text:
Template:Sec link auto/doc

This is the sec link auto template.

It creates a secure link only if the user is using the secure server, otherwise it makes a normal link. The link can be local or to any other Wikimedia project. It can for instance link to Wiktionary or the Portuguese Wikipedia.

Secure links go through the Wikimedia secure server, so they give you an encrypted connection between your browser and the Wikimedia servers.

This template is mostly meant for links to other projects, since local links that use the normal wikilink notation " " are already automatically changed to secure links when using the secure server. But hardcoded local links such as " " are not auto-changed. Then you can use this template to fix that.

If you want to make a link that sends all users to the secure server, then instead use sec link. For other secure link templates see the see also section below.

Usage
This templates takes one or more parameters:
 * The first is the prefix of the Wikimedia project you want to link to. For instance "wiktionary" or "wikt" for Wiktionary, and "de" for the German Wikipedia. This parameter must always be fed. For the complete list of prefixes see Special:SiteMatrix and.
 * The second parameter is the full pagename you want to link to, such as "User:Example" or "São Paulo". If this parameter is omitted then this template links to the main page of the project.
 * The third parameter is the text that will be visible as the link. If this parameter is omitted the link address is instead shown.
 * There is also a named parameter "lang=". This parameter is usually not used. It takes a language prefix such as "de" or "pt". This enables to link to for instance the German version of Wiktionary. If this parameter is omitted, then this template links to the same language on the other project as you are on here. So if on the English Wikipedia, and you link to Wiktionary, per default you get a link to the English Wiktionary.

To compare how the links on this page look and behave when using the secure server, follow this link:

And here's some examples:

In the above example we fed "lang=pt" before the other parameters. That is okay since named parameters don't interfere with the numbering of unnamed parameters.

Anchors and queries
This template can also handle anchors and query parameters. Like this:

When feeding query parameters you must manually change any spaces " " to plus signs " ". But feed anchors unchanged.

The padlock
When these links are seen from the secure server, then they all have a small padlock. That padlock is automatically added to all https links by the global CSS in all Wikimedia projects. This template does not suppress that, since it makes it clearer when it is a secure link.

But if you want to suppress the padlock, then there are two ways. Like this:

Using " " is easier for a single link. But when having many links then surrounding the whole area with " " can be more convenient.

Many templates such as the mboxes, navboxes and infoboxes use the "plainlinks" class since it also prevents the external link icon. Thus when this template is used inside such boxes it looses the padlock. Then you can turn on the padlock like this:

Note: You will only see a padlock in the above example if you from the secure server, since this template only makes secure links if you already are using the secure server.

Technical details
When you are connected to the secure server, then most local links in a project is automatically secure links. But hardcoded links and links to other projects are unfortunately not auto-changed to secure links. With this template you can work around that.

This template doesn't handle the "" prefix, since it already points to a secure server.

Some languages on Wikisource don't have their own language project, instead they are pages under the main "" address. For instance the Afrikaans main page on Wikisourse is not " ", but instead " ".

This template internally uses the sub-templates sec link/secure url, sec link/normal url, sec link/normal link and sec link/text. Those sub-templates are also used by its sister templates.

title: Template:Sec link auto/doc


text: Template:Sec link auto

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Template:Sec link auto


text: Template:Sec link/text

title: Template:Sec link/text


text:
Template:Sec link/text/doc

This is the sec link/text sub-template.

Do not use this template directly, use sec link or sec link auto and their sister templates instead.

This template is called from the sec link family of templates.

Technical details
This sub-template returns the text (caption) for a link. It expects these parameters:

If "text" is fed it simply returns that, otherwise it builds the proper default text by using the other parameters.

For more documentation see sec link.

title: Template:Sec link/text/doc


text:
Template:Sec link/normal url

http://.org/wiki/

title: Template:Sec link/normal url


text:
Template:Sec link/normal url/doc

This is the sec link/normal url sub-template.

Do not use this template directly, use sec link or sec link auto and their sister templates instead.

This template is called from the sec link family of templates.

Technical details
This sub-template returns a raw URL for the normal servers. It expects these parameters:

For more documentation see sec link auto.

title: Template:Sec link/normal url/doc


text:
Template:Sec link/normal link/doc

This is the sec link/normal link sub-template.

Do not use this template directly, use sec link or sec link auto and their sister templates instead.

This template is called from the sec link family of templates.

Technical details
This sub-template returns a raw (without the double brackets) normal wikilink for the normal servers. It expects these parameters:

This template can't handle query parameters.

And it currently can't be used for linked images, since the anchors break there.

But we use it for the other cases in sec link auto, since we want to use normal wikilinks for the local links so "what links here" works.

For more documentation see sec link auto.

title: Template:Sec link/normal link/doc


text: Template:Sec link/normal link

title: Template:Sec link/normal link


text:
Template:Sec link/doc

This is the sec link template.

It creates a secure link. The link can be local or to any other Wikimedia project. It can for instance link to Wiktionary or the Portuguese Wikipedia.

Secure links go through the Wikimedia secure server, so they give you an encrypted connection between your browser and the Wikimedia servers.

Note! For most usage cases you should instead use sec link auto. That one creates a secure link only if the user is already using the secure server, otherwise it makes a normal link. For other secure link templates see the see also section below.

Usage
This templates takes one or more parameters:
 * The first is the prefix of the Wikimedia project you want to link to. For instance "wiktionary" or "wikt" for Wiktionary, and "de" for the German Wikipedia. This parameter must always be fed. For the complete list of prefixes see Special:SiteMatrix and.
 * The second parameter is the full pagename you want to link to, such as "User:Example" or "São Paulo". If this parameter is omitted then this template links to the main page of the project.
 * The third parameter is the text that will be visible as the link. If this parameter is omitted the link address is instead shown.
 * There is also a named parameter "lang=". This parameter is usually not used. It takes a language prefix such as "de" or "pt". This enables to link to for instance the German version of Wiktionary. If this parameter is omitted, then this template links to the same language on the other project as you are on here. So if on the English Wikipedia, and you link to Wiktionary, per default you get a link to the English Wiktionary.

Here's some examples:

In the above example we fed "lang=pt" before the other parameters. That is okay since named parameters don't interfere with the numbering of unnamed parameters.

This template can of course also create a secure link to the same project as it currently is used on. For instance, even if already on the English Wikipedia this works:

Anchors and queries
This template can also handle anchors and query parameters. Like this:

When feeding query parameters you must manually change any spaces " " to plus signs " ". But feed anchors unchanged.

The padlock
The small padlock is automatically added to all https links by the global CSS in all Wikimedia projects. This template does not suppress that, since it makes it clearer it is a secure link. But if you want to suppress the padlock, then there are two ways. Like this:

Using " " is easier for a single link. But when having many links then surrounding the whole area with " " can be more convenient.

Many templates such as the mboxes, navboxes and infoboxes use the "plainlinks" class since it also prevents the external link icon. Thus when this template is used inside such boxes it looses the padlock. Then you can turn on the padlock like this:

Technical details
When you are connected to the secure server, then most local links in a project is automatically secure links. But hardcoded links and links to other projects are unfortunately not auto-changed to secure links. With this template you can work around that.

This template doesn't handle the "" prefix, since it already points to a secure server.

Some languages on Wikisource don't have their own language project, instead they are pages under the main "" address. For instance the Afrikaans main page on Wikisourse is not " ", but instead " ".

