Digital Commons Network^™

Conducting A Qualitative Umbrella Review For Novice Researchers: A Critical Reflection Of Primary Documents, Mónica Fontana, Celia Camilli Trujillo

The Qualitative Report

The need for scientific evidence in education has accelerated systematic reviews. However, the practice of conducting umbrella reviews is not yet common in education. Among the possible reasons for the scarce number of umbrella reviews in education is the lack of knowledge of the steps required to conduct them and the specific challenges of this method. Their usefulness in the educational context lies in their ability to offer new findings of great scope and transferability based on evidence from multiple systematic reviews in an efficient and in-depth manner. This study provides a critical reflection on the methodological implications of conducting …

Brute Force Branding: Variations & Repetitions Of The Almighty Dollar Banknote, Rui-Long Monico

Artl@s Bulletin

Abstract: This paper examines the U.S. dollar as a global brand and mythic icon, revealing how its stable aesthetic asserts dominance and infiltrates daily life. Through visual analysis and global comparison, it shows how banknotes are battlegrounds where art, identity, and geopolitics collide—currency as a weapon of soft power and cultural hegemony. The dollar’s visual inertia—ritualized, repeated, reappropriated—cements its supremacy as a symbolic force, where repetition enforces authority and variation sparks both resistance and conformity. Banknotes emerge as tools of statecraft and vessels of collective memory, as reflected in the author’s bespoke creation accompanying this study.

Résumé: Cet article analyse …

Appropriations Of Women And Children In World War I Propaganda Posters And Beyond, R. Asli Kilci, G. Azra Yetișkin, Muhammet Öztürk, Jessy Ohl

Speaker & Gavel

WWI has received renewed attention in recent years as a foil for contemporary society. While often overlooked in comparison to other conflicts, WWI shares with the present day a devastating global pandemic, growing geopolitical hostilities in Europe, and the proliferation of new communication technologies. As an example of “total war,” WWI involved mass recruitment of civilians through a variety of means, one of which was the innovative use of propaganda posters. In this article, we analyze one prevalent rhetorical strategy in WWI propaganda posters that continues to influence audiences today— depictions of women and children. By studying the visual and …

Jou 3110 : Visual Journalism: Concepts & Techniques, Communication And Journalism

Approved Course Proposals

No abstract provided.

Virginia Commonwealth University Graduate Bulletin (2026), Virginia Commonwealth University

VCU Bulletins

Listing of courses for the 2026-2027 year.

Cultivating Creative Courage: How Metacognition And Choice Influence Risk-Taking In Secondary Visual Arts, Shea Meehan

Master of Education in Transformational Teaching and Learning

This action research project explored how embedding metacognitive reflection and elective levels of challenge into classroom routines influenced students’ willingness to take creative risks in a secondary visual arts classroom. Conducted in two high school graphic arts classes totaling 38 students, the study introduced daily reflection prompts, structured choice through a “Creative Risk Ladder” (Safe, Stretch, Bold), critique activities and opportunities for student voice and autonomy within open-ended creative projects. Data was collected through student surveys, daily reflections, observational field notes and student artifacts. Findings suggest that students were more willing to engage in creative risk-taking when projects felt personally …

Graphic Design Project: Leveraging Interactive Technologies To Enhance Visual Communication Effectiveness, Amir Attia

Activities and Assignments Collection

To engage students in applying a research-driven design thinking framework to conceptualize, design UI, and evaluate an interactive product solution.

A Field Test Of The Role Of Biofluorescence In Territorial Salamanders, Kasey Watterson, Cari-Ann M. Hickerson, Carl Anthony

2026 Faculty Bibliography

Biofluorescence is recognized as an important form of visual communication, yet its function remains largely untested in many terrestrial species. In Eastern Red-Backed Salamanders (Plethodon cinereus), fluorescence of the postcloacal gland is a sexually dimorphic trait most strongly expressed in males. Because fluorescence can be displayed during territorial contests, we hypothesized that fluorescence in male P. cinereus would be positively related to resource holding potential (RHP) of territorial residents in the field. To test this hypothesis, we examined the relationship between fluorescence and two separate variables: body condition (as a proxy for RHP) and territory quality (the expected payoff from …

Multi-User Collaboration In Augmented Reality For Beyond-Visual-Line-Of-Sight Bridge Inspection, Joel Murithi Runji, Genda Chen

