsson, Nicole. "Vulnerable data interactions — augmenting agency." Thesis, Malmö universitet, Fakulteten för kultur och samhälle (KS), 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-23309.
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This thesis project opens up an interaction design space in the InfoSec domain concerning raising awareness of common vulnerabilities and facilitating counter practices through seamful design.This combination of raising awareness coupled with boosting possibilities for deliberate action (or non-action) together account for augmenting agency. This augmentation takes the form of bottom up micro-movements and daily gestures contributing to opportunities for greater agency in the increasingly fraught InfoSec domain.
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Tostenson, Thomas Daniel. "Design for starting a chaplain agency." Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN), 2007. http://www.tren.com/search.cfm?p067-0008.
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Gasque, Travis M. "Design agency: Dissecting the layers of tabletop role-playing game campaign design." Thesis, Georgia Institute of Technology, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/1853/55055.
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In the field of digital media, the study of interactive narratives holds the aesthetics of agency and dramatic agency as core to digital design. These principles hold that users must reliably be able to navigate the interface and the narrative elements of the artifact in order to have a lasting appeal. However, due to recent academic and critical discussions several digital artifacts are being focused on as possible new ways of engaging users. These artifacts do not adhere to the design aesthetics foundational to digital media, but represent a movement away from the principle of dramatic agency in interactive narratives. In an attempt to understand this separation and offer a solution to this developing issue, another non-digital interactive medium was studied: tabletop role-playing games. The designers of this medium were studied to understand the techniques and methods they employed to create dramatic interactive narratives for their users. These case studies suggested the designers used a third design aesthetic, design agency, to help balance the tension between agency and dramatic agency of the users of their medium. This design aesthetic could provide a balancing force to the current issues arising within interactive narrative.
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Matthews, Michael Thomas. "Learner Agency and Responsibility in Educational Technology." BYU ScholarsArchive, 2016. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/etd/6532.
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Though the topic of learner agency has received relatively little discussion in the literature of educational technology, it is nevertheless a significant and actually omnipresent concern of both scholars and practitioners. Through the journal-ready articles contained herein, I show how theories of learning and certain practices of instructional designers reflect implicit positions on the agency of learners. I also discuss agency in more concrete terms as the responsibility for learning that is shared with learners in instructional design contexts. In addition, I provide practical suggestions to help designers keep the learner at the forefront of their design thinking. Through this research, I hope to make the broad philosophical concept of agency more accessible and practical, and to outline some initial directions for further inquiry and practical application in the field of educational technology.
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Qually, Byron Alexander. "Design and democracy : transformative agency within indigenous structure." Thesis, Open University, 2018. http://oro.open.ac.uk/55017/.
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South African democracy is perceived and evidenced to be under duress. This research questions how design, when underpinned by transdisciplinarity and abduction, can articulate and address this problem. The literature is reviewed to map how designed objects, processes, and philosophy enable and hamper notions of democracy. Within this literature, two concepts are identified as key to a South African context, and require further research - Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and cosmopolitanism. The African concept of Ubuntu, a subset of IKS, is argued to function as an authentic context, however, its ability to influence urban and diverse environments is questioned. Cosmopolitan theory, and Dewey's focus on experimentation, is argued to promote normative organisation, and its application to facilitate urban and dynamic participation is questioned. The Cape Town precinct - Long Street - provides a case study with which to unpack these two key concepts, and obtain empirical data to answer the research questions. Qualitative data is firstly obtained, from key informants who have the authority to influence the case study delineation. Based on this data, an Abductive instrument (Ai), based on Experience Design (XD) and Designing For Participation (DFP) methods, obtains quantitative data from public actors. Findings from the research include: political philosophy is increasingly enabled and countered by design; design is required to deconstruct and not fortify South African democracy; design is capable of operationalising decolonisation as a constructive, and not reductive, act; indigeneity is being reclaimed in urban contexts, and reinterpreted by design; reflective participation, and not historical assimilation, is a fundamental challenge for political studies; publics experiment with, and not on, themselves. The key implication of the research is designing critical representation, which is at the intersection of design, IKS, and cosmopolitanism. Here, empowerment is an indigenous imperative, design synthesises direct and representative democracy, and design intent is hyper-transparent.
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Tewari, Manish. "SECURITY DESIGN THAT ADDRESSES AGENCY CONFLICTS AND INFORMATION ASYMMETRY." Doctoral diss., University of Central Florida, 2008. http://digital.library.ucf.edu/cdm/ref/collection/ETD/id/3441.
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This study focuses on the role of structured derivative securities to meet diverse corporate financing objectives in the light of agency theory and asymmetric information. The focus is on the nonconvertible callable-puttable fixed-coupon bonds. The primary objective is to discern the marginal role of the put and put-deferred features in addressing the agency issues and asymmetric information. A sample of (159) securities issued over the period (1977-2005) are examined using Merton's (1974) structural contingent claims valuation model. The put option as well as the deferred put option incorporated in these securities is found to mitigate the asset substitution issue. It is also found that these contract features provide considerable insurance against the asymmetric information about the firm's downside risk. Specifically, the effects of asset substitution are mitigated because the put option reduces sensitivity of the security's value to the changes in the firm's volatility. Prior to this study, this effect was believed to be driven primarily by the conversion feature in the convertible bonds and the preferred stocks. In addition, the long-term performance of the underlying common stock indicates systematic negative performance for the protracted periods both prior and subsequent to the issuance, yet it is found that this decline in the equity value has only a limited negative impact on the security.Ph.D.
Department of Finance
Business Administration
Business Administration PhD
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Qvarfordt, Johan, and Johan Ronner. "Agency Centric Design and Engaging Game Art in VR." Thesis, Blekinge Tekniska Högskola, 2017. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:bth-14660.
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This essay is a look into the future of games with new technology at hand, it serves as acloser look at new challenges and ways to overcome those challenges in VR game design.What new untapped way of acting on immersive storytelling can we convey with thisinteractive medium and how can we treat our players sense of agency within a VR world withthe necessary respect it deserves. This paper will dive into the idea of walking a mile insomeone else’s shoes and how to create a believable, narrative driven, non-restrictive gameexperience using aesthetic choices, world interactions and environmental storytelling as ourdesign tools. Aesthetic choices aren’t just a matter of achieving the highest realism thoughgraphical fidelity, instead it requires us to go deeper and look at a more traditional way ofdesigning our games art, to deeper convey immersion through minimalism and environmentaldesign to name a few. The goal is to understand how a world’s environments and the gameart in that environment could affect agency, all to support a more deeply focused, curious andin the end more immersive session of play.A virtual reality game called Norn have been produced alongside this paper to showcasethese features come into play. Norn is a narrative driven experience set in a stylistic old norsesetting where you play as a 18 year old girl named Thora and her sister Eira in a coming ofage story told in a different way.We have concluded that methods like the “Weenie”-method help to produce ways to guideplayers subconsciously but need carefully iterative improvements to work. We have also useddesign methods such as Bartle’s (1996) taxonomy of player types and Schell’s´(2008)“Pleasures” to build an inviting game environment and gameplay around to achieve personalagency. All while streamlining the games art both to overcome technical challenges but alsoto show how stylized environments can help accentuate the intended experiences compared toa realistic one.
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Gibbons, Sophie Elizabeth. "The Effects of Non Profit Agency Website Donation Button Design on Aid Agency Trust and Donation Compliance." Thesis, University of Canterbury. Psychology, 2010. http://hdl.handle.net/10092/3672.
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This research aimed to develop a deeper understanding of trust and non-profit agency website design, and specifically focussed on the ‘Donate Now’ button. Two experiments investigated the effects of varying levels of consumer certainty, manipulated by providing varying levels of donation relevant information on the web homepage donation buttons, on aid agency trust and donation compliance. Both experiments were based on Study 1, a preliminary survey of website donation button design. Experiment 1 investigated the effects of iconic manipulation of the ‘Donate Now’ button. Results suggested that varying levels of consumer certainty through iconic manipulation of the website donation button design did not effect aid agency trust and donation compliance. Experiment 2 extended the research of Burt and Dunham (2009) to investigate the effects of varying consumer certainty levels through the provision of crisis/need and response photographs on the donation buttons. Results suggested that whilst there was no effect of level of certainty on donation compliance, there was an effect on aid agency trust. Participants’ rated aid agency trust was increased to the greatest extent in the level of greatest certainty, when the donation button contained photographs of both the crisis/need and agency response. Collectively, these results suggest that aid agency trust can be enhanced through the considered manipulation of donation button design. Subsequently photographic images may be a more effective means with which to portray donation-relevant information and reduce uncertainty. Furthermore, in both experiments results showed that those individuals who reported higher aid agency trust also reported significantly higher donation intention. Thus, the current research has implications for the non-profit sector, suggesting that whilst the internet is a viable fundraising tool, the commercially driven process of online donation generation should not be isolated from the psychological concept of trust.
