For conference paper in science education Research

For conference in science education - Research Paper Example Scientific education is viewed by many experts and scholars to involve social interactions among teachers of science and students. The scope of the cultural perspective of this social interaction involves giving substantial theoretical weight to its role: seeing it, as in the Vygotskyan tradition (Vygotsky, 1963; Leontiev, 1978; Cole, 1996), to be the most important necessity to learning. This implies that when we explore such cultural perspectives, we must try as much as possible to be skeptical and critical. The most basic belief here is that we do not know why we act as we do; we only know a few reasons on a certain time scale and within a limited range of contexts. Different communities have different cultural attributes and therefore we do not know all the other reasons that arise from the functioning of our actions in far larger and more distant contexts and on longer time scales. Our individual ways of living and making a meaning are different according not only to which commu nities we have lived in, but also to which roles we chose or we were assigned to us by others- how we presented ourselves and how we were seen and treated by others. That got me wondering what is happening to the new generation. Is it the mode of delivery of the science subject? Or the teachers of science have not discovered what works best of the new generation so that they can be able to internalize concepts in science that can be able to use to venture into the field of science and make contributions to the world. This is because science is the driving force to modernization. In my paper, I hope to point out and explore the cultural ways that the teachers of science and their students are used to in the transmission of knowledge. That is , am going to discuss the known methods of learning science , The gaps that have not been filled to equip students in the field of science to become competent professional and what needs to be done to fill the gap. The first portion of this paper will provide an overview of the study of science as well as the contributions and importance of studying science in the society. The second portion of the paper will detail how the study and learning of science has been done over the years. The third portion of the paper will discuss the gaps that have not been filled in the study of science and finally, on how to implement the identified gaps in the study of science The origin of the cultural perspective to Science Education The cultural perspective of science education in its contemporary form derived mainly from the developments in social and human sciences since the 1960s. The view that science represents a unique valid approach of knowledge, disconnected from social institutions, their politics, cultural beliefs and values was strongly challenged by research in the history of science (e.g. Shapin and Schaffer, 1985). However, eventually both science education and the new scientific studies more specifically in history and soci ology took a linguistic turn and began to examine how people learned to talk and write the scientific language meaningfully and cooperatively engage in its wide range of culturally specific activities Scientific Education Every

News artical. (PR) Article Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

News artical. (PR) - Article Example The intersection is accident prone and accounts for a number of vehicular accidents in the City. The problem in this area is compounded by the fact that there is a guard-controlled school crossing adjacent to Vahland Avenue.† To ensure the safety of both motorists and pedestrian in the area, the Council of the City of Canning requested the City’s Engineering and Technical services to come up with possible solutions to the traffic problems. The study conducted by the City Engineering and Technical services yield several issues in the configuration of the intersection which made it difficult to navigate. In finding solutions to the traffic problems, consultations were conducted to gather the ideas and observations of the people regarding the situation. Observations of the people regarding the flow of traffic in the area were later on validated through the video survey conducted by the City. â€Å"The City Engineering office conducted a study of the situation but we feel that the residents and motorists in the area could also provide us with invaluable information through their first hand experiences. Moreover, we wanted to involve the people in the process of finding solutions to our traffic problems. Since this project may affect hundreds of people, it is important that these stakeholders are consulted to ensure their cooperation,† The Mayor said. To date, there is still no concrete data to validate the crash reduction in the area. However, according to the Mayor â€Å"I am hopeful that this project will achieve its goals. We have proven here that the combined efforts of the government and the people made it possible for us to come up with innovative and cost efficient traffic solutions. I believe that where there is cooperation, anything is

Family and Delinquency Essay Example for Free

