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Science and technology diplomacy (STD) is an emerging area in the field of public policy and technology management. The purpose of this study is to overview the concept of STD based on the two approaches “Science and Technology” and “Diplomacy” to explain its necessity for Non-Aligned Movement member countries.

To design the work, principal domains and sub-domains of STD are identified based on the thematic analysis. By using MAXQDA software, the initial codes are analyzed and validated for the case study. Then, six areas and 29 sub-areas are identified based on the fuzzy Delphi and the framework is designed.

STD is defined from six scopes, including political, economics, law and legal issues, social sciences, philosophy and science and technology. Each scope has its own mechanism that is discussed in the article.

This work is one of the first in the literature of science and technology policy making.

This paper responds to a range of theory and industry reporting, to provide an informed narrative which explores the current state of accessibility at UK festivals for people who are Deaf or disabled and the potential implications of developments in ICT for enhancing design, marketing, operations and performances across all phases of festival delivery, in order to improve inclusivity and accessibility. To this end, the paper addresses the following question: What do representatives of the UK live music industry perceive as barriers to accessibility and exemplars of current best practice for music festival attendees who are Deaf or disabled? What do representatives of the UK live music industry consider as the role of ICT to increase accessibility for music festival attendees who are Deaf or disabled?

Primary research focused on supply-side considerations with a sample group of 10 UK live music industry professionals. The scope of the research was limited geographically to England and by artform to open-air music festivals, venues which host some music festival provision and a Sector Support Organisation. Open questions elucidated qualitative information around; awareness of accessibility and inclusivity initiatives; potential for co-creation; non-digital improvements; current technological influences; and potential digital futures for accessible “live” experiences. A conceptual framework was constructed and semi-structured face-to-face interviews were carried out with six respondents, and four respondents completed a structured, self-administered e-mail questionnaire.

Findings include: ICT can facilitate enhanced dialogue with existing and potential audience members who are Deaf or disabled to both; reduce existing social exclusion (Duffy et al., 2019) and improve the visitor experience for all attendees. All respondents agreed that physical enhancements are important and some mentioned communications and customer care. Respondents reported increasingly ambitious usages of ICT at music festivals, which may support suggestions of a virtual experience trend (Robertson et al., 2015). Online ticketing systems have potential to grant equal functionality to people who are Deaf or disabled, as recommended by the Department for Culture, Media & Sport (2015). Respondents broadly welcomed the potential for positive impacts of ICT on increasingly accessible live experiences at music festivals which retained a sense of authenticity and “liveness”. Challenges around “as live” ICT-derived experiences were identified including risks of creating second-class experiences for Deaf and disabled attendees.

The limitations of this case study include the small sample size and limited scope.

Promoters should: consider further developing the co-creation of accessibility initiatives, utilising ICT to both deliver improvements and engage with potential audience members who are Deaf or disabled. Seek to pro-actively recruit staff members who are Deaf or disabled and significantly increase their programming of performers who are Deaf or disabled. Consider reviewing their ticketing processes for music festivals, to identify accessibility challenges for audience members and implement appropriate ICT-based solutions. Consider maximising accessibility benefits for audience members who are Deaf or disabled from existing ICT provision on site and explore additional bespoke ICT solutions at music festivals.

Adopting the best practices described across the festival sector may improve inclusivity for disabled people at music festivals and other events. Event management educators should consider reviewing provision to ensure that best practice is embedded around accessibility for audience members who are Deaf or disabled. Additional public funding should be provided to drive ICT-derived improvements to accessibility for audience members who are Deaf or disabled at smaller-scale music festivals. Further research should be considered around inclusive approaches to digital experiences within a music festival environment for audience members who are Deaf or disabled and tensions between accessibility and notions of “liveness”.

The “snapshot” of digital aspects of accessibility at UK festivals within this research is of particular value due to paucity of other research in this area, and it's narrative from varied industry professionals. The paper makes recommendations to promoters, academics and public funders, to attempt to advance inclusion (or at least to mitigate current exclusion) and identify directions for future research into accessible digital experiences at music festivals for people who are Deaf or disabled.

