Browsing by Subject "community"
Now showing 1 - 16 of 16
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item A Path to Open and Accountable Digital Preservation Collaboration(Texas Digital Library, 2023-05-17) Mumma, CourtneyIn addition to hosting NDSA Innovation Award-winning Digital Preservation Services, TDL is part of an informal affinity group called the Digital Preservation Services Collaborative (DPSC). We are a group of digital preservation organizations united in our commitment to preserve the cultural, intellectual, scientific and academic record for current and future generations. We came together because digital preservation is a cultural-heritage-wide challenge that is best accomplished together. We may be best known for having published the Declaration of Shared Values in late 2018, a document which provides standards to which our community can hold us accountable. The values that inform and direct our collective work are collaboration, affordability and sustainability, inclusiveness, technological diversity, portability/interoperability, openness and transparency, accountability, stewardship continuity, advocacy, and empowerment. Digital preservation requirements differ broadly across units and between institutions, and decisions are too often made for the short-term based predominantly on real or imposed resource scarcity. This understanding, alongside recent developments in the digital preservation ecosystem, inspired the DPSC to revise and expand the Values statement. We are witness to the growing ubiquity of commercial Digital Preservation vendors in community and professional spaces, which has precipitated the increased uptake of their technologies and investment from institutions. Digital preservation-focused professional associations, including TDL, witness the United States suffering from a dearth of digital preservation leadership and guidance. This presentation will discuss these values and efforts to curb trends that do not align with them.Item African American Women in Appalachia: Personal Expressions of Race, Place and Gender(2014-06-04) Barbour-Payne, Yunina CarolAfrican American women in Appalachia have lived, survived and long been overlooked by dominant narratives that support stereotypical depictions of the Appalachian region and its inhabitants. A little over twenty years ago, poet and scholar Frank X Walker coined the term ?Affrilachia? to describe people of African American decent in the Appalachian region. Though Walker?s term announces the presence of blacks in Appalachia, in a multidimensional sense of cultural identity place is a central theme, along with race, gender, and class, in the identity experiences of Appalachia?s African American women inhabitants. As a marginalized group in the region of Appalachia, Black Appalachian women discussed in this work provide a compelling case for understanding identity experiences within the region. This thesis works to acknowledge and analyze the ?intersectionality? in the personal expressions, poetry and creative works of Black Appalachian women. This thesis investigates the personal expressions of four modes of survival by African American women in/of Appalachia to understand the multiple dimensions of Affrilachian identity and memory. This research project brings together scholarship of performances studies and Kimberle Crenshaw?s notion of intersectionality to explore the unquestionable intersection of place and other dimensions (race, class, gender) of the African American women?s experience in Appalachia. This thesis explores how themes of survival and place manifest in the oral history, personal narratives and creative works of Black women in Appalachia. The investigation and analysis of Affrilachian women?s identity from the point of view of Affrilachian women, offers an opportunity to exponentially increase our understanding of the intersections of class, gender, race and place in performances of the everyday life.Item Building the conflicted community(Texas A&M University, 2005-02-17) Spiegelhauer, Jacob LyleThis thesis will examine the individual and the community. The question will be, what effect does the community have on the individual, and whether or not this limits individuals? development and personal freedom. I will contend that while individuals have limits placed on their freedoms by the community, they are also indebted to it, finding within it a necessary place. As such, I will examine various communal models, questioning the benefits and vices of each, hoping to draw a clearer picture of a community that allows the individual the most personal freedom, while not diminishing from the strength of the community. I will focus first on the model of Hegel and his speculative idealism, examining his method, and overarching goal, as a means to question what an idealistic society would look like, and how it would function, in order to inquire whether such a community is both plausible and preferable. And as this question was taken up by John Dewey, the thesis will also argue from his standpoint that a community such as Hegel?s was not possible. I will examine why John Dewey drew this conclusion, as it did not take into account individuals, and how they have experience, as personal and ever changing. And finally the thesis will question, was Dewey firm enough in his stance, or was his just a softer version of idealism, leading us to the present state of affairs where the community is still dominated by idealistic sentiments, favoring the community over the individual, and diminishing personal freedom. The conclusion will be drawn that a move should be made to return to individuals choice in their personal lives, as originally proposed by Dewey, both giving, and making them take responsibility for those lives. Consequently, the thesis will show that a community that allows for the most personal development of individual freedoms will also be one that thrives as a community, drawing from those individual developments a richer source of potentials, capable of changing in a more varied and expansive way that is more aptly able to accommodate both the individual and the community.Item Community-Oriented Models and Applications for the Social Web(2012-07-16) Kashoob, Said