Family and Delinquency Essay How is it developed and how is it Solved? Introduction â€Å"Abuse† and â€Å"violence† are considered to be terms that are believed to be the understatement of the actual situation that is happening in the society right now. It could be observed that through the years, the number of individuals being victimized by the said dilemma are undeniably increasing making the word â€Å"abuse† not just a word but one among the many things that people within the human society fear most. Abuse is the way by which people try to maltreat their fellowmen. This is regardless of the fact that the people being maltreated are either their friends or their family members as well. It could not be denied that this dreadful situation have affected the sections of human socialization already. The school institutions, the workplace, the churches and now even within homes, the existence of abuse cannot be much controlled anymore. This is primarily the reason why it is very important to take several things regarding this particular issue into consideration for studying. This would naturally allow a more focused procedure that shall be developed to assist abused victims both young and old, men and women to recover from the situation that they have been involved with when they were abused in the past. It is pretty much appalling to know how a highly established society could be afflicted by the different effects of the abusive acts that are brought about as one of the major disadvantages of the advancements of the society. What are the sources of these major abuses? Most likely, as psychologists and sociologists point out, people are moved to create possible ways of releasing their tension regarding several experiences through afflicting the security of others. Most of those who are noted as the ones victimizing others have been once victims themselves. On their own way then, they are trying to release the depression and the pain that they are afflicted with through passing on the dreadful situation to others as revenge to those who have once victimized them. The abusive acts and their effects on the victim do not end on the actual act of abusing alone. The results of the said incidents account for further impact on the personality of the victim primarily pertaining on his or her social interaction with the community that he lives with. Most likely, isolation and the feeling of lesser self-worth eventually develop. It could not be denied that these results are hardly expected by the victims before they were involved with the abuse that they were faced with. Certainly, it is through the memories of the abuse that the pain tends to remain in complete control of the victim’s major dealings with the society. At some point, the said victims tend to become socially avoiding as they actually fear that the same thing might happen to them again in the hands of other people that they may or may not know. The trust that they used to have on other people before they were victimized eventually fades making it harder for them to recover on the past that they have experienced. The World Reports and What They Pertain to According to worldwide reports, there are several abusive acts that are taken against the â€Å"weak ones† in a daily basis. Depressingly, the numbers of the victims never cease to stop. Even though there is a strong push on the making of the different laws and ordinances that are designed to protect people from being abused on the places that they are living or working in, it is undeniable that there is still a considerable annual rise to the rate of the population becoming victims of the said dreadful situation. As mentioned above, there are numerous types of abuses that plagues the society today. With the influences of media and other publications that provoke both sexual desires and violence, the desires of people to do something awful to others to simply comply to the thirst that they feel for themselves and the satisfaction that they ought to reach become much vivid and harder to avoid. Hence, pushing the abusers to come up with destructive acts that bring others into a devastating situation. It could be noted too through psychological studies that one cause of the ways by which people are moved to follow a certain path that leads them to abusing others actually involve depression and in depth disregard of one’s self. Most of the time, when depression and stress takes over the mental system of a particular person, the deciding power of the person begins to weaken hence making it possible for him to take massive steps of destructive acts that usually lead to them abusing other people. Yes, frustrations and unfulfilled missions or aims bring much depression on human individuals. When this depression is treated in the wrong manner, the situation becomes harder to control. Psychologists particularly note this as one of the failures of the nervous system to assist one in righteously deciding for what is supposed to be acceptably right to do when hard-to-deal with circumstances arise. The said failure gradually affects to one loosing his control over his actions. Add to the fact that there are those who take addictive substances that are directly affecting their decision-making capabilities thus making it harder for them to judge of whether what they are doing are right or not. The Personal Effects of Abuse and Violence As mentioned earlier, violence and abuse are two related terms that describe the destructive situation that most people who are less able to protect themselves experience