This template internally uses the sub-templates sec link/secure url and sec link/text. It also has the sub-templates sec link/normal url and sec link/normal link, but they are used by its sister templates such as sec link auto and sec link image.

title: Template:Sec link/doc


text:
Template:Sec link

[ ]

title: Template:Sec link


text:
User:Boud

See.

useful wikiversity links

 * Category:Page_flag_templates
 * Help:Resource types - what is the terminology for different types of "resources" (cf Wikipedia: articles, talk pages, etc)

cosmo/astro/relativity

 * Astrophysics Source Code Library

SR/GR course
As of 00:57, 5 February 2011 (UTC), i'm converging on preparing the basic elements of an SR/GR course in a bricks-and-telescope university that will start within about 10 days. The course will be primarily in English, with Polish as a backup language. Since there's very little time left, i don't know how idealistic i can be in using/supporting wikiversity/wikibooks/wikipedia resources. i've spent several hours browsing through Wikiversity introductory pages, and i suspect that Wikiversity is maybe not too far off from heading in a viable direction, but that the main barrier to gaining a critical mass is the (probably computational complexity more than Kolmogorov complexity) of the task.

Hypothesis: physical science courses using pdf (or openoffice etc.) projector presentations + exercises + further reading list from Wikipedia and/or Wikibooks might be "hard core" enough to attract editors/teachers/students, with the benefit of allowing exercises + exams to be done using WIMS in "brick-and-telescope" universities for formal credit. WIMS itself also needs some more good developers before usage can grow exponentially IMHO.

Worry about wasted resources: there are journals devoted to physics teaching (i don't remember the names offhand) in Europe and the US, all probably closed access. It's a bit of a pity to have to rediscover principles of good teaching particular ideas, but probably we have to live with closed access journals for still some time yet.

GR/GR course northern "summer" semester feb-jun 2011

 * university wiki page: http://cosmo.torun.pl/foswiki/bin/view/Cosmo/SRandGR
 * projector presentation pdf: TODO
 * exercises: TODO
 * but maybe too longwinded for a 1 or 2 lecture presentation of SR?
 * various articles from
 * various articles from
 * various articles from

Questions

 * What are the practical possibilities for using WM resources and for contributing to them?
 * pdf presentation
 * wims exercises
 * probably through the WIMS distribution of sources under the GPL
 * should be multi-licensed (e.g. GPL for WIMS data set, plus GFDL + CC-BY-SA-3.0 in order to sastisfy WMF licensing as of 2011)
 * Is there any point in using/helping Wikiversity?
 * redirects to
 * redirects to
 * redirects to
 * redirects to

Progress/plan

 * 1) done. tidy existing resources, learn terminology/structure at Wikiversity.
 * 2) i've done some cleaning up of School:Physics and Astronomy. From the page Topic:Special relativity now seems to be clear that although we have a Study_guide:Special relativity, we don't know what a Help:Study guide really is.  We have some Help:lectures on SR. So what i want to put in place is most likely a Help:Course, and the Study_guide:Special relativity is probably closest to that. Topic:General relativity shows that there are very few Wikiversity resources at all. i suspect that people with good intentions interested in contributing have difficulty understanding the complementarity of roles between Wikipedia, Wikibooks and Wikiversity. Boud 13:29, 21 June 2011 (UTC)
 * 3) done. pdf
 * 4) ask for help at Commons about uploading Boud 11:16, 29 June 2011 (UTC)
 * 5) list the images that are not already on the Commons and upload them individually including source code - most are .fig files, and so can be posted as verbatim text
 * 6) full source package for pdf: how? .tar.gz file? includes:
 * 7) * 1 latex source file
 * 8) * images presently as .eps as in arXiv - should there be a script for downloading and converting them from the Commons?
 * 9) * script for doing latex, latex, dvips, ps2pdf etc
 * 10) compiled pdf file
 * 11) Workable pdf's with full source code and semi-readable svg versions available at Special relativity and steps towards general relativity.
 * 12) wims
 * 13) convert source to a "module" (?). done.
 * 14) need to contact WIMS people to find out how to contribute as GPL + CC-BY-SA + GFDL triply licensed (but apparently CC-BY-SA-3.0 implies GFDL automatically? TODO: check this).
 * 15) Explained briefly (in French) on the Wimsedu wiki. Messages sent. July, especially le 14 juillet, is not a period to expect fast replies.
 * 16) The GFDL CC-BY-SA relation is a time-limited to 2009 mass transfer operation. Probably GFDL can be safely left off. Is CC-BY-SA really needed?
 * 17) * The number of authors of a given "official" WIMS module is likely to be small, so getting all their agreements to add CC-BY-SA licensing in the moderately near future (2-3 years) should be less difficult than for e.g. Wikipedia articles.
 * 18) * Correcting bugs or improving the quality of WIMS source question is probably closer to software development than to wiki-text development: introduction of a tiny error can lead to dramatically wrong results of the code. In that sense, maybe the software style of development, with the GPL, makes more sense than CC-BY-SA for wiki-text.
 * 19) link to some of the main WIMS servers after the course becomes accepted and distributed in mainstream (e.g. debian stable) distributions?

Preliminary thoughts for developing a wikiversity course this way

 * uploading the course itself "live" during the semester when it is first being developed is probably overambitious as of Wikiversity's state in 2011
 * the required critical mass of editors is likely to be much more difficult to achieve than for Wikipedia, and will require more geekiness - e.g. editing a latex source file and WIMS source file (more or less = html + latex with random variables defined)
 * preparing the course with the intention of it becoming CC-BY-SA on Wikiversity is definitely a good idea so that you are careful to avoid any non-free material in your pdf and wims exercises (or something like flash that requires a non-free plugin), and in principle you could just upload a big .tar.gz file, even though few people would use it
 * uploading files directly to Wikiversity IMHO seems to me to be unwise:
 * Commons has an active user community, so that there is a reasonable chance of care being taken regarding copyright issues, moderate levels of tech help, help with categorisation, etc.
 * files that are usable on at least one WMF project are accepted there, including in some cases "non-standard" formats; image files exported to .svg and documented with source code can be posted, e.g. Xfig .fig files or Commons:Category:Created with GNU Octave, so that what as of July 2011 is a better format file in postscript can be created directly from the source code
 * if a file is only available monolithically, so that its parts are not useful on other WMF projects, is it really a useful educational resource? and does it comply with the spirit of free licensing (the practical ability to modify the file and redistribute modified versions)?
 * file issues - software evolution questions:
 * Will more recent versions of Xfig than 3.2 - see e.g. Commons:File:Rotation_Euclidean_basis.svg - GNU Octave than 3.0.1 - see e.g. Commons:File:Scalar_fields_theta.svg - have the equivalent of being able to use LaTeX specials when exporting to svg so that the svg exported files are at least usable directly, rather than having to be bypassed by using the source code directly?
 * Could a freely-licensed script for viewing mediawiki-text pages give the equivalent of the pdf slides files? It seems from this D'Arcy Norman blog post that this 'Wikipedia Presentation' script can be installed for use with greasemonkey, and then be used for viewing a mediawiki-text page as a fullscreen presentation. However: the script seems to be non-free, since no licence is stated, there seem to be some bugs, it doesn't seem to have been updated for five years, and it's not clear if it includes all the useful commands in prosper (which became powerdot) like untilSlide and onlySlide etc. This is probably doable, but someone/some developers have to do the work and users have to debug it.
 * present Wikiversity guidelines about forks being likely are a good idea - it's unlikely that two different lecturers will wish to present material in quite the same way to two different classes of students with different levels, in different countries, etc.

title: User:Boud


text:
Talk:Survey research and design in psychology/Assessment/Quizzes

Student feedback 2010
In the 2010 open-ended Unit Satisfaction Survey (USS) comments, quizzes were mentioned twice in response to "best aspects" and six times in response to "needs improving". These student responses are quoted below, with emerging recommendations for 2011 summarised.

