Overcoming Cultural Distance in Social OER Environments
Open educational resources (OERs) provide opportunities as enablers of societal development, but they also create new challenges. From the perspective of content providers and educational institutions, particularly, cultural and context-related challenges emerge. Even though barriers regarding large-scale adoption of OERs are widely discussed, empirical evidence for determining challenges in relation to particular contexts is still rare. Such context-specific barriers generally can jeopardize the acceptance of OERs and, in particular, social OER environments. We conducted a large-scale (N = 855) cross-European investigation in the school context to determine how teachers and learners percei…
Grüsse vom Gardasee? Die Mikrolithen der mesolithischen Fundstelle von Sielenberg-Weinberg, Lkr. Aichach-Friedberg
International audience
Sectoral Transformations in Neo-Patrimonial Rentier States: Tourism Development and State Policy in Egypt
This article challenges claims that liberalising state regulated markets in developing countries may induce lasting economic development. The analysis of the rise of tourism in Egypt during the last three decades suggests that the effects of liberalisation and structural adjustment are constrained by the neo-patrimonial character of the Egyptian political system. Since the decline of oil rent revenues during the 1980s tourism development was the optimal strategy to compensate for the resulting fiscal losses. Increasing tourism revenues have helped in coping with macroeconomic imbalances and in avoiding more costly adjustment of traditional economic sectors. Additionally, they provided the p…
A methodology to compare and adapt e-learning in the global context
In this paper, we present a solution how to test cultural influences on E-Learning in a global context. Based on a metadata approach, we show how specifically cultural influence factors can be determined to transfer and adapt learning environments. We present a method how those influence factors can be validated for both, to improve the dynamical meta-data specification and to be used in the development of (international) E-Learning scenarios.
Removing the barriers to adoption of social OER environments
Despite the opportunities and benefits of OER, research and practice has shown how the OER repositories have a hard time in reaching an active user-base. The opportunities of experience exchange and simple feedback mechanisms of social software have been realized for improving the situation and many are basing or transforming their OER offerings towards socially powered environments. Research on social software has shown how knowledge-sharing barriers in online environments are highly culture and context-specific and require proper investigation. It is crucial to study what challenges might arise in such environments and how to overcome them, ensuring a successful uptake. A large-scale (N =…
Politics, Economics and Tourism Development in Egypt: insights into the sectoral transformations of a neo-patrimonial rentier state
This article challenges claims that liberalising state-regulated markets in developing countries may induce lasting economic development. An analysis of the rise of tourism in Egypt during the past three decades suggests that the effects of liberalisation and structural adjustment are constrained by the neo-patrimonial character of the Egyptian political system. Since the decline of oil-rent revenues during the 1980s tourism development has been the optimal strategy to compensate for the resulting fiscal losses. Increasing tourism revenues have helped in coping with macroeconomic imbalances and in avoiding more costly adjustment of traditional economic sectors. Additionally they provided th…