Masoud AliThe past few years have seen the rapid rise of all things "social" on the web from the growth of online social networks like Facebook, to user-contributed content sites like Flickr and YouTube, to social bookmarking services like Delicious, among many others. Whereas traditional approaches to organizing and accessing the web?s massive amount of information have focused on content-based and link-based approaches, these social systems offer rich opportunities for user-based and community-based exploration and analysis of the web by building on the unprecedented access to the interests and perspectives of millions of users. We focus here on the challenge of modeling and mining social bookmarking systems, in which resources are enriched by large-scale socially generated metadata (?tags?) and contextualized by the user communities that are associated with the resources. Our hypothesis is that an underlying social collective intelligence is embedded in the uncoordinated actions of users on social bookmarking services, and that this social collective intelligence can be leveraged for enhanced web-based information discovery and knowledge sharing. Concretely, we posit the existence of underlying implicit communities in these social bookmarking systems that drive the social bookmarking process which can provide a foundation for community-based organization of web resources. To that end, we make three contributions: ? First, we propose a pair of novel probabilistic generative models for describing and modeling community-oriented social bookmarking. We show how these models enable effective extraction of meaningful communities over large real world social bookmarking services. ? Second, we develop two frameworks for community-based web information browsing and search that are based on these community-oriented social bookmarking models. We show how both achieve improved discovery and exploration of the social web. ? Third, we introduce a community evolution framework for studying and analyzing social bookmarking communities over time. We explore the temporal dimension of social bookmarking and explore the dynamics of community formation, evolution, and dissolution. By uncovering implicit communities, putting them to use in an application scenario (search and browsing), and analyzing them over time, this dissertation provides a foundation for the study of how social knowledge networks are self-organized, a deeper understanding and appreciation of the factors impacting collective intelligence, and the creation of new information access algorithms for leveraging these communities.Item Ecological Consequences of Landscape Fragmentation on the Lizard Community in the Mescalero-Monahans Shinnery Sands(2012-10-29) Leavitt, Daniel 1979-Landscape fragmentation poses a major threat to biodiversity world-wide. The goal of my dissertation research was to determine the effects of landscape fragmentation on a lizard community in the Mescalero-Monahans shinnery sands, New Mexico and the extent to which conservation efforts might protect biodiversity in this ecosystem. My research relied heavily on data collected from a large-scale spatially-replicated comparative study. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the impacts of landscape fragmentation as a result of oil and gas development on the dunes sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus arenicolus). Results from analysis of lizard community structure indicate that fragmented sites are less diverse than non-fragmented sites. In particular, two species are found in lower density and occupancy in the fragmented locations (Holbrookia maculata and Sceloporus arenicolus). Analysis of landscape configuration at the scale of a trapping grid indicated that sand dune blowout shape and size differed between fragmented and non-fragmented locations. Differences in landscape pattern were associated with reduced lizard diversity. Because of this association between lower diversity and altered landscape pattern, extensive alterations to landscape pattern may cause disassembly at the ecosystem level. The maintenance of existing landscape pattern may be important to the maintenance of diversity in this ecosystem. Evaluations of habitat use patterns of the lizards in this community demonstrate that a few species have narrow preferences for certain habitats. In particular, H. maculata, Phrynosoma cornutum, and S. arenicolus all demonstrated narrow habitat use patterns. Effect size of fragmentation for each species indicated that the same three species showed a large effect when comparing their average abundances between fragmented and non-fragmented locations. Thus species that are most likely to benefit or be harmed by landscape fragmentation are those with the most specific habitat requirements. Umbrella species represent one of many approaches to conservation using surrogate species. I used data on ants, beetles, small mammals, lizards, and endemic species to test the use of the dunes sagebrush lizard (Sceloporus arenicolus) as an umbrella for endemism and biodiversity of the Mescalero-Monahans shinnery sands ecosystem. I applied a comparative approach at three spatial scales to examine how conservation practices at different scales may affect biodiversity and endemism in this ecosystem. At the largest scale, the frequency of occurrence for endemic species increased though no other patterns emerged because S. arenicolus was present at all sites and there were no relationships between relative abundances of S. arenicolus and the other taxonomic groups. At the smallest scale, both beetle species richness, diversity, and endemic species richness were higher in the presence of S. arenicolus. To protect biodiversity in this ecosystem, conservation efforts should focus on protection at the scale of the species distribution rather than on the small-scale placement of individual well pads.Item Identification of core goals and related outcome measurements for the development of community service-learning programs in selected institutions of higher education(2009-05-15) Price, Jon KevinThe purpose of this study was to identify important educational goals and valid and feasible outcome measures that could