Best aspects

 * 1) "Regular quizzes were a great motivator for continuing textbook-reading and revising lecture material."
 * 2) "quizzes (helped me to stay on top of the cumulative lecture material)"

To improve

 * 1) "Have online quiz topics in the same week as the topic is covered in the lecture. This will help reinforce learning."
 * 2) * Response: Agreed - quizzes in 2011 will be open for three weeks each.
 * 3) "i would prefer a mid semester exam to the quizzes each week. and cover half the topics in that and the rest in the end of semester exam"
 * 4) * Response: This could be done. However, opinion seems to be in favour of regular quizzes rather than a mid-semester and end-of-semester exam.
 * 5) "the weighting of the quizes each week were worth very little however did provide constant feedback. Maybe make the results/answers avaliable for longer after the quiz is finished i.e. can be put back up once the quiz is closed for the possibility of being graded"
 * 6) * Response: The quizzes were worth little in order to provide regular feedback whilst minimising stress/pressure (of large assessment weightings). Ongoing access to quiz responses seems to be the most requested change - see recommended changes.
 * 7) "The quiz's were a very stressful experience that I believed did not reflect the content in the lectures or the readings (which were difficult to understand at the best of times). I believe that weekly quiz's are a good idea HOWEVER only the best three marks should count to the overall grade (like experimental psychology). There are some weeks that unforeseeable circumstances may occur and may force students to miss a quiz or the content is beyond comprehension... We should have the ability to be able to revise the weekly quiz's especially when you don't achieve a high mark in them. It is pointless only being able to view your answers immediately after completing the quiz and hoping that the screen doesn't turn off."
 * 8) * Response: It is hoped that the stress is kept low by having the quizzes worth relatively little (2% each). Students will be given three weeks instead of one week to prepare for the quizzes and it will be explained more clearly up-front that quiz responses will not be available after the quiz closes in order to encourage appropriate note-taking for future study purposes. Quiz items will be improved by adding more detailed feedback on right and wrong answers.
 * 9) "The quiz questions were a little ambiguous sometimes- the lecturer made adjustments to allow for this but this required extra time and effort on both sides."
 * 10) * Response: Students who enquired about ambiguous or incorrect quiz questions were able to negotiate adjusted marks and improvements to the questions where appropriate. However, many students didn't have the confidence to do so. Quiz items will be revised to reduce ambiguity before being released in 2011.
 * 11) "Quizzes – After the deadline, it would be good if quizzes were accessible for revision purposes (some students know how to take screenshots of the quiz before closing it and some don’t, so it creates an imbalance not having them accessible to everyone)."
 * 12) * Response: Students will be warned more clearly up-front that they cannot view their responses after the quiz results screen closes and that they they should therefore make notes for study purposes.

Recommended changes

 * 1) Students would like their quiz responses to be available for review for longer, however this will not be permitted in order to minimise sharing of answers (cheating). Students will be warned more clearly, up-front that their answers will no longer be available once they close the results screen and to therefore take notes for personal study purposes.
 * 2) Quiz questions and answers should be reviewed and revised with regard to:
 * 3) Clarity (ambiguity) of question wording and answer wording
 * 4) Relevance to lecture/reading (this may require revision of the lecture/reading rather than the quiz as appropriate)
 * 5) Adding more feedback about incorrect items, with links to more information, to help facilitate learning
 * 6) Expanding the number of items in the testbank (to minimise potential for copying/cheating)
 * 7) Allow quizzes to be open for a longer (three weeks rather than a week), to help address the concern that "there are some weeks that unforeseeable circumstances may occur and may force students to miss a quiz" and to help improve the overlap between the lecture/tutorial content coverage and the quiz assessments.


text:
Introduction to Business Studies

Business Environment
In the context of business the environment refers to the sum of internal and external forces operating on an organization. The managers must perforce recognize the elements, severity and impact of these forces on the organization. They must identify, evaluate and react to the forces triggered by the external environment.

More often than not, these forces are beyond the control of an organization and its managers. Accordingly, the factors of the environment will need to be considered as inputs in the planning and forecasting models developed by an organization.

An organization operates within the larger framework of the external environment that shapes opportunities and poses threats to the organization. The external environment is a set of complex, rapidly changing and significant interacting institutions and forces that affect the organization's ability to serve its customers. External forces are not controlled by an organization, but they may be influenced or affected by that organization. It is necessary for organizations to understand the environmental conditions because they interact with strategy decisions. The external environment has a major impact on the determination of marketing decisions. Successful organizations scan their external environment so that they can respond profitably to unmet needs and trends in the targeted markets.

The Organization as a System
Internally, an organization can be viewed as a resource conversion machine that takes inputs (labor, money, materials and equipment) from the external environment (i.e., the world outside the boundaries of the organization), converts them into useful products, goods, and services, and makes them available to customers as outputs. The organization must continuously monitor and adapt to the environment if it is to survive and prosper. Disturbances in the environment may spell profound threats or new opportunities. The successful organization will identify, appraise, and respond to the various opportunities and threats in its environment.

External Macro environment
The external macro environment consists of all the outside institutions and forces that have an actual or potential interest or impact on the organization's ability to achieve its objectives: competitive, economic, technological, political, legal, demographic, cultural, and ecosystem. Though noncontrollable, these forces require a response in order to keep positive actions with the targeted markets. An organization with an environmental management perspective takes aggressive actions to affect the forces in its marketing environment rather than simply watching and reacting to it.

1. Economic Environment
The economic environment consists of factors that affect consumer purchasing power and spending patterns. Economic factors include business cycles, inflation, unemployment, interest rates, and income. Changes in major economic variables have a significant impact on the marketplace. For example, income affects consumer spending which affects sales for organizations. According to Engel's Laws, as income rises, the percentage of income spent on food decreases, while the percentage spent on housing remains constant.

2. Technological Environment
The technological environment refers to new technologies, which create new product and market opportunities. Technological developments are the most manageable uncontrollable force faced by marketers. Organizations need to be aware of new technologies in order to turn these advances into opportunities and a competitive edge. Technology has a tremendous effect on life-styles, consumption patterns, and the economy. Advances in technology can start new industries, radically alter or destroy existing industries, and stimulate entirely separate markets. The rapid rate at which technology changes has forced organizations to quickly adapt in terms of how they develop, price, distribute, and promote their products.

3. Political and Legal Environment
Organizations must operate within a framework of governmental regulation and legislation. Government relationships with organizations encompass subsidies, tariffs, import quotas, and deregulation of industries.

The political environment includes governmental and special interest groups that influence and limit various organizations and individuals in a given society. Organizations hire lobbyists to influence legislation and run advocacy ads that state their point of view on public issues. Special interest groups have grown in number and power over the last three decades, putting more constraints on marketers. The public expects organizations to be ethical and responsible. An example of response by marketers to special interests is green marketing, the use of recyclable or biodegradable packing materials as part of marketing strategy. The major purposes of business legislation include protection of companies from unfair competition, protection of consumers from unfair business practices and protection of the interests of society from unbridled business behavior. The legal environment becomes more complicated as organizations expand globally and face governmental structures quite different from those within the United States.

