Collaboration is considered to be an alternative strategic planning approach for delivering services and addressing organization mandates. These initiatives provide an opportunity “in which autonomous actors interact through formal and informal negotiation, jointly creating rules and structures governing their relationship” (Thomson and Perry 2006, 23). Stakeholders recognize the potential for increasing organizational capacity by engaging in relationships that collectively address common concerns through the integration and coordination of resources. The underlying principle of this research is to provide insight on the contributions that are required to facilitate initiatives and engage stakeholders in processes that achieve collaborative goals. This research assesses the motivations needed to participate in integrated planning strategies and identifies the resources required to create the capacity to support successful outcomes. The primary purpose of the research is to provide stakeholders with knowledge and appreciation for the complexities involved in collaborating, with a particular focus on the human resources that are necessary to facilitate stakeholder relations. The objectives of the research are to undertake a qualitative evaluation of stakeholders’ experiences involved with a collaborative initiative and to determine how the collaboration goals of participants are achieved. The Habitat Conservation and Stewardship Program (HCSP) was identified as a case study, because it provided an ideal opportunity to evaluate a public sector agency that was motivated to initiate integrated planning strategies. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) implemented the HCSP to “enhance habitat protection and expand community capacity to steward fish habitat resources” (HCSP Evaluation Team 2001; Fisheries and Oceans Canada Habitat and Enhancement Branch 2001a, 1). The DFO recognized that in order to meet the goals of the collaboration they would implement a convener role to engage all interested parties. This research emphasizes the contributions of conveners by analyzing the processes and activities that they use to engage stakeholders and produce successful outcomes. Participants who are motivated to engage in collaborations expect to benefit from their involvement but it is recognized that conveners play an integral role in achieving collaborative goals and therefore, their contributions should be valued.

Using a quasi-experimental design, the researcher investigated the comparative effects of individually-generated and collaboratively-generated computer-based concept mapping on middle school science concept learning. Qualitative data were analyzed to explain quantitative findings. One hundred sixty-one students (74 boys and 87 girls) in eight, seventh grade science classes at a middle school in Southeast Texas completed the entire study. Using prior science performance scores to assure equivalence of student achievement across groups, the researcher assigned the teacher’s classes to one of the three experimental groups. The independent variable, group, consisted of three levels: 40 students in a control group, 59 students trained to individually generate concept maps on computers, and 62 students trained to collaboratively generate concept maps on computers. The dependent variables were science concept learning as demonstrated by comprehension test scores, and quality of concept maps created by students in experimental groups as demonstrated by rubric scores. Students in the experimental groups received concept mapping training and used their newly acquired concept mapping skills to individually or collaboratively construct computer-based concept maps during study time. The control group, the individually-generated concept mapping group, and the collaboratively-generated concept mapping group had equivalent learning experiences for 50 minutes during five days, excepting that students in a control group worked independently without concept mapping activities, students in the individual group worked individually to construct concept maps, and students in the collaborative group worked collaboratively to construct concept maps during their study time. Both collaboratively and individually generated computer-based concept mapping had a positive effect on seventh grade middle school science concept learning but neither strategy was more effective than the other. However, the students who collaboratively generated concept maps created significantly higher quality concept maps than those who individually generated concept maps. The researcher concluded that the concept mapping software, Inspiration™, fostered construction of students’ concept maps individually or collaboratively for science learning and helped students capture their evolving creative ideas and organize them for meaningful learning. Students in both the individual and the collaborative concept mapping groups had positive attitudes toward concept mapping using Inspiration™ software.

“Hitchcock and Humor: a Study in Collaborative Authorship” presents three case studies that examine how Hitchcock’s humor, a critical component of his touch, fluctuates and varies in accordance with his collaborators and his creative control. The first collaboration addressed involves Hitchcock’s dealings with producer David O Selznick on both Rebecca (1940) and Spellbound (1945). By tracing each film through its initial treatments to its final screenplay, the each man’s individual contribution comes to light and explains why Rebecca lacks the humor required for the full Hitchcock touch whereas Spellbound does provide comic moments. Under Selznick, Hitchcock first established a working relationship with actor Cary Grant. The two would continue to collaborate as the years went on and made four films together in all: Suspicion (1941), Notorious (1946), To Catch a Thief (1955), and North by Northwest (1959). In each subsequent film Hitchcock’s methods of humor mesh more with Grant’s screwball persona culminating in a Hitchcock classic full of funny moments. Along with Hitchcock’s wit and Grant’s physical comedy, North by Northwest owes a debt of gratitude to its screenwriter Ernest Lehman who created the original script simply out of sketches of characters and moments. The third case study examines the humor in Frenzy (1972). While Hitchcock’s recent films had failed to reproduce the Hitchcock touch for an uncharacteristic lack of humor, Frenzy is laced with tongue-in-cheek action. The story was based on Arthur La Bern’s novel Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square (1972) and was adapted to the screen by playwright Anthony Shaffer to create what many call Hitchcock’s return to form. These case studies reveal that the inclusion of humor in Hitchcock’s films comes about when Hitchcock has the freedom away from the pressures of the studio and studio heads to assert his creative control with the collaborators and films of his choosing, preferably collaborators whose aesthetics compliment his own, and preferably films whose genre allows for generous tongue-in-cheek. / text

