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To fullfill the practical part of my diplom task, I asked one of the teachers at our school to do the practical part instead of me. I gave him freedom in choosing the medium, topic and the lenght or format. The only condition is the quality of the work and proper explanation of its meaning. I will not be informed about his work untill the moment of presentation in front of the chosen comision where, during the discussion, my real income appears. The purpose of this work is to search for new moments in recyclation of artistic traditions.

The collaboration projects studied in this thesis originate from national experiments that took place from the late 1990s to the early 2000s. In those experiments, attempts were made to determine whether collaboration could, as part of the organization of the public sector, generate welfare gains for both the individual user and society as a whole. Other forms of political governance of public organizations were also tested in these experiments. Activities were very often carried out in the form of collaboration projects involving joint evaluation groups and through co-localization. The collaboration projects are about in which actors bring their different v rules, values and preconceptions, from their regular activities into a meeting with other activities with different boundaries in order to organize new boundaries. The purpose of the thesis is to achieve an understanding of why collaboration projects encounter difficulties in contributing to lasting integration between government organizations, and the importance of boundaries in the organizing of collaboration projects. The thesis is based on four articles. The first article elucidates the ways in which different boundaries are constructed when inter-organizational collaborations are being carried out. The second article develops a model for analyzing uncertainty factors in the interaction environment of the project. The third article addresses the problem of implementing, within the public sector, results from development projects in the home organization. The fourth article analyzes the ways in which collaboration projects can help to increase integration between government organizations. The results from the studies show that the collaboration projects do provide opportunities for trying out new forms of collaboration, but also that the actors in collaboration projects have to deal with multiple boundary-related problems. The construction of boundaries must, on the one hand, regulate the activities being carried out in the collaboration projects, in that the boundaries enable the actors to come together in a common activity. On the other hand, the boundaries in collaboration projects must be part of the home organizations’ activities and their boundary constructions. This leads to a complex spatial construction in which different boundaries entail different distinctions and regulations of the relationship to the outside world. In turn, this leads to problems involving the home organizations in the collaboration, resulting in the collaboration becoming confined to only the collaboration projects. / <p>För avläggande av filosofie doktorsexamen i företagsekonomi med vederbörligt tillstånd</p><p>av Handelshögskolans fakultetsnämnd vid Göteborgs Universitet framlägges för</p><p>offentligt granskning fredagen den 19 november 2010, kl. 13.15 i CG-salen vid företagsekonomiska institutionen, Vasagatan 1, Göteborg.</p>

Currently in secondary education, there is an impetus to have educators collaborate; however, teaching has often been perceived as a solitary occupation, and often logistics prevent collaboration from occurring. Furthermore, the stress of the job, teaching of different disciplines, and low morale can often prevent teachers from collaboration. The research problem addressed in this study reflects the challenges that teachers have with engaging in collaboration. The purpose of the qualitative case study was to understand how teachers are affected by collaboration, the barriers that prevent collaboration, and the possible benefits of collaboration. This case study is grounded in the constructivist theory, which holds that people learn from sharing in social settings. A qualitative case study design focused upon interviews with 18 educators, observations of collaborative sessions, and document analysis. Textual analysis of the interviews and documents through a taxonomic system of coding helped to generate themes about collaboration. Furthermore, these interview data were triangulated with observations and collaborative documents and showed consistent themes. This resulted in an aggregate of five themes including consistent definitions of collaboration and morale, an understanding that collaboration has positively affected the morale of these teachers in terms of more planning time, and a more collegial atmosphere; however, barriers such as time , which was still perceived as preventing the collaborative process. Implications for positive social change include a higher morale throughout the school that will foster a greater sense of community and environment more conducive to learning as teachers are better able to dedicate themselves to their profession, colleagues, and students.

This dissertation investigates public-public program collaboration (PPPC) between Head Start and the Virginia Preschool Initiative and asks why and how, and to what extent PPPC occurs between these preschool programs. To frame an understanding of PPPC, the dissertation assays collaborative process dimensions, collaborative management techniques, and degrees of collaborative activity. In-depth interviews with Head Start and VPI administrators result in the analysis of 16 Head Start-VPI dyadic relationships and places the focus of this research on the micro-level actions of the program administrators. Each Head Start-VPI dyad is assigned a degree of collaborative activity along a continuum ranging from no relationship (one dyad), cooperation (four dyads), coordination (six dyads), or collaboration (five dyads), and is assessed in terms of the presence or absence of the collaborative process dimensions of governance, administration, organizational autonomy, norms of trust, and mutuality. Qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) is used to identify the underlying process dimensions that comprise collaboration at the varying degrees of collaborative activity. Collaborating dyads generally are found to exhibit all of the process dimensions, where the no relationship and cooperating dyads exhibit relatively few of the process dimensions. Coordinating dyads typically have strong structural dimensions but weak mutuality, or strong social capital dimensions, but weak administration. The dissertation shows how public administrators engage the collaborative management techniques of activating, framing, mobilizing, and synthesizing, and finds variation in management techniques across types of collaborative activities. It also argues for activation activity to include "history of collaboration" stories and identifies six framing types that intersect at being collaborative or non-collaborative in focus and mature or immature. The dissertation concludes with recommendations for current preschool administrators and future scholarship. / Ph. D.

