The aim with this master?s thesis is to examine the information practices and information literacies among social workers in the field of the social services and in the work with child welfare investigations. This is in this study related to their ambition to fulfill the requirements of an evidence-based practice. On a theoretical level, the study is based on three theories grounded in the idea of situated learning and of human activities based in a social context. These are the sociocultural theory, the theory of Communities of practices and the theory of information practices.

The purpose of this thesis was to study the importance of virtual communities for independent record companies. It also aims to examine how these companies use virtual communities in their marketing activities and how to gain competitive advantages by working with virtual communities. A case study based on interviews was conducted with managers from two independent record companies, Music Is My Girlfriend Recordings and B&B Records. Our study has shown that virtual communities are important for independent record companies as tools for finding and addressing the right target market. Useful information about the members of these communities can easily be gathered with the use of the various search options that are available.

Virtual Communities is an increasingly common phenomenon on the Internet. Most of the Virtual Communities are operated and maintained on a non-profit basis with a direction towards entertainment. However, as more state administrated and commercial services become web-based, we believe that the number of Virtual Communities with a community-based or commercial direction will increase in a near future. In this thesis, we describe our participation in, and studies of, a number of Virtual Communities with focus on the IRC-channel ?3dfxsweden?.

A survey was undertaken to understand sheep management, breeding practices and selection criteria for Red Maasai sheep in Maasai pastoralist communities in Kajiado District, Kenya. Differences between North and South Kajiado District were investigated to gain knowledge about farmers having different prerequisites and how it can affect the sheep production. The reason for keeping sheep and the specific breeds show the multiple objectives of the Maasai farmers. Adaptive traits, such as resistance to diseases and droughts, and productive traits, such as increased growth and carcass weight, were both ranked highly. In addition to this, the sheep has a social and traditional value in Maasai culture.

This is an essay about gated communities and their impact on society. The key questions of my essay are: why people choose to live in gated communities; how the city is impacted by gated communities and what the difference concerning the reasons and impact of gated communities in Florida and Sweden is, and what this difference might depend on. I am using postmodern urbanism as a starting point, and I look closer on Edward J. Soja?s theories about the postmodern metropolis.

The technical achievements that have occurred in recent years have led to a greater use of the Internet around the world. Today, more and more people are using virtual communities, a place where communication occurs with people who have similar interest. Due to the option of being an anonymous user, the concept of trust plays a big part in how virtual communities are working. It is therefore of interest to investigate how trust develops between users in virtual communities. This report asks the following question:"How is trust formed between users at a virtual community?"A qualitative and netnographical study was conducted to answer the question above.

Virtual Communities is an increasingly common phenomenon on the Internet. Most of the Virtual Communities are operated and maintained on a non-profit basis with a direction towards entertainment. However, as more state administrated and commercial services become web-based, we believe that the number of Virtual Communities with a community-based or commercial direction will increase in a near future. In this thesis, we describe our participation in, and studies of, a number of Virtual Communities with focus on the IRC-channel ?3dfxsweden?. On the basis of our experiences, we describe the social elements that form the foundation on which the Virtual Community rely on.

Datum:         2008-11-13 Nivå:             Kandidatuppsats i Företagsekonomi, 15 Högskolepoäng Författare:  Amina Ahmed Ibrahim                 Carol Nakajugo Basudde Handledare: Mats Viimne Titel:             Communities ? en marknadsföringskanal med effekt? Syfte:            Att beskriva communities som marknadsföringskanal och dess kommunikationseffekt. Metod:          Primärdatainsamlingen för denna uppsats har skett via intervjuer som utförts på tre olika sätt, personligt möte, telefonintervjun samt e-post intervju. Uppsatsen har baserats på fältstudier av fyra communities i Sverige, nämligen Lunarstorm, Glife, Nightlife och Nattstad. Sekundärdata har använts i form av böcker, artiklar och Internet. Slutsats:        Fördelen av att företag använder sig av communities är bl.a. träffsäkerheten och att företag ska enklare kunna nå ut till målgruppen som deras reklamannonser riktar sig till.