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Bridge inspection traditionally relies on scaffolds, snooper trucks, and aerial robots for hard-to-reach areas beyond the visual line of sight of inspectors. This study automates the collaborative inspection workflow for multiple users when inspecting hard-to-reach bridge sections by interfacing low-cost multimodal sensors mounted on a magnetically wheeled climbing robot with augmented reality devices in a cyber-physical system. Non-destructive and visual sensors provide near real-time information of automated steel thickness measurements and visual observations of corrosive regions, respectively. The visual sensors also support robot teleoperation. The cyber-physical system is evaluated for its user-friendliness and performance. The system performance is quantified by …

Ai As A Support Tool For International Students, Gabi Alvarez, Derrel Fincher

Posters

This poster presentation explores the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools to enhance teaching, learning, and communication in higher education, with a special focus on supporting international students. Demonstrating how AI can serve as a supportive tool to foster inclusion, improve communication, and enhance learning experiences for diverse student populations. Drawing on my experience as a Graduate Teaching Assistant in the Department of Teaching and Leadership at Pittsburg State University, this project examines how AI-supported strategies can help bridge language barriers, clarify academic expectations, and improve student engagement. Many international students arrive at PSU with strong academic backgrounds but must …

The Great Lakes Social Studies Journal Volume 6, Issue 1 Full Issue, Linda Doornbos Dr., Michele S. Phillips

The Great Lakes Social Studies Journal

None

Art Heals Chicago: Murals On The South Side Of Xicágo, Brenda Rodriguez

Pomona Senior Theses

Mural making as a collective art form is a tool for healing, resistance, and cultural pride in Black and Brown communities. With my focus being on Mexican American communities on the South Side of Chicago, specifically Pilsen. I make ties to indigenous motifs and the history of Mexican Muralism to show how it has evolved and how murals in the 1960s and 70s were used for healing from violence and the revolution. Murals that include images that reference the Mesoamerican past and preconquest life are a powerful way of reclaiming one’s identity and asserting one's indigeneity in the present and …

Visual Genealogies Of Disability In Mexican Visual Culture, Daniela Calvache Garcia

Theses and Dissertations--Hispanic Studies

Disability in Mexico is a visually constructed category, shaped by a long genealogy of representation in which images of bodily difference actively participate in defining power and the management of all bodies. The discursive forces that define disability as unproductivity reduce body-minds to the service of the economic system, affecting our relationship with death, illness, reproduction, size, youth, and beauty. Across the Mesoamerican visual space, such representations have long unsettled dominant systems of truth about bodies. This dissertation examines how conceptions of disability are produced, negotiated, and reimagined through three historical moments and cultural expressions: Pre-Hispanic Mayan imagery, Mexican colonial …

Narrating The Gap: Generational Experience, Organizational Norms, And The Pursuit Of Cohesion, Nicole E. Madden, Jimmy A. Merino-Cruz, Laura G. Miller, Alice R. Smiley

Educational and Organizational Learning and Leadership Dissertations

Contemporary organizations are increasingly multigenerational, yet much of the existing literature frames generational difference through simplified cohort categories that obscure the relational, structural, and interpretive conditions shaping organizational life. This dissertation examines how individuals across generational experiences make sense of their interactions with one another in organizations, particularly focused on tensions between generational identity and organizational norms. Generational Theory, Organizational Sensemaking, and Narrative Identity informed this study, highlighting the socially constructed, contextually mediated, and narratively interpreted nature of generational experiences rather than fixed or universal. A constructivist qualitative design rooted in narrative inquiry drew upon semi-structured narrative interviews with nine …

Eat My Love:Finding Truth In Fairytales Through Filmmaking, Calypso Camacho

Theses & ETDs

This thesis is both a creative project and a critical investigation into the dissolving boundary between art shaping life and life shaping art in filmmaking. The creative project at its center is EAT MY LOVE, a short film adaptation of the Russian folk tale The Maiden Tsar (Царь-Девица). It is a fairytale set in the modern world that uses elements of surrealism and magical realism, and unexpectedly became a camouflaged documentary. Paralleling EAT MY LOVE’s storytelling rhythm, this thesis is divided into three segments: pre-production, production, and post-production. Each segment documents the corresponding step in the filmmaking process and explores …

Annual Report Of Undergraduate Research Fellows From August 2025 To May 2026, Office Of Research And Sponsored Programs. Morehead State University.