Thesis (MPhil)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study is a tale untold by quantitative data. The main role-players in this tale are two mathematics teachers at an urban high school situated in a low socio-economic area and involved in a professional development programme in the Western Cape, viz. the SPARK project. It is a case study of how their levels of collegiality and collaboration positively influenced their levels of efficacy, whilst being part of an in-service professional development programme. This interpretive qualitative case study is explored using two data sets: one being the classroom observation reports generated via participant observation during the first three years of the project; and the other is a focus group interview done three years later. The data sets were analysed to produce a rich, thick descriptive and interpretive account of the supportive environment of these two teachers and how it played a significant role in their professional growth and levels of efficacy. The findings of this study are then used to highlight the importance of establishing collaborative cultures within in-service professional development programmes and the positive influence it can have on the efficacy levels of teachers. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie vertel ‘n verhaal waaraan kwantitatiewe data alleen nie reg kan laat geskied nie. Die hoofrolspelers in die verhaal is twee wiskunde onderwysers by ’n stedelike hoërskool wat geleë is in ’n lae sosio-ekonomiese gebied en wat betrokke is by ’n professionele ontwikkelingsprogramme in die Wes-Kaap, die sogenaamde SPARK projek. Dit is ’n gevallestudie wat aantoon hoe hulle vlakke van kollegialiteit en samewerking, terwyl hulle deel was van hierdie professionele indiens-ontwikkelingsprojek, hulle vlakke van doeltreffendheid positief beïnvloed het. Hierdie interpretatiewe kwalitatiewe gevallestudie is ontleed aan die hand van twee datastelle: aan die een kant die klaskamer waarnemingsverslae gebaseer op klasobservasies van die deelnemers gedurende die eerste drie jaar van die projek en aan die ander kant ‘n fokusgroep onderhoud wat drie jaar later gedoen is. Die analise van hierdie datastelle het ’n ryklik gelaaide beskrywende en interpretatiewe weergawe daargestel van die ondersteunende omgewing van hierdie twee onderwysers en hoe dit ’n beduidende rol gespeel het in hulle professionele groei, onder meer hulle vlakke van werkseffektiwiteit. Die bevindings van hierdie studie word dan gebruik om die belangrikheid van die vestiging van kollaboratiewe kulture in professionele indiensopleidingsprogrammeme te beklemtoon. Die studie onderskryf ook die positiewe invloed wat ’n kultuur van samewerking kan hê op die doeltreffendheidsvlakke van onderwysers.

This study investigates how ambiguous qualities in a tangible user interface can generate collaboration between the users of the artifact. The goal of the ambiguous qualities is to not have an interface with a generally accepted way of interaction. In this manner the participants are challenged in their own perception of what a tangible user interface consists of. Interactions with physical objects instead of a standard mouse/keyboard input can explore new techniques of interaction.

TEACHER SUPPORT An exploration of the concept of teacher support, investigating how secondary comprehensive school teachers perceive their classroom needs and define the support required to fulfil their professional role. DIANA WILSON Through a combination of narrative and ethnographic research methods, this research explores how secondary comprehensive school teachers perceive their professional role and define the support which they need to fulfil their role in the context of their classroom work. Building on research into the professional lives of primary school teachers carried out by Nias (1989) and Woods et al. (1997) and on the work of Poppleton and Riseborough (1988, 1990, 1991), I argue from the data that secondary school teachers have a dual commitment to the communication of subject and to the individual needs of pupils. A perceived inability to fulfil successfully this dual role within the constraints under which they are working causes teachers profound stress and distress, and may lead to distorted behaviour and confrontational situations. I explore the disjuncture which occurs when the gap between the self which the teacher strives to project (the conative self) and the professional persona which pupils and colleagues perceive (the apparent self) becomes too great. Support is defined as provisions which facilitate the expression of the conative professional self. The literature on teacher support and the perceptions of fieldwork participants suggest that collaborative initiatives based on shared values and purposes offer potential for fruitful development. This is also explored in the context of a whole school discipline system and a small self-help group. Ambivalent attitudes towards both collaboration and support are uncovered.

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The aim of the thesis is to develop a technique for collaborative creation of mappings of two XML schemas. More precisely, it will support a concurrent participation of several users at the same mapping via the Web. The method will be based on current XML schema mapping techniques but will extend them with the support for collaboration. The developed technique will be implemented in a user-friendly web application. The tool will support concurrent change operations invoked by the collaborating users, their merging and/or prioritization. Moreover, it will also keep previous versions of the mapping so it will be possible to return to an arbitrary previous version.