scholarly journals Collaborative Ethnographic Assessment: An Anthropological Rubric for a Community Ecosystem

Journal ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-8
Author(s):  
Eric James Haanstad
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Research ◽  
National Science Foundation ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Small City ◽  
Engineering Project ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Groups ◽  
National Science ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Funded Project

The ethnographic team of a community-based engineering project in South Bend, Indiana, continues to create modes of anthropological assessment while conducting collaborative research. The Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem (BCe2) is a National Science Foundation-funded project designed to restore and enhance a vital but polluted St. Joseph River tributary by linking the efforts of local community groups, schools, and universities in a revitalizing small city. This paper describes the impetus and creation of an ethnographic rubric for assessing community-based anthropological research towards potential replication in future collaborations. Based on a modification of Rapid Ethnographic Assessment (REA), used widely in environmental, medical, military, and other research applications, this paper offers an REA modification called Collaborative Ethnographic Assessment (CEA).

Practicing Anthropology And “Ethnographic Engineering” In a Community-Based Ecological Project

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 26-28
Author(s):  
Susan D. Blum ◽  
Asha Barnes ◽  
Kenzell Huggins ◽  
Eric Haanstad
Keyword(s):  
Local Community ◽  
Engineering Project ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Groups ◽  
Collaborative Engineering ◽  
Polluted River ◽  
Faculty Advisors ◽  
Community Project ◽  
Collaborative Community ◽  
South Bend

The Bowman Creek Educational Ecosystem (BCe2) is a collaborative community project designed to restore and enhance a vital but polluted river tributary by linking the efforts of local community groups, schools, and universities in the revitalizing city of South Bend, Indiana. As a community-based engineering project continues, two faculty advisors and two anthropology students reflect on the program's inaugural summer as practicing ethnographers. Practice, as an anthropological concept, not only has continual relevance for this ethnographic team; its confluence flows directly from the merger of collaborative engineering with practicing anthropology. The team explored “ethnographic engineering” as an emergent collaborative form of practicing anthropology.

scholarly journals “I Have Never Had A PBL Like This Before”

2020 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea S. Gomoll ◽  
Becky Hillenburg ◽  
Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver
Keyword(s):  
National Science Foundation ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Learning Experiences ◽  
Problem Based Learning ◽  
Principal Investigator ◽  
Student Groups ◽  
Video Viewing ◽  
Local Stakeholders ◽  
National Science

Video and co-design can be powerful tools to enrich problem-based learning experiences. We explore how a teacher and researcher engaged in co-design of a PBL experience focused on human-centered robotics as well as the resulting design. They explored the question “How can we design a robot that serves a need in our local community?” We highlight three aspects of the most recent iteration of our PBL curriculum that we have identified as central to its success. These three elements include: 1) co-design experiences that occurred before and during unit implementation, 2) the use of shared video viewing and analysis both in co-design and with student groups in the classroom, and 3) the bringing of local stakeholders into the classroom to work closely with students. These three aspects of our curriculum are positioned here as takeaways for researchers and educators working to design, implement, and study PBL. Acknowledgments: This research was supported by the National Science Foundation through ITEST grant #1433414. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this report are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the official views, opinions, or policy of the National Science Foundation. A special thanks to Dr. Selma Šabanovic, principal investigator, and Dr. Matt Francisco for their contributions to this work.

A Knowledge Preservation and Re-Use Tool Based on Context-Driven Reasoning

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (05) ◽  
pp. 1550020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Avelino J. Gonzalez ◽  
Brian Sherwell ◽  
Johann Nguyen ◽  
Brian C. Becker ◽  
Víctor Hung ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Collaborative Research ◽  
National Science Foundation ◽  
Primary Objective ◽  
Basic Knowledge ◽  
The Us ◽  
National Science ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Representation Structure ◽  
Contextual Graphs ◽  
Knowledge Preservation