on the hands of the oppressive sector of the human population. Hence, through the study that has been presented above, it could be noted that the results of the said incidents may either be positive or negative on the part of the individual that has been victimized by the said situation. The result becomes positive when the victims primarily learns how to defend himself the next time that the same situation occurs or in some way he or she has already learned to protect themselves from actually being involved in destructive situations based on the experience that they once had. On the contrary, the results may become negative if the victim begins to view the situation as an incident that could bring her or him to a fearful state against the systems of the human society. The state of isolation becomes and self-rejection is then added to the negative results of the said incidents. Involving the Family Amidst all the successes that the society achieves through the existence of technology and communication, it is quite disturbing how the situation of the most important sector of the society suffers so much. Family, as the basic unit of the social relationships, is the one receiving the most negative effects of technological and industrial advancements. Intimacy and attachment has been much a hard case to deal with when dealing especially with the modern married couples. The thoughts of long ago regarding the long-run relationship that marriage is supposed to be had been gradually changed by the fact that system of the society today have already changed as well. The priorities and the goals of individuals have already been exchanged with the need of being economically successful in the field of their own chosen careers. Sadly, although both men and women are aware that they were meant to share a special relationship based on love, only few are able to realize to understand the reality of the vows that they give at the brink of their wedding ceremonies. Marriage, as a human contract is a special bond that should be considered as a serious link between two people who are bounded by love. However, at some point, the view of marriage has been changed during the present era. Because of the social changes, marriage has been subjected to different challenges. Today, conflicts are directly bombarded towards the relationship of married couples that in turn makes the situation much harder to deal with. As a result, many among those couples simply end up in divorce. For many years, it has been a standard definition of a family to be referred to as a group of people who are related to each other and are thus bonded together by blood. The attachment within the said group goes beyond just the existence of a common blood, but it is further linked stronger through the existence of love. With the said advancements though of the society, the family is further subjected to facing several issues that concerns the strength of its ties. . Since time is lacking, the members of the family are having a hard time creating time for themselves to at least deal with each other through communication, in turn, intimacy is lost. This is specifically true with parents, or married couples. Because of the time that they devote to their jobs, they usually find it hard to balance their time to give each other attention for the sake of the development of their relationship. As a result, the love that they once have lost the love that they once had for each other because of lack of time, communication and intimacy, their relationship’s solidity begins to drift away. On the contrary though, Donna and Roger are among the couples who are able to meet the challenges of marriage amidst all the challenges both personal and familial that are presented to the society nowadays. Although there had been some rough portions of their marriage, it could be noted through the interview that they have managed to set through their differences and were able to make adjustments so as to give themselves some room to improve as individuals and as couples. It is undeniable that being married at a young age is something that is much harder to deal with that dealing with simply the challenges of marriage itself. Aside from all the financial problems, personal adjustments certainly needed to be given attention especially on the part of the interviewees. The highlights of their relationship could be noted to have nothing to do with gaining surmountable amounts of wealth but with that of being together with their family. Seeing things in a simpler manner makes it easier for young couples to see life in a much less-complicated matter of life. It is through this that they are able to give importance to the more caring to better things that wealth itself. True, they recognize that material gains add up to the happiness of the family since it gives the members a chance to enjoy the things they want without limits at least. However, this does not mean that the happiness of family members does not only rely on the influence of money at all. Instead, real family happiness relies on the fact that family members are still able to connect with each other through communication and simply by just being together amidst the busy schedules that each member of the family deals with regarding their work or school activities as well as house chores. Making sure that each member is given the attention that they