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A Geographic Information System (GIS) is an existing tool to create, manage, analyze and visualize data with a spatial component, and is used by many types of organizations in many fields. For most of the tasks and projects within these fields, a GIS provides highly accurate results. Under certain circumstances (Massive Scope, Widespread Expertise and Multivalency), a GIS fails to provide adequate results in the field of historical geography, for example. Crowdsourcing tools like Wikipedia and Open Street Map (OSM) address some of these issues, but not all, and introduce new problems. This project focuses on geographic data dealing with historical events, places and people. This project uses a wiki software package, extensions for added functionality, and customized tools to implement a scoring system to rate the accuracy of each assertion made by members of the contribution community. The scoring system addresses the ambivalence of the data created by a community.

This dissertation explored the ways faculty at two- and four-year institutions with articulation agreements collaborate to improve the retention rates of transfer students, using the Wilder Collaboration Factors (WCF) as a theoretical lens. This research was conducted to analyze the level of collaboration, and differentiate among the perceptions of collaboration among university and community college faculty. The purpose of the study was to build upon the limited amount of research on postsecondary collaboration. Nonparametric statistical analyses were performed to provide answers to the research questions. Analysis of the data revealed that the participants demonstrated strength in 18 of the 20 WCF. The analysis also indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between the perceptions of collaboration among university and community college faculty. A principal components analysis led to the development of a modified conceptual framework joining the WCF and stages of collaboration that may be used to inform practice and policy. Recommendations include allocating faculty release time or incentives for collaboration, expanding articulation agreements to include K-12 alignment and policies on faculty collaboration, and using the Wilder Collaboration Factors Inventory (WCFI) as a tool to continue to assess the strengths, weaknesses, and differences in perception among university and community college faculty as they advance in collaborative stages.

Communication is a pivotal element in creating theatre with other artists, with audiences, and with the outside world. Theatre artists are required to collaborate at nearly every step of the process. Despite the necessity of highly developed collaboration skills, communication in the creation of theatre is an often-underdeveloped curriculum area. As a Director and Teaching Artist I am particularly interested in how to find new ways of collaborating so I may model and pass these skills to my students. Through a qualitative research survey of communication used in collaborative devising, this research analyzes environments that improve communication and allow for maximum creativity in an effort to develop critical communication pedagogy. This study examines my approach in working through a devising process as the Coordinator of a collaborative group of adults creating an original play. I examine our process and make connections as to how devising influenced my future work as a Director and Teaching Artist. By examining the theatres that make extensive use of ensemble devising as a tool for creating theatre, I gained insight into more collaborative ways of working. This research found support through examination of group communication theories and methods in which they promote collaborative spirit. Finally, critical pedagogy offered a lens through which I can impart these discoveries to young artists. I discovered ways to use the model of devising to open the possibilities for my students to take ownership over their processes and the art they create. I also gained insight into the role of facilitator in order to develop ways of modeling and teaching these communications. Communication pedagogy in the theatre allows me the tools to identify, question, and transform my experiences in creating theatre as a director and teaching artist.

This doctoral project presents an example of the integration occupational therapy (OT) into primary care to improve access to OT services that will address occupational performance challenges of veterans within the Eastern Colorado Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care system. Informed by the Person Environment Occupation model of occupation and substantial evidence supporting the necessity of assessing functional cognition to better understand occupational performance, this doctoral project focuses upon the provision of OT services in a primary care setting, which included assessments of functional cognition and ADL/IADL performance and interventions addressing functional cognitive deficits, home safety, and activities of daily living/instrumental activities of daily living (ADL/IADL) performance. Satisfaction of primary care providers with inclusion of OT services as well as data on client factors of typical veterans referred to OT and assessments and interventions utilized were collected through survey and observation. Results of this project indicate that the inclusion of occupational therapy services in primary care can reduce the wait time from referral to evaluation for some veterans from 1–2 months to 15 minutes while increasing primary care provider (PCP) knowledge of the scope of OT services. However, several factors must be considered for the successful continued presence of OT in primary care. To improve OT productivity, follow-up appointments should be scheduled at the primary care office and group programing should address health and wellness and chronic disease management. Care must be taken to balance availability for “warm hand-offs” from PCPs and prescheduled appointment times. Furthermore, continued education of PCPs on scope of OT practice will be imperative for continuing to increase numbers of appropriate referrals.