be used in the design and development of campus based service-learning programs. The study was designed to utilize the consensus of a panel of experts responsible for the administration notable college or university campus-based service-learning programs. In addition to responding to questionnaires that indicated the perceived importance of the identified goals, followed by the validity and feasibility of the identified outcome measures, the selected panelists were asked to identify potential problems associated with using the outcome measures. The findings may be useful in understanding which goals and outcome measures would be most valuable in the design and development of a campus based service-learning program. Utilizing the Delphi method, three structured questionnaires designed by the researcher were used to collect responses by the identified experts. The first questionnaire included important core goals and related outcome measures for campus-based service-learning centers as identified through an extensive review of the literature and constructed based on sequential reasoning. After each set of outcome measures, respondents were asked to evaluate each goal according to their perceived importance, and each outcome measure according to their perceived validity and feasibility using Likert-type scales. The panelists were then asked to identify potential problems associated with using the outcome measures and suggest additional outcome measures. A second and third questionnaire was distributed to the panel members, with a summary of responses from the previous round. Panel members were asked to review their individual response in comparison to the group mean score and reevaluate their response if it fell outside the interquartile range (IQR) of the combined response ratings. Responses stabilized following round three and the process ended. Statistical analysis of inter-rater agreement and agreement between rounds was done to determine if the Delphi process was successful in promoting consensus on ratings. A final review of ratings of goals and outcome measures was used to identify the important goals and the outcome measures identified with the highest validity and feasibility ratings. In addition, panelist comments were used to interpret final ratings.Item More than a pretty girl: resistance, community and group identity among female triathletes(Texas A&M University, 2007-04-25) Cronan, Megan KellyThis study examines women's use of leisure as politics, especially as related to leisure as resistance, leisure and social worlds, and women's body image. Interviews were conducted with fifteen participants and coaches in two all-women's triathlon training groups in Austin, Texas. Both training groups prepared women for participation in the Austin Danskin Triathlon. Qualitative methods, grounded theory and constant comparison guided the interviewing and data analysis process. It was determined that Danskin trainees formed a social world which allowed them to redefine their bodies and redefine the tenets of organized sport. This finding centered around three major areas: initial involvement, community building and resistance. Most participants became involved initially for social reasons even though they often were out of shape or had not previously participated in athletics. Several participants experienced barriers to involvement commonly discussed in gender leisure studies including weight issues, "ethic of care" concerns and fear of not deserving leisure time. During participation in their training programs, the majority of trainees formed a community with their fellow participants which provided them with a safe place and a support structure. As a result, many Austin Danskin triathlon trainees were able to communally resist cultural and societal norms surrounding women's bodies and competitive athletics. As a group, trainees redefined the way women should look and placed function above form. Furthermore, they reclaimed sport from the male norm and instead demanded that it go beyond bigger, better, faster or stronger and instead focus on community, support and teamwork. The results of this study urge leisure providers to create programs that appeal to the whole person - not just the physical. As a result of the data, several hypotheses may be suggested for future study: Do women's only recreation programs provide a crucial link between social world formation and leisure as resistance? What other programs may produce similar results and why?Item Prevention of childhood drowning: A review of current community interventions and their effect on recreational drowning mortality in children(2007-09-01) Matthew H Hoefer; Billy Philips; Kley Hughes; Dana BeckhamAccidents are the leading cause of mortality in American children today. Accidental death by drowning is the second-most common cause of accidental injury-related death among children ages 1 to 14 and the leading cause of accidental injury-related death among children ages 1 to 4. (1) The most disturbing thing about this fact is that many of these deaths are preventable. The exposure of a child to the risk of drowning can be moderated both by controlling access to pools and beaches, as well as providing children with the skills to avoid a drowning accident.\r\n The consensus regarding various forms of risk reduction and other exposure limiting interventions is that they produce differing outcomes because they have differing efficacy even though they lead to the same end of reducing childhood drowning. These include laws that require secured pools and beaches; community programs that provide lifeguard surveillance, first responder training, and EMS services; and community education to ensure parents know the proper means for supervising children that are near water. Moreover, community programs can teach children swimming and drown-proofing techniques. Techniques such as clothing inflation, use of safety equipment, and the buddy system; methods that allow them to protect or “save” themselves when put into a potential drowning situation. \r\n This Capstone project consists of a systematic review of literature for community-based interventions that address childhood drowning. While these may work anywhere the focus of this review is on U.S. and Texas Gulf coast communities and on specific community programs developed to decrease drowning risk in children. Vital statistics, in addition to published data, were acquired to identify specific high risk groups based on sociodemographic factors, especially race or socioeconomic status. Finally, interventions were assessed and a determination made as to their appropriateness as an intervention for Galveston county and similar coastal counties in the U.S. and along the Gulf of Mexico.