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Pressed specimen of Paeonia lactiflora. https://viurrspace.ca/bitstream/handle/10613/25204/Kipot.pdf?sequence=3&isAllowed=y

This thesis explores the influence of government funding on online course development, specifically the Shared Online Course fund offered to two Ontario colleges. It uses a qualitative case study research approach to examine the impact that it had on administrators, faculty, and staff members who were part of online course development under this fund. The findings of the study identify the degree to which the funding influenced the ability of the institutions to develop internal capacity to develop courses online, notes best practices, identifies what challenges were encountered, and makes recommendations that can be implemented for future programs similar to this one. Keywords: development, instructional design, government funding, online learning.

Urbanization increases metal emissions through varying anthropogenic activities (fossil fuel combustion). With urban parks being sinks for emissions, this study attempts to determine metal concentrations and bioaccessibility in Metro Vancouver urban park soils. Fifty-six soil samples were collected from 23 parks and analyzed for total metals by x-ray fluorescence (XRF). An analysis of 20 samples by inductively coupled plasma – mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), showed some variation in the presence and concentration of some metals as compared to XRF. Bioaccessibility (>50%) was identified for Cd, Cu and Pb, implying risk of absorption by humans (especially children) may be high. However, mean concentrations of these metals were below the CCME Soil Quality Guidelines (SQG) for residential/parkland use, suggesting human health risk associated with these metals was low. Regression analysis between pH, organic carbon and metal bioaccessibility shows pH and organic carbon accounts for a 6 to 71% variation in metal bioaccessibility.

This study was designed to illuminate how Off-Highway Vehicle (OHV) users view their impact on, and relationship with, the environment. The target group for this study were individuals who rode any vehicle classified as an OHV including dirt bikes, All-Terrain Vehicles, and other similar vehicles. To discover what these attitudes were, in-person surveys and semi structured interviews were conducted using questions derived from the New Ecological Paradigm and weighted on a Likert scale to determine the strength of values. These in-person surveys were conducted at 2 separate locations in Alberta’s Eastern Slopes. Discovering the values OHV users hold in relation to their environmental impacts could allow the Alberta government to adapt their land-use policies in a way which satisfies their constituents while still protecting the environment. The compiled survey results will also inform future public education campaigns aimed at reducing damage caused by OHVs. It was found that members of OHV clubs were less likely to have pro-environmental worldviews than non-members. Keywords: OHV, Off Highway Vehicle, environment

There is a pressing need to develop a coherent and appropriate conceptualization of ‘resilience’ in the context of agricultural production as well as a tool for its practical assessment. Here I do both. I use a systematic and integrative approach to review and assess recent conceptualizations of ‘resilience’ and analytical frameworks. Following this review, I develop six conditions enabling resilience in agroecosystems, which inform the development of a conceptual framework and the selection of variables and indicators. Applying the conceptual framework to the Canadian agroecosystem in a general manner serves to identify opportunities for farmers and policy-makers to assess, discuss, and manage agroecosystem resilience. The high-level assessment demonstrates that important changes underway in the Canadian agroecosystem support resilience through re-organization, adaptation, and learning. However, the current focus on maximizing productivity and efficiency often leads to reduced diversity; increased connectivity; protection against disturbances; reliance on anthropogenic inputs; and missed opportunities for shared learning and experimentation. This focus on productivity may not support the long-term resilience of agroecosystem. Therefore, ensuring that agroecosystems can adjust to big and small disturbances in the future requires that we shift our thinking to recognize and support the complex adaptive nature of agroecosystems and adopt adaptive management approaches.

Rapid suppression, or initial attack (IA), is the primary method of managing new fires, with relatively low costs and high containment rates. Factors contributing to containment are well understood, but consequences for the landscape-level distribution of fire risk are not. This research introduces a method of assessing IA impacts using spatially-explicit burn probability (BP) analysis, and applies it to a study area in Kootenay National Park. BP is assessed with and without the influence of suppression by combining the Burn-P3 model with a stochastic probability of containment algorithm. Results indicate IA impacts are spatially heterogeneous. Suppression was most effective in recently burned areas, whereas mature, contiguous fuels moderated its influence. IA was least effective in the management zone where natural fire is not permitted, suggesting supplementary tactics may be appropriate. Managers can use this method to compare emergent, fine-scale consequences of fire management policy and increase long-term management effectiveness.