Abstract The paper illustrates the role of political and social dynamics upon technological change. Examining dynamics transforming excavation practices on South Africa’s goldmines, it describes how a technology that opened up a range of social and economic opportunities became a constraint on those opportunities. This technology’s development and diffusion thereby established a critical precedent in the spread of racial occupational mobility restrictions. Collaborative innovation is also a dominant feature in the analysis, highlighting both its historical importance in South Africa as well as the need for caution in its contemporary promotion.

Despite more than one hundred and twenty five years of exile, descendants of Chiricahua, Mescalero, and Western Apache tribes still retain significant and powerful ties to their former homelands in what is now southeastern Arizona. However, due to the high mobility of historical-period Apache tribes in the U.S. Southwest and near invisibility of Apache archaeological sites on the ground surface, much is still to be learned about historical-period Apachean life-ways. Moreover, beyond material signatures much is to be learned about the Apache past and present in reference to U.S. colonial policies regarding the lasting sociocultural, political, physical, and cognitive affects resulting from these policies and actions. These lasting impacts as a result of colonial policies and actions are still very much felt and critically affect contemporary Apache communities. This dissertation presents the results from collaborative archaeological fieldwork conducted in various areas of the Chiricahua Mountain range with Apache cultural experts representing communities with ongoing and ancestral associations to lands now managed by the Coronado National Forest. Beyond the material remains representing Apache culture and history it is necessary for non-Apache collaborators to critically self-reflect and examine their own research goals and agendas to better address issues and concerns of extreme importance to Apache tribal communities today. By addressing the various challenges encountered during the collaborative research processes, and modifying paternalistic thought processes and misunderstandings in reference to American Indian communities, researchers can conduct archaeological-anthropological research that creatively and critically responds to the needs of contemporary American Indian communities.

The purpose of this study was to test a hypothesized collaboration model composed of four components: team member, context, collaboration process, and degree of collaboration. A descriptive design using a causal modeling approach was used to test the collaboration model. The research settings were the healthcare centers and welfare centers in five provinces of Korea. The sample consisted of 40 nurse teams and 40 social worker teams. Data were collected from each team member and leaders involved in the Korean Home Visiting Services. Psychometric properties of all measures were assessed at both individual and team levels. Psychometric properties of all but one subscale (Agreement of Disciplinary Logic) exhibited reliability and evidence of validity as team measures. First hypothesis, team member and context variables have a direct effect on the collaboration process, was rejected. However, some team member variables directly impacted the collaboration process. Second hypothesis, team member, context, and collaboration process variables have a direct effect on the degree of collaboration, was rejected. However, some team member, context, and collaboration process variables directly impacted the degree of collaboration. Based on the research findings, the hypothesized collaboration model was revised.This study presented some implications for further research and collaboration practice. Future research needs to determine the reciprocal influence of each construct variable, explore the roles of each leadership style, and identify intervening or extraneous variables affecting collaboration. For the collaboration practice, this research can help healthcare providers develop realistic and effective strategies to enhance their collaboration, which would lead them to not only assess the elderly holistically, but to also effectively plan and provide comprehensive care services to solve complex health problems of the elderly. Thus, the elderly can maintain and improve their health and well-being. There were some study limitations related to the methodology and study findings. Sample size and a convenient sampling and a lack of random selection and diversity of the sample prevented generalization of study findings. A small number of context variables may have been insufficient to investigate the impact of context on collaboration, and potential model and variable misspecification and/or measurement errors may have occurred.

