A dissertation presented to the Faculty of Humanities of the University of the Witwatersrand in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Fine Arts. Johannesburg, 2016 / Collaboration in South African printmaking studios, both between artists and printmakers, and between artists working together in print studios are examined in this study. How South African artists have used the conventions of collaborative printmaking practices to complement their own practice; and what kind of dynamics can emerge from such collaborations is the primary concern of this study. Printmaking is widely viewed as a subsidiary, or supplementary practice to artists’ primary concerns in their particular medium of practice. It is important to examine the role of collaboration in printmaking studios, and how it may benefit, or hinder artists in their creative productions. To contextualise my study, I provide a brief historical overview of collaboration in Western printmaking; and briefly examine printmaking against South Africa’s political landscape since the 1960s. Recent critical observations on collaboration in the arts are introduced to foreground various categorizations and approaches to such practices. My research focus is not on the intricacies of collectivism in collaboration but rather on how a form of ‘teamwork’ collaboration in print studios can generate agency, within the context of concerns raised in my own creative practice. As a printmaking teacher, practitioner and collaborator, I hope these findings could be used to address some of the concerns experienced in collaborations.

Post 1994 the South African education system has focused on creating education for all under a single core syllabus. It also stressed the need for a shift from the traditional teacher-centred approach to a learner-centred approach. As a result, the shift was made from an aims-and-objectives education to Outcomes Based Education (OBE). OBE has placed a different set of demands on teachers and the way in which they assess. Specifically teachers are required to use peer collaboration to bring about learning and simultaneously assess that learning has transpired. However, many teachers are left feeling uncertain about the efficacy of OBE. This report reviews the relevant literature as well as theories needed to understand the process learning. The objective of this research report is to establish teacher’s current perceptions are of OBE. More so, the research aimed to ascertain how useful peer collaboration is in facilitating learning. The results from this study show that teachers are uncertain about the efficacy of OBE. Although a significant number of teachers strongly agree with the underlying principles of OBE they feel that implementation as intended by policy makers is idealistic. Furthermore, they are conflicted about the notion that peer collaboration can sufficiently facilitate learning. Lastly, the findings of this study suggest that in implementing peer collaboration successfully, tenets from social psychology such as group dynamics need to be considered.

Thesis advisor: Irwin Blumer / This case study examined the creation of a collaborative learning environment focused on the development of teacher attitudes, perceptions, and practices that are culturally responsive. Sixth and eighth grade teachers collaborated in small groups over the course of a school-year, focusing on dialogue, activities, and readings related to race and culture. The ways in which teachers involved in the study developed thinking in regards to their cultural awareness, sense of efficacy, and instructional practices played central roles in this study. This qualitative case study was conducted by the school principal, who was a participant-observer. Data collection instruments included pre-program interviews, mid-program reflective journals, post-program interviews, and researcher field notes. Prior to the start of the program, teachers expressed that they rarely spoke with students and peers about issues related to race and culture, provided minimal accommodations for students of color within the classroom setting, exhibited mixed beliefs in terms of their abilities as teachers to meet the learning needs of students of color, and had a limited understanding of their own racial identities. As a result of their participation in the Culturally Responsive Teaching Program, most teachers experienced growth in terms of their perceptions of the their own racial identity development, efficacy, and increased their sense of comfort and desire to speak with students and peers about issues related to race and culture. Implications for practice include the need for; courageous leadership, persistence, promotion of the development of racial identity, understanding of racial identity development, promotion of collaboration, advancement of transformational learning, and the development of multi-dimensional learning experiences. Limitations of this study include the researcher's role as school principal and participant-observer, small sample size, and relatively short study duration. Recommendations for future research include increasing the sample size and program duration, investigation of changes in student experiences as a result of teacher participation in a similar program, and investigating the effect of a similar program when focused upon particular racial and cultural groups, as opposed to the broad approach utilized within the Culturally Responsive Teaching Program. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Administration and Higher Education.