need from the family is an important key to family success. A Therapeutic Approach The Family Assessment Device has been designed to measure improvements concerning the Family Therapy. In a busy and complicated world that families have to deal with these days, it is very vital every family be able to face the challenges of today’s world. Although at times, the hardships that families has to face makes it difficult for its members to keep close and intact relationship with each other. Aside from this, the results of such a complicated life leads to different emotional and physical depressions which makes it harder for every family member to comprehend to each other’s needs and be able to cope with life’s changes at the same time. This is why many families chose to undergo several family therapies to be able to solve the growing gap between their members and thus lead a better family life. The Family Assessment Device includes six major dimensions that are connected to family functioning. The said six major scopes of the said assessment device are the problem solving, communication, roles, effective responsiveness, effective involvement and behavioral control. The dimension on Problem Solving intends to measure the capability of a family to be able to face and solve certain problems that arise within the family. With the use of questionnaires having four possible responses on agreeing to the solutions suggested and disagreeing, each family is scaled depending on their answers. The other dimensions as well follow the same pattern of questionnaires. After answering the questions, each result shall be averaged, evaluated and concluded regarding the improvements of the family in the therapies they undergo. The standard results for the Family Assessment Device which concludes that the family has already improved through the family therapy is based on how well they have comprehended with the activities they undergo during the therapy. There are major ways on how to evaluate the changes in a family. One is through the statistical significance of changes observed, another is through the percentage of dropping below clinical cut-offs and finally through the magnitude of change between intake and termination. These three major evaluation processes helps the psychologists to scale the improvements that the family being observed has already incurred. Many experts have proved the reliability of tests and family assessments such as the Family Assessment Device effective. True, at times, the application of this assessment may not be that easy but the cooperation of the family under therapy programs would really help in making assessments such as this a successful program. At times, there might be some family members who would rather depend on their own understanding of the problems they are facing than referring their problems to experts. Usually, this makes the FAD application harder to apply, but as said earlier, constant assistance and assurance to the families that they are being helped and not exploited or whatsoever, the Family Assessment could be concluded to be successful. Conclusion As it could be noted through the studies and discussion presented above, the result of violence and abuse upon the victim simply depends on his or her perception of the situation that occurred. Someone who is strong and wise enough in facing life’s challenges may look at this particular experience as a lesson that would teach him to take full responsibility of the situation the next time that the same thing happens. However, a person who is actually frail in facing the surprises that life has to offer would break down upon experiencing certain devastating incidents. Yes, it is one’s development as a person and perception towards life and the challenges that it brings that would actually determine the ways by which an individual would be affected by violence or abuse. It is only through a person’s discretion that the effects of the said situations could be identified within the growth progress that that particular person would undergo. It is also upon the person’s discretion as to how he or she would actually allow the said incident to impact her personality as well as her social dealings. In the end, yes, it will all depend on the person afflicted by the situation. References: Sexual Victimization,† Child Abuse and Neglect, 18 (1994):303–318. Browne, A. , and Finkelhor, D. , â€Å"Impact of Sexual Abuse: A Review of the Research,† Psychological Bulletin, 99 (1986):66–77. Beitchman, J. H. , et al. , â€Å"A Review of the Long- Term Effects of Child Sexual Abuse,† Child Abuse and Neglect, 16 (1992):101–118. Cathy Spatz, â€Å"Child Abuse, Neglect, and Adult Behavior: Research Design and Findings on Criminality, Violence, and Child Abuse,† American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 59 (1989):355–67. Pfendler, B. A. (1997, April). Validation of the McMaster Family Assessment Device (FAD) in an intensive family therapy program. Psychological Association, Washington D. C. Ridenour, T. A. , Daley, J. G. , Reich, W. (1999). Factor Analyses of the Family Assessment Device. Family Process, 37,38. Sluttery, J. M. (1997). Predictors of Family Therapy Outcome. Unpublished data, Handout. Kabacoff, R. I. et al. (1990). A psychometric study of the McMaster Family Assessment Device in psychiatric, medical and nonclinical samples. Journal of Family Psychology.