Office of Research and Sponsored Programs Reports and Publications

Annual Report of Undergraduate Research Fellows from August 2025 to May 2026.

Imperial Coin Imagery And The Legitimation Of Sacred Authority, Elizabeth Brooke Hurrell

Cohort 2025-2026

Brooke Hurrell is a graduate student of Museum Professions with a focus in archives.  Using the Roman coin collection of the D'Argenio collection at the library, Hurrell researched how Roman coins, both pagan and Christian, represented power, authority and religion.   Walsh Gallery Collections used: D'Argenio Collection of Coins and Antiquities

Integrative Masters Project: Hold That Thought: An Original Picture Book, Jordana Blumberg

Graduate Student Independent Studies

Rooted in personal experience, this picture book follows a group of young children who each listen in their own unique way. The author drew from her own childhood memories of struggling to meet classroom expectations — particularly the challenge of holding back when she had something to say — to craft a story that validates the experiences of children who don't always fit the traditional mold of a "good listener."

Religious Television Of Ukraine In Shaping Spiritual Identity In The Context Of Contemporary Media Practices, Oleh Sokolovskyi, Vadym Slyusar, Maksym Melnychuk, Yuliia Kondratiuk

Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe

The article is devoted to analysing religious television in Ukraine as a key institution of contemporary sacred communication, which shapes a new configuration of spiritual presence within the digital media space. Religious TV channels are examined as mediatized spaces for producing and transmitting symbolic meanings, within which traditional theological narratives are adapted to the demands of audiovisual culture, and the sacred acquires new forms of visualisation, emotional accessibility, and communicative dynamism. It is demonstrated that television broadcasting provides a unique format of spiritual support, enabling faith communities to participate in prayer practices, catechetical programmes, and moral-ethical discourse beyond the boundaries …

Cartoons And Graffiti : Consolidated Forms Of Peaceful Protest In The Contemporary Arab World, Salud Adelaida Flores Borjabad

Journal of Urban Culture Research

The emergence of the Arab Spring and networked society has led to the consolidation of graffiti and cartooning as two forms of artistic expression in the contemporary Arab world. These forms were utilized as peaceful means of protest to demand the restoration of social and political rights that had been deprived. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to analyze and explore how these two expressions evolved and diversified in the Arab world, ultimately becoming a form of peaceful protest. The methodology employed will be qualitative, given the theoretical nature of the topic. Specifically, a visual ethnographic approach will be …

Reflecting Role Of Culture In Place Branding : A Literature Review, Denny Indrayana Setyadi, Indrayana Setyadi, Gregorius Prasetyo Adhitama, Andryanto Rikrik Kusmara

Journal of Urban Culture Research

Culture is a complex and contested concept that cannot easily be understood through a single definition. Nevertheless, culture plays an important role in place branding strategies and is interpreted in diverse ways within place branding scholarship. This study aims to identify and reflect upon the various roles of culture in place branding through a review of previous studies, particularly within the fields of Social Studies and Arts & Humanities published between 2008 and 2026. Using a literature review approach, the study collected data from the Scopus database and employed thematic analysis to examine how culture is conceptualized and positioned within …

From Panels To Power: Empowering Middle Schoolers Through Comics, Ali Geigerman

College of Graduate Studies: Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation explores how craftivism, grounded in feminist theory and informed by multiliteracies, can be used to disrupt and reclaim the traditionally male-dominated genre of comics for girls and non-binary students. While the New London Group’s concept of multiliteracies expands definitions of literacy to include visual, spatial, and multimodal forms of meaning-making, it does not fully address questions of power, representation, and voice. Drawing specifically on the work of bell hooks as a theoretical anchor, this study positions comics not only as legitimate multiliterate texts but also as sites of feminist intervention. By blending multiliteracies, feminism, and craftivism, this research …

Unrecognizable, Jawon Parker

Student Research Design & Innovation Symposium

This project's objective was a magazine that primarily glorifies God. Jawon follows the religion of Christianity and he is a big follower of Jesus. Goals for this project were to be able to understand how to get closer to God and follow His principles and enjoy life with Him Vs. living life without Him. The target audience includes Non believers and Believers in Jesus. Whoever you are, this project is for all eyes, all minds. Becoming "Unrecognizable" means becoming more like Jesus and less like your former self before you knew Him. Everything in this Project was hand designed and …

Sae For All: Curriculum Guide, Emily Carpenter

Department of Agricultural Leadership, Education, and Communication: Faculty Publications

Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) is a critical component of agricultural education, designed to provide students with hands-on learning opportunities that extend beyond the classroom. The SAE for All model ensures that every student participates in meaningful experiential learning tailored to their interests and career goals. By integrating SAE into the curriculum, students develop technical skills, career readiness competencies, and an understanding of real-world agricultural applications. This guide includes a teaching plan and a comprehensive set of assignments.