4. Demographic Environment
Demographics tell marketers who current and potential customers are; where they are; and how many are likely to buy what the marketer is selling. Demography is the study of human populations in terms of size, density, location, age, sex, race, occupation, and other statistics. Changes in the demographic environment can result in significant opportunities and threats presenting themselves to the organization. Major trends for marketers in the demographic environment include worldwide explosive population growth; a changing age, ethnic and educational mix; new types of households; and geographical shifts in population.

5. Social / Cultural Environment
Social/cultural forces are the most difficult uncontrollable variables to predict. It is important for marketers to understand and appreciate the cultural values of the environment in which they operate. The cultural environment is made up of forces that affect society's basic values, perceptions, preferences, and behaviors. U.S. values and beliefs include equality, achievement, youthfulness, efficiency, practicality, self-actualization, freedom, humanitarianism, mastery over the environment, patriotism, individualism, religious and moral orientation, progress, materialism, social interaction, conformity, courage, and acceptance of responsibility. Changes in social/cultural environment affect customer behavior, which affects sales of products. Trends in the cultural environment include individuals changing their views of themselves, others, and the world around them and movement toward self-fulfillment, immediate gratification, and secularism.

6. Ecosystem Environment
The ecosystem refers to natural systems and its resources that are needed as inputs by marketers or that are affected by marketing activities. Green marketing or environmental concern about the physical environment has intensified in recent years. To avoid shortages in raw materials, organizations can use renewable resources (such as forests) and alternatives (such as solar and wind energy) for nonrenewable resources (such as oil and coal). Organizations can limit their energy usage by increasing efficiency. Goodwill can be built by voluntarily engaging in pollution prevention activities and natural resource.

External Micro environment
The external micro environment consists of forces that are part of an organization's marketing process but are external to the organization. These micro environmental forces include the organization's market, its producer-suppliers, and its marketing intermediaries. While these are external, the organization is capable of exerting more influence over these than forces in the macro environment.

1. The Market
Organizations closely monitor their customer markets in order to adjust to changing tastes and preferences. A market is people or organizations with wants to satisfy, money to spend, and the willingness to spend it. Each target market has distinct needs, which need to be monitored. It is imperative for an organization to know their customers, how to reach them and when customers' needs change in order to adjust its marketing efforts accordingly. The market is the focal point for all marketing decisions in an organization.

2. Suppliers
Suppliers are organizations and individuals that provide the resources needed to produce goods and services. They are critical to an organization's marketing success and an important link in its value delivery system.

3. Marketing Intermediaries
Like suppliers, marketing intermediaries are an important part of the system used to deliver value to customers. Marketing intermediaries are independent organizations that aid in the flow of products from the marketing organization to its markets. The intermediaries between an organization and its markets constitute a channel of distribution. These include middlemen (wholesalers and retailers who buy and resell merchandise). Physical distribution firms help the organization to stock and move products from their points of origin to their destinations. Warehouses store and protect the goods before they move to the next destination. Marketing service agencies help the organization target and promote its products and include marketing research firms, advertising agencies, and media firms. Financial intermediaries help finance transactions and insure against risks and include banks, credit unions, and insurance companies.

Importance of understanding the environment
The managers job cannot be accomplished in a vacuum within the organization. There are a number of factors both internal as well as external which jointly affect managerial decision-making. It is therefore very important for the manager to understand and evaluate the impact of the business environment due to the following reasons :
 * a)Businesses may be doomed to be non starters due to restrictive business environment which may take the form of rigid government laws ( no polluting industry can ever be located in around 50 Km radius of the Taj), state of competition ( Car manufacturing capacity presently in the country is far in excess of demand) etc.
 * b)The present and future viability of an enterprise is impacted by the environment For example no TV manufacturer can be expected to survive by making only B&W television sets when consumer preference has clearly shifted to color television sets.
 * c)The cost of capital and the cost of borrowing - two key financial drivers of any enterprise are impacted by the external environment . For example,the ability of a business to fund its expansion plan by raising money from the stock markets depends on the prevalent public mood towards investment in stock markets.
 * d)The availability of all key inputs like skilled labor, trained managers , raw materials , electricity , transportation , fuel etc are a factor of the business environment.
 * e)Increasing public awareness of the negative aspects of certain industries like hand woven carpets ( use of child labor ), pesticides (damage to environment in the form of chemical residues in groundwater), plastic bags (choking of sewer lines) have resulted in the slow decline of some industries.
 * f)Finally, the environment offers the opportunities for growth and profits . For example, when the insurance and aviation industry was thrown open to the private sector , the new entrant could easily build on the expectations of the public.

Changing profile of Indian economic environment
Policies between 1950-70 were implemented with a sincere belief in the efficacy of the socialist philosophy and political democracy. Heavy investment by government in Steel plants, atomic energy, hydroelectric power and irrigation projects laid the foundation of a strong industrial edifice.

The economy had stagnated since the late nineteenth century, and industrial development had been restrained to preserve the area as a market for British manufacturers. In fiscal year (FY) 1950, agriculture, forestry, and fishing accounted for 58.9 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and for a much larger proportion of employment. Manufacturing, which was dominated by the jute and cotton textile industries, accounted for only 10.3 percent of GDP at that time.

Beginning in the late 1970s, successive Indian governments sought to reduce state control of the economy. Progress toward that goal was slow but steady, and many analysts attributed the stronger growth of the 1980s to those efforts. In the late 1980s, however, India relied on foreign borrowing to finance development plans to a greater extent than before.

India embarked on a series of economic reforms in 1991 in reaction to a severe foreign exchange crisis. Those reforms have included liberalized foreign investment and exchange regimes, significant reductions in tariffs and other trade barriers, reform and modernization of the financial sector, and significant adjustments in government monetary and fiscal policies.

The reform process has had some very beneficial effects on the Indian economy, including higher growth rates, lower inflation, and significant increases in foreign investment. Foreign portfolio and direct investment flows have risen significantly since reforms began in 1991 and have contributed to healthy foreign currency reserves ($32 billion in February 2000) and a moderate current account deficit of about 1% (1998-99).

India's trade has increased significantly since reforms began in 1991, largely as a result of staged tariff reductions and elimination of non-tariff barriers. The outlook for further trade liberalization is mixed. The U.S. is India's largest trading partner; bilateral trade in 1998-99 was about $10.9 billion. Principal U.S. exports to India are aircraft and parts, advanced machinery, fertilizers, ferrous waste and scrap metal, and computer hardware. Major U.S. imports from India include textiles and ready-made garments, agricultural and related products, gems and jewelry, leather products, and chemicals.

Significant liberalization of its investment regime since 1991 has made India an attractive place for foreign direct and portfolio investment. The U.S. is India's largest investment partner, with total inflow of U.S. direct investment estimated at $2 billion (market value) in 1999. U.S. investors also have provided an estimated 11% of the $18 billion of foreign portfolio investment that has entered India since 1992. Automatic approvals are available for investments involving up to 100% foreign equity, depending on the kind of industry. Foreign investment is particularly sought after in power generation, telecommunications, ports, roads, petroleum exploration and processing, and mining.

title: Introduction to Business Studies


text:
Wiki gaming

Wiki gaming is the use of wikis as a platform for a game.