\r\nItem Queer Utopian Performance at Texas A&M University(2012-07-16) Sayre, DanaThrough a combination of personal interviews and participant-observation in three field sites ? the Tim Miller workshop and performance of October 2010 and the student organizations Cepheid Variable and the GLBT Aggies ? I argue that manifestations of utopian desire and performance circulate within and among marginalized groups on the Texas A&M University campus, undermining the heteronormative and monolithic utopia the university attempts to present. I participated in each night of rehearsal during the Tim Miller workshop, as well as the creation and performance of my own solo autobiographical monologue as a part of the ensemble. My participant-observation in Cepheid Variable and the GLBT Aggies was concurrent, consisting of attendance at both weekly organizational meetings and outside events sponsored by the organizations over two years. I argue that the Tim Miller workshop and performance is best understood by examining the intersection of queer intimacy, utopia, and performance. I argue that processes of connection, sharing, and mutual transformation allowed it to function as an example of queer utopian performance qua performance at Texas A&M. I explore the links between the ?nerd,? ?queer,? and ?family? identities of Cepheid Variable, arguing that the intersection of these identity-markers and the performance practices which reinforce them enable Cepheid Variable to create a utopian space on the Texas A&M campus for those students who do not fit traditional notions of Aggie identity. I explore two Cepheid performance practices: noise-making and storytelling, arguing that they construct, support, and interweave each element of Cepheid identity, allowing the organization to perpetuate and reaffirm its utopian and counterpublic statuses at Texas A&M. I explore what the GLBT Aggies claims to provide in theory, juxtaposed with what it actually accomplishes in practice. I examine a moment of crisis the LGBTQ community at Texas A&M faced in spring 2011. I argue that the utopia the GLBTA promises remains unfulfilled because the marginalization of the LGBTQ community at large leaves diversity within that community unaddressed. I conclude that utopian communities persist if able to adapt, and that the strength of the intimacy built into queer utopias in particular sustains them through time.Item Rituals of Rehabilitation: Learning Community from Shakespeare Behind Bars(2014-12-02) Davis, KarenIn a panoptic society like ours, prison arts programs can guide us in the task of revitalizing human values and building ethical communities. The quasi-ritual practice of theater, especially, has the potential to develop community among its participants. This thesis takes Shakespeare Behind Bars, a prison Shakespeare program at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex, as a practical guide in addressing our alienation and developing ethical communal relations. This investigation considers the operation of ritual and ritualized practices within the playtext of Shakespeare?s Much Ado about Nothing and the 2014 SBB production, the structure of the SBB program, and the inmate actors? everyday interactions in order to see the relationships among imaginative play, ritualized practices, and our construction of ethical communities. I argue that SBB models genuine communal engagement and helps inmate actors develop rehabilitative modes of being with others that reinforce the moves of ethical life. Shakespeare?s Much Ado explores the power of ritual to rebuild after a moral wrong. I contend that the SBB production delivers practical answers to interpretive quandaries in the scholarship concerning Claudio and the efficacy of ritual. Outside the boundaries of ritual proper and the dramatic stage, Catherine Bell (Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice) and Michel de Certeau (The Practice of Everyday Life) show how incorporating the transformative power of ritual into everyday practice reinstates human and ethical significance in routines that become mechanistic within the prison system. I argue that SBB demonstrates?in their approach to appropriating a canonical script and in their everyday greetings?how ritualized activities aid in resisting the dehumanizing effects of a power structure that values efficiency over personal relationships. Ritualized practice carries meaning that the dominant discourse cannot subsume. The ambiguity of these practices then holds the potential to unify participants, creating community and organizing a redemptive social order. SBB actors enact their own rehabilitative rituals that aid in creating a liminal space where it becomes possible to reconstruct meaningful ethical relations. The result is a transformative experience for the inmates and the audience, revealing, by extension, a means of moving toward ethical rehabilitation for the isolated modern subject, as well.Item The chimaera project: an online database of animal motions(2009-05-15) Gele, Julie KatherineDigital animators will save vast amounts of project time by starting with a completed skeleton and some base animations. This result can be accomplished with Web 2.0 technologies by creating a repository of skeletons and animations that any animator may use for free. While free Maya? skeletons currently exist on the Internet, the websites housing them have only brief features and functions for browsing and interacting with these files. None of these websites contain downloadable animations for the provided skeletons. The Chimaera Project improves the field of Web 2.0 sites offering free rigs by offering many new features and freedoms to the animation community. Users