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Holmes, Robert D. "A multi-commodity network design for the Defense Logistics Agency." Thesis, Monterey, Calif. : Springfield, Va. : Naval Postgraduate School ; Available from National Technical Information Service, 1994. http://handle.dtic.mil/100.2/ADA283499.
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Rahimi, Bafrani Raena. "The Agency of Earth on the Site of the Design." Thesis, Virginia Tech, 2021. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/104163.
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Earth as a fundamental aspect of the existing conditions of a site has/can/should have agency in design, both historically and today. The aim of this study is to describe the agency of earth in design as a common premise between the disciplines of architecture and landscape architecture. The thesis question is "how can the earth on site have agency on the design?" Thinking of the physical earth, specifically the topography, as one of the basic structures of the existing conditions, the earth should be taken as the most important condition that both architecture and landscape architecture use and share; both disciplines have to deal with context; they both have to deal with surroundings, and then work within systems that exist around them. As landscape architecture has been incredibly important to civilization throughout history, this project looks at different ways that earth has agency in design through important periods of history, from Greeks to contemporary design. While there are many examples in which designers have worked with the existing topography, there are other cases across cultures where people have drastically altered topography. Thinking about those designs, there are many possible answers to this thesis question from using existing hills to making mountains.
This thesis explores the creation of an artificial mound, as a monument to indigenous people, in order to revive the missed parts of the earth and empower the ground. The thesis rethinks the whole ground, protecting the earth by turning excavated soil into an important earthwork. The design is not only about creating an earthwork for people, it also transforms invisible earth into a visible structure. Based on the practices of Native American mound builders, the earthwork stands for the values of diversity and equality in the US, creating a gathering space for all people made of the native earth/soil.Master of Landscape Architecture
Earth as one of the existing materials of a site constantly affects the process of the design. This study focuses on describing and improving the use and understanding this material shared by the disciplines of architecture and landscape architecture. As landscape architecture has been incredibly important to civilization throughout history, this project looks at different ways that earth has affected design through important periods of history, from Greeks to modern design. Considering many examples in which designers have worked with the current land, there are other cases across cultures where people have changed earth. Thinking about different designs, there are many possible answers to this thesis question from using existing hills to making mountains. This design is an artificial mound as a monument to indigenous people and it is about reviving the missed parts of the earth in order to empower the ground, rethinking the whole earth and protecting it, turning it into an important earthwork that is not only about something for people but also making it into something which in invisible situations it cannot be. Based on the tradition of Native American mound builders, part of this thesis is to affirm the value of diversity and equality in the US, through creating a gathering space for all people that pays special attention to indigenous culture.
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Kimber, Kay D. "Technoliteracy, teacher agency and design: Shaping a digital learning culture." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2002. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/36677/1/36677_Digitised%20Thesis.pdf.
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Despite educational directives advocating the integrated use of technology, some staff remain resistant to the adoption of computer-mediated classroom practice. As resistance is sometimes akin to lack of confidence or understanding, this thesis sought to illuminate the nature of work for teachers and students in a digital environment. It reports on a descriptive and interpretive case study on the classroom experiences of teachers and senior secondary school students in two humanities subjects where technology use was integrated with literacy practices for learning (technoliteracy). Findings suggest that there is a role for technology in the learning process and that student learning might be enhanced by constructivist-based, computer-mediated activities. These findings seem to confirm the important role of teacher agency in designing classroom experiences that capitalise on the potential of new technologies of communication for effective student learning.
Furthermore, this thesis has synthesised key ideas from constructivism, educational technology and learning theory with study findings to generate a supportive framework that might encourage techno-reluctant teachers to engage productively with technology in meaningful ways. It develops a grounded model for technoliteracy that gains its dynamism from the notion of design. With its related constructs of "teacher-as-designer" of classroom digital learning environment and "students-as-designers" of electronic representations of knowledge, this model suggests a purposeful integration of technology and literacy practices towards a more critical appreciation of subject content. The thesis also offers practical guidelines for applying constructivist principles to promote technoliteracy and a digital learning culture. The evaluative criteria developed from the SOLO Taxonomy and specially designed for analysing the student-created electronic artefacts also offer possibilities for reconceiving the choice of texts, activities and assessment for students of the 21st century.
From the theoretical and practical perspectives shaping this study, this thesis could prompt other teachers to imagine new possibilities for digital learning and to pioneer new models for teaching and learning in increasingly borderless classrooms in the knowledge age. It could encourage techno-reluctant staff to engage in computer-mediated learning practices.
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Hromasová, Lucie. "Analýza firemní identity společnosti NIOSPORT agency,a.s." Master's thesis, Vysoká škola ekonomická v Praze, 2012. http://www.nusl.cz/ntk/nusl-142093.
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Master thesis focuses on issues of corporate identity of advertising agency NIOSPORT agency, a.s. The aim of this thesis is to analyze corporate identity of company NIOSPORT agency, a.s. In the theoretical part is explained what is a corporate identity, which elements are included and why it is so important for companies. Then there is a definition of an image with an emphasis on its distinction from the concept of corporate identity, explained the interdependence between corporate identity and corporate strategy, and then is paid attention on advertising agencies in general. The practical part consists of a description of a particular advertising agency NIOSPORT agency, a.s., the results of empirical research, evaluation of the image of agency and finally of recommendations for the future, arising from the theoretical part, analyzing corporate documents and of the depth interviews with the director, staff and clients of advertising agency.
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Aly, Safwan Krishnamurti Ramesh. "A framework for interaction and task decomposition for objects emulating agency behavior /." Pittsburgh, Pa. : Carnegie Mellon University, 2000. http://code.arc.cmu.edu/lab/upload/aly%5Fphd%5Fthesis.0.pdf.
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Ponder, Brenda. "A case study examining ethics training within an award-winning federal agency." Thesis, University of Phoenix, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3731430.
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The ethics training program of the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE), Alaska District, a recipient of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) 2010 Education and Communication Award, was studied to determine if the training fostered employee awareness of unethical situations within the workplace. The study fills a gap in scholarly literature in that never before had a peer-review study been done to examine how ethics training fosters awareness within an award-winning federal agency. The method and design used for collecting the data was the qualitative exploratory case study. Seven data sources were analyzed using NVivo 10 ® software and Microsoft Excel and conclusions drawn by use of data source triangulation. Two primary data sources used were responses from two sets of interview questions: one set with 15 employees and another set with two ethics training coordinators. The other five sources of data evidence used were the OGE 2009 Education and Commission Awards Announcement, the OGE 2009 Education and Communication Award Application Form submitted by Alaska District to OGE, samples of the Ethics Monthly Treats, and comments made by the interviewees on the 2-minute ethics video (Secret Ethics Man), and brownbag lunches. The framework for this study was Gagne’s theoretical instructional design model. The three emerging themes were: ethics information was distributed frequently, innovative delivery methods, and content of ethics instruction. The results of the study indicate that the design, delivery, and components of the training program may have been effective in fostering employee awareness of unethical situations within the workplace.
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Lennartsson, Linnéa. "Procurement of a new system, merging public agency aspects and system users : A design case study at the Swedish Tax Agency." Thesis, KTH, Skolan för elektroteknik och datavetenskap (EECS), 2021. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-291218.