The massive expansion of digital platform has been responsible for the widespread progressive engagement created amongst learners and educators. The practice of requiring student feedback on online learning services ensures that teacher education continues to advance its strategic approach to online learning. This paper aims to examine the level of accessibility and adaptability of digital technology with particular focus on Malaysia, by elaborating the value of superior learning service and practical adaptability of online learning during the pandemic era.

This study was conducted using qualitative approach of data collection, namely via structured interview. The listed respondents included 30 higher learners who participated in the study by providing feedback on the issues encountered during the research process.

The findings revealed that the strategic enhancement of digital accessibility continued with digital adaptability to sources of learning services would contribute to advancing achievement of digital learning pathway.

Increasing accessibility to digital platforms in digital learning system can help to shape the digital environment. Digital expansion can create unlimited boundaries for online knowledge acquisition.

The social implication refers to acquiring the abilities developed through online engagement with peers by actualising and exploring information together with continuous inter-connectedness of sharing pathway in online platform. The instructor would need to give a proportional gateway to make learners experience the digital environment for future education.

This study aims to assess the value of developing accessibility of digital technology for students' online learning services during the pandemic and beyond. A well-structured plan would enable digital learning capabilities and mutual accessibility amongst learners. This can allow digital abilities to be transformed into collaborative teamwork amongst learners.

Hong Kong, like many other developed cities and countries, invests heavily in transport development. This study investigates whether the speculative benefits of future improvements in accessibility, brought about by impending transport development, will be capitalized into nearby residential property values even prior to the opening of the development.

Deviating from the standard hedonic price approach, the present study employed a fixed-effects model with a large data set of residential property transactions in the vicinity of three-stations situated along a newly proposed mass-transit-railway line in Hong Kong.

The results suggest that the values of residential properties close to stations do reflect the accessibility enhancements to be brought about by transport improvements even before the opening of the line. Results revealed a 6.5% of property value premium after the announcement of construction; and higher up to 6.7% after the operation of the line. This indicates that forthcoming new transport-infrastructure development produces changes in spatial price-gradients for neighbouring residential properties. Findings indicate that potential buyers/investors recognized the positive benefits of the planned transportation development, even before completion of the project, and are ready to pay a premium for those properties close to railway stations, representing clear evidence that residential property prices/values, near stations, reflect anticipated accessibility enhancements brought about by transport improvements.

This study, using a novel approach – a fixed-effects model to capture the speculative benefits of future improvements in transport infrastructure – provides a positive hypothesis that expected benefits of future improvements in accessibility are capitalized into property values.

To provide librarians with a better understanding of what makes online content truly accessible and to increase awareness of the current common accessibility issues found in library web sites and vendor supplied electronic resources.

A through and in-depth literature review takes a look at the web accessibility problems historically found in library web sites. It then briefly explains the basics of web accessibility and delves more deeply into structural content access, which is the hallmark of true accessibility. The simple mechanics as well as the pros and cons of traditional methods of providing keyboard access to web content is discussed. The chapter then provides a gentle introduction to HTML5 and the Web Accessibility Initiative-Accessible Rich Internet Applications (WAI-ARIA), current use, techniques for use, and application opportunities. The chapter also provides the research results of a broad examination of the basic structural accessibility state of many current database providers.

The research shows that the accessibility of library web sites is improving; however many library vendor database products still have significant accessibility problems.

Through the practical accessibility explanations, the chapter points out the ways librarians can use this knowledge to work with users and communicate with product providers regarding the accessibility of library resources.

This chapter provides a rich resource for understanding and implementing web accessibility, particularly as it applies to keyboard navigation and the new accessibility features in HTML5 and WAI-ARIA.

Based on research carried out on a mature estate in South Belfast, Northern Ireland, this paper investigates the obstacles to accessibility in order to produce an appraisal model for external accessibility. The study included a review of best practice, a preliminary access appraisal and resident and service provider consultation. Residents were surveyed on a number of issues including location, roads and pavements, transportation, level change, wayfinding, safety and security, and public areas. It was discovered that obstacles relating to wayfinding and traffic management created the greatest problems for residents. The resultant model will enable housing providers and managers to identify specific areas of inaccessibility and the feasibility of improving them as well as allowing comparisons between estates. It is intended to provide all agencies involved in housing with a basis for collaboration in the enhancement of accessibility.

