Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / It has been estimated that 37 million children play nonschool youth sports in the United States. Each child likely will have some contact with a volunteer nonschool youth sport coach during their sports experience. This study was developed as a means of determining the nature of volunteerism as it applies to volunteer coaches. As well the study examines the traits and skills that volunteer coaches believe to be appropriate for this coaching activity. Preliminary research was conducted to identify the most significant beliefs that influenced adults to volunteer as coaches. Based upon the findings of the preliminary research, further systematic research was needed in order to construct and administer a questionnaire instrument to volunteer coaches. In order to assess the reliability of the questionnaire, a principal axis factor analysis with varimax rotation was performed. The analysis resulted in a six-factor solution for eighteen items. An examination of the clustered items revealed a shared theme within each cluster. An independent samples t-test and zero order correlation coefficient analysis were performed for three dependent variables. Research was conducted with the cooperation of USA Hockey at a number of Intermediate-level coaching clinics held in the state of Massachusetts. Results indicate that volunteers are influenced by altruism, a love of the sport of ice hockey, and self-interest -- as many volunteer coaches have children on the teams they coached. Volunteer coaches appear to follow the positive coaching mandates of USA Hockey with a focus on developing the skills of the players and placing little emphasis on winning. Weaknesses appear to be a lack of a consistent curriculum for coaches to utilize and a lack of skilled coaches to teach the intricacies of the game of ice hockey. / 2031-01-01

<p> This study explores the increasingly popular phenomenon of volunteer tourism in the Global South, particularly the governmental rationalities and socio-economic conditions that valorize it as a noble and necessary cultural practice. Using ethnographic material gathered during two volunteering programs in Guatemala and Ghana, I argue that, although volunteer tourism may not trigger social change, provide meaningful encounters with difference, or offer professional expertise, as the brochure discourse often promises, the formula remains a useful strategy for producing the subjects and social relations neoliberalism requires. The value of volunteer tourism should not to be assessed in terms of the goods and services it delivers to the global poor, but in terms of how well the pratice disseminates entrepreneurial styles of feeling and action. Three merits stand out in particular. First, volunteer tourism mobilizes a series of affective competencies and private sensibilities that fit the global logic of capitalism. Second, it represents a new type of moral and technical education that teaches young adults how. to operate in multicultural settings and globalized sites. Finally, by virtue of having lived and worked in places the Western imagination believes to be destitute and dangerous, volunteer tourists are better positioned to live fully in the global moment. Together, these effects demonstrate that, far from being a selfless and history-less rescue act, volunteer tourism is in fact a strategy of power that extends economic rationality, particularly its emphasis on entrepreneurship and competition, to the realm of political subjectivity. </p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

No description available.

No description available.

The local fire station typically is responsible for responding first in an emergency.  Emergency response in the era after 11 September 2001 is an important topic to consider. In the big picture, it is a complex web of federal and national resources that are brought to bear on a diverse set of problems.  In the smaller picture, individual managers cope with pressures to provide efficient response, but a response that is embedded within the needs of the local community.  In both these pictures, the tensions between individualism and nationalism are discerned.  This dissertation examines these individuals at the local county level in more detail.  Using grounded theory, it describes the strategies that emerged to integrate the actions of career and volunteer first responders.  It finds that legacy organizational design and individual motivations are important influences on these integrating strategies.  Most interestingly, it finds that the founding debate between the Federalists and the Anti-Federalists still has influence on these managing strategies.  Local managers are able to blend these distinct visions of government.  Each of these influences is described as they were manifested in the study interviews and observations. / Ph. D.

