Shaping Knowledge

Book Description :

This book offers a comprehensive guide to the world of metadata, from its origins in the ancient cities of the Middle East, to the Semantic Web of today. The author takes us on a journey through the centuries-old history of metadata up to the modern world of crowdsourcing and Google, showing how metadata works and what it is made of. The author explores how it has been used ideologically and how it can never be objective. He argues how central it is to human cultures and the way they develop. Metadata: Shaping Knowledge from Antiquity to the Semantic Web is for all readers with an interest in how we humans organize our knowledge and why this is important. It is suitable for those new to the subject as well as those know its basics. It also makes an excellent introduction for students of information science and librarianship.

Book Description :

Organizations in ever-changing environments depend upon their knowledge, as their survival depends upon effective thinking and agile actions. Any organization’s knowledge is its prime asset yet its true value requires the activations of structure, query, search and decision. Shaping Knowledge provides an introduction to the key tools for thinking required by decision-making professionals in today’s knowledge-intensive landscapes, and equips them with key skills to capitalize on knowledge resources. This book provides practical methods and critical insights for modelling knowledge-driven domains, providing a rich resource for exploration in professional development and practice. Applies high-level theory work to an engineering domain Proposes a novel approach to spatial, urban and interaction design Brings a rare inter-disciplinary perspective to a convergent technology

Book Description :

The Curatorial Department of the American Philosophical Society presents a catalogue of the exhibition being held in Philosophical Hall from June 2003 through December 2004. The exhibit focuses on the blending of art & science in the study of natural history in North America. It explores the cultural assumptions that governed the practice of natural history on the North American continent in the 18th & early 19th centuries. Focusing on the study of living things -- plants, animals, & indigenous peoples -- it looks at how & why Euro-Americans of the Enlightenment & post-Enlightenment periods went about explaining the world the way they did. Exhibit items include historical specimens, manuscript materials, first-edition books, & art work.

Book Description :

This book offers a hands-on approach to prepare businesses for managing the impact of technology transformation by the pragmatic, consistent, and persistent application of proven business principles and practices. Technology is rapidly transforming our businesses and our society. Knowledge worker roles are being impacted, and as operations are being automated, business models are changing as the use of cloud-based services lowers costs and provides flexibility. This book provides a guide towards managing the environment of uncertainly caused by the rapid changes in technology by combining strategy and leadership to influence the environment, instil the right behaviours, and strengthen the skills that will enable businesses to be adaptive, responsive, and resilient.

Book Description :

Museums have been active in shaping knowledge over the last six hundred years. Yet what is their function within today's society? At the present time, when funding is becoming increasingly scarce, difficult questions are being asked about the justification of museums. Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge presents a critical survey of major changes in current assumptions about the nature of museums. Through the examination of case studies, Eilean Hooper-Greenhill reveals a variety of different roles for museums in the production and shaping of knowledge. Today, museums are once again organising their spaces and collections to present themselves as environments for experimental and self-directed learning.

Book Description :

Drawing on numerous case studies, Hooper-Greenhill presents a critical survey of major changes in current assumptions about the nature of museums, and argues that museums are consciously organizing their spaces and collections to aid self-learning.

Book Description :

The forms taken by scientific writing help to determine the very nature of science itself. In this closely reasoned study, Charles Bazerman views the changing forms of scientific writing as solutions to rhetorical problems faced by scientists arguing for their findings. Examining such works as the early Philosophical Transactions and Newton's optical writings as well as Physical Review, Bazerman views the changing forms of scientific writing as solutions to rhetorical problems faced by scientists. The rhetoric of science is, Bazerman demonstrates, an embedded part of scientific activity that interacts with other parts of scientific activity, including social structure and empirical experience. This book presents a comprehensive historical account of the rise and development of the genre, and views these forms in relation to empirical experience.

Book Description :

"China's rise to power has become one of the most discussed questions in both International Relations Theory (IRT) and Foreign Policy circles. Although power has been a core concept of IRT for a long time, the faces and mechanisms of power as it relates to Chinese foreign policy making has reinvigorated and changed the contours of that debate. With the rise of China and other powers across the global political arena comes a new visibility for different kinds of encounters between states, particularly between China and other Global South states. These encounters are made more visible to IR scholars now because of the increasing influence and impact that rising powers are making in the international system. This book shows foreign policy encounters between rising powers and Global South states do not necessarily exhibit the same logics, behaviors, or investment strategies of Euro-American hegemons. Instead, they have distinctive features that require new theoretical frameworks for their analysis. Shaping the Future of Power probes the type of power mechanisms that build, diffuse, and project China's power in Africa. It is necessary to take into account the processes of knowledge production, social capital formation, and skills transfers in Chinese foreign policy toward African states to fully understand China's power building mechanisms. These elements are crucial for the relational power framework to capture both the material aspects and ideational people-centered aspects to power. By examining China's investments in human resource development programs for Africa, the book examines a vital, yet undertheorized, aspect of China's foreign policy making"--