The presence of digital learning space is widely seen as there is an active engagement between educators and learners. However, the challenge raised mainly amidst the pandemic age, which is potentially leading to the interference on the active engagement in education process. The necessary act to have a critical response from the student’s feedback towards the online learning services should be taken into consideration in ensuring the continuance of teacher education in enabling to grab the potential chance to advance the assessment of strategic approach in online learning. This paper aims to examine the digital access during the pandemic age through elaborating the extensive value of better learning service or adaptation for the online learning achievement amidst the pandemic age.

This study is conducted with a qualitative approach through the particular method of data collection, namely, structured interview. This qualitative approach was selected to enable obtaining the richness of information and related data. The insightful feedback will be coming from 27 higher education learners.

The finding revealed that better design of achievement pathway on the digital access could be enhanced in supporting the online learning performance through the online services. The main point refers to look into detail about digital online infrastructure insufficiency for online access support and improvements on digital online infrastructure for accessibility of learning service. The main occupations are clearly pointed in the following phase. Those are empowering digital access for learning service support and enhancing digital-adaptation for online learning achievement.

This study is supposed to contribute in assisting the value contribution with an extensive point to continue the digital access during pandemic age through the adaptation empowerment of higher learner’s online learning services.

Despite increasing public attention and media coverage of the Covid-19 pandemic, little research was conducted on how the crisis affected accountability practices in the not-for-profit sector. This study focusses on international non-governmental organisations (INGOs) that operate in emerging economies worldwide but are registered in England and Wales and examines how their online accountability practices changed after the Covid-19 pandemic. The purpose of this paper is to address these issues.

The authors use the theoretical lens of the situational crisis communication theory (SCCT) and a contingency approach to not-for-profit governance in order to assess how accountability practices have been shaped by the response given by INGOs to preserve their reputation which is argued to be damaged by the COVID-19 pandemic. They use Dumont's (2013) nonprofit virtual accountability index (NPVAI) for statistical analysis. They examine whether the five dimensions of the NPVAI have changed significantly as a policy of response to the Covid-19 pandemic. They also examine the documents used to disclose information on performance, governance and mission to understand if their content was affected by the pandemic.

The authors found two of the NPVAI dimensions: accessibility and engagement to be statistically different compared to before the pandemic. They also examined the documents used to disclose information on performance, governance and mission in order to understand if their content were affected by the pandemic. Their findings suggest that INGOs focussed on keeping their donors' attention and their fund flow rather than informing how they performed and how their governance has changed as a result of the pandemic. No statistically significant change was found regarding the dimensions of performance, governance and mission.

INGOs which focus on humanitarian relief and crises management mainly in emerging economies were also affected by the pandemic. However little attention has been given to how accountability was being shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic. An analysis of how not-for-profit sector accountability practices were affected by the pandemic is, therefore, needed. Due to the nature of the pandemic online accountability practices is an area where research could focus on, until now few studies have been conducted on online accountability. The study contributes methodologically by assessing the applicability of the NPVAI for comparisons across different time periods rather than across different types of organisation at a specific point in time. The authors conclude that the NPVAI must be supplemented by some analysis of the content of key online documents and other material.

The authors’ findings provide important implications for crisis management and its effect on accountability practices in INGOs that operate in emerging economies and the not-for-profit sector in general. The findings suggest that the crisis led to only limited changes in mission and governance as changes in these dimensions tend to occur over the long term. Although they expected the pandemic to lead to more performance information being released, this did not happen. The enhancement of online accountability practice in the engagement and accessibility dimensions shows that INGOs focussed more on maintaining their fund flow rather than on actions to target the pandemic. This is especially apparent as regardless of size the donation and fundraising links have increased throughout the pandemic. Overall, the study provides important findings specific to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on online accountability practices in the not-for-profit sector. The study's empirical contribution is to assess how not-for-profit organisations shape their online accountability practices to preserve their reputation and legitimacy.