Civic Grammar: Why Classical Architecture Endures In The American State, Jesse Walker

Master of Liberal Studies Theses

The dominant visual language of American federal buildings has been classical, surviving repeated ideological challenges, professional revolts, and political controversy. While this persistence has been widely observed, the mechanism behind it has not been clearly identified. This thesis isolates that mechanism. Drawing on architectural history, federal procurement policy, and primary sources from Jefferson's correspondence through the executive orders of 2020 and 2025, it argues that classicism endures not because its meaning has remained stable, but because federal architecture is governed by a persistent functional constraint: government buildings must be immediately legible to an ordinary citizen, without signage or prior knowledge, …

Connecting Through Art: A Collaborative Art Program For The Deaf Community, Andrey Meg Bacal, Cristina Dumitrescu, Gary Dennis, Regina Brejda, Maija Vizvary, Jacie Schneider

Occupational Therapy Student Scholarship

This doctoral capstone project developed, implemented, and evaluated a Deaf-centered, ASL-accessible community art program at the Jessye Norman School of the Arts in Augusta, Georgia. The project addressed communication and environmental barriers that may limit participation in meaningful leisure and community-based occupations. Two ASL-interpreted art sessions and a community art show were completed, with evaluation using adapted PROMIS-based survey items, implementation observations, and quality improvement feedback. Because only two usable anonymous survey responses were available at each time point, findings were summarized descriptively and interpreted as feasibility and implementation information rather than evidence of effectiveness. The project supported the feasibility …

Investigating Ui Based And Ai Based Interactions In Vr Environments For Human Anatomy Education, Siddharth Sondhi

Master's Projects

Traditional approaches to learning and simulation often struggle to convey the complexity of three dimensional structures. In anatomy education, methods such as textbooks, lectures, and cadaver based learning are used, but can make it difficult to understand the complex structure of organs within the human body. Virtual Reality (VR) offers a promising alternative by providing immersive and interactive 3D environments that allow users to explore and manipulate anatomical structures more intuitively. These environments can be further enhanced by integrating large language models (LLMs) as intelligent agents capable of guiding users through natural language interaction. This project presents a Unity-based VR …

Designing Intentionally: Color Psychology In Graphic Design, Savannah Jons

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This study will explore the role of color in graphic design and the psychological processes behind viewersʼ emotional and perceptual responses. Research will investigate how color psychology is influential on design, how the selection of color guides design appeal, and how it can alter commercial messaging.

Improving Patient-Centered Communication To Reduce Falls In A Suburban Community Hospital, Shaun Craig Dickson

Yale School of Nursing Digital Theses

Inpatient falls remain a significant and often preventable patient safety concern that cause harmand increase health delivery costs for health systems across the United States. Communication barriers between bedside clinicians and their patients are a known contributor to falls. This Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) quality improvement project evaluated whether a structured communication intervention could reduce falls by improving communication in a suburban community hospital. This project was implemented on a 30-bed Observation-Medical-Surgical unit. Nurses and Patient Care Technicians (PCTs) were trained in using the Plain Language, Engagement, Empathy, Empowerment and Respect (PEEER) Model of Communication to deliver individualized fall …

Do Emerging Social Media Platforms Shape The Gender Gap In Surveillance Political Knowledge?, Saskia Papsova

Graduate Studies Theses and Dissertations 2026

Abstract

Research shows that men consistently score higher than women on standard political knowledge measures, but as Americans increasingly obtain political information through social media, it is unclear whether different platforms affect this gender gap. This study investigates whether social media platforms shape the gender gap in surveillance political knowledge—knowledge of current political facts and contested claims circulating in the contemporary information environment, and which platforms have the biggest impact. Using data from the ANES 2020 Social Media Study, I estimate weighted OLS regression models testing whether platform-specific usage is associated with surveillance political knowledge and whether these associations differ …