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The objective with this study was to find what limitations and challenges there are when creating a new development and design on internal systems at a governmental agency. Developing a system within a governmental agency is dependent on defined requirements to develop an approved system. The “Regleringsbrev”, required aspects and the government constitutes the decision support at an agency. A governmental agency offered to be part of the inquiry of this thesis with a system utilized by caseworkers that was investigated. The method used was a concept study and a design study which included a survey of the agency’s requirements and a User-Centered Design approach to merge users in the design process. Based on the results from the concept study a prototype was created and evaluated. The prototype had four functions that would satisfy both the users and the agency's requirements; handling submitted paper applications, viewing tax percentage data when making a decision, text proposals, and the number of clicks. The study provides insight of the process in making a development within a governmental agency. Suggestions to the appointed problem shows potential in further investigating the system, and also how other agencies cope with developing new systems.Målet med denna studie har varit att hitta vilka begränsningar och utmaningar som uppkommer när man skapar en nyutveckling och design på interna system hos en myndighet. Att utveckla ett system inom en statlig myndighet är beroende av definierade krav för att möjliggöra ett godkänt system. Regleringsbrevet, nödvändiga aspekter samt regereingen utgör beslutstödet hos en myndighet. En av Sveriges myndigheter erbjöd sig att delta i denna undersökning med ett system som används av handläggare på myndigheten. Metoden som användes var en konceptstudie och en designstudie som inkluderade en kartläggning av myndighetskrav samt en användarcentrerad strategi för att involvera användarna i undersökningen. Baserat på resultaten från den genomförda konceptstudie skapades och utvärderades en prototyp. Prototypen hade fyra funktioner som skulle tillgodose både användarnas och myndighetens krav: Hantering av inlämnade pappersansökningar, visning av skattebeslut, textförslag samt antalet musklick. Studien ger inblick i processen att göra en utveckling inom en statlig myndighet. Förslag på det utsedda problemet visar potential i att ytterligare undersöka systemet samt hur andra myndigheter sköter utveckling av nya system.
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Machwe, Azahar Tekchand. "Agency-based Integration of Aesthetic Criteria within an Interactive Evolutionary Design Environment." Thesis, University of the West of England, Bristol, 2008. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.495517.
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Traditional interactive evolutionary design systems combine auser based fitness function with an evolutionary search process. Effective integration of machine based tools, human designers and real world design processes, requires a higher level of information exchange between the user and the design system. This dual requirement of increasing the connectivity between the machine and the user as well as incorporating human preferences with machine based fitness evaluations is the main focus of this research. There are two problems in implementing the above, namely the problem of representation as well as user fatigue resulting from design evaluations. The initial work involved an integration of component-based representation, software agents and machine learning with an evolutionary programming algorithm for a relatively simple bridge design problem (the Bridge Design System) with both human and machine based evaluation. The main research contribution of the Bridge Design System was the integration of componentbased representation and the machine learning sub-system. The component-based representation addresses the problem of representation. The machine learning sub-system provides a possible solution to the user fatigue problem. The Bridge Design System was extended to tackle a more complex 3-D design problem related to Urban-Furniture design. To enhance the interactivity and usability of the system, population clustering based on solution similarity was introduced within the urban-furniture design system. The user fatigue issue was addressed further through population clustering which allowed users to work with larger population sizes than usual. Clustering also allowed the identification of features present in high performance as well as user preferred solutions.
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Тимошенко, Юлія Вікторівна. "The role of a travel agency interior design in tourism product promotion." Thesis, Київський національний університет технологій та дизайну, 2020. https://er.knutd.edu.ua/handle/123456789/15366.
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Föhr, Stephanie. "Beyond human (self-) care : Exploring fermentation as a practice of caring with humans, non-humans and the planet Earth." Thesis, Linnéuniversitetet, Institutionen för design (DE), 2020. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-96699.
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The present thesis deals with the playful exploration of fermentation as a practice of care. Fermentation has a lot of positive impacts and can be seen as a practice of care in relation to human self-care, caring with human others, relationships to non-human beings, like microorganisms, and caring with the planet Earth. Based on the question ‘What can game design do to explore fermentation as a practice beyond human (self-) care?’ I developed an Online Fermentation Game. The game functioned as a conversational framework to explore together with co-creators the possibilities of more careful and sustainability-oriented food practices on the example of fermentation. The game involved the step by step and hands-on fermentation of fruits and vegetables while exploring the complexity of care in relation to fermentation. With this project, I aimed to offer a co-learning space to explore together with co-learners the possibilities of more careful and sustainable food practices on the example of fermentation in a playful way. To create a dialogue about more than human care in relation to food, in particular fermentation. To inspire the co-learners to question their relationships around food and discover which actors to care with. Beyond this project and in a larger context, I aim for a paradigm shift from the individualistic human benefit towards a notion of more than human care. This shift can make a huge difference regarding a more sustainability-oriented future of food. With this thesis project, I strived to make a small contribution to this long term vision. Starting from the human need for healthy food, the blind spot of acknowledging fermentation as a sustainability-oriented practice beyond human care, that the majority of other fermentation workshops is missing, was explored in a playful way. The global Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic that this project happened to be situated in challenged me in creating a safe and comfortable co-learning space. Therefore, this project focused on creating a digital- and home-based game experience. To hand over, other design practitioners and change agents can apply and transform the game as part of their fermentation projects. On a broader perspective, the concept of this explorative design game can be adapted inside but also outside the food sector. The project serves as inspiration for a playful and at the same time careful approach to design and change-making. Moreover, it shows an example of shifting community spaces provoked by crises.
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Petersen, Petra. "Appar och agency : Barns interaktion med pekplattor i förskolan." Licentiate thesis, Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för pedagogik, didaktik och utbildningsstudier, 2015. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-265324.
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This study explores young children's use of digital tablets in Swedish preschool environments, with special interest in how the use of digital tablets may affect children's agency. A multimodal, design theoretical approach was used, combined with sociology of childhood, to highlight the dynamics between children's agency and the affordances provided by the digital tablets. Two video ethnographic substudies were conducted within two separate preschool settings, including preschools where children use digital tablets to communicate in a minority language. In order to take into account as many modes of communication as possible, video recordings of children's use of the digital tablets was set side-by-side with screen recordings of the digital tablets. Major findings include how children's agency in digital tablet activities is intertwined with the different affordances, as emerging in the children's interaction with one another and the digital tablet. It was found that when affordances were built on visual, auditive and corporeal modes of communication, children's agency was enabled. Such affordances are in this study argued to be more, for the children, apt modes of communication for children to exert agency. Furthermore, it is argued that when children are given the possibility to communicate in their minority language, using for example Skype, this is a form of children's agency. The didactical implications and the societal potentials for children's use of digital tablets in preschools are discussed in relation to the creative skills individuals may need in an unknown future.
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Cook, Duncan. "Art, agency and eco-politics : rethinking urban subjects and environment(s)." Thesis, Royal College of Art, 2014. http://researchonline.rca.ac.uk/1645/.
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This research aims to examine the extent to which cultural agency can be seen to ‘act’ in an ecopolitical context and how its operations urge a rethinking of the processes that govern the production of urban subjects and environment(s). Responding to the fact that in recent decades, art and architectural cultures have converged around a shared concern for ‘ecological matters’ and that discourses in visual/spatial culture have become increasingly ‘ecologized’, this research broadens the points of reference for the term ‘ecology’ beyond that which simply reinforces an essentialist perspective on ‘nature’. The thesis re-directs the focus of current theoretical discourse on ‘ecological art’ towards a more rigorous engagement with its frames of reference and how it uses them to evaluate the role of cultural production in enacting ways of thinking and acting eco-logically. In doing so it develops an eco-logical mode of analysis for mapping and probing the attribution of cultural agency, how it intervenes in the production of the commons and how it discloses the participants and mechanisms of a nascent political ecology. Setting cultural agency within a more expansive and multivalent field of action, means that the nexus of agency (and intentionality) is dislocated and translated between ‘things’. Reconfigured in this way, ‘an ecology of agencing’ demonstrates the profound implications this has for any ‘bodies’ of action, cultural or otherwise. Locating this exploration within the socio-natural environment(s) found in urban spatialities this thesis attends to the relatively under-theorised, but highly significant area (in eco-logical terms) of aesthetic praxis operating at the interstices of art and architecture. Pressing at the boundaries of the formal and conceptual enterprises of both disciplines, critical spatial practices represent a distinctive form of eco-praxis being cultivated ‘on the ground’. Through a series of encounters with its operations this research looks to the ways in which practice and theory, in relation to the question of ecology, are becoming increasingly co-constituted.
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Costa, Maia Sara. "Testing inhabitant agency in interactive architecture : a user-centered design and research approach." Thesis, University of British Columbia, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/2429/58306.