This research study explores popular culture through visual music media, specifically Beyoncé’s 2016 visual album titled Lemonade. Through a social constructionist lens, a phenomenological approach, and by incorporating psychoanalytic film theory, critical theory, feminist theory, and Black feminist theory, this study aims to uncover what aspects of visual music media empower youth girls aged 15-19 years. Through film-elicited interviews and digital focus groups, this study engaged with 11 youth girls from across Canada about what makes and does not make them feel empowered while viewing music videos. Qualitative thematic analysis was used to produce results which included three sensitizing concepts named cloak of competence, cloak of incompetence and generational language along with five emerging themes, listed as voice, unity, persistence, compassion and relatability Thematic results outlined visual, auditory, and metaphorical phenomena that empower and disempower youth girls. Empowering aspects to visual music media included visual depictions of voice, unity, auditory depictions of compassion and persistence, and a sense of relatability between the artist, situation, emotion, or setting.

This research explores the psychosocial dimensions of a poorly understood profession: the professional aquarist (fish caretaker) in a modern aquarium. Using a qualitative and psychoanalytically-informed methodology, this study explored how aquarists at the Vancouver Aquarium navigate and negotiate any tensions, dilemmas and stressors they experience in their work, including public scrutiny of their occupation, the stressors and traumas inherent in caretaking work and the political, social and organizational challenges specific to the Vancouver Aquarium. Through interviews with five professional aquarists using the Dialogic, Relational Interview method, a thematic analysis illuminates the complexity of the work, including sources of resilience and the forms of defensiveness such as defense mechanisms and coping strategies the aquarists appeared to employ to stay functional. Findings suggest that aquarists experience moral distress regularly throughout the course of their work, often leading to feelings of ambivalence and guilt, and increasing the occupational risk of burnout.

Digital media consumption of magazines is becoming increasingly ubiquitous, yet print remains significant in this genre. The purpose of this study is to determine a model of publishing in which an independent magazine’s printed form can be made more viable because of its digital components, not despite them. Using a strengths-based approach, the study is based in semi-structured interviews with the publishers of eight independent magazines that have used both print and digital media in their publishing practices, exploring themes like motivation, creative freedom, creative control, and career development. Then, the data was sorted through the lens of McLuhan’s “laws of media” tetrad model, allowing for analysis of what is enhanced, obsolesced, retrieved, and reversed in this hybrid publishing model, with the aim of showing what each component can effectively bring in order to support the print edition and to integrate the digital components. The results inform the design and framework of a magazine publishing model in which the print issue is the focus, with support from the digital components. Any independent magazine can apply the results to its current practices or use them to launch a new hybrid offering.

This synthesis paper introduces a conceptual model which explains how boundary spanning practices use relational, cognitive and structural social capital to facilitate innovation in public-private partnerships (PPPs). Social capital is a multidimensional concept used by scholars from different disciplines to demonstrate the benefits of accessing resources through relationships in social networks. Past research has shown that social capital can accelerate positive innovation outcomes for organizations facing complex challenges, including PPPs that seek to share costs, resources and risks across sectors to develop and sustain competitive advantage. In practice, many PPPs fail to achieve anticipated innovation outcomes, due in part to a breakdown of social relations between partners. The conceptual model is described and illustrated across three components of the dissertation by portfolio: Journal article, online course/learning module and instructional video. Based on results of a qualitative research study that investigated critical incidents on innovation projects in PPPs from the perspectives of public and private sector innovators, the model identifies practices that help leaders across sectors find ways to collaborate more effectively to manage innovation. Three modes of inference were used to analyse interview data, which referenced different industries and types of innovation, producing a holistic understanding of the interaction of social capital and innovation in PPPs. A critical realist, interdisciplinary approach combined theory and empirical data to identify generative mechanisms of innovation outcomes on PPP projects. A knowledge dissemination section describes how the research findings are being made accessible to meet the needs of practitioners as well as academic researchers.