A Qualitative Evaluation Study on the Asset-building Program for Low-income Individuals

Botswana like other developing countries faces a problem of acute shortage of housing, particularly for low-income urban families. The current housing problems are the outcomes of the economic, demographic and social changes which the country has experienced since independence in 1966. In particular the urbanization process which surfaced in the early 1980?s. The government has sought to cope with the problem of low-income urban housing by establishing a Self-Help Housing (SHHA) program in the main urban centers. The evaluation findings reveal that, on the whole, the impact of the SHHA approach on the improvement of low-income urban housing has been unsuccessful. The major problems of the scheme are lack of serviced land and inadequate finances for plot development. This has been exacerbated by the high urban development standards which are out of the reach of low-income urban families. The evaluation study also reveals that, there are some indications of non low-income urban households living in SHHA areas. The available evidence reveals that the number of those people in SHHA areas is not as big as has been speculated by most people in the country. However this paper calls for more investigation in this issue and a need for more tight measures to control this illicit practice. The major conclusions are that housing policies in Botswana are not supportive of the general housing conditions in low-income urban areas. Therefore there is a need for urban planners and policy makers of Botswana to take more positive action towards the improvement of low-income urban areas. This would require pragmatic policies geared towards the improvement of those areas. .

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Daisen: A Framework for Visualizing Detailed GPU Execution

10.31219/osf.io/73ry8 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Yifan Sun ◽

Yixuan Zhang ◽

Ali Mosallaei ◽

Michael D. Shah ◽

Cody Dunne ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Performance Analysis ◽

Performance Improvement ◽

Graphics Processing Units ◽

Qualitative Evaluation ◽

Evaluation Study ◽

Survey Study ◽

Performance Bottlenecks ◽

Making Sense ◽

Execution Traces ◽

Physics Simulation

Graphics Processing Units~(GPUs) have been widely used to accelerate artificial intelligence, physics simulation, medical imaging, and information visualization applications. To improve GPU performance, GPU hardware designers need to identify performance issues by inspecting a huge amount of simulator-generated traces. Visualizing the execution traces can reduce the cognitive burden of users and facilitate making sense of behaviors of GPU hardware components. In this paper, we first formalize the process of GPU performance analysis and characterize the design requirements of visualizing execution traces based on a survey study and interviews with GPU hardware designers. We contribute data and task abstraction for GPU performance analysis. Based on our task analysis, we propose Daisen, a framework that supports data collection from GPU simulators and provides visualization of the simulator-generated GPU execution traces. Daisen features a data abstraction and trace format that can record simulator-generated GPU execution traces. Daisen also includes a web-based visualization tool that helps GPU hardware designers examine GPU execution traces, identify performance bottlenecks, and verify performance improvement. Our qualitative evaluation with GPU hardware designers demonstrates that the design of Daisen reflects the typical workflow of GPU hardware designers. Using Daisen, participants were able to effectively identify potential performance bottlenecks and opportunities for performance improvement. The open-sourced implementation of Daisen can be found at gitlab.com/akita/vis. Supplemental materials including a demo video, survey questions, evaluation study guide, and post-study evaluation survey are available at osf.io/j5ghq.

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Emergent model for community engagement: Developing courses and programs

Journal of Global Education and Research ◽

10.5038/2577-509x.4.1.1055 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 80-95

Author(s):

Barbara S. Spector ◽

Cyndy Leard

Keyword(s):

Community Engagement ◽

Qualitative Evaluation ◽

Evaluation Study ◽

Informal Science Education ◽

South Florida ◽

Target Audience ◽

Informal Science ◽

Engaged Scholarship ◽

Stakeholder Groups ◽

The University

This retrospective emergent design qualitative evaluation study documents the development of a unique model for community engagement and engaged scholarship in higher education. The primary novel aspect of the model is participatory involvement of both the target audience for the program and representatives of various stakeholder groups who initiated, conceptualized, tested, assessed, and evaluated the courses and program with the professor. Members of the target audience and stakeholder groups also recruited participants, contributed to refining the courses and program to meet the needs of the stakeholder groups, and contributed to redesigning courses for online learning. The model emerged while developing and evaluating the Informal Science Institutions Environmental Education Graduate Certificate Program (ISI Program) at the University of South Florida. Garnering the resources of a previously untapped audience, the informal science education (ISE) community, presented the university with a way to increase enrollment. Also reported are sample benefits accrued to learners in the program, to the ISI community, to the community at large, and additional benefits to the University.

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Linked Coding: A Qualitative Investigation of the Impact of a College Transition Program

Journal of College Orientation, Transition, and Retention ◽

10.24926/jcotr.v26i2.2373 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

Author(s):

Laura Coleman-Tempel ◽

Meghan Ecker-Lyster

Keyword(s):

Minority Students ◽

Low Income ◽

College Transition ◽

First Generation ◽

Underrepresented Students ◽

Qualitative Evaluation ◽

Transition Program ◽

Cultural Mismatch ◽

College Ready ◽

The Impact

Limited college knowledge often impacts underrepresented students’ ability to navigate the college setting, creating institutional barriers for these students once arriving on campus. Students who are first-generation, low-income, and/or minority students have been shown to be less “college ready” than their peers. This discrepancy in preparedness can be conceptualized as a cultural mismatch between the student’s background knowledge and the higher education institution's expectations and norms (Lohfink & Paulsen, 2005). This qualitative evaluation provides an in-depth investigation into first-generation, low-income, and minority students’ perceptions and experiences with a yearlong college transition program. The study explores how a college transition program can impact students’ social development.

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