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This thesis assembled, tested and demonstrated an inhabitant-centered approach for research and design in Interactive Architecture (IA). It takes an initial step in addressing a critical gap in the field concerning the lack of empirical evidence to support IA’s fundamental claims, especially regarding inhabitant experience. The approach focused on investigating the question of whether inhabitant experience of interactive architecture (IA), presumably dependent on different models of interaction, could support one of the primordial rationales for the social relevance of IA. The rationale states that IA holds the potential to empower inhabitants in participating in the continuous formation of their environment. However, there is no published evidence to date to corroborate the statement’s validity. In fact, very little research has been done to date on inhabitant experience of interactive spaces in general, hindering our ability to justify its use or to properly ground design decisions. Therefore, this thesis presents an exploratory investigation, set to form the basis for the study of agency and empowerment in IA, and aiming to demonstrate an approach to tackle the problem of user-centered design and research in the field. An extensive literature review is thus conducted, from the concept of agency in the social sciences to an overview of the pertinent literature on interaction. Finally, an approach is demonstrated to generate empirical evidences regarding agency in IA. For that, an IA space is designed (comprehending four different models of interaction), assembled and tested, grounded on two user-centered design studies. The first study was an anticipated experience diary study, where 17 participants reported their imagined daily experience with an IA concept. The second study was a user experience survey where 30 participants inhabited and experienced the assembled IA space. This thesis successfully demonstrated a user centered approach for evaluating interaction in IA design concepts, especially with regard to the possibility of fulfilling one of IA’s many untested claims, making explicit the problems and opportunities observed along the process.Applied Science, Faculty of
Architecture and Landscape Architecture (SALA), School of
Graduate
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Valdes, Cristopher Ballinas. "The politics of agency design : politics and the forging of autonomous agencies in Mexico." Thesis, University of Oxford, 2010. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.539939.
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Peneau, Justine. "Dynamique dispositive et structure temporelle de la co-conception : une analyse du travail de design en agence." Electronic Thesis or Diss., Institut polytechnique de Paris, 2023. http://www.theses.fr/2023IPPAT002.
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Cette thèse prend place au sein d'une agence digitale qui met en œuvre des méthodes de design qui permettent d'impliquer ses client.e.s dans la conception. Ce terrain me permet d'observer des situations de co-conception qui rassemblent une agence et une organisation cliente, situations peu étudiées dans la littérature. Notre immersion et notre engagement en tant que designeure nous a permis de faire l'expérience des temporalités du travail en agence et de revenir en particulier sur ce que le vocabulaire et les méthodes dites de “sprint” supposent de rapport au temps dans la conception. C'est une thèse pluridisciplinaire qui réunit les sciences de l'information et de la communication et du design. Elles permettent d'analyser ensemble les situations de communication et de design ainsi que les supports qui les soutiennent.Il nous a ainsi paru important de comprendre la situation de co-conception moins à travers le concept d'espace (qui a tendance à prédominer) qu'à travers celui du temps.Notre hypothèse est que l'on peut considérer l'activité de design comme l'organisation de formats temporels qui ont des effets sur la participation mais aussi qui présupposent des modèles de la conception. La thèse porte attention aux dynamiques d'émergence. Ces dernières font intervenir un autre rapport au temps fondé sur des inter-relations en mouvement. Cette hypothèse nous a ainsi plus particulièrement conduit à étudier la méthode du “sprint” comme un format temporel mais également à être attentive à ce qui émerge au cœur de ces situations “formatées” et à la façon dont l'expertise du design noue et dénoue des temporalités. Nous observons finalement que la situation de design ouvre un espace transitionnel, un “dispositif bienveillant”, où le temps est “dynamiquement suspendu” pour justement permettre de tisser des liens entre la pluralité des temporalités qui traverse le projet entre passé, présent et futurThis thesis takes place within a digital agency that implements design methods that allow its clients to be involved in the design. This field allows me to observe co-design situations that bring together an agency and a client organization, situations that have been little studied in the literature. Our immersion and our commitment as a designer allowed us to experience the temporalities of agency work and to come back in particular to what the vocabulary and the so-called “sprint” methods imply in relation to time in design. It is a multidisciplinary thesis that brings together the sciences of information and communication and design. They make it possible to jointly analyze communication and design situations as well as the supports that support them.It therefore seemed important to us to understand the co-design situation less through the concept of space (which tends to predominate) than through that of time.Our hypothesis is that we can consider the activity of design as the organization of temporal formats which have effects on participation but also which presuppose models of design. The thesis pays attention to the dynamics of emergence. These latter involve another relationship to time based on moving inter-relations. This hypothesis thus more particularly led us to study the “sprint” method as a temporal format but also to be attentive to what emerges at the heart of these “formatted” situations and to the way in which design expertise ties and unties temporalities. Finally, we observe that the design situation opens up a transitional space, a “benevolent device”, where time is “dynamically suspended” precisely to allow links to be forged between the plurality of temporalities that crosses the project between past, present and future
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Baig, Shakeel. "Experiences of Public Agency Managers When Making Outsourcing Decisions." ScholarWorks, 2017. https://scholarworks.waldenu.edu/dissertations/3972.
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Managers in state transportation agencies in the United States must frequently choose between using the talents and abilities of in-house staff or outsourcing for road and bridge design projects. Budgetary crises have strongly affected funding for transportation infrastructure. Facing budgetary pressures to suppress costs, managers must frequently make the choice of outsourcing a project or performing it in-house. Yet, decision-making models for these decisions are inadequate. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore and describe the lived experiences of public agency managers when making decisions to outsource the core government functions such as road and bridge design projects. The research question was: What are the lived experiences of managers at the public agency when making decisions about whether to outsource core government functions such as road and bridge design projects? Participants were interviewed about their lived experiences at a state Department of Transportation with 'make or buy' decisions. Purposeful sampling was used to select 19 participants for the interviews and the collected data were coded and used a van Kaam approach for analysis. Five themes emerged as findings: acceptance of outsourcing, benefits versus problems, outsourcing propelled by staff limits, loss of control when a project is outsourced, and political pressure for and against outsourcing. These findings may be relevant for management personnel at U.S. public agencies. The implications for positive social change include improved cost, increased efficiency of use of time and talent of management personnel in state transportation agencies, and cost benefits for both management and public.
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Löfgren, Viktor, and Magnus Flyckt. "Kundens kund : En studie i användarcentrerad systemutveckling och designmetoder." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Institutionen för kommunikation, medier och it, 2011. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-15272.
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This thesis investigates how web agencys in Stockholm use, value and incoroprate the terms usability, user experience and interaction design in their work process. The purpose of this study is to investigate how creative professionals works with the notions of usability, user experience and interaction design with focus on the end user. Our definition of creative professionals is every employee at a web agency involved in the work process of developing digital artefacts in any capacity. We wanted to investigate how these notions are considered, consciously or unconsciously, during the workprocess. Semi-structured interviews were conducted at three different web agencys with eight different employees. The result of the study has shown that all web agencys have a constant focus on the end-user during the entire development of digital artefacts towards their customers.This focus is kept during the whole process, from the development of a concept based on knowledge on both the customer and the end-users, until the release of the end-product. The work and design methods differs between the different web agencys in which way they incorporate end-users in the process.
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Hansson, Mikael. "From Matter to Data and Back Again : Enabling Agency through Digital Fabrication." Thesis, Umeå universitet, Institutionen för informatik, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-149543.
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Digital fabrication technologies such as 3D printers entail a radical change to the traditional consumer-producer paradigm. Combined with other recent developments, self-styled Makers design and fabricate sophisticated devices and interactive technologies that would otherwise never have existed. However, stopping the uninitiated novice from making use of this potential is complex CAD software, and a high barrier to entry. In this study a series of workshops explore the potential of combining traditional handicraft materials – such as clay, paper and fabric – with 3D scanning to enable novices to work with 3D printers. Based on the results a set of instruction were created detailing the process of making three types of practical objects, covering the entire process from the making and subsequent 3D scanning of a physical object, to the software clean-up and final 3D printing. The results suggest that whilst the explored method can enable novices to create 3D printable models, a certain mindset is required for the novice to do so effectively.Innovation +
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Almajdoub, Salahuddin A. "A Design Methodology for Physical Design for Testability." Diss., Virginia Tech, 1996. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/30574.