Wikipedia game pages
(See Category:Wikipedia games)
 * Portal:India/Quiz: Quiz game about India
 * Wikipedia:WikiRPG currently defunct role playing game to encourage wikipedia editing
 * Wikipedia:Trading card game current Wikipedia card trading game

External Wikipedia game sites

 * The Wiki Game: Explore and race through Wikipedia articles!
 * Wikispeedia
 * Wikipediamaze

title: Wiki gaming


text:
Talk:Teaching EFL Listening via FUN WITH ENGLISH Books/8B/Lesson 11

whoever added this MR DANOFF YOU SUCK AND THIS LESSON PLAN IS AWFUL AND VAIN AND YOU ARE ONLY PUTTING THIS ONLINE TO SHOW OFF. I am glad you have an opinion on my lesson, can you articulate it better, please? Perhaps also, do so in the "lesson review" section. --67.184.177.104 07:46, 5 February 2011 (UTC) (Mr. D)


text:
Template:Gaming card

  Wikiversity Image credit:

Transcluded from Wikipedia:Trading card game/Template:Card

title: Template:Gaming card


text: Reviewing My Semester with the FUN WITH ENGLISH 7A & 8A Textbooks/Lesson Plan Mold


text: User:KBlott/FP paper (to-do list)

title: User:KBlott/FP paper (to-do list)


text:
User:Ketankhope

Hello, and welcome. My name is Ketan Khope, and I work as a Web Developer. My interests, thus include Web technologies, programming, programming languages, and a wide variety of other random strange topics. So i am here to contribute to my part thats webs technologies. You can send me an email at ketan.khope@gmail.com or follow me @ketankhope541 on twitter.com

title: User:Ketankhope


text:
User:Shawnprez

Shawn M. Collier, Born (March 7, 1991) Shawn is a young new talent that is on the move to make a mark on this world. Shawn is an Singer, Musician, Christian Comedian, and On-Air Personality that puts all his resources to work in a way that help as well as entertain the community. Shawn Started his Career at a young age of Fourteen as an intern for WUSL-FM Philadelphia "POWER 99" & WDAS-FM (Clear Channel Radio) on the Programing and Production team for "The Sam Sylk Show"(Power 99) and "LOVE, LUST, AND LIES" With Michael Baisden (WDAS-FM). After leaving Clear Channel he Returned to Calvary Baptist Church where he enhanced his craft of audio mixing and video production in Calvary's Media Ministry. This only elevated his passion for Ministry and Music. After being behind the scene's for so long, Shawn and a select few knew he had the potential to be in the forefront but he never had the desire to step out. Shawn is now starting his next "BIG" Project with "The Shawn Prez Show" taking you to the next level of Christian Radio. The MUSIC is awesome, the COMEDY is side splitting, but the main Goal is to WIN SOULS FOR CHRIST.

Shawn is now a New member on WTUWonline.com Tuesday's at 8pm (Starting February 8th)

title: User:Shawnprez


text:
User:TutorJDD/object-oriented programming

object-oriented programming

 * Topic:Object-oriented programming

Background
[...] software [...] purpose must be defined [...] usually captured in some kind of document [...] particularly when there is more than one participant involved in the creation of the software.

[•] Two major classes of design documentation have been placed into widespread practice:
 * 1) Requirements – The requirements define the intended functionality of the software for users and external systems. For example, one requirement of an automated teller machine is that the users that meet certain criteria must be able to withdraw cash.
 * 2) Specifications – The specifications state the constraints that must be met by users and external systems before the software will function properly (as defined by the requirements). For example, part of the specification of some automated teller machines is that the user must bring a bank card and swipe it in the machine. Users that do not comply with this part of the specification will be unable to use it.

[...] most software will never reach a point where all of the desired requirements are met because the requirements will change and grow as soon as the software goes into use. So, software design is principally concerned with designing software that is expected to continuously evolve to meet an ever-changing list of requirements. [...] good design is about creating software that can evolve and adapt over a long period of time and an indefinite number of versions, it is not chiefly concerned with creating a pristine finished product that is intended to remain untouched upon completion.

[...] Supporting the object oriented paradigm is the process of object oriented design, or OOD. OOD aims to design software such that it is broken up into manageable chunks called classes. A class is a unit of code that contains information and defines behaviors that manage that information. In this way, the information managed by the class can only be changed by the outside world in the ways defined by the class. The world outside that class need not understand the details of how such information must be manipulated; ensuring that the information is complete and consistent is managed within the class itself, greatly simplifying the task of working with that information for the outside world.

Principles
The fundamental unit of an object oriented system is the class. A class is a set of data and the behaviors that operate upon that data. Each behavior is captured in a method, which is a function associated with a class. A class defines a type of object that can exist within the system.

[...] an example. An object is related to its class much in the same way a specific dog ( [...] Rover) is related to the class of all dogs. In the object oriented approach we say that Rover is an instance of a dog. Similarly, we would refer to an object as an instance of a particular class. Just as Rover and Fido are two distinct instances of dogs, at any given time there may be many instances of a particular class existing in an object oriented system.

If we are designing an object oriented system designed to represent dogs, then, we would use this analogy to create a class called Dog. On this class we can define variables like hairColor, hairLength, eyeColor, weight, height, etc. We can also define behaviors that all dogs share such as eat, sleep, bark, and run. The behaviors we define may use the state stored in the variables to determine how to correctly carry out the behavior (for instance, a large dog will eat more and bark louder than a small dog). When we instantiate, or create, a new dog we would initialize it with all the properties of the specific dog we wish to represent. So, even though we'd have two instances of the Dog class in our system, fido and rover, they would exhibit the same behaviors in different ways based on their individual state.

There are three principles fundamental to the definition of all object oriented software: encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism. We will discuss each in turn, but [...] realize that all three principles work in combination to define a particular class.

The principle of encapsulation refers to the scope and visibility of state within a class. It is important for each class to define behaviors usable by the outside world in such a way that the internal state is not known outside the object, nor would it be necessary for that state to be known for objects of the class to serve a purpose within the system. Encapsulation goes hand-in-hand with

the principle of information hiding, [...] any information that need not be known by outside agents should be hidden from view. In this way, the outside world sees only what it needs to see in order to use the object, simplifying its usage.

To use the example above, the eat method of our Dog class might use a very complex algorithm based on the weight, height, and any other characteristics of that particular dog to calculate how much food it should eat when invoked. The outside world ought to regard the particular process used by the class with disinterest—it simply calls the eat method and, from that outside perspective, the dog eats.

Inheritance refers to a particular relationship that two or more classes can share. After we define our Dog class, we may wish to design some classes that represent particular breeds: German Shepherd, Pointer, and Retriever, for example. All of these are different kinds of dogs. As such, any behavior or characteristic our more generic Dog class contains ought to also be contained by each of these classes. [...] the different breeds of dog extend or inherit from the Dog class, and instances of those classes automatically get all of the characteristics and behaviors defined on Dog.