China Daily Asia Weekly News Agency Analysis

China Daily Asia Weekly News Agency Analysis Findings on China Daily Asia Weekly News Agency China Daily Asia Weekly news agency has been used by us in reporting the issue of demonstration in Hong Kong. We have monitored this news agency for one month started from 1st October 2014 until 30th October 2014. We were observing the news agency in terms of the format of news they portray. The format of news includes total of news reported per day, photos and videos the author uploaded, the paragraph of each news, the author of the news and the theme of the news reported. The total number of news that have been collected by us for one month is 120 news. The news reported in China Daily Asia Weekly are mostly neutral in terms of news slant. However, there is some news reported by them that is negative western but it is just a minority in number. Besides, China Daily Asia Weekly news agency also did not provide any subtitle for their news. Moreover, the news source for each news are mostly the government which includes Chief Executive, Ministry’s Spokeswoman, Secretary General and many more. However, there is also minority news that have demonstrators as their news sources such as the leader of Federation of students and many more. To begin with the analysis, we will start by explaining on the total number of news reported per day by China Daily Asia Weekly. The total numbers of news are vary to each day. The highest numbers of news reported per day is 13 news while the least number is zero news per day. There were no news reported by China Daily Asia Weekly regarding the demonstration issue in Hong Kong on 12th, 19th, 25th and 31st of October 2014. The highest number of news reported was on 6th of October 2014. There is also 1 news reported per day on 17th, 28th, and 29th October 2014. Mostly news reported on 6th of October were talked about the negative consequences that have been caused by the protesters movement. We also noticed that the news on the issue of demonstration in Hong Kong reported by China Daily Asia Weekly were becoming lesser towards the end of the month. The total numbers of news reported per day is high until 8th of October 2014 and then decreased to 1 news reported on 9th of October. After 9th of October, the news reported regarding the issue were become lesser until the end of the month and the higher news reported after 9th of October was 6 news per day which is on 16th of October 2014. Thus, we can conclude that the issue in Hong Kong are becoming less popular to be reported by China Daily Asia Weekly news agency than the beginning of the month and maybe it is because of the issue is going to meet its solution soon. Second thing to be analyse is about the photos and videos the author uploaded in each news per day. China Daily Asia Weekly has not posted any video in their news. The agency only posted photos to their readers and the photos are all in colour. However, the highest total number of photos the agency uploaded on each news is 3 photos and the least is no photo uploaded on news. The highest number of photos uploaded was on 15th of October and about 39 news were reported without any photos on it. In addition to that, if we want to compare on the frequency of the photos uploaded by the agency, we can say that half of the news with 68 numbers of news reported has 1 photo uploaded on it and only 7 news that has 2 pictures on it. Besides that, each of the photos uploaded on the news were also come with the description under it that represent the situation of the photos. From this, we can see that China Daily Asia Weekly news agency is not emphasize more on photos and videos as the highest number of photos uploaded per news is only 3 photos. Thirdly, another thing to be analyse is regarding the numbers of paragraph written on each news. As we have observed from the data we collected, the highest number of paragraph is 23 paragraph and it was on 2nd of October where the news entitled â€Å"Occupy taking luster off Golden Week† was reported. The news is about the decreasing of sales for retail sectors to making some profit on the Golden Week holiday as the date is usually the great time for them in getting more profit. This is because of the protesters movement who blocked the roads which then prevent their customer. The least paragraph written in the news is 4 paragraph. There is some news that have only 4 paragraph in there which is on 3rd, 13th and 22nd of October 2014. The news that have 4 paragraphs on it is usually reported about announcement and economics. It cannot be conclude that the least number of paragraph per news, the less credibility of news they convey as the credibility of news cannot be seen through the length of the paragraph written because sometimes it is only the repetition of previews news. However, the least paragraph of the news is actually portray the less significance of the news to the readers. Next, we further our observation to the authors of the news reported. From one month observation, we found that there are two authors that written most of the news in China Daily Asia Weekly news agency. The authors’ names are Timothy Chui and Kahon Chan. Timothy Chui has written total numbers of 31 news from the beginning until the end of October. Same goes to Kahon Chan who started written the news from the 1st of October until the end