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Physical design for testability (PDFT) is a strategy to design circuits in a way to avoid or reduce realistic physical faults. The goal of this work is to define and establish a speci c methodology for PDFT. The proposed design methodology includes techniques to reduce potential bridging faults in complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits. To compare faults, the design process utilizes a new parameter called the fault index. The fault index for a particular fault is the probability of occurrence of the fault divided by the testability of the fault. Faults with the highest fault indices are considered the worst faults and are targeted by the PDFT design process to eliminate them or reduce their probability of occurrence.
An implementation of the PDFT design process is constructed using several new tools in addition to other "off-the-shelf" tools. The first tool developed in this work is a testability measure tool for bridging faults. Two other tools are developed to eliminate or reduce the probability of occurrence of bridging faults with high fault indices. The row enhancer targets faults inside the logic elements of the circuit, while the channel enhancer targets faults inside the routing part of the circuit.
To demonstrate the capabilities and test the eff ectiveness of the PDFT design process, this work conducts an experiment which includes designing three CMOS circuits from the ISCAS 1985 benchmark circuits. Several layouts are generated for every circuit. Every layout, except the rst one, utilizes information from the previous layout to minimize the probability of occurrence for faults with high fault indices. Experimental results show that the PDFT design process successfully achieves two goals of PDFT, providing layouts with fewer faults and minimizing the probability of occurrence of hard-to-test faults. Improvement in the total fault index was about 40 percent in some cases, while improvement in total critical area was about 30 percent in some cases. However, virtually all the improvements came from using the row enhancer; the channel enhancer provided only marginal improvements.Ph. D.
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Segalowitz, Miriam. ""Participation" in participatory design research." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2012. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/50639/1/Miri_Segalowitz_Thesis.pdf.
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This thesis is about defining participation in the context of fostering research cohesion in the field of Participatory Design. The systematic and incremental building of new knowledge is the process by which science and research is advanced. This process requires a certain type of cohesion in the way research is undertaken for new knowledge to be built from the knowledge provided by previous projects and research. To support this process and to foster research cohesion three conditions are necessary. These conditions are: common ground between practitioners, problem-space positioning, and adherence to clear research criteria. The challenge of fostering research cohesion in Participatory Design is apparent in at least four themes raised in the literature: the role of politics within Participatory Design epistemology, the role of participation, design with users, and the ability to translate theory into practice. These four thematic challenges frame the context which the research gap is situated. These themes are also further investigated and the research gap – a general lack of research cohesion – along with one avenue for addressing this gap – a clear and operationalizable definition for participation – are identified. The intended contribution of this thesis is to develop a framework and visual tool to address this research gap. In particular, an initial approximation for a clear and operationalizable definition for participation will be proposed such that it can be used within the field of Participatory Design to run projects and foster research cohesion. In pursuit of this contribution, a critical lens is developed and used to analyse some of the principles and practices of Participatory Design that are regarded as foundational. This lens addresses how to define participation in a way that adheres to basic principles of scientific rigour – namely, ensuring that the elements of a theory are operationalizable, falsifiable, generalizable, and useful, and it also treats participation as a construct rather than treating the notion of participation as a variable. A systematic analysis is performed using this lens on the principles and practices that are considered foundational within the field. From this analysis, three components of the participation construct – impact, influence, and agency – are identified. These components are then broken down into two constituent variables each (six in all) and represented visually. Impact is described as the relationship between the quality and use of information. Influence is described as the relationship between the amount and scope of decision making. Agency is described as the relationship between the motivation of the participant and the solidarity of the group. Thus, as a construct, participation is described as the relationship between a participant’s impact, influence, and agency. In the concluding section, the value of this participation construct is explored for its utility in enhancing project work and fostering research cohesion. Three items of potential value that emerge are: the creation of a visual tool through the representation of these six constituent variables in one image; the elaboration of a common language for researchers based on the six constituent variables identified; and the ability to systematically identify and remedy participation gaps throughout the life of the project. While future research exploring the applicability of the participation construct in real world projects is necessary, it is intended that this initial approximation of a participation construct in the form of the visual tool will serve as the basis for a cohesive and rigorous discussion about participation in Participatory Design.
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Qu, Xin. "Design of CEO Equity-based Compensation and Investment Efficiency." Thesis, Griffith University, 2017. http://hdl.handle.net/10072/375770.
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The role of executive compensation contracts in providing managerial incentives is topical in academic research. Since the last decade, there have been intense debates over whether executive compensation is set optimally to align the interests of managers and those of shareholders. The significance of the global financial crisis (GFC) also sheds light on reviewing equity-based compensation granted to senior managers. The traditional perspective of equity awards holds that these equity mechanisms can attract and retain employees as well as encourage managerial effort exertion (Guay et al., 2002). However, more recently a large body of empirical studies expresses concern about the efficiency of these incentive contracts by arguing compensation may represent agency problems (Bebchuk, 2009). Since the real problem in the research for incentive compensation is ‘not how much you pay, but how’ (Jensen and Murphy, 2010), the primary focus of this study is how to design chief executive officer (CEO) equity-based compensation that can strengthen managerial incentives for making rationality-based corporate decisions.
In particular, the corporate decisions considered in this study are investment decisions. Investment decisions of a firm should be independent of its financial situation (Jensen, 1986). However, the sensitivity of investment to cash flow indicates an agency problem of free cash flow. The efficiency of investment is a cause for concern because inefficient investments affect firm performance, leading to a reduction of firm value and economic growth. Within the agency framework, shareholders must find ways to alleviate investment-related agency problems that may result from deviations of firm investments from their optimal level. While there is prior evidence in the literature that corporate governance can influence managerial investment decisions, the evidence is less clear on the impact of specific design features of executive compensation on investment efficiency. In response, this study aims to fill this gap in the literature by examining the setting of CEO equity-based compensation that can improve investment efficiency, consistent with the efficient contracting perspective. Arising from these motivations, three research questions are proposed in this research: (1) Do firms that grant CEO equity-based compensation invest more efficiently than the others? (2) How do firms design CEO time-vesting conditions to reduce investment-related agency problems? (3) How do firms design CEO performance-vesting conditions to reduce investment-related agency problems? These research questions are considered to be timely and of interest to academics, analysts and shareholders.
Using a sample of the ASX 300 Australian firms over the period 2010 to 2015, this study investigates the association between the design features of CEO equity-based compensation and investment efficiency. As discussed earlier, in perfect or complete markets, investment decisions of a firm should be independent of its financial situation (Jensen, 1986). However, when managers have access to internal funds, they may tend to over-invest to derive private benefits (empire building) or under-invest to avoid private costs (managerial shirking) (Aggarwal and Samwick, 2006). Thus, the investment-cash flow sensitivity is employed as a proxy for investment inefficiency. Adopting multivariate regression procedures, the regression results document the significant moderating effect of CEO equity design features on the sensitivity of investment to cash flow.
Specifically, firms that grant equity-based compensation to their CEOs have lower investment-cash flow sensitivity as compared to others. The sensitivity also decreases as the weight placed on equity-based compensation increases. These results indicate that adopting equity-based compensation enhances the interest alignment between management and shareholders in making proper investment decisions. While there are several types of equity-based compensation favoured by firms, the study also considers how to structure the CEO equity-based compensation to provide more incentives. By testing the use of share options, share rights, restricted shares and a combination of equity grants individually, share options are found to have more importance in shaping the investment-cash flow sensitivity.
On the testing of the horizon incentives derived from CEO equity-based compensation, the investment-cash flow sensitivity decreases when a longer vesting duration and a graded vesting pattern are adopted. The results suggest that lengthening vesting periods can extend the useful life of equity incentives, and thus lead to managerial actions that are advantageous to the firm in the long run. Additionally, making the equity grants vest progressively (graded-vesting feature) during the vesting period allows the firm to more efficiently rebalance the CEO’s incentives and encourages the CEO to invest more efficiently in the shareholders’ best interest.
Regarding the investigation of performance-vesting conditions, the findings note that the investment-cash flow sensitivity becomes higher when firms attach performance hurdles to CEO equity grants. In contrast to the argument about performance hurdles that enhance pay-performance link, the result, however, supports the managerial entrenchment perspective. Basing CEO compensation on the achievement of performance targets reduces the incentive effects and may even incentivise CEOs to game the system at the cost of shareholder wealth, thus leading to higher agency costs. The study also reports that if firms intend to improve investment efficiency, they can design performance hurdles with a relative evaluation basis. Performance can be evaluated as a comparison to a market index or industry comparator group performance, rather than setting the performance target on a specific improvement rate. The final result shows the adoption of relative hurdles has an adverse moderating effect on the investment-cash flow sensitivity.