Book Description :

Shaping a Science of Social Work provides a basic framework for a social work science within the context of academic disciplinarity and professional identity. Drawn from discussions at the annual IslandWood retreats for social work scholars, this book centers on a realist/critical-realist perspective by outlining the basic constructs, domains, and characteristics of a science that will inform the way social work is studied and practiced for years to come. Chapters written by leaders of the field offer detailed and rigorous analyses of essential issues such as values and value-based assumptions, philosophy of mind, importance of theory, challenges of rigor and relevance in social work science, and implications for the future of the profession. The book serves as an invaluable resource for academics and organizational leaders in social work practice and education.

Book Description :

A pedagogical approach to the principles and architecture of knowledge management in organizations This textbook is based on a graduate course taught at Stevens Institute of Technology. It focuses on the design and management of today's complex K organizations. A K organization is any company that generates and applies knowledge. The text takes existing ideas from organizational design and knowledge management to enhance and elevate each through harmonization with concepts from other disciplines. The authors—noted experts in the field—concentrate on both micro- and macro design and their interrelationships at individual, group, work, and organizational levels. A key feature of the textbook is an incisive discussion of the cultural, practice, and social aspects of knowledge management. The text explores the processes, tools, and infrastructures by which an organization can continuously improve, maintain, and exploit all elements of its knowledge base that are most relevant to achieve its strategic goals. The book seamlessly intertwines the disciplines of organizational design and knowledge management and offers extensive discussions, illustrative examples, student exercises, and visualizations. The following major topics are addressed: Knowledge management, intellectual capital, and knowledge systems Organizational design, behavior, and architecture Organizational strategy, change, and development Leadership and innovation Organizational culture and learning Social networking, communications, and collaboration Strategic human resources; e.g., hiring K workers and performance reviews Knowledge science, thinking, and creativity Philosophy of knowledge and information Information, knowledge, social, strategy, and contract continuums Information management and intelligent systems; e.g., business intelligence, big data, and cognitive systems Designing Knowledge Organizations takes an interdisciplinary and original approach to assess and synthesize the disciplines of knowledge management and organizational design, drawing upon conceptual underpinnings and practical experiences in these and related areas.

Book Description :

The history of sex education enables us to gain valuable insights into the cultural constructions of what different societies have defined as 'normal' sexuality and sexual health. Yet, the history of sex education has only recently attracted the full attention of historians of modern sexuality. Shaping Sexual Knowledge: A Cultural History of Sex Education in Twentieth Century Europe makes a considerable contribution not only to the cultural history of sexual enlightenment and identity in modern Europe, but also to the history of childhood and adolescence. The essays collected in this volume treat sex education in the broadest sense, incorporating all aspects of the formal and informal shaping of sexual knowledge and awareness of the young. The volume, therefore, not only addresses officially-sanctioned and regulated sex education delivered within the school system and regulated by the State and in some cases the Church, but also the content, iconography and experience of sexual enlightenment within the private sphere of the family and as portrayed through the media.

Book Description :

The role that “system” has played in the shaping and reshaping of modern knowledge, from Galileo and Newton to our own “computational universe.” A system can describe what we see (the solar system), operate a computer (Windows 10), or be made on a page (the fourteen engineered lines of a sonnet). In this book, Clifford Siskin shows that system is best understood as a genre—a form that works physically in the world to mediate our efforts to understand it. Indeed, many Enlightenment authors published works they called “system” to compete with the essay and the treatise. Drawing on the history of system from Galileo's “message from the stars” and Newton's “system of the world” to today's “computational universe,” Siskin illuminates the role that the genre of system has played in the shaping and reshaping of modern knowledge. Previous engagements with systems have involved making them, using them, or imagining better ones. Siskin offers an innovative perspective by investigating system itself. He considers the past and present, moving from the “system of the world” to “a world full of systems.” He traces the turn to system in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and describes this primary form of Enlightenment as a mediator of political, cultural, and social modernity—pointing to the moment when people began to “blame the system” for working both too well (“you can't beat the system”) and not well enough (it always seems to “break down”). Throughout, his touchstones are: what system is and how it has changed; how it has mediated knowledge; and how it has worked in the world.