Polymorphism refers to a particular feature of classes that define an inheritance relationship. Above, we said that a Pointer is a specific kind of Dog, and therefore the Pointer class can extend the Dog class. Once this inheritance-type relationship is defined between these two classes, the outside world can treat any pointer specifically as a pointer, or it may also treat it more generally as simply a dog. When dealing with a particular instance, in fact, the outside world need not even know its dealing with a pointer. For example, if the Pointer class defines an additional behavior unique to pointers, such as point, when dealing with an instance of the Pointer class—let's call this particular dog pointy—we may invoke the point method and observe Pointy point. However, if we are only interested in requesting that Pointy do things that all dogs can do, such as eat and sleep, we may forget altogether that Pointy is in fact a Pointer and simply treat him just as though he were directly an instance of the Dog class. Polymorphism is the ability of objects to behave as though they are instances of a superclass. [...]


text:
User talk:Otosere felix nuanae

 Hello Otosere felix nuanae, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 12:16, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Otosere felix nuanae


text:
User talk:Ketankhope

 Hello Ketankhope, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 12:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Ketankhope


text:
User talk:Bhaskark~enwikiversity

 Hello Bhaskark, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 12:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Bhaskark. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Bhaskark~enwikiversity that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

Your account will still work as before, and you will be credited for all your edits made so far, but you will have to use the new account name when you log in.

Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:28, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:04, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Bhaskark~enwikiversity


text:
User talk:Shawnprez

 Hello Shawnprez, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 12:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Shawnprez


text:
User talk:Mujahid Ali

 Hello Mujahid Ali, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 12:18, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Mujahid Ali


text: File:IMG 0441.jpg

title: File:IMG 0441.jpg


title: File:Mookey111.jpg


text:
User:SHAWWPG19410425/PROPOSED CLOSURE OF WIKIVERSITY

TO WHOM THIS MIGHT CONCERN.

I have noticed that it has been proposed that Wikiversity should be closed down on April 4th 2011 apparently because some users have vandalized the work  of other contributors , these latter having added to Wikiversity in good faith. As far as I am concerned the closure of Wikiversity would mean that genuine researchers might find that there is no place left to put hypothetically new knowledge into the public domain so that this can be authenticated or otherwise discredited. The Wikiversity allows new ideas in every area of human endevour to have a platform where they can be thoroughly tested.

I have personally have made two substantial original research project contributions to Wikiversity, in February 2011, that await verification.

Closing the Wikiversity, in my opinion, would be like closing down the Internet because of hackers. Surely it would be far better for everyone if a sophisticated way could could be invented of filtering out vandalism against Wikiversity rather than tamely accepting defeat. Neither must Wikiversity become a victim of its own success. [By vandalism, I understand that some users are altering the contributions of others thereby rendering these entries invalid or at least suspect.]

If indeed the cessation proceeds on schedule as is anticipated then I do hope that there will be an immediate "plan B" replacement for Wikiversity.

SHAWWPG19410425 14:57, 5 February 2011 (UTC)


text:
User talk:U5280300

 Hello U5280300, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Ottava Rima (talk) 15:23, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Files Missing License Information
Thank you for uploading files to Wikiversity. See Media for copyright and license requirements for Wikiversity files. All files must have copyright and/or license information added to the file.

Instructions for adding copyright and/or license information are available at License tags. Files must be updated within seven days or they may be removed without further notice. See Requests For Deletion for more information.

The following files are missing copyright and/or license information:
 * File:Network2.jpg

MaintenanceBot (discuss • contribs) 03:59, 11 November 2013 (UTC)

title: User talk:U5280300


text: File:Peggy.jpg

title: File:Peggy.jpg


text:
User talk:Jennygirl1980

 Hello Jennygirl1980, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 17:16, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Jennygirl1980


text:
User talk:Arwah13th

 Hello Arwah13th, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 17:16, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Arwah13th


text:
User talk:DBall

 Hello DBall, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 17:16, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:DBall


text:
User talk:Vigneshvm20

 Hello Vigneshvm20, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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 * Visit a (kind of) random project.
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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 17:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Vigneshvm20


text:
User talk:Rcwhite364

 Hello Rcwhite364, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 17:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Rcwhite364


text:
User talk:Dusty492

 Hello Dusty492, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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You don't need to be an educator to edit. You only need to be bold to contribute and to experiment with the sandbox or your userpage. See you around Wikiversity! --Leutha 17:17, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

title: User talk:Dusty492


text:
User talk:U5280392

 Hello U5280392, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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title: User talk:U5280392


text:
User talk:Aachu~enwikiversity

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Your account will be renamed
Hello,

The developer team at Wikimedia is making some changes to how accounts work, as part of our on-going efforts to provide new and better tools for our users like cross-wiki notifications. These changes will mean you have the same account name everywhere. This will let us give you new features that will help you edit and discuss better, and allow more flexible user permissions for tools. One of the side-effects of this is that user accounts will now have to be unique across all 900 Wikimedia wikis. See the announcement for more information.

Unfortunately, your account clashes with another account also called Aachu. To make sure that both of you can use all Wikimedia projects in future, we have reserved the name Aachu~enwikiversity that only you will have. If you like it, you don't have to do anything. If you do not like it, you can pick out a different name.

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Sorry for the inconvenience.

Yours, Keegan Peterzell Community Liaison, Wikimedia Foundation 23:26, 17 March 2015 (UTC)

Renamed
 This account has been renamed as part of single-user login finalisation. If you own this account you can |log in using your previous username and password for more information. If you do not like this account's new name, you can choose your own using this form after logging in: . -- Keegan (WMF) (talk) 06:01, 19 April 2015 (UTC)

title: User talk:Aachu~enwikiversity


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User talk:Rakeshkumar79

 Hello Rakeshkumar79, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. After you leave a comment on a talk page, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone follow the threads of the discussion. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. All users are expected to abide by our Privacy policy, Civility policy, and the Terms of Use while at Wikiversity.

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title: User talk:Rakeshkumar79


text:
User:Nikkiclem

Hi I am Nicole Clements, I am in the second year at Westminster University, studying International Relations with Chinese. I am taking the Political Simulation and Gaming module this semester.

Hi to all in the lecture/seminar. I have come up with a starting idea for a game and if anyone likes the sound of it and would like to join me in a group please let me know. I was thinking of trying to simulate the decision making process during conflicts in the nuclear age, possibly in the time period of the Cold War. I thought it could be a board based game, possibly with 2 teams/players. Just an idea at the minute, it needs working on but if you would like to do this please get in touch. :)

Reflective Practice Analysis.