of the month and have written the total numbers of 31 news. There is also some news that have been taken from the International news agency which is Reuters. In addition to that, there is also some authors that only wrote one news in China Daily Asia Weekly such as the news written by Andrea Deng, Selena Li, and Edmond Tang. We also found that there are several news that have been wrote by two authors. There were only 3 news that have been written by two authors while majority of news reported are from single author. From the observation of th e authors of news reported, we can conclude that Timothy Chui and Kahon Chan are the reporters that have significant roles or works in China Daily Asia Weekly news agency as they covered more news than other authors did. Finally, we were also focussing on the theme or denominator of each news that have been reported. We can see that from 30 days of observations, the most common theme and denominator of the news is talked about the negative consequences and effects of demonstration. There are about 30 news that talked about the negative effects of the protests towards the citizens. Among them are the news written by Ming Yeung and Wang Yuke on 1st of October where they wrote about how the protesters or demonstrators endanger the life of the people in Hong Kong. They wrote in their news about how the protest cause chaos and bad traffic to the streets that trouble the local emergency services such as Ambulance Fire Fighters to reach the victims on time. They reported on their news that said, â€Å"Deputy Chief Fire Officer, Joseph Leung Wai-hung told the media on Tuesday that emergency services have fallen significantly short in their promise to reach those in dire need, that is, to respond to emergen cy situations within 12 minutes†. There is also other news on the same theme which talked about negative impacts of demonstration to the citizens. The news written by Celia Chen and Agnes Lu covered about how the businessman and businesswoman live around the paralyzed districts encounter great loss to their business. They wrote that some of the workers in some affected restaurants have been forced to take leave as the tourists absent. Among the restaurants and hotels that have been affected by this demonstration protest is Tung Yuen Banquet on Hennessy Road, Wan Chai. The manager of the eatery told China Daily that, â€Å"On Fridays, we normally had bookings for at least 20 tables in the past, but tonight, for instance, we only have three tables booked. There is many other news that have talked on the negative consequences and effects of demonstration protests. Besides that, other common denominator that is usually found in the news is calling for peace. There are some news reported in China Daily Asia Weekly that talked about the public calling for peace and put an end to the protest. There is a news reported by Timothy Chui on 5th of October 2014 that wrote about a man who climbed up roof of footbridge just to call demonstrators to end the protests and clear the roads. The man surnamed Yip climbed onto the roof of a footbridge around 1 pm to call demonstrators to end their sit in and clear roads. After 4 hours and 45 minutes the police negotiators tried to calm the man down, finally they were able to bring him down. However, he demanded to speak with protest organizers and delivering an hour long speech to express his feeling that he would rather die rather than seeing his daughter are not able to return to school because of the protests. This shows that mostly news in China Daily Asia Weekly portray the news about the negative impacts of protests. This also can be conclude that this news agency view â€Å"Occupy Central† which is the name of the protest as irrelevant and cause harm to many people.

Scarlet Letter Essay -- essays research papers

Power of Sin   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In â€Å"The Scarlet Letter† Nathaniel Hawthorne presents three main characters that commit evil and sinful acts, where each act is at a different degree of sinfulness. These three sinners (in the eyes of the Puritan community) are: the beautiful Hester Prynne, the esteemed Reverend Dimmesdale, and the cold-hearted doctor Roger Chillingworth. Hawthorn believes that evil is the nature of man but that there are different magnitudes of evil- some choose to fight it, like Hester, and some choose to give in, like Chillingworth.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Hester Prynn, a strong willed and brave women, in respect to the two additional people, has committed the least amount of sin in the novel. However, in the eyes of the Puritan community, she has committed one of the worst possible sins that can be imagined: adultery. Though, in their eyes, she is horrendously corrupt, it is not her fault in fact; Hester is the victim of her husband, Roger Chillingworth’s stupidity by sending her to New England by herself, while he remained in Europe. She is also a victim of fate- when Chillingworth is captured by the Indians when he arrives in North America, Hester has no way of knowing if he is alive or dead. But in fact, she still goes against the strict Puritan rules, and breaks commandment seven, which was often punished by death.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Arthur Dimmesdale, a strong pillar of the community, and a very devoted Puritan, goes a lit...

