Personalien

Personalien

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Auf dem Weg zur Normalwissenschaft

The articles in academic journals can be regarded as a valid indicator when it comes to the definition of the status quo of a discipline, especially if the discipline experiences a period of transition, as Communication Science does. This study builds upon earlier work (Brosius 1994; 1998; Donsbach et al. 2005) in order to outline the discipline’s evolution throughout the last 25 years. Using content analysis of the two most important German journals Rundfunk und Fernsehen respectively Medien &; Kommunikationswissenschaft and Publizistik of the years 1983 to 2007, subjects for research are the various topics and research questions, the authors’ professional backgrounds and institutional affiliations, as well as publication activities and citation behavior. Results indicate an ongoing institutionalization: more than two-thirds of the research published in these journals originates from scholars affiliated with faculties of Communication Science. There is an increasing trend of concentration on the levels of academic institutions and individual authors: only few scholars and faculties produce a large share of the contributions in the journals analyzed. The pattern of publication activities found by the authors corresponds to a rule known as “Lotka’s Law,” another indication of the discipline’s continuing institutionalization.     

Response strategies for curriculum change in engineering

During the last 25 years, there have been many calls for new engineering competencies and a corresponding gradual change in both curriculum and pedagogy in engineering education. This has been a global trend, in the US, Europe, Australia and now emerging in the rest of the world. Basically, there have been two main types of societal challenges that many engineering institutions have responded to: the employability skills of graduates and the need for a sustainability approach to engineering. These are two very different challenges and societal needs; however, the ways engineering institutions have responded form a consistent pattern across many of the content aspects. No matter the specific character of change, three very different curriculum strategies seem to have evolved: an add-on strategy, an integration strategy or a re-building strategy; the latter involves substantial curriculum re-design. The add-on strategy and integration strategy are the ones most commonly used, whereas the re-building strategy is at an emerging stage in most engineering education communities. Most engineering schools find it very challenging to re-build an entire curriculum, so smaller changes are generally preferred. The purpose of this article is to conceptualise these institutional response strategies in a wider literature and present examples of curriculum change within both employability and sustainability. We will maintain that all these strategies are based on management decisions as well as academic faculty decisions; however the implications for using the various strategies are very different in terms of system change, role of disciplines, leader interventions and faculty development strategies. Furthermore, institutions might use all types of response strategies in different programs and in different semesters. The conceptual framework presented here can provide analytical anchors, hopefully creating more awareness of the complexity of systemic change.     

PEG am Lebensende – Konfliktstoff für das therapeutische Team

Pl?doyer für eine neue Entscheidungskultur im klinischen Alltag - An einer PEG schieden sich die Geister. Die ?rzte wollen sie, nicht zuletzt, um sicher zu sein, alles menschenm?gliche für den Patienten getan zu haben. Und die Pflegekr?fte, die oft den unmittelbarsten Kontakt zum Patienten haben, sehen sich in der Zwickmühle zwischen medizinischer Notwendigkeit, den Wünschen der Angeh?rigen und ethischen Prinzipien. Ein l?sbarer Konflikt?     

Contract farming,contract design and smallholder livelihoods*

Contract farming has gained in importance in many developing countries. Previous studies analysed effects of contracts on smallholder farmers’ welfare, yet mostly without considering that different types of contractual relationships exist. Here, we examine associations between contract farming and farm household income in the oil palm sector of Ghana, explicitly differentiating between two types of contracts, namely simple marketing contracts and more comprehensive resource-providing contracts. Moreover, we look at different income sources to better understand how both contracts are linked to farmers’ livelihood strategies. We use cross-sectional survey data and regression models. Issues of endogeneity are addressed through measuring farmers' willingness-to-participate in contracts and using this indicator as an additional covariate. Farmers with both types of contracts have significantly higher household incomes than farmers without a contract, yet with notable differences in terms of the income sources. Farmers with a marketing contract allocate more household labour to off-farm activities and thus have higher off-farm income. In contrast, farmers with a resource-providing contract have larger oil palm plantations and thus higher farm incomes. The findings suggest that the two contract types are associated with different livelihood strategies and that disaggregated analysis of different income sources is important to better understand possible underlying mechanisms.     

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