Reflective Practice Analysis of 4 or more political games. Nicole Clements 12884085. There are many different discourses present in today’s world, each presenting a differing view on gaming and simulation. Gaming and simulation are tools that can be, and are, used in many different situations, for alternative desired outcomes. A game or simulation might be employed by a teacher or parent to help with the child’s understanding and grasping of a particular matter, for example an election game which would help the students to understand the outcome of a particular election, or even try to emulate what might happen in a future one. Additionally, a game or simulation may be utilised by a country’s defence forces in order to act out different scenarios that could happen, possibly in an impending conflict. An example of a war game being used in this way is the game Kriegspiel, which was developed as a training aid in the 19th Century. Kriegspiel became a popular training resource and was used by many countries, including Germany, France, the UK, USA and Japan among others. Prior to 1933, Germany employed the use of war games in order to model a possible Polish invasion. Another, more recent, example of this particular use of a game was after the 1991 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, when the USA employed the game Gulf Strike to figure out tactics to use for Operation Desert Storm. As it can be seen, there are many wide ranging uses for games and simulations; some as educational, some as training aids and some to put across a political message. The psychological effects that come into play when a person participates in a game are certainly widely discussed and theorised about. It can be argued that it is this aspect of playing a game or participating in a simulation that really underpins most games or simulations. The ability of a designer to tap into the psychosis of the player(s) is paramount, especially in games or simulation used for education, training or to put across a particular message. There are different techniques and mechanisms that can be used to aid the purpose of the game, and to ensure an appropriate and fairly accurate modelling of the situation. Some games may employ a higher degree of abstraction than others, which might lead to the slight blurring of the message or idea that the game was modelled on, while others may leave the abstraction to be more apparent in the mechanics of the game and the realism to show through the actual experience of play. As shown later in this essay, various techniques are modelled by the games that are to be assessed, and as such provide differing results. After studying many different political games, it can be seen that slight differences in the game’s mechanics and design overall can make quite significant influences to the political message that the games are trying to portray. 5 very different games will be analysed throughout the course of this essay, each of which are quite unique to each other. The selection that will be examined show quite a range of techniques and mechanisms that can be used to model a chosen political situation, some of which work very well in their application as a political simulation, and others which seem to work decisively less well. The first game to be looked at is the well known board game, Monopoly. It was originally called The Landlord’s Game, and was created as a means of exposing the aspects of capitalism that were disliked by the designer, a lady called Elizabeth Magie. After many rounds of development by different people, it emerged as Monopoly as it is known today. However, ironically, during the time of the Red Scare, the Western governments, notably the USA, successfully attempted to turn around the message of the game so that it lost the connotations of a game that was against capitalism, and rather people perceived it to show the good points that capitalism could bring for those who, for example, own many properties. It can be difficult to examine Monopoly objectively, as many have played it just as a fun family game from their young years. However, upon closer inspection and examination of the game itself, it becomes slightly easier to do so. The political message that the game gives to the player is, it can be argued, largely dependent on the player’s personal political views. If they are more orientated to the left, then after playing the game they may be more likely to notice the message (originally intended) that capitalism and its offspring, for example, real estate monopolies, leads to the bankruptcy or financial difficulties of the other participants, who may for example, struggle to pay ever increasing rates. On the other hand, if the game was to be played by a player who has a higher affiliation with the right of the political spectrum, then they may take a different view on what the political message may have been. For example, they may understand the message to have been one of the great advantages of monopolies and the great revenues they could accrue, and the emergence of some different classes was a natural progression. The game does, at most times, simulate the decision-making process faced by the players’ real life counter parts. There is a certain amount of risk to be calculated with many purchases – should I buy this property even though I will be short of money for a while, but should get some income? – and also there are negotiations and deals taking place all the while which only are accepted when it benefits both parties. As players get more money and properties, it seemed that they took less risks with their capital and only accepted a property if it was of huge benefit, for example, completing a set. The game of Monopoly is well designed with respect to the mechanics of the game, as they do contribute well to its purpose and playability. The mechanics are very well thought out and this can been seen in the design of the property cards which carry a lot of information themselves, and also the Chance and Community Chest cards, which also have the player’s next action completely on the card. This makes the game very easily playable, as the rule book does not have to be continually checked for information. The pieces are simple trinkets from everyday industrial life, with the likes of a hat, ship or motor car available, and prove to be of appropriate proportions to play the game with. Even though originally, the pieces were selected from charms as the most easily available metal pieces during the war, it could be argued that the pieces that are widely known and used today represent various aspects of the industrial age during which the game underwent development and increasingly more popularity. The board itself also has a lot of information such as house prices, and as it is colour coded it makes the complete sets very clear, and also helps the players to identify their own properties and when another player has landed on them. The colour codes themselves also represent the appeal of the properties of which they correspond to. An example of this is that the cheapest properties and less sought after ones are the colour brown, which is an unpleasant and not very aesthetic colour. However, the most sought after properties on the board re purple, a colour which represents royalty and luxury in many countries across the world. The rules of the game are easy to follow, understand and remember, and are such that game play creates a highly social and competitive atmosphere. That said, however, there is still room within the rules for players to negotiate and form alliances and make deals with each other. The game uses some other appropriate techniques such as the practice of all players receiving the same amount of money at the start of the game. This is a way of showing an underlying message of the game - that the workings of capitalism lead to massive inequalities, even when people start off with the similar starting position. The game also puts a pressure on the players to buy many houses and become as rich as possible, and even to become quite ruthless in order to get ahead in the game – it does make the rise to the top very competitive. This technique mirrors the subject the game is trying to model, in so far as it shows a very competitive, dog-eat-dog type of world. Parts of the game are obviously, quite abstracted, as must be in some cases of attempting to simulate a certain situation. The game Monopoly combines the realism and abstraction very well, and when examined it can be seen that in many areas it is a very realistic game. Although, obviously, the actual environment of real estate and property management must be abstracted onto the game, there are many elements which remain realistic for the player. Some of the main examples include the psychological approach and mindset of the players; the procedures of acquiring and trading property; the possibility of bankruptcy, and also the fact that there is no finish line on the board – instead play may continue until players become either bankrupt or the last player standing. As with possibly any game, due to the very fact that it is a game, it can be possible for players to forget that there is a message behind it. Over time in Monopoly, the political message has been skewed, to actually show the opposite of the original intention. It can be argued though that this is less to do with faults of the game and more to do with the political economy of the international system as a whole at the time it underwent many of its developments. Although there are many versions of the game – different countries have different place names and more modern credit card versions have been introduced, among many others – there is little that needs to be done to really improve the fundamental mechanics of the game. The second political game to be assessed is Guy Debord’s Game of War. It is, rather self explanatorily, a war game, and has been used in many areas as a training tool. Debord looked upon the game as a work of art and indeed, upon first sight of the game it can be seen that it is rather unusual looking, but quite an aesthetic piece. With many elements of real warfare stripped down to their basics and transformed onto the Game of War, it can be argued that it has made the game rather abstract. In some areas this is the case, for example the board as being split into squares, which in no way represent the different terrains which may have to be dealt with. Another area of abstractness is the fact that it doesn’t take into account any other factors other than the opposite player’s move, with regards to the consequences of that move and the eventual winner of the game. Additionally, unless players decide themselves to create a different way of communication, the thoughts of the opposite player are completely transparent to the opposing forces. However, this is something that could easily be altered without having to change the actual mechanics of the game, but just by the players possibly leaving the room for team conferences prior to their play. Upon closer examination it can be seen that in fact, this game does bring many aspects of realism about (traditional) warfare. In traditional warfare, each opposing force would wear a unique and identifiable uniform, and in the game, although corresponding pieces had the same shape, they were shown by different colours for both teams. In many other ways, the Game of War brings realism into play rather like Monopoly does – the board represents the arena in which the political simulation was set (in Monopoly, the housing market and in the Game of War, a battlefield), and the players are transported into this world where they find themselves simulating real-life decision making processes. In the Game of War, realism is found when the players make their strategic decisions, based on realistic