Community Organization - Science topic

Hi, Ms. Kayla Tennant!

There are different indices that may be used to measure biodiversity. Based on information-theory, the Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index measures uncertainty in order to determine if a community is diverse. A high degree of uncertainty (H') would indicate high diversity since it would determine how harder it will be to predict the species of a randomly picked individual from a population. It is easy to calculate, however, it does not reflect the dominance or evenness of a population.

Other diversity indices that you may also utilize are the Simpson's Index, Berger-Parker Index, and Brillouin Index. 

The Simpson's Index works on the idea that high dominance would indicate low diversity. It measures the probability of dissimilarity of the population, thus, a highly similar population would indicate lower diversity. the index is evenness-sensitive, however, less sensitive to species richness or abundance.

The Berger-Parker Index quantifies the numerical importance of most dominant species, while the Brillouin Index are used in questionable sample randomness.

Biodiversity indices observe changes to richness and evenness between datasets. The type of index to use may vary, depending on the site discrimination, sample size, diversity component in question, and the overall use of the index. 

I attached a link that may help you on species diversity measures. I hope this helps! 

You can use confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) if you assume that there are latent (not observed) factors which determine observable (measured) variables. A CFA is a particular case of Structural Equation Modeling. The idea is to make hypotheses about different latent factors affecting several (imperfect) measures of people's participation, to estimate a model fitting covariances of observed data, and to test it against alternative hypotheses. The formulation of a hypothesis (number of factors and their relationship with the observed variables) should be guided by theory or by a conceptual framework.

Perhaps you may want to read research about community based actions related to social justice issues. These community led actions for the most part involve a cross section of diverse people within a community

OK, Daniel, I'll bite on this one. It would be difficult for me to estimate the number of times I was told, or asked, "What do you mean?" and "Narrow your question(s)!" So, this is just a suggestion. Why not do some work defining and illustrating precisely what you mean by "private truth" as opposed to "public truth"? Notwithstanding that you put your terms in quotation marks, I'd be doing no more than guessing at what you actually mean. That puts me in the uncomfortable position of being told, "No, wrong answer. Guess again." What if you started with 10 or 20 organizations, and using their mission statements, press releases and whatever else you consider their communications, define organizational public truth. Do you find any evidence that what the groups say differs from what they do? Is it possible that some, even most, actually do what they say? Is it possible that your public and private truths are not all that different? As far as personal interviews go, my experience is the best you can do is promise (and keep the promise) confidentiality. If confidentiality is not enough you might promise anonymity, which is very different. Interviews give you data. If many interviews give you consistent data you might begin to conclude the data are reliable. Finally, if you've got a hypothesis that there are inherent differences in organizations' public and private faces, don't be afraid to be wrong. And if you're wrong be happy to publicize the heck out of your wrongness.

Dear Rachel,

There is a great exemples in Rennes and Clermont-Ferrand (France) that is called "Université foraine". It works for many years and the topics and socio-spatial experiences change every year. I am not sure that there are so much papers or research on that experience. But it is a really interresting one.

The foundator of these experiences is Patrick Bouchain, who write many books and essays on this topic. unfortunaly, it seems to me that all are only in French language.

Hope, it could help you,

Christophe Gibout

I'd agree with Anabela that you need to treat internal and external communication as closely interconnected - though in practice the integration is often missing, both in published work and in organisational practice. Good luck!

The National Water Agency of Brazil (ANA) is legally liable for implementing the National Water Resources Management System (SINGREH), created to ensure the sustainable use of our rivers and lakes for the current and future generations.

This implies regulating the use of water according to the mechanisms established by Law No. 9433, of 1997, amongst which the following stand out: the granting of rights to the use of water resources aimed at disciplining the use of water bodies, in relation to the collection of water and discharging of effluents; inspection, to assure that the grants are licenses effectively respected and not mere notarial formalisms, and the charge for use of the water, to assure that the water bodies are used with parsimony, in addition to making possible the generation of the necessary financial resources to recover and conserve rivers and lakes.

Water resources plans, for example, allow diagnosing and guiding specific actions for water transfer to different users. Furthermore, it identifies constraints and opportunities for development of productive activities that use water as basic input.

ANA further stimulates the creation of river basin committees, particularly in rivers under the Federal Government’s domain, which, in turn, promote the articulation of civil society representatives, water users, and public authorities, to build an agenda based on the protection of these basins, and harmonized with the sustainable development opportunities in their areas. Likewise, it promotes a set of programs and projects destined to the spreading of practices related to the use of the water resources, cleaning-up of water basins, and the dissemination of periodic information on the condition of the Brazilian water basins, among others.

One of the most important objectives of ANA is stimulating and providing support initiatives aimed at the creation of state bodies managers of water resources, watershed committees and water agencies. With this in mind, the present study aims to strengthen the implementation of the National Policy of Water Resources in a shared way, decentralized and participatory, in answer to the precepts of the Law of Waters.

The watershed committees constitute the basis of the National System of Water Resources Management (SINGREH), being a concrete example of democratic management. Public Authority representatives, civil society organizations and water users make up these associations. The creation of a committee is subject to approval by resolution of the National Council of Water Resources (CNRH), being subsequently released by Presidential Decree.

More on: http://www2.ana.gov.br/Paginas/EN/support.aspx

Thank you all. But i think i still need more resources. 

Professor Allessandro, the thesis you shared looks important but it is not in English.

Look at social construction theory -Ore, T.E. (2003) The social construction of difference of inequalities or read  Olivier M. 1998 Theories in Health Care and Research