Using ethnographic research methods, I worked with the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) to conduct an exploratory study about developer perspectives on video game preservation. I conducted in-depth interviews with independent developers in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, a hub for Texas game development. These interviews explored developers' knowledge and awareness of game preservation as a topic of concern, archival culture and practices in the industry, and the IGDA's potential role in addressing issues related to preservation work. This research contributes to a growing body of literature on game preservation, urgently needed as many gaming technologies face obsolescence in the near future. I use Ellen Cushman's concept of "perseverance" to examine the difference between simply preserving video games for the future, and the perseverance of game development as a professional trade and artistic craft.

In recent years, there has been an increase in women securing leadership positions across Canadian sport. However, when compared with their male counterparts, there continues to be an imbalance of women in these roles. The purpose of this doctoral dissertation was to evaluate a social learning initiative implemented in the province of Alberta to address these existing gender disparities by increasing gender equity, leadership development/diversity, and knowledge transfer across sport systems. The Alberta Women in Sport Leadership Impact Program (AWiSL) was framed using Wenger’s (1998) concept Communities of Practice and consisted of 12 sport leaders (from various PSOs, clubs, and other sport organizations) and six mentors (with leadership expertise). Each sport leader planned and implemented a project in their home sport organizations to support the increase of gender equity and leadership development/diversity. The mentors were responsible for supporting the sport leaders in achieving their project goals and facilitating leadership development opportunities to inspire growth in the sport leaders. Accordingly, an evaluation was conducted using the Value Creation Framework (Wenger-Trayner et al., 2011) to examine the perceived value of participating in this social learning initiative. Data were collected over a year and a half period, from the 18 members who made up the AWiSL group and other important stakeholders. The data included in-depth interviews, informal conversations, observations, surveys, and collecting organizational documents resulting in over 700 pages of transcribed data. The findings are presented in four articles and an additional findings section. The first article focuses on one of the sport leader’s projects which aimed to foster a collaborative women-only training program for 10 women to become certified coach developers. The second article examines the development of the AWiSL mentors’ social learning leadership capabilities during their first attempt at facilitating a CoP to promote gender equity and leadership development/diversity, through an action learning approach. The third article delves into the sport leaders’ perceptions of their leadership skill development through their participation in the two and a half year social learning initiative, specifically a CoP of femininity. Finally, the fourth article highlights the 12 sport leaders’ projects to examine the impacts of the AWiSL in terms of moving gender equity forward across the province. The additional findings section touches on the knowledge transfer outcome of the AWiSL, including the development of a how-to model for organizations wishing to implement a similar initiative and the overall perceived value of this initiative. The dissertation is concluded with a general discussion highlighting the theoretical contributions and practical implications, along with future recommendations for research.

This study explored the digital didactical designs of four senior and FET language teachers at a private school. Participants collaborated within a Community of Practice during the study that served as a Teacher Professional Development opportunity, aimed at integrating technology into their teaching. The research design involved Collaborative Action Research for data gathering purposes. The phenomenon was represented as an explorative, descriptive case study. Data collection instruments included focus-group interviews, observations and documents based on the teaching practices of the participants. The study employed a conceptual framework involving the Digital Didactical Design theoretical framework, surface and deep learning in relation to Bloom’s Taxonomy, the Substitution Augmentation Modification Redefinition model as well as Teachers’ ICT proficiency levels. Nine interviews, 24 observation sheets as well as lesson documents were analysed using content analysis and coding. During the study, all participants managed to present true digital didactical designs, especially during their second lessons. They gained an appreciation for and ability to integrate digital tools into their teaching practices. While the inputs of the Community of Practice were beneficial, the use of the Digital Didactical Design observation sheet was time-consuming and not user-friendly, although it contributed to teachers’ designs. The study contributed a checklist for lesson design that applied the elements of Digital Didactical Design, as well as an updated observation sheet that can be used during oral reflections on lessons to determine teachers’ digital didactical designs. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2021. / NRF / Science, Mathematics and Technology Education / MEd (General) / Unrestricted

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What makes an non-governmental organisation (NGO) agile and resilient towards changes, pressures or uncertainties at community, state or macro-political level? By adopting a single case study based on semi-structured interviews and fieldwork, this thesis will dive into the life-world of a community-based NGO based in Nagapattinam, Tamil Nadu. Social Needs Education and Human Awareness (SNEHA) has since founding in the 1980s had a strong rights-based identity and evolved through various phases of community organising, disaster relief work, evidence-based advocacy and upholding of fisher communities traditional and customary rights. Throughout its evolution, it has faced several challenges and pressures threatening the stability of the organisation and community, including the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. By combining a theoretical base of actor-network and social interface theory, this thesis argues that a broader, more comprehensive understanding of organisational and community resilience can be achieved. Seven factors have been identified as particularly contributing to organisations resilience and stability, mainly associated with having clear organisational identity, loyal staff, and a combination of centralised and decentralised structures. This thesis contributes to the understanding of resilience of community-based NGOs, contextualising their challenges within broader networks and advocating for donor support that aligns with local knowledge and organisational development in an increasingly complex context along the Indian coastline.