The History of the Computer :: Computers Technology Technological Essays

The History of the Computer "This reminds me of a revelation I had a few years ago, after getting my first CD-ROM drive. I'd manage to misplace a CD containing a multimedia encyclopedia and eventually found it sitting on the floor under my desk. I realised then that never before in human history had it been possible to lose an entire 28 volume encyclopedia by dropping it behind a piece of furniture. Now that's what I call progress!" (Computer Quotes) The information age is marked by the widespread use of the personal computer. Beginning with Ed Roberts’ first computer through to the development of the world’s fastest computer in Japan, the use of the personal computer has revolutionized our country, and in fact, our world. Although Roberts created the first computer, there were many stepping stones that led up to its conception. For instance, he negotiated with Intel to use their silicon chips. These chips were an uprising in their own creation. Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore created them. This in turn was modified to become a single-chip microprocessor. This was very important because it could be programmed, and memory could be added onto it. Thus, using Intel’s chip as a foundation, Roberts created the first computer, the Altair 8800. His company, Model Instrumentation Telemetry Systems (MITS), marketed these machines as a last hope strategy to decrease debt within the company. Little did they know that the demand for the Altair 8800 would never die down, nor that it was a great rise in modern technology. Because of the rise in interest in computers, there formed a group, Homebrew Computer Club, which discussed how to build computers. One of its members, Steve Wozniak, soon created another version of a computer, the Apple I. Other computers also built around 1977 were the IMSAI 8080, built by IMSAI, Radio Shack’s TRS-80, and the most advanced thus far that year, the Commodore PET. This machine, contrived by Commodore, had a monitor, keyboard, and cassette player, as opposed to antecedent devices, which had switchboards and lights to indicate signals. Apple soon was influenced by this computer, and decided to make their next computer, the Apple II, a more consumer-friendly machine, in 1979. Thus, it was enclosed in a plastic casing and came with a video monitor, keyboard, cassette interface (which stored data), and game paddles. It was also capable of having stored programs, or installing programs onto it.

Oracle Corporation Essay

The Central Intelligence Agency had commissioned the project to build a commercial database management system for IBM mainframe computers and code-named it Oracle. Software Development Laboratories took the Oracle name in 1982. After completion of the project, Ellison, Miner, Oates, and Scott had a vision of developing and distributing their database software as a profitable business opportunity. From 1982 to 1986, Oracle had achieved 100% growth. On March 15th, 1986, Oracle went public, one day after Microsoft’s initial public offering. From 1986 to 1989, revenues skyrocketed from $55 million to $584 million, making it one of the largest independent software companies in the world, employing over 4,000 people in 24 countries. The Oracle Corporation’s objective of becoming a profitable database software company had been achieved. Market and industry growth continued until the third quarter of 1990. Oracle suffered a $15 million dollar loss on $240 million in revenues. Between 1988 and 1991, operating margins had plummeted from 23 to 3 percent. During this time, the company’s stock value also fell. Oracle responded by letting go of 400 employees in the United States and reorganizing its senior management team. This business problem was the direct result of something the company simply overlooked. As the company was focusing all of its energies on growth during the late 1980’s, they were losing sight of their internal operations and infrastructure. They also planned their expenses based on the 100% annual growth rate they experienced in the prior years, causing them to lose money. In addition, they delayed the delivery of their latest product, which allowed the competition to draw closer to them. However, the release of their next product would see Oracle quickly rebound and turn things back around. In July of 1991, Oracle was working on a new database software that had the ability to manage text, video, audio, and other data through a set of loosely connected servers. This database software was called Oracle 7, and was one of many IT solutions that would put Oracle ahead of the competition and save the company. 