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1 – 10 of 146
Book part
Publication date: 1 June 2021

Melissa Rikiatou Kana Kenfack and Ali Öztüren

It is salient to be acquainted with the key elements that determine educational tourists’ decision in selecting an overseas destination while considering the rise of international…

Abstract

It is salient to be acquainted with the key elements that determine educational tourists’ decision in selecting an overseas destination while considering the rise of international competition amidst nations concerning international students. There has been a growth in the number of nations committed to attracting educational tourists. This issue is evident in countries involved in higher education (HE), such as Northern Cyprus, identified as an edu-tourism destination. Northern Cyprus can attract a whopping number of tourists, and the higher population is most likely to be made up of international students regardless of its interdiction on direct flights and political pressure. This chapter centres on analysing educational tourists’ motivators in selecting a tourism education destination abroad and on revealing effective recruitment and promotion plans towards attracting them. The chapter includes the descriptions and discussions of educational tourism, the HE industry over the years, globalisation and internationalisation of educational tourism, factors influencing educational tourists’ decision-making process and key elements influencing educational tourists’ decisions in HE institutions. At the end of the chapter, a case study is presented that reports the findings of interviews with educational tourists, overseas recruitment agents and Eastern Mediterranean University staff responsible for promoting the institution. The results identified eight factors affecting educational tourists’ decisions on study destination. Those factors comprise cost, ease of access, location, social factors, quality of education, instruction language, cultural environment and communication quality. The sub-factors of the main eight factors are scholarships, destination’s scenery, safety, friends’ and relatives’ influence and cultural differences. This chapter brings a significant knowledge about the motives that affect educational tourists in selecting at a particular HE destination. Based on the study’s findings, educational institutions may consider various recommendations to redesign their strategies towards attracting educational tourists more effectively. Generally, this study promotes an apprehension about the diverse elements that affect educational tourists’ selection of a destination study. An in-depth understanding of these factors will help education institutions’ decision-makers better develop plans of action to provide desired services to educational tourists, attract and keep them in return.

Details

Global Perspectives on Recruiting International Students: Challenges and Opportunities
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-83982-518-7

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 July 2006

Alison Adam and David Kreps

The purpose of this article is to analyse the continuing problem of web accessibility for disabled people as a critical information systems issue.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this article is to analyse the continuing problem of web accessibility for disabled people as a critical information systems issue.

Design/methodology/approach

The ways in which the web is used by disabled people, and problems that can arise, are described and related to the development of critical disability theory from older models of disability, including the medical and social models, noting that the social construction of disability model may tend to mask the embodied, lived experience of disability.

Findings

The lack of interaction of the critical disability approach and dominant discourses of web accessibility and internet studies, particularly in relation to embodiment, is a major contributor to the continuance of an inaccessible Worldwide web.

Research limitations/implications

The paper does not offer a comprehensive set of web accessibility issues, concentrating instead on the most common problems as exemplars.

Practical implications

The paper raises awareness of web accessibility.

Originality/value

The paper brings the topic of accessibility of technology by disabled people into the critical information systems arena and also incorporates social construction of disability and theoretical considerations of embodiedness in its analysis.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 19 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

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Book part
Publication date: 30 July 2020

Bruce Erickson

To examine the trend of “witness tours” that travel to the North American Arctic to experience, document, and then advocate on behalf of environmental issues in the North. These…

Abstract

To examine the trend of “witness tours” that travel to the North American Arctic to experience, document, and then advocate on behalf of environmental issues in the North. These tours are presented as part of a colonial legacy that has long witnessed the North as a space of potential investment from the South. Especially in their reliance upon suffering as a narrative practice to justify their experience, these tours repeat patterns that reduce the agency of Northern communities and peoples to address changes they are facing. The chapter also provides best practices for such excursions and compares their approach to Northern-based expeditions that also advocate for environmental conservation and protection.

In the first part of the chapter, the history of colonialism and exploration sets the foundation for understanding the recent trend in witness tours. These tours are then examined through a discourse analysis of their narratives to highlight their connection with colonial approaches to the North. The final section of the chapter presents three necessary steps to reduce the reliance upon colonial legacies for these tours.

The witness tours examined are heavily dependent upon using their resilience of the travels to travel through harsh landscapes to make their case for caring about these landscapes. Far from being an innocent narrative strategy, this reliance upon suffering provides a level of elitism to these narratives at the same time as it reproduces colonial patterns. The chapter suggests three steps to avoid these problems: (1) Recognize the stories of people who live in the North; (2) Do not present the Arctic as a timeless wilderness landscape; and (3) Understand our limited perspective on the North as outsiders.