Overall, the results are consistent with the predictions by agency theory, indicating that firms can strategically design CEO equity-based compensation to reduce investment-related agency problems. The study adopts the latest available data collected manually for the design features of CEO equity-based compensation. By properly structuring CEO equity-based compensation and designing the vesting conditions, equity awards can help overcome the agency conflicts resulting from the separation of ownership and control. The study provides insights into the impact of effort, horizon and performance incentives on the quality of investment decisions, and contributes to the understanding of the role of CEO incentives in a firm’s policy-making.Thesis (PhD Doctorate)
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Dept Account,Finance & Econ
Griffith Business School
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Larsen, Ulrik Martin. "The Choreographed Garment." Licentiate thesis, Högskolan i Borås, Institutionen Textilhögskolan, 2014. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:hb:diva-3698.
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Contemporary dance and modern ballet often focus on conveying emotions through patterns of movement which may be abstract, obvious, or anywhere in between, as supported by music, sound, or spoken words that set the mood. Scenography is typically sparse or confined to the available space, leaving the dancers as the main instrument of communication. This work explores choreography and costume design, with a focus on how garments can inform and direct movement, choreography, and performance, and in turn how movement may inform and contribute to the development of dynamic garments. Through a series of live experiments, ranging from self-instigated performance/video work in collaboration with choreographers and dancers to performances of garment interaction associated with everyday life, the performative, spatial, and interactive properties of garments are explored. The results of these live experiments relate to various aspects of choreography, scenography, and performance space, and offer wide-ranging creative potential. The work shows how designers and choreographers can collaborate on performance scenarios within the context of modern ballet and contemporary dance productions, thus creating conceptual garments that influence the design, choreography, and manipulation of conceptual garments. In relation to the act of dressing and undressing, previously unseen types of garment and ways of wearing and performing were found. New models of collaborative interaction are proposed. This work has demonstrated how the agency of garments can function as a manuscript in modern dance, and how performance itself redefines the notion of wearing and the concept of garments.
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Stultz, Larry Michael. "Cultural Identity, Voice, and Agency in Post-Secondary Graphic Design Education: A Collective Case Study." unrestricted, 2006. http://etd.gsu.edu/theses/available/etd-03312006-180729/.
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Thesis (Ph. D.)--Georgia State University, 2006.Title from title screen. Deron Robert Boyles,committee chair; Jennifer Esposito, Heather Olson, Susan Talburt, committee members. Electronic text (194 p.) : digital, PDF file. Description based on contents viewed May 23, 2007. Includes bibliographical references (p. 182-189).
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Crozier, Sarah Elizabeth. "Investigating Stress and Gender Diversity in the Temporary Clerical Agency Workforce : A Mixed Method Design." Thesis, University of Manchester, 2009. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.508629.
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Eby, Caitlin C. "A Lighting Design for Ingmar Bergman's Nora| Using Light and Sky to Explore the Perils of Gender Roles and the Agency of Women." Thesis, California State University, Long Beach, 2018. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10750013.
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Nora is the story of a woman struggling with her agency in a world in which men dominate. My lighting design for the play was embodied by a vast sky made of light with a low- hanging sun that symbolized how the power of women held back by their circumstances of time, place, and the strict gender roles therein. Contrasted by the harsh lighting of her home, the lighting heightens Nora’s feelings of oppression and underlying desire to break free from societal norms and take agency over her life.
The following report examines the point of view, inspiration, development, final execution, and a self-critique of the lighting design by Caitlin C. Eby for California State University, Long Beach Theatre Arts Department’s 2017 Cal Rep production of Nora by Ingmar Bergman. It is submitted in partial fulfillment for completion of the Master of Fine Arts degree option in Lighting Design.
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Spence, Natalie Ann. "Designing for Epistemic Agency: How university student groups create knowledge and what helps them do it." Thesis, The University of Sydney, 2020. https://hdl.handle.net/2123/22348.
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How do university students create knowledge together? Collaborative projects are part of most tertiary undergraduate programs but in-depth studies of student work outside classrooms are rare. My interest is in shared epistemic agency—how knowledge is collaboratively created. There is, naturally, a social aspect—dialogue, team roles and relationships. There is also materiality to collaboration; the objects that students create and use as thinking tools and to organise work. Sociomaterial theories of knowledge creation, putting shared objects at the centre of social learning, underpinned this study. I followed seven groups of undergraduate students, as they worked together in education and engineering courses on ill-structured assessment tasks. I used ethnographic methods, including video- and audio-recordings, and capturing artefacts and online communications and work. I made detailed transcriptions and used discourse analysis of actions and objects as well as dialogue. I mapped projects through relational diagrams tracing actors, actions, conceptual development and objects over time. I compared cases across dimensions of knowledge creation and students’ assembled infrastructure. Findings and outputs include: • Conceptualisation of a new type of epistemic object, the synthesising object, to bridge individual and shared knowledge creation. • An original method of visual analysis and representation of shared epistemic objects over multiple dimensions. • A model for epistemic agency in group tasks, outlining the interactions between what students bring to the task, the components of infrastructure supporting knowledge work, and design. • The importance of early stages of projects: students bring dispositions that help them understand and frame epistemic work. • A set of design principles for shared epistemic agency, working collaboratively on knowledge in a specific context. A long-term strategy, targeted activities, deliberate practice and reflection are key.
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Carter, Frances Hannah. "Magic toyshops : narrative and meaning in the women's sex shop." Thesis, Kingston University, 2014. http://eprints.kingston.ac.uk/28758/.
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The sex shop aimed primarily at the female consumer is a phenomenon which forms part of our everyday understanding of the sexualisatian of culture or the mainstreaming of sexual representation and consumption. The women's sex shop privileges notions of female empowerment achieved through the consumption of goods and spaces dedicated to the pursuit of female erotic pleasure. Prioritising women's interpretations of the visual presence of the women's sex shop, this project establishes how the sex shop is re-made for its female consumers, making it both acceptable and desirable to a new audience. Primarily its aim is to interrogate the ways in which design is put to use to reflect, materialise and contribute to discourse around feminine sexuality and sexual pleasure. Utilising a feminist research methodology this thesis takes as a starting point the voices of women consumers and retailers, facilitating a new reading of the ways in which women negotiate the meanings invested in the spaces of gendered sexual consumption. In line with the testimony of participants, investigation begins by positioning the women's sex shop in relation to its progenitor, the traditional male sex shop, the model without which the women's shop could not be envisaged or designed. Secondly it investigates the ways in which the design of the women's sex shop and its goods, appropriate or resist established , normative and classed representations of female sexuality expressed in the geographical position of the shops, the interior layout, the external façade and the use of visual references. In conclusion, drawing on consumer narratives, research exposes a visual and spatial symbiosis between the 'seedy' masculine and the stylish women's sex shop. Key tensions and contradictions are unearthed in the things and spaces of the women's shop, calling into question the notions of female sexual agency and empowerment it proposes.
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Hayes, Suzanne. "A mixed methods study of shared epistemic agency in team projects in an online baccalaureate nursing course." Thesis, State University of New York at Albany, 2015. http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=3667396.
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This study explores the role of instructional design in the development of shared epistemic agency (SEA) when RN to BSN nursing students collaborate to complete a team project in an online course. Paavola & Hakkarainen's (2005) trialogical model of learning is used to design a learning activity where teams create a shared knowledge object, a co-authored patient interprofessional care plan to support group knowledge creation. The study addresses the following research questions: 1. What patterns of SEA are evident at the team level as manifest through epistemic and regulative actions in online student discourse? 2a. How did each team's epistemic and regulative decisions contribute to their shared knowledge object? 2b. How did the instructor's online interaction enhance or constrain each team's epistemic and regulative decisions? 2c. How did each team's use of project technology tools affect the development of their shared knowledge object? 3. What contributed to supporting or suppressing SEA in each team? These questions examine SEA in relationship to research in shared knowledge construction pedagogies and instructional design within nursing education.