996 saw database sales grow by 20 percent and then to 10 percent in 1997, the year Microsoft released its rival SQL server, which was a cheaper alternative database release with aspirations of stealing Oracle’s market share. During this time, Oracle attempted to expand beyond databases and entered into the two largest application software markets, enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management. Ellison saw this as a lucrative business opportunity, considering the fact that the ERP market was estimated at $20 billion in 1999 and projected to exceed $65 billion by 2003. The CRM market was estimated at $4 billion in 1999 and projected to exceed $16 billion by 2003. Ellison recognized that CEO’s wanted to understand profitability per costumer and to be able to detect dissatisfaction before the customer leaves. He realized that ERP and CRM software would allow CEO’s to do that by turning database information into knowledge about consumers. Ellison’s vision of internet-enabled software began to take shape in 1999 with the release of Oracle8i. It was followed by internet-enabled versions of all the company’s key software products. A key IS solution in the development of Oracle Corporation would be Oracle e-Business Suite, which would include a collection of ERP and CRM applications that automated many necessary business functions. This would be the beginning of the high impact IS solutions to follow. In June of 1999, Ellison declared that Oracle would attempt to save $1billion dollars by the end of 2000 by transforming into an e-business. Ellison then eliminated all non-e-business options from the company. This bold move was an incredible success and a brilliant IS solution to some of the company’s business problems. The changes were easy and smooth to implement. An example given in the case was that of an expense report. In the past, a sales rep would fill out an expense report and manually send it to headquarters. Now the sales rep just completes the forms on the web where the report can be tracked. Not only did this create $6 million dollars in direct savings, the reports were easier and faster to complete. This solution did not only benefit employees, but customers, too. In the past if a customer wanted to demo Oracle’s software, a sales rep had to set an appointment to do the demo in person. Now, the sales rep can gain access to the customer’s browser and, over the phone, can do the demo over the browser at Oracle. com. The shift to self-service was a very necessary and profitable solution for Oracle. They began saving millions of dollars and hours of time. Another business problem Oracle had was a lack of centralization in the business. One clever way they did this was by changing incentives for country managers. Country manager’s incentives were originally based on revenue. This was to be changed to shift their incentives to be based on margin. In the past, 97 e-mail servers existed with almost 120 databases in over 50 countries. This was dramatically reduced when Oracle gave each country CEO a choice. They could receive free e-mail through Redwood Shores or pay to service an e-mail server, which would directly impact their margin, and ultimately, their variable pay. This was a very effective IS solution to the lack of centralization problem the business had. Oracle would continue to centralize the business by pulling human resources, legal, sales administration, and marketing out of each country office and consolidating them at Redwood Shores. Oracle now had a single system that served everything. Oracle saved a lot of wasted money by centralizing its marketing department. The products were the same in every country, so the centralization made sense and was absolutely necessary. By June of 2000, Oracle had gone from 63 to 17 company websites worldwide. By August 2000, the company was down to one website, Oracle. com. This solution saved the company a lot of money that was being wasted operating multiple websites for multiple countries and confusing the brand with different languages, colors, and logos. The transformation to e-business saved Oracle a ton of money, but this wasn’t the only benefit of the move. The switch also generated marketing pull. Oracle’s customer base grew as a result of having better information about their customers’ and sales outlets. The pull strategy came to fruition by two combining factors. The story of the company’s transformation combined with the new gained credibility the company received by performing this transformation so publicly. Now instead of sales reps attempting to sell the CEO of another company their software, CEO’s were going directly to Oracle technology to transform their own businesses. This pull allowed Oracle to open an online store, as opposed to hiring more sales people to handle the increased demand. This latest IS solution, in turn, created more sales. In 1999, Oracle began streamlining its Oracle University, which supported 2500 full-time employees in 143 countries while enrolling about 500,000 students annually. These Oracle courses led to the certification of developers and programmers that the company needed to continue growth. This business solution was yet another great move designed to farm their own employees. iLearning technology was then created as a means of a continuing education extension to Oracle University’s certification process. This software would be hosted online and could be updated daily without patches. Oracle Corporation is a great example of a company who had the ability to predict the future of technology and make innovations to lead the industry. They took risks, and they paid off. Larry Ellison took a big risk when he eliminated all non-e-business elements out of his business and made the transformation to e-business, and his company was rewarded with tremendous cost savings and higher revenues. He also predicted at the end of a June 2000 press conference that the software industry would vanish and be replaced by a service industry. This remains to fully be seen, but it appears there could be truth to this. Cloud computing has been the next innovation in computer technology, as we say many companies now providing services that used to require us to install software on our computers.