may upload and download Maya? skeletons, share comments and tips with each other, upload animations associated with the skeletons, and search or browse the skeletons in a variety of ways. The skeletons include descriptions and information provided by the creator and are categorized by class, order, and species. Users may access a freely provided script called ?zooXferAnim? to import and export animations into text files to be uploaded and downloaded on the website. Many animations per skeleton may be uploaded. The Chimaera Project extends the Web 2.0 community by creating an interactive resource for animators to contribute and share content in a better, more organized format than previously seen on the Internet.Item The Texas Master Gardener program: an assessment of curriculum delivery and contribution to community development(Texas A&M University, 2006-04-12) Mayfield, Chyrel AnnExtension programs across the nation have been given the task of education and outreach to citizens of their respective states. Master Gardener programs have been seen as a way to provide horticultural education, while also providing outreach using the program??s service requirement. Extension professionals have used a variety of training methods throughout the years. These methods include face-to-face workshop trainings, interactive television, and more recently World Wide Web methodologies. This study sought to test the effectiveness of CD-based training materials versus a traditional face-to-face training. Turfgrass management modules chosen for testing in this study included nutrient, water, and pest topics. Participants?? knowledge levels were measured using a pre-test/post-test design. Student satisfaction with the learning materials and their perceptions of lawn care also were measured during the study. Results indicated that CD-based materials were more effective than were face-to- face workshops for teaching difficult turfgrass material to the Master Gardener trainees. Community development is one of the four focus areas for Texas Cooperative Extension. A secondary purpose was to determine if the Master Gardener program affected community development. Descriptive statistics were used to compare participants?? past experiences with their anticipated experiences after completion of the Master Gardener program. Results indicated that community development activities were being completed, but the extent and type of development could not be measured. This study revealed several surprising and far-reaching implications for extension programming. These implications and recommendations for improvement of extension programs are discussed further. Recommendations for additional research also are included.Item The WoW Factor: An Investigation of Social Needs, Interpersonal Communication, and Community in World of Warcraft(2012-04-19) Tidwell, Sarah; Yamasaki, Jill; Lee, Jaesub; Martinez, Amanda R.This study explores the relationship between World of Warcraft (WoW) players and the concepts of social needs, interpersonal relationships, and community from the player’s perspective. The significance of gaming in society, a detail of my experience with WoW, and a review of recent literature provide a basic understanding of the WoW experience and its current place within society, the gaming world, and the media. Thirteen WoW players participated in informal interviews on an online forum about their experiences with the game, why they play, and the various meanings – socially and personally – the game has in their lives. Four themes emerged from the data: connection, positive reinforcement, power/control, and the intersection of real life and Azeroth. Results signify that participants overall have a very positive view of WoW and its effect on their lives, despite acknowledging the critical views shared by various non-players and the media.Item Thus mangle ye still the human race: a study in structural navigation(Texas A&M University, 2006-08-16) Harden, B. GarrickThis thesis places three sociological figures in discourse with one another: Ferdinand T??nnies, Emile Durkheim and Friedrich Nietzsche. I argue, within the contexts of the three theorists?? philosophies, that contemporary society is problematic due to its many artifices enslaving individuals. The effects of these artifices are devastating on individuals living in contemporary society as they become encased in simulacra realities reified by engrained beliefs such as socially defined ??individuality.?? I then propose that one possible method of creating individual freedom in contemporary society may be in the establishment of communities based upon deep friendships and trust.Item Transforming Native American Youths' Concepts of Geoscience Through a Connection to Culture, Nature and Community(2014-05-07) Ricci, Jamie LeighThis qualitative study examines the experience of twelve Native American youth who participated in culturally appropriate geoscience summer programs throughout California. These programs have been shown to change participating youths? perceptions of science. After the programs, the youth are more likely to describe science as something tribes use to manage natural resources and have been using for a long time, something that is not only learned in classrooms, that they like science and they can live a cultural way of life and still be scientists. Hermeneutic phenomenology is used to understand the experience of the youth participating in the program. Semi-structured, life-world, pre- and post- interviews were designed to elucidate participants? program experience, conceptions of science and home life. From these, salient themes were found and organized into meaning units. It is suggested that having a supportive community, which youth have identified as a group of people described as familial, supportive and empowering, where youth can express their culture while enjoying outdoor programming provides the foundation and safe space to approach program science. Moreover, positive connections between nature and program science are made in this context. This provides scaffolding where these new conceptions of science as nature, and nature as science, can be applied to participants? lives outside of the program.