The chapter suggests that witness tours need to be understood within the context of a history of colonial exploration in the Arctic as well as the agency of Northern peoples to address both environmental change and colonialism.

Article
Publication date: 30 November 2005

Christina Björkman

In this paper I discuss how feminist research focusing epistemological issues can be used within computer science (CS). I approach and explore epistemological questions in…

Abstract

In this paper I discuss how feminist research focusing epistemological issues can be used within computer science (CS). I approach and explore epistemological questions in computer science through a number of themes, which I believe are important to the issues of what knowledge is produced as well as how it is produced and how knowledge is perceived in CS. I discuss for example paradigms and metaphors in computer science, the role of abstractions and the concept of naturalisation. In order to illustrate epistemological views in CS and how these can be questioned from the viewpoints of feminist epistemology, I also do a close reading and commenting of a recent book within the philosophy of computing.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 3 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

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Content available
Article
Publication date: 4 April 2008

Alison Adam

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Abstract

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 6 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

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Article
Publication date: 4 May 2010

Christopher Bull and Alison Adam

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the design of characteristics and use of practices incorporated in customer relationship management information systems (CRM‐IS) impact…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to examine how the design of characteristics and use of practices incorporated in customer relationship management information systems (CRM‐IS) impact on the expression and realisation of moral agency within organisations.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper draws on the findings from an in‐depth UK case study of a CRM‐IS implementation.

Findings

The paper finds that some characteristics and practices within CRM‐IS can restrict the expression and realisation of moral agency in organisational life, resulting in a number of problems. For a greater consideration of MacIntyre's virtue ethics approach in order to respond to such challenges is argued.

Originality/value

The paper offers a relatively rare insight into the significance of the ethical issues arising from the organisational use of CRM‐IS and strategies. The paper should be of interest to managers, computer professionals and academics.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 8 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

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Article
Publication date: 22 August 2008

Ben Light, Gordon Fletcher and Alison Adam

The purpose of this paper is to investigate information communications technologies (ICT)‐mediated inclusion and exclusion in terms of sexuality through a study of a commercial…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to investigate information communications technologies (ICT)‐mediated inclusion and exclusion in terms of sexuality through a study of a commercial social networking web site for gay men.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper uses an approach based on technological inscription and the commodification of difference to study Gaydar, a commercial social networking site.

Findings

Through the activities, events and interactions offered by Gaydar, the study identifies a series of contrasting identity constructions and market segmentations that are constructed through the cyclic commodification of difference. These are fuelled by a particular series of meanings attached to gay male sexualities which serve to keep gay men positioned as a niche market.

Research limitations/implications

The research centres on the study of one, albeit widely used, web site with a very specific set of purposes. The study offers a model for future research on sexuality and ICTs.

Originality/value

This study places sexuality centre stage in an ICT‐mediated environment and provides insights into the contemporary phenomenon of social networking. As a sexualised object, Gaydar presents a semiosis of politicised messages that question heteronormativity while simultaneously contributing to the definition of an increasingly globalised, commercialised and monolithic form of gay male sexuality defined against ICT.

Details

Information Technology & People, vol. 21 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0959-3845

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Article
Publication date: 23 November 2012

Danijela Bogdanovic, Michael Dowd, Eileen Wattam and Alison Adam

The purpose of this paper is to report on and evaluate focus groups and privacy diary/interview methods used in a qualitative study of on‐line privacy.

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to report on and evaluate focus groups and privacy diary/interview methods used in a qualitative study of on‐line privacy.

Design/methodology/approach

The paper is a discursive evaluation of two methods employed to study on‐line privacy, informed by and situated in interpretive and constructivist approaches to knowledge.

Findings

The paper argues for the value of qualitative research methods in study of on‐line privacy. It confronts the positivist paradigm that informs much of the work in the field by foregrounding the need for methodological plurality in the study of privacy as relational, situated, dynamic and contextual. It deals with the notion of “sensitivity” as well as introducing often neglected issue of logistical challenges in qualitative research.

Originality/value

The paper contributes to the existing debates about the value of employment of qualitative research methods broadly, as well as in the study of on‐line privacy more specifically. It demonstrates a range of advantages and challenges in use of the two methods, providing recommendations of how to supplement them. It opens up the discussion of process of sensitizing of the participants and thus the “co‐construction” of knowledge.