The purpose of this study was to explore the codependencies of the social and technical structures that yield Wikipedia the website and Wikipedia the community. In doing so, the research investigated the implications of such a sociotechnical system for the maintenance of the project and the emergence of collective intelligence. Using a theoretical framework informed by digital media studies, science and technology studies, and the political economy of communication, this study examined the material and ideological conditions in which Wikipedia has developed. The study's guiding research questions addressed the nature of Wikipedia's sociotechnical system and potential for collective intelligence, as well as the historical development of the project's technical infrastructure and the state of its technology-assisted collaboration. A mainly qualitative multi-method research approach was employed, including document analysis, semi-structured interviewing, and social network analysis. A plethora of documents were carefully selected and examined to explore how and why decisions were made, policies implemented, and technologies adopted on the site. Additionally, 45 interviews were conducted with members of Wikipedia's technical community to understand the relationships between social and technical aspects of the project and the motivations of programmers who contribute automated tools. Finally, social network measures and visualizations were used to interrogate notions of collaboration and make more transparent the centrality of technology to the content creation process. The study revealed that Wikipedia's technical development has been shaped by the dueling ideologies of the open-source software movement and postindustrial capitalism. Its sociotechnical system features the complex collaboration of human contributors, automated programs, social bureaucracy, and technical protocol, each of which conditions the existence and meaning of the others. In addition, the activity on Wikipedia fits established models of collective intelligence and suggests the emergence of a cyberculture, or culturally informed shared intelligence, unique to the digital media context. Software robots (bots) are central actors in this system and are explored in detail throughout this research.

From 1997-2002, a loose collective of hip hop and R&B musicians known as The Soulquarians collaborated to produce numerous award-winning and critically-acclaimed albums. Drawn together by the heady atmosphere of collaboration with creative, like-minded peers, they were driven by a goal to create alternative sounds and representations in black music. This project has two primary goals: to historicize the collaboration of the Soulquarians and to identify and analyze aspects of their music that situated it in opposition to commercially dominant hip hop of its day. To do so, I perform close listening and analysis of recordings, interviews, liner notes, album and concert reviews, and articles on the Soulquarians and their work from contemporary print media, and draw from biographies and autobiographies of Soulquarians artists. This project contributes to music scholarship in three primary ways. First, I utilize an innovative technique to visually analyze microtiming in the groundbreaking grooves of J Dilla and D'Angelo. Using this technique, I precisely identify distinguishing timing features in drums and bass, and make them visible to the reader. By contextualizing these findings within previous scholarship on rhythm in African American music performance, I fill a gap in scholarship on groove, which has not yet described the variety of these influential rhythms. Second, I compile information from a variety of sources (web, print, liner notes, interviews) on the Soulquarians into one location. This produces a fuller picture of the collaboration than has previously been available, and facilitates access to a breadth of information on individual Soulquarians artists, and the collective. Third, I identify several musical traits that resulted from the collaborative nature of the Soulquarians’ work habits, including specific commonalities between the grooves of J Dilla and D'Angelo, and the use in Badu’s music of imitative strategies pioneered by The Roots. This presents a richer picture of artists’ working practices than is typically advanced by journalism and scholarship on hip hop. Because cooperative aspects of the Soulquarians’ working methods also characterize music communities more broadly, this description of their collaboration may serve as a corrective to popular but misguided notions of sole authorship in popular music.

Many innovative businesses have discovered an added value in collaborating with experts, users or other stakeholders in developing innovative products or services. Not all collaboration with stakeholders, however, corresponds to the criteria for opening up an innovation process to the needs of societal actors under the terms of responsible innovation. The question of what makes collaboration meaningful in the sense of responsible innovation was presented and discussed in a 75 min workshop at the European Science Open Forum (ESOF) in Toulouse, France in June 2018. Identified success factors and challenges for making a collaboration process meaningful for the collaborating parties highlight the importance of competent process preparation and facilitation, investment of time and effort to enable mutual understanding and the development of trustful relationships as well as the collaborating partners' willingness to implement changes that result from the collaboration process.