Due to the nature of the complexity of the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD), elementary-aged students with this disorder require a holistic, team-based approach to education in the school setting. A review of current literature has found that while interprofessional collaborative practice (ICP) in the school setting is effective and often recommended for students with ASD, a variety of barriers have resulted in fragmented care. Additionally, there is limited research supporting a cohesive model of interprofessional collaborative practive when working with students with ASD in the elementary school setting. This problem is likely leading to decreased outcomes for elementary-aged students with ASD. Occupational therapy practitioners’ role as holistic, client-centered practitioners creates an ability to bridge the gaps between the often-fragmented goals of the members of an interprofessional team. Interprofessional collaboration in the school setting between occupational therapy practitioners, physical therapy practitioners, psychologists, speech and language pathologists, social workers, and teachers is crucial to addressing the multi-faceted needs of children with ASD and providing the highest level of service in accordance with the Occupational Therapy Practice Framework: Domain and Process, Fourth Edition. This doctoral project aims to add to the limited body of research in this area in order to fulfill this role. The TOPPSS Model of Interprofessional Collaboration is an evidence-based school-year long plan of structured collaboration between staff members working with students with ASD in an elementary school setting through a professional development workshop. The workshop will educate participants on the TOPPSS Model of Interprofessional Collaboration. The participants that are being targeted for this workshop include elementary school-based teachers (T), occupational therapy practitioners (O), physical therapy practitioners (P), psychologists (P), speech-language pathologists (S), and social workers (S). The overall aim of this program is to improve interprofessional collaborative practice (ICP) among the participants in order to increase positive outcomes for students with ASD.

Groundswell, a New York-based nonprofit community arts organization, creates high quality public art with youth and artists throughout the five boroughs of the City. This study examines how the nonprofit utilizes mural making, a potentially democratic art form, to provide opportunities for individual and collective impact. I undertook key informant interviews and documents analysis to explore the complex model the nonprofit employs to create a collaborative and community-based art process for youth, while also developing a product that can both spark conversation and reflect resident's experiences. Overall the nonprofit's mural making process provided its youth participants with opportunities to reflect and develop personally and professionally. They worked collaboratively to accomplish a goal and learned to think critically about the role of gender and media as they considered their mural subjects. To create their art, youths needed to exercise empathetic understanding as well as creativity to craft a positive message and subsequently design a pictorial representation that reflected the experiences, interests and concerns of the community residents with whom they worked. Not only did Groundswell program participants undertake reflexive and developmental experiences, but the community of Coney Island also gained a mural that serves as a positive affirmation, a sounding board and a symbol of the community's resilience in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. / Master of Urban and Regional Planning

This paper presents a design, implementation, and evaluation of an augmented reality virtual environment to support collaborative brainstorming sessions. We specifically support brainstorming in the form of ideation on sticky notes, a common method to organize a large number of ideas in space with sticky notes on a board. Our environment allows users to integrate physical pen and paper used in a brainstorming session with the support of augmented reality headsets, so that we can support further interaction modes and remote collaboration as well. We use an AR HMD to capture images containing notes, detect and crop them with a remote server, then spawn the detected notes in to enable virtual viewing and manipulation. We evaluate our input method for generating notes in a user study In doing so, we attempt to determine whether traditional input tools like pen and paper can be seamlessly integrated into augmented reality, and see if these tools improve efficiency and comprehensibility over previous augmented reality input methods. / Master of Science / Collaborative brainstorming sessions often involve rapid ideation and outputting those ideas on physical sticky notes with others. We built a virtual environment, IdeaSpace, to support collaborative brainstorming in augmented reality head-mounted devices. To support the activities of rapid ideation and creating notes to express those ideas, we developed an input method for creating virtual note objects for augmented reality collaborative brain-storming sessions. We allow users to use traditional tools like pens and sticky notes to write out their notes, then scan them in using device cameras by uttering a voice command. We evaluated this input method to determine the advantages and disadvantages it brings to rapid ideation in augmented reality, and how it affects comprehensibility compared to existing gesture-based input methods in augmented reality. We found that our pen and paper input method outperformed our own baseline gesture input method in efficiency, comfort, usability, and comprehensibility when creating virtual notes. While we cannot conclude that our experiment proved that pen and paper is outright better than all gesture-based input methods, we can safely say pen and paper can be a valuable input method in augmented reality brainstorming for creating notes.

The purpose of the study was twofold: to explore how school counselors and athletic educators experienced implementing the 2010 Massachusetts Anti-bullying law and to explore how participants experienced using the Sharevision structured group reflection process as the format for group discussions. The Sharevision structured group reflection process provided the safety and support school counselors and athletic educators said they needed. Participants eagerly shared their experiences with one another. They used the Sharevision process to discuss the list of participant generated questions they posed during the individual interviews. They exchanged ideas and were able to generate new ways to respond to anti-LGBTQ bullying and gender-based harassment as a result of their reflective group discussions. The participants said that the Sharevision meetings relieved stress, were productive and inspired them to continue working together to take action on their ideas. After the study was over, members of the group met over the summer with the GSA Advisor to continue to work together. They designed and then co-facilitated their fall orientations for incoming students, athletes and parents proactively promoting diversity, their GSA and a positive LGBTQ school climate.