situations – for example, if player one can cut off player two’s communications systems, it becomes a lot easier for player one to win. These thought processes well represent the analytical, strategic thinking that must be made on a real life battlefield, and can be applied to some different types of warfare. It can be seen that the game could be applied to either a more modern day type of battlefield, for example within a city, or a more traditional battle area. The Game of War uses some appropriate techniques, including guiding the player to assess the element of risk within a move and the possible outcomes and reactions by the other player. The players are constantly questioning themselves about what may happen, is the move feasible, and whether any necessary losses must be made in order to gain in the longer term. The game also encourages and teaches the players to assess carefully the possible outcomes of different types of attack and whether it may or may not be strong enough to take down the defences. Players in the game find themselves constantly calculating possible moves, both by themselves and their opponent. It can be seen after playing this game, that it is an excellent resource for training players in the art of warfare as it becomes a very real situation with the needed decision making process being well simulated. The game manages to get across its message about warfare particularly well, as the players can see, at least at the end of the game if not during, that one of the key strategies is to take out their opponent’s communications, and to keep forces together, not split up into smaller, less effective groups. If the Game of War was to be improved at all, possibly one of the few things that it may benefit from is a slight change of board mechanics – silver pieces on a silver board can at time be difficult to work with. If the pieces were to be kept as silver and gold, and the board a different colour, it would make the game visually easier, and also provide some distinction between the terrain and one of the forces. Possibly, one other area that could be improved with regards to the game mechanics would be to have the combat values of the different pieces upon the actual pieces themselves. All in all, the Game of War is very enjoyable to play, but not a social game: it highlights the feeling of competition among the players, and illustrates to the players effective strategies needed. It lacks slightly however, in putting across its original message, as it was a revolutionary game, but when played it comes across more as a game of warfare. The third game to be examined uses a completely different technique to model its subject of the Vietnam war. The game, named Vietnam 1955, was presented by Russell King who acted as umpire throughout. This game was designed as a role-playing exercise which provides quite a unique game playing experience. The nature of the game meant that the technique of ‘free kriegspiel’ was employed, and as such led to the game being quite adaptable to player’s actions. Each player, or team, is given an introductory booklet and a piece of paper with victory conditions and a table of how points can be won or lost as a consequence of actions. Apart from this, there were no pieces used in the game. The mechanics, it can be argued, apart from those mentioned pieces of paper, are the players themselves and the umpire, and due to that, the game takes on a very fluid element. This system works well for this particular simulation, however, some improvements could be made to help the flow of the simulation. The introduction given by the umpire was very brief, and for non-political or historical students or enthusiasts it may have benefitted from a slightly more in depth introduction. Also, the lack of game pieces in some ways made the simulation quite confusing; for example, it was difficult to remember which players represented which country or group, and so possibly name badges of the groups would be a welcome addition. Another technique which may be incorporated to make the simulation less confusing for the players may be to give out certain chips to each team when they receive their points, which means that the mechanics would support play even more so, and also not have to rely on the use of a board or similar at the location of play. Additionally, another improvement which would aid the players would be the inclusion of a large map of Vietnam during the time, possibly laminated in such a way that in could be drawn on during the progression of the game to highlight any changes that were made. This would be useful as, due to the aim of the simulation to be to encourage discussion and teamwork and at the same time educate the players on the course of the Vietnam war during 1955, it is assumed that the players have only a limited knowledge of this particular moment in history. The simulation is able to achieve its aims however, as the game is very sociable and through participation, players learn the course of events that did take place. This is because of the nature of the design of the game – even though play has a rather free element to it, the umpire interjects at intervals with a new happening which guides the progress of the simulation. Also, the points that are available to each player or team suggest and guide a route for the player to adopt, as per the course that was taken in history. Similarly to the previous two games, the simulation of the environment is, as it must be, rather abstract – one or two rooms are used to represent the arena where each group met and also the location of the Geneva Convention. However, this worked well as aspects of realism were incorporated into the simulation through the flow of play. Players negotiated in their own country’s interests, and there was an air of suspicion of the other players due to the secrecy of victory conditions and the ability for each team to discuss in semi-private, without the other teams necessarily overhearing them. Additionally, there was realism in the fact that the players formed into two Cold War blocs, which mirrored the feeling at the time. Also, the heightened suspicion of the opposite bloc and the unwillingness to secede any victories to the opposition was well put across. The game, apart from teaching general knowledge of the events of the time, also puts across some political messages. It suggests to the players that forming alliances is a good way to help protect their interests when thinking as a state, and also that diplomacy measures are important and must be attempted. The decision making that was made in history was simulated by the players’ decision making processes. These thought processes made an accurate representation of the decision that were faced by countries at the time, and the calculating though and analytical and deduction skills that had to be utilised during the simulation all are representations of the real decision making that had to be undertaken. The last game to be assessed is the game called Settlers of Catan. This game differs from the previous three in the political situation that it is trying to portray – the settlement of a new area. In the case of the game, the designer used the make believe island of Catan as a settling ground. The mechanics of this game are again, different from the previous three; instead of having a traditional board, the board for this game is made up of many different pieces which fit together and which may be expanded or changed for different versions of the game. The pieces, similar to Monopoly, include cards and game pieces (villages, roads or cities and a robber piece). The cards that are given out represent materials, and may be traded with another player or at a port, in order to build roads or other settlements. There are also some secret victory conditions on the cards which create an element of secrecy, and one way to win is by collecting a certain amount of the knight cards. The game’s mechanics do work very well with the design of the game, with the main point of contention being the ease of the board to come apart during play, which can be slightly disruptive. The game uses some techniques to model it’s subject and to put across its political message, including the use of hand management. The need of the players to accrue as many different resources as possible from the land that they have settled on is key, as this allows the players to trade with others at a better rate than trading at ports. However, the mechanism used for gaining resources in this game is the roll of the dice, which distorts the realistic probability of that resource being available. For example, perhaps mining stone for building is more predictable than farming wheat, as the weather and conditions are instrumental in defining the available amount at harvest. However, it is perhaps too much detail and too complicated to try and represent this in the game, so it could be argued that it is better left as it is. The rules of the game are particularly easy to follow and remember, and the nature of the game makes it a very sociable and also enjoyable game to play. The message is still put across, even though at times it seems as if the game is played for the sake of playing and reaching the ‘magic circle’, as opposed to a political resource. However, it can be seen from playing the game that the designer is attempting to put across the message that cooperation and of open trade is good and needed for development. This is a fair aim, as it can definitely be seen that it benefits states more if they trade resources that they each need, but some will have less of one particular type, and some will have more. According to the game then, to benefit mutually, states need to cooperate both with other states that have resources so as to mutually benefit, but also to trade within the state to build it up and help develop broadly. With respect to the trading relationships and the order of developing (development occurs in stages – players must build a road before a village etc) the game is very realistic, and also the added presence of the robber adds to this as it takes into account any natural disasters for example, that may drain an area’s resources. These four games examined above each show a very different technique and approach to modelling each political situation. It has been seen that overall, each technique works reasonably well in relation to what it is trying to portray, and these games seem to get across their political message in an accurate way. The game of Monopoly has a strength in that it always manages to achieve the chosen end whereupon in its modelled capitalist system, one player tends to have many properties and money, and slowly the other players become bankrupt and fall out of the game. The Game of War’s main strength could be argued to be that it accurately represents a battlefield, and even though it was designed to represent Napoleonic times, may be applied to some modern day warfare, and is very useable by military forces in military and political operations. The third game, Vietnam 1955, even though being very different in relation to the mechanics and design of the simulation, manages to accurately recreate decision making processes that were used at the time of the war. The main success of the Settlers of Catan, apart from its playability, is that it does manage to put across a political message even in quite an abstracted environment. Bibliography. Sutton-Smith, B., 2001. Play and Ambiguity IN: Salen, K. And Zimmerman, E., (eds.) 2006. The Game Design Reader: A Rules of Play Anthology. Cambridge, Massachusetts; The MIT Press. Pp296-313. Goldhamer, H., and Source, S., 1959. Some observations on Political Gaming. World Politics [e-journal] 12 (1), pp. 71-83. Available through: Jstor [Accessed on 01/04/2011].

title: User:Nikkiclem