Master Gardener (MG) volunteers are nonpaid, education partners with Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE). VCE MGs have assisted Extension agents in meeting VCE's educational goals and mission by following the Sustainable Landscape Management educational program objectives within the VCE Plan of Work. Local MG volunteer programs must be managed appropriately so that volunteers are prepared for their work, complete their volunteer jobs, and remain an active part of the local program. Prior to 1996, local agents trained and managed MG volunteers and supervised the projects in which MGs volunteered. Budgetary actions in 1996 transitioned management from state-funded agents to a system of local MG coordinators consisting of locally funded agents, locally funded non-agent coordinators, or volunteers willing to take on additional responsibilities. In order to provide consistent, state-level direction and leadership to this less experienced group of local coordinators and to prepare them for their jobs as MG program managers, current management materials were extensively revised and expanded and new resources were developed. These efforts to ensure that everyone understood the purpose and focus of the VCE MG program resulted in revision of MG program policies; development of new volunteer management materials, VCE publication 426-699 Welcome to Virginia Master Gardenering! Guide to Educational Programming and Resource and Reference Guide; establishment of a MG planning and work team; new management guidelines, the VCE Master Gardener Coordinator Manual; in-service training for coordinators; an administrative website at http://www.ext.vt.edu/vce/specialty/envirohort/mastergard/master.html; the VCE-MGC electronic discussion "listserv" specifically for direct communication with coordinators; and the Virginia Master Gardener Leadership Development Newsletter, the state MG newsletter refocused on the role of Master Gardeners as community leaders and educators. Evaluation of the VCE Master Gardener Coordinator Manual, a 14-chapter resource book developed cooperatively with teams of Master Gardeners (MG), coordinators, and agents to enhance coordinators' skills in managing the local VCE MG program, identified areas for enhancement prior to final publication. It showed that coordinators are using the manual. They are adapting the suggestions and samples to fit their local programs despite the fact that more planning time is often required. Use of the manual has also resulted in increased understanding of VCE goals and the role of the MG by MG volunteers, coordinators, and other paid VCE staff; a slight increase in leadership skills of MGs; and increasing interest and demand for information on training MG to design and implement strong educational horticulture programs for Virginia communities. An assessment of current MG management practices in Virginia measured the adoption of new VCE MG volunteer management guidelines. Results indicated that the MG management practices among local VCE MG coordinators have changed to that of a more professional, long-term relationship that is committed to nurturing the volunteer, the MG program, and VCE educational programming. These changes were noted in areas of volunteer management, such as the role of the local coordinator, use of job descriptions, recruitment, volunteer evaluation, public relations, reporting and record keeping, and retention of volunteers. Although the improvements in management practices were slight, they were encouraging and they indicate areas where state MG management must provide additional training and support to local coordinators. Annual assessment of local MG program management practices will continue to document the progress of local coordinators and determine necessary changes and training needed to achieve more professional, well-managed MG programs. / Master of Science

Namibia continues to face an ongoing struggle in protecting the rights and civil liberties of its LGBT population with LGBT rights-based organisations in the country strongly relying upon their volunteers to take advantage of political opportunities and manage multiple visibilities. Despite a growing body of international research into volunteer motivation and the beneficial application of such knowledge in volunteer management strategies, a dearth of literature exists on the motives of volunteers within LGBT rights-based organisations. This study uses data from qualitative interviews with 6 formal volunteers from Namibian LGBT rights-based organisations to explore volunteer motivations. A thematic analysis of the research findings reveal the complex motivations underlying volunteering in these organisations. Volunteer motivations in Namibian LGBT rights-based organisations included: (a) addressing and promoting humanitarian concerns; (b) improved social interaction, integration and support; (c) self-regulatory opportunities for personal enhancement; (d) developing career prospects; and (e) responding to past homophobic incidents. Barriers to volunteering were also identified and included: (a) strained organisational resources; (b) LGBT discrimination; and (c) complacency. For volunteer recruitment and retention strategies to be effective, organisations need to recognise and satisfy volunteers’ motives while also properly training and assisting volunteers in their respective roles. Also, given the local LGBT community’s sense of complacency, Namibian LGBT rights-based organisations would greatly benefit by strategically engaging community members and working to overcome the community’s lack of urgency. / Psychology / M.A. (Psychology)

Focusing on the case study of the so-called ‘European refugee crisis’ in Greece since 2015, the research highlights new insights into the motivations, experiences, and challenges of international volunteers in humanitarian relief operations. Unlike previous analyses on volunteer motivations, this study’s analytical framework is built on a combination of the functional (psychological) and symbolic (sociological) approach to the theory of motivation. With the help of Clary and Snyder’s Volunteer Functions Inventory, seven motivations of volunteers are outlined. Further, volunteers’ challenges, including psychological stressors are identified with the help of the Maslach Burnout Inventory. Building on a mixed methods research design, 66 responses to an online survey were enriched with data from six in-depth interviews. The study displays volunteers’ typical socio-demographic characteristics to be young, female European students, who come to Greece on their own, who finance their stay through personal income, and who tend to stay between one to three months. The analysis reveals volunteers’ motivations to be first and foremost altruistic; however, internationals are also influenced by other, more self-centered motivations, including their desire to learn through hands-on skills, and to advance their career. Motivations to prolong their volunteer commitment or to return to Greece particularly include social bonds built during previous engagements, the incentive to reduce feelings of guilt over being more fortunate than others, and the desire to relive experiences of increased self-fulfillment and personal growth. Dividing the sample by gender and age illustrates somewhat differing motivations among the sub-samples, leading to the conclusion that volunteers’ motivations are diverse, multifaceted, fluid, and placed somewhere along a spectrum between altruistic and egoistic aspirations. The study of people’s experiences overall suggests high satisfactions among the volunteers; however, sentiments of feeling at times overwhelmed and stressed are very present among most volunteers, regardless the length of their stay Greece or their performed activities. The workload, a too heavy burden of responsibility, lack of sufficient time to reenergize, lack of managerial support, and conflicts among volunteers particularly have the potential to lead to emotional exhaustion, depersonalized behavior, and challenges when returning home.

