National Defense University |
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Project Coordinator
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Project Description Our Activeworlds environment will be part of our "Untethered Project" See http://users.erols.com/jsaunders/projects/untether.htm for a more detailed description of this effort. The focus is to disconnect the student from the physical classroom and also to field enable him/her - untethering him/her from the office or home computer. | ||
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Information Resources Management College |
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Project Coordinator
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Project Description This research constitutes a longitudinal study of Federal Information Resources Management (IRM) policies from 1975 to the present. Using an exploratory "virtual" case study, this effort seeks to identify and examine issue transformations in the "information resources management" policy area. Virtual reality "worlds" depict the temporal nature of IRM policy issues, portray conceptual policy constructs, and visually explore the richness, texture and nuances of the policy landscape. Five linked virtual reality policy worlds are envisioned, corresponding to five definable periods in IRM history, each concluding with definable issue transformations. These "virtual case studies" are constructed from text-based case students that draw on primary sources These virtual reality worlds will serve dual purposes: first, they comprise a key portion of a doctoral dissertation in Public Administration from VPI&SU (Virginia Tech) with the working title Pixelating Policy: Visualizing Policy Systems and Issue Transformation in a Virtual Reality World. Secondly, these virtual reality "policy worlds" will provide an interactive, experiential learning environment for public administrators needing substantive knowledge of both policy theory and Federal IRM policies. Public administration literature notes both the need for and lack of an information resource management component to public administration education; the case of policy theory's dilemma is likewise documented. Adult education concepts are combined with interactive designs and the World Wide Web to provide wide "policy world" access. In this way, educational opportunities in public policy and information resources management can be extended wherever desired. This research is intended to portray, to policy analysts, students, and public administrators, a visually interactive approach to understanding the complexity and dynamics of policy systems. Educators will find an experiential learning environment that is theory-based and technologically innovative. The pragmatic audience for this research is the many agency-level IRM professionals responsible for enduring policy outcomes in today's information technology-enabled Federal agencies. | ||
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