Online Communities of Practices (CoPs) is emerging as a major form for knowledge sharing in this era of information revolution. Due to the advancement of technology and ease of internet access in every part of the world, people began to get more and more involved in online CoPs to share knowledge. The defining characteristic of a Community of Practice is the interaction between members in order to jointly determine and embrace goals, eventually resulting in shared practices. Crucial to the success of a Community of Practice is the engagement between community members. Without engagement, a Community of Practice can not share knowledge and achieve its negotiated goals. To that end, there is a need to examine, why do people engage in an online discussion, what role domain experts play to keep on-line discussion alive and how to develop a ''right intervention'' to maintain and stimulate participants for engagement in on-line community. This thesis studied eight Communities of Practices that are being deliberately formed to facilitate knowledge sharing in the online community and describes an exploratory study of knowledge sharing within Communities of Practices (CoPs) by investigating eight CoPs ¿Start up Nation, All nurses, Young Enterpener, Teneric, SCM Focus, Systems Dynamics, Mahjoob and Alnj3 CoPs. The CoPs under investigation shared the following characteristics: permanent life span, created by interested members (i.e. bottom-up rather than top-down management creation), have a high level of boundary crossing, have more than 700 members who come from disparate locations and organizations, have voluntary membership enrollment, high membership diversity, high topic¿s relevance to members, high degree of reliance on technology, and are moderated. Data were gathered on the eight CoPs through online observations and online questionnaire survey. Results show that in each of the case study the most common type of activity performed by members of each CoP was sharing knowledge, followed by socialsing. Regarding the types of knowledge shared, the most common one across all CoPs was practical and general knowledge. The types of practical knowledge, however, varied in each CoP. The study also discovered that storytelling extensively enhances knowledge transfer and participants¿ interpersonal communications in eight communities under investigation. What were also notable in this study were the stories discussed in a CoP remains in the archive, what are more likely to generate interest and curiosity on the topic among inactive members who ultimately facilitates knowledge transfer. In this study it is also evident that successful topics with successful conclusion (in terms that the original query was answered) will not necessary get high responses and vice versa. An analysis of selected topics in the eight case studies has shown that some successful topics have few replies and vice versa, where many topics ended with open conclusion or they were unsuccessful in terms that the original query was not answered satisfactory. Therefore, it is not necessary that successful topic will get high number of responses as there are some successful topics which have limited number of replies. Overall, it is found that, topic may play a major role in the success of online discussion. It is observed in the study that members normally use short messages rather long messages and usually discusses more than one topic within one thread. Practical implications for knowledge sharing in online communities of practice were discussed, along with some recommendations for future research.

The culinary industry is well known for its unforgiving workplace conditions and precarious employment relationships. Low pay, unpredictable schedules, and workplace harassment are commonplace. However, workers in the industry are often dedicated to their craft and passionate about the industry in which they work. This thesis aims to come to a better understanding of the working lives of young kitchen workers in Toronto. Using a narrative approach to research, this thesis draws on the experiences of nine young kitchen workers. Their narratives are analyzed through examining their participation in communities of practice and their experiences of employment strain. It seeks to answer the question of why these individuals enjoy their work but often hate their jobs. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA) / The culinary industry is well known for its unforgiving workplace conditions and precarious employment relationships. Low pay, unpredictable schedules, and workplace harassment are commonplace. However, workers in the industry are often dedicated to their craft and passionate about the industry in which they work. This thesis aims to come to a better understanding of the working lives of young kitchen workers in Toronto. Using a narrative approach to research, this thesis draws on the experiences of nine young kitchen workers. Their narratives are analyzed through examining their participation in communities of practice and their experiences of employment strain. It seeks to answer the question of why these individuals enjoy their work but often hate their jobs.

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In this multivariate correlational study, the researcher examined the course culture of an online graduate course whose environment exhibited characteristics of a Community of practice (CoP). An online survey captured data used to explore the relationships among variables shown to describe a CoP in field environments and among student perceptions of their experience in the course culture. A canonical correlation analysis (CCA) and commonality analysis (CA) were conducted using five predictor variables and three criterion variables to evaluate the degree and direction of the relationships. The CCA revealed that the full model was significant, explaining approximately 74% of the variance among the two synthetic variates. Impact, faculty leadership, and connection were the largest contributors to the predictor variate. The criterion variate was primarily explained by value and perceived CoP, with exposure to the profession providing a smaller contribution. The CA confirmed these findings. Results from this study indicate that a CoP could be fostered in an online graduate course. The overall significance of the model indicates teachers can nurture an environment wherein graduate students will take the initiative to work with others to create and acquire knowledge that creates a sense of professional connection with each other and with the profession overall. The results of this study suggest further empirical research in implementing and assessing CoPs in online graduate courses is warranted.

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