This study uses a convergent parallel mixed methods design, in which both quantitative and qualitative data are collected, analyzed separately, and then merged (Creswell & Plano Clark, 2011). Quantitative content analysis is used to examine student discourse for evidence of student epistemic and regulative actions. This is combined with two forms of qualitative analysis. Thematic analysis is used to examine student artifacts and interviews with team members and their instructor to gain deeper insight into the meanings of their epistemic and regulative experiences within this six week collaborative activity. Case analysis is used to describe and synthesize differences among teams that supported or constrained the development of SEA.
The quantitative strand of research found higher levels of regulative actions compared to epistemic actions in both teams. The qualitative strand of research identified two areas which constrained each team's development of SEA overall. The first related to a series of uncertainties related to apprehensions about working with team members for the first time, concerns about the project and the instructor's expectations, and doubts about using technology for collaboration. The second related to a series of disjunctures associated with students' discordent beliefs about collaboration; contradictory views of conflict; and, discrepent views of leadership.
Synthesis of these results resulted in six factors that contributed to supporting or suppressing SEA in each team: team contracts, the team wiki, propensity for regulative over epistemic actions, narrow views of conflict, misconceptions about collaborative learning, and the instructor's role. In light of these findings, theoretical and practical implications and recommendations are detailed.
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Kotta, Linda Thokozile. "Structural conditioning and mediation by student agency : a case study of success in chemical engineerng design." Doctoral thesis, University of Cape Town, 2011. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/11475.
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Rhodes, Sarah. "The true nature of collaboration : what role does practice play in collaboration between designers and African craft producers?" Thesis, University of the Arts London, 2015. http://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/8729/.
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The aim of this research is to examine the role of practice in collaboration between designers and African craft producers in order to develop a different methodology for future exchanges that can be more sustainable and equitable. It looks to determine how craft and design practices can act as tools for communication and exchange, to examine how to foster meaningful collaboration when the relationship of those involved is inequitable and to develop a co-creation methodology for practice, capitalising on the differing skills, experiences and cultures of those involved. The research explores collaboration through making with two Cape Town based, craft businesses - Imiso Ceramics and Kunye - investigating the interactions that occur between the collaborators. A critical contextual review reveals the majority of such partnerships are instigated from the top down with an emphasis on product development. This study proposes that the focus is shifted to one that is human-centred, where the process of collaboration between the people involved is foregrounded. By strengthening the collaborative relationships and giving all participants an equal voice, the process becomes more productive, with product development an inherent result. Using a practice based, participatory design methodology, the work draws on the African notion of ubuntu, which speaks of people's interconnectedness. Applying the cross-disciplinary practices of all three collaborators, products are developed, provoking a dialogue that challenges the designer's role in the developing world. The research culminates in an exhibition of the journey, conversations, issues and outcomes that occurred throughout. The exhibition provides an opportunity to provoke a conversation with the stakeholders, listening to their experiences and gaining their feedback on the work presented. Practical exercises for participatory design in future cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary contexts are presented.
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Lund, Jens, and Per Velander. "Implementation and design of a hybrid mobile application with a native feeling, for the employment agency Skill." Thesis, Linköpings universitet, Medie- och Informationsteknik, 2013. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:liu:diva-102748.
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På senare tid har användadet av smartphones blivit allt vanligare och idag har cirka 60% av svenska befolkningen kopplat upp sig mot internet med en smartphone, samtidigt som försäljningen av mobilapplikationer ökar. I strävan efter att nå ut till en större kundkrets söker företag sätt att sprida information via mobilapplikationer. Men då kunderna använder sig av olika typer av enheter krävs plattformspecifika applikationer för att kunna nå ut till alla. Detta för med sig högre kostnader och längre utvecklingstider. En mer kostnads- och tidseffektiv lösning är att göra en hybridapplikation, vilket är en applikation som man kan ladda ner från marknadsplatserna och är skriven i HTML, JavaScript och CSS. Examensarbetet utfördes hos rekryteringsföretaget Skill som verkar inom Data/IT och har därför som mål att ligga i teknikens framkant. Skill hade ett behov av en plattformsoberoende mobilapplikation, där jobbkandidater enkelt skulle kunna ansöka om lediga tjänster. Syftet med denna rapporten är att undersöka möjligheter och brister hos ramverken Phonegap samt jQuery Mobile vid skapandet av en hybridapplikation. Vi har studerat om man med dessa ramverk kan skapa en plattformsoberoende mobilapplikation som känns native, men även om det finns riktlinjer från marknadsplatserna som gör det svårt att göra just detta. Under projektet fick vi bättre insikt i den problematik som kan uppstå vid utveckling av en plattformsoberoende mobilapplikation. Efter att vi analyserat resultatet kom vi fram till att det är möjligt att skapa en applikation som känns native, dock måste avgränsningar göras utifall applikationen skall vara plattformsoberoende.
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Wood, Hannah. "Video game 'Underland', and, thesis 'Playable stories : writing and design methods for negotiating narrative and player agency'." Thesis, University of Exeter, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/10871/29281.
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Creative Project Abstract: The creative project of this thesis is a script prototype for Underland, a crime drama video game and digital playable story that demonstrates writing and design methods for negotiating narrative and player agency. The story is set in October 2006 and players are investigative psychologists given access to a secure police server and tasked with analysing evidence related to two linked murders that have resulted in the arrest of journalist Silvi Moore. The aim is to uncover what happened and why by analysing Silvi’s flat, calendar of events, emails, texts, photos, voicemail, call log, 999 call, a map of the city of Plymouth and a crime scene. It is a combination of story exploration game and digital epistolary fiction that is structured via an authored fabula and dynamic syuzhet and uses the Internal-Exploratory and Internal-Ontological interactive modes to negotiate narrative and player agency. Its use of this structure and these modes shows how playable stories are uniquely positioned to deliver self-directed and empathetic emotional immersion simultaneously. The story is told in a mixture of enacted, embedded, evoked, environmental and epistolary narrative, the combination of which contributes new knowledge on how writers can use mystery, suspense and dramatic irony in playable stories. The interactive script prototype is accessible at underlandgame.com and is a means to represent how the final game is intended to be experienced by players. Thesis Abstract: This thesis considers writing and design methods for playable stories that negotiate narrative and player agency. By approaching the topic through the lens of creative writing practice, it seeks to fill a gap in the literature related to the execution of interactive and narrative devices as a practitioner. Chapter 1 defines the key terms for understanding the field and surveys the academic and theoretical debate to identify the challenges and opportunities for writers and creators. In this it departs from the dominant vision of the future of digital playable stories as the ‘holodeck,’ a simulated reality players can enter and manipulate and that shapes around them as story protagonists. Building on narratological theory it contributes a new term—the dynamic syuzhet—to express an alternate negotiation of narrative and player agency within current technological realities. Three further terms—the authored fabula, fixed syuzhet and improvised fabula—are also contributed as means to compare and contrast the narrative structures and affordances available to writers of live, digital and live-digital hybrid work. Chapter 2 conducts a qualitative analysis of digital, live and live-digital playable stories, released 2010–2016, and combines this with insights gained from primary interviews with their writers and creators to identify the techniques at work and their implications for narrative and player agency. This analysis contributes new knowledge to writing and design approaches in four interactive modes—Internal-Ontological, Internal-Exploratory, External-Ontological and External-Exploratory—that impact on where players are positioned in the work and how the experiential narrative unfolds. Chapter 3 shows how the knowledge developed through academic research informed the creation of a new playable story, Underland; as well as how the creative practice informed the academic research. Underland provides a means to demonstrate how making players protagonists of the experience, rather than of the story, enables the coupling of self-directed and empathetic emotional immersion in a way uniquely available to digital playable stories. It further shows how this negotiation of narrative and player agency can use a combination of enacted, embedded, evoked, environmental and epistolary narrative to employ dramatic irony in a new way. These findings demonstrate ways playable stories can be written and designed to deliver the ‘traditional’ pleasure of narrative and the ‘newer’ pleasure of player agency without sacrificing either.
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Wilson, Cara Ann Barbara. "Co-design beyond words with minimally-verbal children on the autism spectrum." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2021. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/211290/1/Cara_Wilson_Thesis.pdf.