I ett tidigare genomfört examensarbete gjordes en förstudie på hur en människa-robot samarbetscell skulle fungera i en laboratoriemiljö. I Arvid Bobergs ”HRC Implementation in laboratory environment” skulle cellen tas fram på uppdrag av Eurofins för att arbeta med kemikalie- och mikrobiologiska analyser inom jordbruk, mat och miljö. För att verifiera de lösningsförslag som togs fram skulle en implementering behöva utformas i en fysisk miljö.  Projektets huvudsyfte var att ta fram en samarbetscell som skulle utföra arbetsuppgifter i en labbmiljö. För detta ändamål har en station, arbetsmoment och komponenter tagits fram och implementerats på ASSAR. Stationen har programmerats för att visa upp möjligheterna som roboten har att erbjuda i en samarbetscell med hjälp av ABB RobotStudio och online programmering.  Valet av robot var om möjligt att använda sig av ABB:s YuMi robot. Detta för att det var roboten som förstudien som arbetet bygger på använde sig av i dess modell samt byggde sin teori på och eftersom förstudiens arbete ligger till grunden för detta projekt.  Implementationen av stationen har genomförts i steg för att kunna testa olika upplägg och erhålla bättre förståelse av robotens egenskaper och vad den är kapabel att utföra i förhållande till räckvidd och flexibilitet. För att skapa de mer avancerade funktionerna i programmet användes offline programmering i ABB RobotStudio kombinerat med hjälp av online programmering. Funktionerna blir för avancerade för att skriva i en TeachPendant eftersom det blir långa rader med kod för att skapa de avancerade funktioner som roboten använder sig av för att utföra sina arbetsuppgifter.  Arbetet på ASSAR har lett till att ett flertal olika lösningar har tagits fram och tänkts över tills ett koncept valts och implementerats på ASSAR. Detta i form av en samarbetscell som visar upp olika funktioner för att utföra arbetsuppgifter i en labbmiljö med hjälp av YuMi-roboten ifrån ABB och ett arbetsbord som skapats under projektets gång.  Projektet har uppnått flertalet uppsatta mål för arbetet men några har inte uppnåtts, detta på grund av förseningar som uppkommit under projektets gång. Förseningarna har gjort att arbetsgången ändrats och det resultat som författaren försökt uppnå förändrats för att ta fram en samarbetscell och ge ett resultat åt projektet. / In a previous final year project, a study was carried out on how a robotic collaborative cell would work in a laboratory environment. In Arvid Bobergs "HRC Implementation in laboratory environment" the cell would be developed on behalf of Eurofins to work with chemical and microbiological analyses in agriculture, food and environment. To verify the suggested solutions, an implementation would need to be designed in a physical environment. The main purpose of the project was to develop a collaborative cell that would perform tasks in a lab environment. For this purpose, a station, work operations and components have been developed and implemented at ASSAR. The station has been programmed to showcase the possibilities the robot has to offer in a collaborative cell with the help of ABB Robot Studio and online programming. The choice of the robot was if possible, to make use of ABB's YuMi robot. This is because it was the robot that the pre-study that the work is based on used in its model and built its theory on and because the work of the feasibility study is the foundation of this project. The implementation of the station has been completed in steps to be able to test different structure and obtain a better understanding of the robot's characteristics and what it is capable to perform in relation to range and flexibility. To create the more advanced features of the program was used offline programming in ABB Robot Studio combined with the help of online programming. The functions become too advanced to write in a TeachPendant because there will be long lines of code to create the advanced functions that the robot uses to perform its tasks. The work at ASSAR has led to several different solutions being developed and thought over until a concept has been chosen and implemented at ASSAR. This in the form of a collaborative cell that showcases various functions to perform tasks in a lab environment using the YuMi robot from ABB and a worktable created during the project. The project has achieved several goals for the work, but some have not been achieved, because of delays that have arisen during the course of the project. The delays have made the workflow change and the result that the author has tried to achieve has changed to develop a collaborative cell and give a result to the project.