This article describes a knowledge preservation and re-use tool designed to capture the knowledge of a specific individual at the US National Science Foundation, for later retrieval by successors after his retirement. The system is designed in a Q&A format, where it is sufficiently intelligent to ask for clarifying questions. The primary objective was to create a system that would result in acceptance of the system by the users. The domain of interest to be preserved and re-used was programmatic knowledge about the NSF Industry/University Collaborative Research Centers (I/UCRC) Program, and more specifically, the knowledge of its long-time director, Dr. Alex Schwarzkopf. The system is called AskAlex and it uses a trio of techniques to accomplish its objectives. Contextual graphs (CxG) are used as the basic knowledge representation structure. CxG’s are assisted by a search engine and an ontology of terms to help find the proper contextual graph that can best answer the question being asked. Evaluations with users and potential users generally confirm our selection and provided some guidance for improvements in the system.

scholarly journals Supporting the Success of Service Learning Initiatives in Higher Education

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Buchanan ◽  
Tina Lee ◽  
Devin R. Berg
Keyword(s):  
Service Learning ◽  
National Science Foundation ◽  
Research Team ◽  
Institutional Support ◽  
Learning Opportunities ◽  
Student Perspective ◽  
International Service Learning ◽  
International Service ◽  
National Science ◽  
Funded Project

The work presented here stems from a four-year, National Science Foundation-funded project, designed to investigate the use of humanitarian service learning in education including a specific focus on international service learning and the work of Engineers Without Borders USA (EWB). As part of this work, our research team has conducted interviews or focus groups with a total of 42 students, 12 faculty, and 12 professional volunteers or mentors involved in EWB. One of the recurring themes that has emerged from these interviews is that, in most cases, the work that goes into creating and maintaining service learning opportunities receives little institutional support, both from a faculty and student perspective.

Anthropological Research at the UCSB Center for Nanotechnology in Society

2006 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 38-40 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Harthorn ◽  
W. McCray ◽  
Terre Satterfield
Keyword(s):  
Fast Moving ◽  
General Public ◽  
National Science Foundation ◽  
Science And Engineering ◽  
Nanoscale Science And Engineering ◽  
The Public ◽  
Societal Issues ◽  
National Science ◽  
Anthropological Research ◽  
Nanoscale Science

On Oct 6, 2005, the National Science Foundation announced its new awards under the Nanotechnology in Society initiative. Their banner headline read "New Grants Are Awarded to Inform the Public and Explore the Implications of Nanotechnology", in an effort to "…greatly expand efforts to inform the general public about nanotechnology, and to explore the implications of that fast-moving field for society as a whole" (NSF 2005). Two new Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers (NSEC), each designated a national Center for Nanotechnology in Society (CNS), were funded, the first ever to be dedicated entirely to societal issues concerning nanotechnology.

scholarly journals Liwetan, The Boardroom for Managing Horizontal Conflicts in Tourism Village Sustainability

2021 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Study ◽  
Best Practice ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Community Group ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Community Groups ◽  
Group Members ◽  
Depth Interviews ◽  
Responsible Manner

In the tourism development and sustainability literature, conflicts among local communities, i.e. horizontal conflicts, about community-based tourism have been found to be detrimental to the sustainability of their village. This qualitative study aims to counter that perception. In-depth interviews were conducted with the village’s communities, including local community group members and local authorities. The findings revealed that the ‘responsible manner of local communities’ is the best practice to mitigate horizontal conflicts. Specifically, we discovered that local community groups in the tourism village are aware that their collaborations may potentially lead to conflicts; therefore, they preemptively prepared themselves with a platform that enables them to discuss intrapersonal, intragroup, and intergroup matters in a manner that avoids and minimizes horizontal conflicts. This platform emerged through their ancestral tradition called liwetan. Although liwetan is not a new concept, using it in the management of tourism villages is not a common practice. We thus suggest that the approach discussed in this study be replicated and applied in other tourism villages all over Indonesia, given that the liwetan tradition can be found in many villages, albeit with different names.

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