Details

Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society, vol. 10 no. 4
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1477-996X

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Article
Publication date: 20 February 2009

Marilyn Clarke

The purpose of this paper is to explore individual approaches to career and employability through the career stories of a group of mid‐level to senior managers in career…

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to explore individual approaches to career and employability through the career stories of a group of mid‐level to senior managers in career transition. Career patterns are identified and then compared with traditional, boundaryless and protean models of career. The study aims to consider the extent to which individuals in this group had adopted behaviours supportive of future employability as opposed to behaviours more in line with traditional careers.

Design/methodology/approach

The research adopted an interpretive and qualitative approach. In‐depth interviews were conducted with people currently going through a career transition program. The interviews were recorded and then transcribed, coded and analysed using NVivo, a qualitative research software tool.

Findings

Career patterns appeared to be shifting away from traditional careers and more towards protean and boundaryless models. There was evidence of increased responsibility for career self‐management and of behaviours supportive of ongoing employability. Self‐perceived employability could be linked to degree of job mobility and having a future career orientation.

Research limitations/implications

Despite the small sample size and the subjective nature of self‐reported career histories the study provides insights into the relationship between career patterns and employability. Both organisations and individuals need to work towards developing attitudes and behaviours supportive of employability such as flexibility, adaptability and a future career orientation.

Practical implications

Individual level career management will need to focus more on the development of attitudes and behaviours appropriate to contemporary employment relationships than on the development of formal career plans. At an organizational level support can be provided by encouraging flexibility through activities such as job rotation, short‐term projects and opportunities for both internal and external networking.

Originality/value

The study provides empirical evidence of how careers are being managed within contemporary employment relationships.

Details

Career Development International, vol. 14 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 1362-0436

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 6 December 2021

Amanda Karlsson

Studies on the socio-technical relations between bodies and self-tracking apps have become more relevant as the number of digital solutions for monitoring our bodies are…

Abstract

Studies on the socio-technical relations between bodies and self-tracking apps have become more relevant as the number of digital solutions for monitoring our bodies are increasing and becoming even more embedded in our everyday lives. While a strong body of literature within the fields of self-tracking and the quantified self has evolved during the recent years, the author suggests it is time we (once again) start paying attention to the specific bodies in question when we look into the quantification of bodies, particularly about the question as to whose bodies are we talking about when we say, ‘quantified bodies’. The author also proposes that, when discussing the quantification of bodies, we take interest in the bodies designing, producing, and guiding the logic behind the algorithms embedded in the technological solutions in question. By suggesting this focus on bodies as knowledge producing, the author draws from a feminist perspective of situated knowledges (Haraway 1988; Harding, 1986, 2004) with a particular interest in knowledge production and the understanding of bodies as active, epistemological objects. Feminist theory of science replaces, so to speak, the idea of a universal human identity with a knowing subject who can occupy many different positions – in co-creative and transforming constellations. Following this line of thought, all kinds of knowledge production must be bodily anchored and situated. However, knowledge production always takes place in relation to or with something/someone else/other. As explained by philosopher Rosi Braidotti ‘[t]he post-human knowing subject has to be understood as a relational embodied and embedded, affective and accountable entity and not only as a transcendental consciousness’ (Braidotti, 2018, p. 1). Thus, the bodies in this chapter are the bodies who menstruate. The author wishes to discuss a particular socio-technical relation between smartphone applications (apps) to track and monitor the female cycle; period-apps, and the menstruating bodies engaging with these apps. Building on early feminist thoughts from the science and technology studies (STS), the author seeks to move beyond the algorithmic quantification of bodies to study the network of knowledge production formed by bodies, materialities, technology and history with all its reminiscence of stigma and taboo surrounding these leaking bodies (Shildrich, 1999). These inquiries are not only theoretical accounts but are also rooted in empirical soil. Based on a feminist ethnography of Danish women’s everyday engagement with period-apps, the female developers from the Femtech-industry and the women-only groups within the quantified self-movement, the author aims to provide a broad perspective on what the author defines as the gendered data body. The author argues for a feminist approach to better understand the socio-technical relations and the socio-cultural discourses the menstruating body is situated in, as well as to better understand the unique relation between knowledge production and technology as being constitutional for the gendered data body.

Details

The Quantification of Bodies in Health: Multidisciplinary Perspectives
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-80071-883-8

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1 – 10 of 146