Over the past decade, an interest in collaboration has been coming to the fore in composition studies. Whereas once we were primarily interested in investigating the cognitive processes of the individual, we now seek to understand more about the social dynamics of writing in groups to improve our teaching of composition in the classroom. To that end, this dissertation looks at the real world collaborative activities of business proposal writers within a high technology company. Writing in the workplace is often undertaken in groups, and my work at Cerebellum, Inc. with computer professionals (who wrote as part of their jobs) reveals complexities hitherto unsuspected in the social writing process. The importance of a detailed understanding of collaboration has been called for in the literature by, for example, Ede and Lunsford (1990). My dissertation surveys current literature in composition, including a review of investigations into collaboration during business writing as a salient behaviour of such a discourse community. In order to accomplish my research, I used a video camera to record the activities which embodied the writing process at Cerebellum Inc. I found that the use of the video camera in an ethnographic manner not only helped me to gather detailed data, both verbal and nonverbal, in the continuous and comprehensive detail so vital to communication research, but also assisted in initiating better understanding within the business community of the aims and approaches of academic research. Video technology gave me a chance to participate in as well as observe situations, and also opened the door to conversation concerning my methods and my findings with both researchers and informants. I propose a model of the varying levels of engagement undertaken by the writers of a business proposal. I then suggest the educational value of the representation with a discussion of implications for the teaching of writing in the workplace and in more traditional school settings. Detailed research into collaboration offers us a window on the social processes which constitute writing for our students now and in their futures in the workplace. Such work is vitally important to ensuring superior levels of advanced literacy which will be in continuing demand now and in the next century.

Summary The Cooperation Development Opportunities in Institutions Participating in the Education Process of Pupils with Special Needs In evaluating the powers and dificulties of a student and adjusting the contest of education to a student who has the learning difficulties, there meet two institutions – family, school and Pedagogical Psychological Office. The cooperation of these institutions in reality is a formal process, which begins with the recomandation of teachers to evaluate the demands of a student in the Office and ends with the submission of conclusions about student‘s capabilities. The communication which is based only on the necessity lacks the continuation and is not fully effective in the striving of individual progress of the students with special needs. These tendencies encourage to seek for the better cooperation ways of family, school and Pedagogical Psychological Office; at the same time involving the student to a process of cooperation, increasing his motivation and competence in solving problems, expanding permanent interaction between the institutions. The purpose of the paper is to ascertain the cooperation peculiarities of the present situation of family, school and Pedagogical Psychological Office; to analyse and evaluate the possibilities of coopearation expansion of these institutions. The research shows the quantitative and qualitative expression of cooperation, and presents the evaluatings of present situation of separate respondent groups:... [to full text]

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Murdoch University, 2007. / Thesis submitted to the Division of Arts. Includes bibliographical references (p. 331-345).

AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF MORGAN E. MOSER for the Doctor of Philosophy degree with a concentration in Curriculum and Instruction, presented June 26, 2012, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: UNDERSTANDING HOW NOVICE TEACHERS UTILIZE ONLINE COLLABORATION MAJOR PROFESSOR: Dr. Joyce Killian This investigation focused on the different forms of online collaboration used by current novice teachers in rural districts in Illinois. Two main research questions guided this study: 1) How do novice teachers use online collaboration? and 2) How does online collaboration affect their teaching practice? This study consisted of four qualitative case studies. The case studies focused on participants who were current novice public K-12 teachers of mathematics employed in rural districts in Illinois. Three of the cases were elementary teachers, and one case was a secondary mathematics teacher. To triangulate the data, three types of data were collected from the teachers. Individual structured interviews, collection of artifacts, and an analysis of online collaboration were completed and analyzed. Analysis of the online collaboration created by one of the participants in the forms of blog entries and Twitter posts was also completed. The first research question indicated that novice teachers used online collaboration to gain ideas and curriculum material, to overcome lack of preparation and support, to enhance classroom environment, and to share ideas and resources. The results from the second research question indicated that online collaboration has impacted novice teachers' practice in several ways. It promoted teacher reflection and encouraged them to implement new teaching methods or strategies. It also encouraged them to adapt resources to meet their curriculum needs and allowed them to discover new teaching methods and strategies. Recommendations for follow-up studies include the use of focus groups rather than individual structured interviews, lengthening the time of the study to include a full school year, and a change in setting to avoid certain technical difficulties. Additionally, research should be completed on the long-term effects of online collaboration on novice teachers and whether they continue to use it as they gain more experience.