The authors have expanded the discussion of the paper's contribution to theory, methodology and knowledge about online accountability and crisis management in the conclusion section of the paper. They found that INGOs have reacted to the pandemic by becoming more anxious about their ability to generate funds, and content analysis showed that there was little additional information about how INGOs' performance had been affected by the pandemic, which suggests that INGOs need to pay more attention to how they manage accountability in times of crisis.

The authors construct a conceptual framework using theories that have the potential to explain how external factors such as the Covid-19 pandemic can affect online accountability practices. Their paper also responds to the call for studies of the effectiveness of various accountability mechanisms in NGOs (Unerman and O’ Dwyer, 2006). Unlike previous studies they did not compare various sectors at a single point in time, but rather they assessed the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and the reaction of INGOs by comparing online disclosures across time. This is a novel use of Dumont's NPVAI and therefore provides an important contribution to the literature.

This paper aims to examine the initiative of low-price hotels, budget hotels, in Malaysia, to restore the financial sustainability through empowering the digital marketplace strategy in the tourism resilience sector. Giving an open accessibility to customers for achieving their venue with a low price and have a friendly service comes from initiating the digital marketplace arrangement.

This study focuses on what is the importance of the digital marketplace strategy for tourism resilience in the pandemic age and how is it important. The data come from qualitative interview from one couple, husband and wife, regarding the budget hotel operation practice in the city of Sri Iskandar, the Perak state of Malaysia.

The findings revealed the importance of initiating the strategy of digital marketplace in enabling the customers’ personalised decision towards the tourism destination they prefer based on their needs of low-cost and proper service. There are three main points, namely the importance of digital marketplace for tourism market enhancement, readiness of digital marketplace for tourism market enhancement and continued capacity to strategize digital marketplace for tourism market enhancement. The initiative to commit with applying for the resilience for tourism sustainability in the pandemic age is important to ensure they can take a small advantage continually with the frequent customers’ sustainability.

This paper is supposed to contribute in developing the resilience practice through advancing the strategy of digital marketplace in raising the tourism sector, budget hotel operators. The main occupation aims to empower resilience for tourism sustainability in the pandemic age, in order to recover the market in online platform.

This article sets out to show how principles and questions about method that underlie a way of interpreting the discipline of conservation and restoration can find results in research and studies, aiming at achieving even conscious reuse process. The occasion is the very recent research performed on the former Church of Saints Gerolamo and Francesco Saverio in Genoa, Italy, the Jesuit church annexed to the 17th-century College of the order. It is a small Baroque jewel in the heart of the ancient city, former University Library and actually abandoned, forgotten for years, inaccessible and awaiting a new use.

The two-year work carried out on the monumental building was conducted according to a study and research methodology developed and refined over the years within the activities of the School of Specialisation in Architectural Heritage and Landscape of the University of Genoa. It is a multidisciplinary and rigorous approach, which aims to train high-level professionals, up-to-date and aware of the multiple problems that interventions on existing buildings, especially of a monumental nature, involve.

The biennal study has been carried out within the activities of the Post-Graduate Programme in Architectural Heritage and Landscape of the University of Genoa. The work methodology faces the challenges of the contemporary complexity, raised by the progressive broadening of the concept of cultural “heritage” and by the problems of its conservation, its active safeguard and its reuse: safety in respect of seismic risk, fire and hydro geological instability, universal accessibility – cognitive, physical and alternative – resource efficiency, comfort and savings in energy consumption, sustainability, communication and involvement of local communities and stakeholders.

The goals of the work were the following: understanding of the architectural heritage, through the correlated study of its geometries, elements and construction materials, surfaces, structures, spaces and functions; understanding of the transformations that the building has undergone over time, relating the results of historical reconstructions from indirect sources and those of direct archaeological analysis; assessment of the state of conservation of the building recognising phenomena of deterioration, damage, faults and deficits that affect materials, construction elements, systems and structures; identification of the causes and extent of damage, faults and deficits, assessing the vulnerability and level of exposure of the asset to the aggression of environmental factors and related risks; evaluation of the compatibility between the characteristics of the available spaces, the primary needs of conservation, the instance of regeneration and possible new uses; the definition of criteria and guidelines for establishing the planning of conservation, restoration and redevelopment interventions.