The need for high computing resources is on the rise, despite the exponential increase of the computing capacity of workstations, the proliferation of mobile devices, and the omnipresence of data centers with massive server farms that housed tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of powerful servers. This is mainly due to the unprecedented increase in the number of Internet users worldwide and the Internet of Things (IoTs). So far, Cloud Computing has been providing the necessary computing infrastructures for applications, including IoT applications. However, the current cloud infrastructures that are based on dedicated datacenters are expensive to set-up; running the infrastructure needs expertise, a lot of electrical power for cooling the facilities, and redundant supply of everything in a data center to provide the desired resilience. Moreover, the current centralized cloud infrastructures will not suffice for IoT's network intensive applications with very fast response requirements. Alternative cloud computing models that depend on spare resources of volunteer computers are emerging, including volunteer cloud computing, in addition to the conventional data center based clouds. These alternative cloud models have one characteristic in common -- they do not rely on dedicated data centers to provide the cloud services. Volunteer clouds are opportunistic cloud systems that run over donated spare resources of volunteer computers. On the one hand, volunteer clouds claim numerous outstanding advantages: affordability, on-premise, self-provision, greener computing (owing to consolidate use of existent computers), etc. On the other hand, full-fledged implementation of volunteer cloud computing raises unique technical and research challenges: management of highly dynamic and heterogeneous compute resources, Quality of Service (QoS) assurance, meeting Service Level Agreement (SLA), reliability, security/trust, which are all made more difficult due to the high dynamics and heterogeneity of the non-dedicated cloud hosts. This dissertation investigates the resource management aspect of volunteer cloud computing. Due to the intermittent availability and heterogeneity of computing resource involved, resource management is one of the challenging tasks in volunteer cloud computing. The dissertation, specifically, focuses on the Resource Discovery and VM Placement tasks of resource management. The resource base over which volunteer cloud computing depends on is a scavenged, sporadically available, aggregate computing power of individual volunteer computers. Delivering reliable cloud services over these unreliable nodes is a big challenge in volunteer cloud computing. The fault tolerance of the whole system rests on the reliability and availability of the infrastructure base. This dissertation discusses the modelling of a fault tolerant prediction based resource discovery in volunteer cloud computing. It presents a multi-state semi-Markov process based model to predict the future availability and reliability of nodes in volunteer cloud systems. A volunteer node is modelled as a semi-Markov process, whose future state depends only on its current state. This exactly matches with a key observation made in analyzing the traces of personal computers in enterprises that the daily patterns of resource availability are comparable to those in the most recent days. The dissertation illustrates how prediction based resource discovery enables volunteer cloud systems to provide reliable cloud services over the unreliable and non-dedicated volunteer hosts with empirical evidences. VM placement algorithms play crucial role in Cloud Computing in fulfilling its characteristics and achieving its objectives. In general, VM placement is a challenging problem that has been extensively studied in conventional Cloud Computing context. Due to its divergent characteristics, volunteer cloud computing needs a novel and unique way of solving the existing Cloud Computing problems, including VM placement. Intermittent availability of nodes, unreliable infrastructure, and resource constrained nodes are some of the characteristics of volunteer cloud computing that make VM placement problem more complicated. In this dissertation, we model the VM placement problem as a \textit{Bounded 0-1 Multi-Dimensional Knapsack Problem}. As a known NP-hard problem, the dissertation discusses heuristic based algorithms that takes the typical characteristics of volunteer cloud computing into consideration, to solve the VM placement problem formulated as a knapsack problem. Three algorithms are developed to meet the objectives and constraints specific to volunteer cloud computing. The algorithms are tested on a real volunteer cloud computing test-bed and showed a good performance results based on their optimization objectives. The dissertation also presents the design and implementation of a real volunteer cloud computing system, cuCloud, that bases its resource infrastructure on donated computing resource of computers. The need for the development of cuCloud stems from the lack of experimentation platform, real or simulation, that specifically works for volunteer cloud computing. The cuCloud is a system that can be called a genuine volunteer cloud computing system, which manifests the concept of ``Volunteer Computing as a Service'' (VCaaS), with a particular significance in edge computing and related applications. In the course of this dissertation, empirical evaluations show that volunteer clouds can be used to execute range of applications reliably and efficiently. Moreover, the physical proximity of volunteer nodes to where applications originate, edge of the network, helps them in reducing the round trip time latency of applications. However, the overall computing capability of volunteer clouds will not suffice to handle highly resource intensive applications by itself. Based on these observations, the dissertation also proposes the use of volunteer clouds as a resource fabric in the emerging Edge Computing paradigm as a future work.

Diploma thesis is focused on volunteering in social services in Jindrichuv Hradec and potential developments. Work is based on mapping of current situation of volunteering in this region. This ascertained information is used for compilation a concept of project which should facilitate further development of volunteer activities. This work is supported thank author's experience which was gained during several years in volunteering.