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Minimally-verbal children on the autism spectrum are often overlooked in the process of technology co-design. This thesis describes methodological, conceptual, and technological ways in which participatory designers, researchers, and other stakeholders can support the self-expression of minimally-verbal children on the autism spectrum. The work contributes a novel methodological approach – Co-Design Beyond Words – and several co-designed digital and tangible design prototypes through which we might better support the design ‘voice’ of minimally-verbal children on the autism spectrum.
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Barresi, John F. "Systems thinking in humanitarian response : visualization and analysis of the inter-agency standing committee's architectures for "The Cluster Approach"." Thesis, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2018. http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/120874.
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Thesis: S.M. in Engineering and Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, System Design and Management Program, 2018.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.
Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 121-123).
The purpose of this work is to examine the "The Cluster Approach" -- the humanitarian response coordination strategy adopted by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) following the 2005 'Humanitarian Response Review' -- through the lens of systems thinking and develop potential system architecture representations to explore how the coordination mechanism can enhance complementarity, partnerships, and collaboration among humanitarian actors. The qualitative analysis of "The Cluster Approach" through system architecture principles strongly suggests, that indeed, the framework -- as currently envisioned by the IASC and the humanitarian community -- can be described and illustrated as a structured and architected system. In addition, the analysis demonstrates that the system architecture visualization can help (1) validate the existing framework and (2) design new variants to improve and strengthen the formal and functional relationships while leveraging the underlying organizational platform of the IASC's constituent membership. The analysis also suggests that visualizing the elements of the system as well as the interrelationships among response organizations, actors, and the transactions between these through system architecture principles -- reasoned and guided by holistic thinking -- can be useful and consequential to manage complexity and reduce ambiguity of the IASC's humanitarian system. Finally, extensions of this research to (1) design critical coordination priorities, (2) incorporate more architectural flexibility to manage exceptions, and (3) improve situational awareness of actors to adjust behaviors can hopefully lead to more effective and socially meaningful humanitarian response efforts.
by John F. Barresi.
S.M. in Engineering and Management
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Simunich, Bethany A. "Emotion Arousing Message Forms And Personal Agency Arguments In Persuasive Messages: Motivating Effects On Pro-Environmental Behaviors." The Ohio State University, 2008. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1228334861.
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Asare, Edmund K. "An Ethnographic Study of the Use of Translation Tools in a Translation Agency: Implications for Translation Tool Design." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2011. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1310587792.
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Washington, Lindsay Amadi. "Black Things, White Spaces." OpenSIUC, 2018. https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/theses/2319.
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This thesis paper, Black Things, White Spaces, offers an in depth look into my journey as an artist and how my artistic practice has evolved over the years. Throughout this time of self-exploration, I have developed an interest in themes of racism, structures of power, representation and stereotypes. In my artistic work, I explore how these themes affect the African American community, as well as myself, as an African American woman. This paper utilizes the creative and theoretical frameworks by artists and scholars like, Bill Viola, Adrian Piper, bell hooks, and Franz Fanon to support the intentions of my work. This thesis illustrates for the reader how my work approaches these themes through certain methodologies, such as: tactical media, blurring the lines between art and life, and the manipulation of time and space. In this paper, I argue the importance of placing my work within the context of African American experiences throughout history. By doing this, my work is able to reference several events throughout history, while addressing our current moment in time. Included in this manuscript are detailed descriptions and analyses of each piece in the thesis exhibition. It is important to speak about the development and the intentions of my art. While speaking about the work, I compare and contrast my thesis work to previous artworks I’ve done, as well as other artists works, in order to place these pieces within an art-historical framework. Finally, this thesis, also addresses how my current work presented in the thesis exhibition will inform my future artistic practice. I believe that my contributions to the African American media arts practice creates spaces to celebrate diversity, empower the voiceless, but most importantly, creates new avenues for change.
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Fryxell, Ellinor, and Magdalena Sundell. "Design som förmedlare av varumärkesidentitet : en deskriptiv studie om kommunikationsbyråers varumärkesidentitet och design som differenteringsverktyg." Thesis, Södertörns högskola, Företagsekonomi, 2018. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-35790.
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I samband med att konkurrensen inom kommunikationsbranschen blir hårdare blir det viktigare för kommunikationsbyråer att tydligt visa vad som skiljer dem från deras konkurrenter och tydligt positionera på marknaden. När tjänsteerbjudandet blir mer homogent blir marknadsföring och design allt viktigare verktyg för att differentiera sig gentemot sina konkurrenter. Kommunikationsbyråers roll är att agera experter på marknadsföring och hjälpa andra företag med att skapa en sammanhållen kommunikation med design som verktyg. För att inge förtroende hos kunderna är det därför viktigt att kommunikationsbyråer förmedlar sin designkompetens genom sin egen marknadsföring. Genom att tydligt förmedla sin varumärkesidentitet genom design talar teorierna om customer-based brand equity, brand credibility och integrated marketing communications för att byråer kan öka sin upplevda expertis, kundlojalitet och därmed även konkurrenskraft. Denna studie ämnar undersöka hur svenska kommunikationsbyråer arbetar för att förmedla sin egen varumärkesidentitet genom design. Förhoppningen är att bidra med ökad förståelse för hur kommunikationsbyråer ser på sin egen varumärkesidentitet och hur de arbetar för att förmedla den genom sin marknadsföring med design som verktyg. För att besvara frågeställningen har studien utgått ifrån en kvalitativ forskningsmetod där intervjuer genomförts med respondenter från fem utvalda kommunikationsbyråer som alla erbjuder någon form av designtjänst. Dessa intervjuer har kompletterats med semiotiska analyser där de utvalda byråernas hemsidor och interiör i entréer analyserats utifrån ett socialsemiotiskt perspektiv. Studiens resultat visar att svenska kommunikationsbyråers inställning till sin egen varumärkesidentitet varierar. Resultatet visar även att de undersökta kommunikationsbyråerna inte lyckas med att skapa ett sammanhängande budskap i sin design av hemsida och interiör. Istället ses referenser i form av bilder på tidigare arbeten som det viktigaste verktyget för att förmedla byråernas identitet.
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Schiffer, Ian S. "Lived Legal Expertise: Mobilizing the Political Agency of Incarcerated Youth." Scholarship @ Claremont, 2017. http://scholarship.claremont.edu/pomona_theses/183.
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This thesis analyzes how caring relationships and an emancipatory approach to law related education (LRE) within juvenile justice facilities can cultivate political agency. I focused specifically on Camp Afflerbaugh-Paige, an LA County juvenile probation facility, in La Verne, CA, as a case study. During three months of teaching a law related education class and embedding myself at the facility with an asset-based framework, I encountered a wealth of knowledge that incarcerated juveniles possess, not from formal education or research, but based in their own lived experiences. Los Angeles County Probation spends $233,000 per student per year; assuming best intentions of those in charge and the actors, the students, with a wide array of expertise, should be thriving within these institutions and set up for success upon their release. Unfortunately, though, students’ academic, entrepreneurial, and legal expertise are criminalized rather than cultivated by the juvenile justice system. Through a policy class, the students created reforms to address the challenges of a paramilitary camp that neglects students’ emotional, physical, and mental health. The challenges in the environment complicate the political agency of students within the camp and post-release. I am making the claim that the political agency of the students is visible and the assets are tangibly cultivated by an emancipatory pedagogy, ethic of care, and the law related education curriculum.
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Rowell, Christina Elizabeth. "Capturing the Dynamic Whole: Multimodal Composing Processes of Fashion Design Students." Kent State University / OhioLINK, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent158593391681925.
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Tembo, Fletcher A. "Understanding 'agency' through interface image-conflicts for improving the design of NGOs' social transformation projects : case studies from Malawi." Thesis, University of Reading, 2001. http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.369200.
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Bon, RJN. "Principal agent theory and blockchain technology: Smart contract applications." Thesis, Queensland University of Technology, 2021. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/208427/1/Ramon_Bon_Thesis.pdf.
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When economic agents have private information, the agents will be incentivised to use this information advantage by acting in a manner that does not always coincide with production and social efficiency, or the interests of the principal. This thesis investigates details specific to designing a contract with blockchain technology and smart contracts that consistently elicit efficiency and good behaviour with the best possible outcome for participating agents. We use the lens of the principal agent theory to show that implementing blockchain technology and smart contracts in contractual agreements can alleviate problems associated with information asymmetry that arise when one party holds its information private. Information asymmetry has a significant economic impact in principal agent relationships.