Thesis advisor: Diana C. Pullin / It is widely accepted that school leadership has both a direct and indirect impact on student achievement. Hitt and Tucker’s (2016) unified leadership framework summarized a decade of work by numerous researchers identifying the five most effective leadership domains that influence student learning. Using that work as a conceptual framework, this qualitative case study analyzed one of the five interdependent leadership domains in an urban elementary school that succeeded in educating traditionally marginalized students and outperformed other schools with similar demographics in the district. This study identified and explored the second leadership domain which is described as building professional capacity, focusing specifically on the principal’s actions. Building professional capacity is defined in this study as developing the knowledge, skills, and dispositions of teachers and is important for expanding leadership responsibility for student learning and increasing student achievement. The study resulted in identifying all seven dimensions of the domain present in practice at the school and explored the actions taken to embed them into the culture. Data were gathered through the review of district and school level documents and open-ended interviews with district leaders and members of school administration, faculty, and staff. Findings indicated that the school principal performed several specific and tangible actions to build professional capacity in the school including implementing professional practice, messaging consistently high expectations with faculty and staff, modeling expected professional behaviors and habits, and coaching faculty and staff. Many staff believed the success of the school was a result of the culture of collaboration, dedication, and high expectations forged by the principal. Recommendations for building upon this work included selecting and hiring teachers who offer evidence of effective instruction despite different philosophical viewpoints, addressing levels of trust with those who express conflicting levels of collaboration and commitment, and expanding the effective leadership practices with other school leaders throughout the district. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2018. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

Thesis advisor: Rebecca Lowenhaupt / This qualitative study examined the organizational learning mechanisms (OLMs) used by school district educational leaders to improve the implementation of curriculum reform. This portion of the study focused on the OLMs used by central office boundary spanners to help school principals implement curriculum reform chosen by school district leaders. Drawing from interview and document data analysis, the results of this study indicated that OLMs used by central office boundary spanners are critical to the successful implementation of school reform. Examples of the OLMs used by central office boundary spanners included utilizing online technology and providing whole and small group support as well as individualized coaching to help school principals implement curriculum reform. Frequent communication, collaborative opportunities, and consistent messaging with school principals surfaced as the key OLM techniques used by central office boundary spanners to consistently improve the implementation of school reform. / Thesis (EdD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Lynch School of Education. / Discipline: Educational Leadership and Higher Education.

This study proposes criteria to diagnose, to analyse and to evaluate the extent of cooperation and collaboration between supply chain members within extensive inter-firm relationships in supply chains. A case study context examines cooperative and collaborative relationships between shipping companies and shippers as suppliers, manufacturers, distributers, retailers, exporters and importers. The components of cooperation and collaboration are analysed through literature reviews, interviews with industrial experts, content analysis, two-rounds of Q-sorting, and pilot testing. Cooperation is a subset of collaboration comprised of transparency, fairness, and mutuality, and cooperation and “relational strength” such as trust and sustainability constitute collaboration. A questionnaire survey generated 167 responses from shipping companies in South Korea. Exploratory factor analysis underpinned cooperative and collaborative spirit indices (CCSIs) that varied within the shipping industry, types of shipping registered, and vessel types. Confirmatory factor analysis supported good model fit, convergent and discriminant validity, and unidimensionality. A “target coefficient” identified second order factors and path analysis showed that fairness, mutuality and cooperation can foster trust, and mutual trust can cultivate sustainability although transparency does not necessarily lead to trust. CCSIs indicated modest cooperation and collaboration in the shipping industry and MANOVA revealed differences according to vessel types and contract periods. This research clarifies theories of cooperation. Enhanced CCSIs between shippers and shipping companies imply that shippers should extend two-way communication, mutuality, distributive fairness and sustainability with shipping companies. Maintaining relationships brings long run benefits. Further, shipping companies should continuously strive to gain trust from shippers and government should organise consultative groups, develop and disseminate exemplary cases and foster institutions to promote collaboration. The constructs and items deployed herein are generic, implying that the research model and CCSIs methods will be widely applicable.