Book Description :

The Ashgate Research Companion to Black Sociology provides the most up to date exploration and analysis of research focused on Blacks in America. Beginning with an examination of the project of Black Sociology, it offers studies of recent events, including the ‘Stand Your Ground’ killing of Trayvon Martin, the impact of Hurricane Katrina on emerging adults, and efforts to change voting requirements that overwhelmingly affect Blacks, whilst engaging with questions of sexuality and family life, incarceration, health, educational outcomes and racial wage disparities. Inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois’s charge of engaging in objective research that has a positive impact on society, and organised around the themes of Social Inequities, Blacks and Education, Blacks and Health and Future Directions, this timely volume brings together the latest interdisciplinary research to offer a broad overview of the issues currently faced by Blacks in United States. A timely, significant research guide that informs readers on the social, economic and physical condition of Blacks in America, and proposes directions for important future research. The Ashgate Research Companion will appeal to policy makers and scholars of Africana Studies, Sociology, Cultural Studies, Anthropology and Politics, with interests in questions of race and ethnicity, gender and sexuality, social inequalities, health and education.

Book Description :

This book uses an international perspective and draws on a wide range of new conceptual and empirical material to examine the sources of conflict and cooperation within the different landscapes of knowledge that are driving contemporary urban change. Based on the premise that historically-established systems of regulation and control are being subject to unprecedented pressures, scholars critically reflect on the changing role of planning and governance in sustainable urban development, looking at how a shift in power relations between expert and local cultures in western planning processes has blurred the traditional boundaries between public, private, and voluntary sectors.

Book Description :

In recent years there has been a growing recognition that a mature analysis of scientific and technological activity requires an understanding of its spatial contexts. Without these contexts, indeed, scientific practice as such is scarcely conceivable. Making Space for Science brings together contributors with diverse interests in the history, sociology and cultural studies of science and technology since the Renaissance. The editors aim to provide a series of studies, drawn from the history of science and engineering, from sociology and sociology and science, from literature and science, and from architecture and design history, which examine the spatial foundations of the sciences from a number of complementary perspectives.

Book Description :

A collaborative series with the University of Cambridge Faculty of Education highlighting leading-edge research across Teacher Education, International Education Reform and Language Education. Rethinking Heritage Language Education is an edited collection that brings together emerging and established researchers interested in the education field of Heritage Language Education to negotiate its concepts and practices, and investigate the correlation between culture and language from a pedagogic and cosmopolitical point of view. The scholars, who have contributed to the growth of Heritage Language Education as a discipline, reconsider and enrich their findings by drawing new lines across the boundaries of research and practice. It complements the previous work of these theorists, filling a void in the current literature around the question of Heritage Language Education.

Book Description :

This book examines the quality assessment movement in academic scholarship, as globalization prompts a search for global measures of university services and output. It gauges productivity in terms of universal publication metrics, and considers ranking and research productivity from a comparative perspective. The book considers the use of the “impact factor” as a gauge of publication value, noting that this less important in countries lacking central government appropriations to universities and to research. It argues that pressure to publish in certain journals, and to research topics of interest to English language readers, has been felt differentially in English-language systems, compared to others, but also that performance pressures fall more on younger, more juniour, contract staff, than on senior and tenured professors. It problematizes international comparisons of quality, and analyses the benefits of a zone of ideas and metrics in a common language – promoting international mobility, efficiency, collaboration - but also the costs which are rarely borne equally across countries, languages and cultures. The book provides a strong, evidence-based contribution to major debates in contemporary higher education reforms and the measurement of academic output.

Book Description :

Download Shaping the Digital Dissertation book written by Virginia Kuhn,Anke K. Finger, available in PDF, EPUB, and Kindle, or read full book online anywhere and anytime. Compatible with any devices.

Book Description :

The International Handbook of Political Ecology features chapters by leading scholars from around the world in a unique collection exploring the multi-disciplinary field of political ecology. This landmark volume canvasses key developments, topics, iss

Book Description :

Forging closer links between university research and teaching has become an important way to enhance the quality of higher education across the world. As student engagement takes centre stage in academic life, how can academics and university leaders engage with their students to connect research and teaching more effectively? In this highly accessible book, the contributors show how students and academics can work in partnership to shape research-based education. Featuring student perspectives, it offers academics and university leaders practical suggestions and inspiring ideas on higher education pedagogy, including principles of working with students as partners in higher education, connecting students with real-world outputs, transcending disciplinary boundaries in student research activities, connecting students with the workplace, and innovative assessment and teaching practices. Written and edited in full collaboration with students and leading educator-researchers from a wide spectrum of academic disciplines, this book poses fundamental questions about learning and learning communities in contemporary higher education.