Thesis purpose: The main purpose of this study is to empirically verify the applicability of Kozinets´ model on an interest, activity or lifestyle based online community, in order to develop an adaptive segmentation approach for segmenting online communities. Methodology: This research is deductive by nature, cross-sectional by design and undertakes a quantitative approach using self-completion questionnaire as a part of a web survey to collect the empirical data needed. Theoretical perspective: The main theories guiding our work and supporting the findings of this study include: market segmentation (descriptive and behavioural) and communities (consumer communities and online communities). Empirical data: A web survey with self-completion questionnaire used to gather empirical data from members of interest, activity or lifestyle based online communities. Conclusions: This study took the specific characteristics of online communities into more consideration than previous research and literature has done and also recognized that an adaptive segmentation approach is needed, depending on the communities of study.

Communities är ett hett ämne som idag ständigt diskuteras i media. Människor blir mer och mer benägna att interagera online och mängden med online communities ökar i takt med detta. I Sverige finns en community som heter Lunarstorm som har blivit ett fenomen som inte har skådats någon annanstans. Med sina 1,3 miljoner användare är det absolut störst i Sverige idag. Jag har i min uppsats tagit fram ett antal faktorer ur litteraturen som är avgörande för ett online communities framgång.

Sociala nätverk tar stor plats på Internet genom virtuella communities. Användare har en större möjlighet att nå dem via mobila lösningar och därmed göra dem till mobila communities. Kriterierna som ligger till grund för framgång för virtuella communitiesvill vi applicera på mobila communities. För att undersöka dessa kriterier, och bakomliggande faktorer, har vi valt att titta på ?tidigt bruk? användning av en mobil community, Facebooks mobila portal med hjälp av Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).

The purpose of this study was to investigate the English writing activities of young Swedes on the site FanFiction.net to determine what type of differences were perceived between this activity and the writing activities taking place in upper secondary English courses, what effects fan fiction had on their English skills as well as what possibilities were perceived in regards to using fan fiction as a tool of learning. Methods used include an interview study along with a textual analysis to determine changes in grammatical complexity, errors and mistakes. Results indicate that partaking in fan fiction-related communities of practice in English can potentially improve language skills. Results also showed that informants valued interaction and practical language use, largely perceiving the formal teaching of English as lacking in opportunities for practical, contextually relevant and creative language use. However, introducing fan fiction and its practices of peer-reviewing in a formal educational setting was also perceived as risky, at the same time as there existed a sense of optimism that the fan fiction format and its practices could both be used to facilitate learning..

"Syns du inte - finns du inte. SEO best-practices och utvärdering." handlar om sökmotoroptimering. Arbetet har som sitt mål att undersöka i fall det finns några rekommenderade best-practices för att lyckas med sökmotoroptimering. Arbetet tar också upp olika metoder för utvärdering av SEO-ansträngningar.Som webbutvecklare jobbar man med att ta fram webbsidor och vill att dessa ska bli hittade av målgruppen därför kändes det valda ämnet relevant och intressant.Resultatet innefattar en sammanställning av rekommendationer/best-practices från tre olika källor. En del rekommendationer har testats för att verifiera deras effektivitet samt för att undersöka i fall sökmotoroptimering är svår att tillämpa i praktiken.

This essay elucidates upper secondary students? literacy practices, (literacy events, literacy competencies and literacy culture) during a typical day, with focus on the daily literacy practices. A literacy ethnographic study conducted in the environment which participants naturally are, at home, at school and in leisure. The study is inspired of a project, Skriftbruk i arbetslivet, ´Literacy Practices in Working Life´, that conducted by Anna-Malin Karlsson, Per Ledin and Olle Josephson, in collaboration with Vetenskapsrådet ´Science Council´(2002-2004).The result of this study shows that students from professional preparing programs not use such literacy competencies that been tested in traditionally reading comprehension test, particularly much. However, do they read a lot during the literacy practices day by television, computer and mobile phone.

Detta examensarbete är resultatet av arbetet under sista delen av min landskapsarkitektutbildning på Alnarp, SLU. Arbetet riktar sig främst till de med ett intresse för frågor som hållbar stadsbyggnad och stadsplanering. Arbetets grund ligger i en utvärdering av stadsdelen Bo01 i Malmö enligt ett certifieringssystem för hela stadsdelar ? BREEAM Communities. Som upptakt till detta görs en omvärldsanalys och introduktion av aktuella miljöfrågor, och då i synnerhet sådana med relation till staden. Med hjälp av de bedömningsverktyg BREEAM Communities erbjuder görs en utvärdering av ett antal aspekter på Bo01.