Production of Innovations within Farmer–Researcher Associations Applying Transdisciplinary Research Principles

Small-scale farmers in sub-Saharan West Africa depend heavily on local resources and local knowledge. Science-based knowledge is likely to aid decision-making in complex situations. In this presentation, we highlight a FiBL-coordinated research partnership between three national producer organisations and national agriculture research bodies in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Benin. The partnership seeks to compare conventional, GMObased, and organic cotton systems as regards food security and climate change

Autonomous agile teams: Challenges and future directions for research

According to the principles articulated in the agile manifesto, motivated and empowered software developers relying on technical excellence and simple designs, create business value by delivering working software to users at regular short intervals. These principles have spawned many practices. At the core of these practices is the idea of autonomous, self-managing, or self-organizing teams whose members work at a pace that sustains their creativity and productivity. This article summarizes the main challenges faced when implementing autonomous teams and the topics and research questions that future research should address

Large-scale Complex IT Systems

This paper explores the issues around the construction of large-scale complex systems which are built as 'systems of systems' and suggests that there are fundamental reasons, derived from the inherent complexity in these systems, why our current software engineering methods and techniques cannot be scaled up to cope with the engineering challenges of constructing such systems. It then goes on to propose a research and education agenda for software engineering that identifies the major challenges and issues in the development of large-scale complex, software-intensive systems. Central to this is the notion that we cannot separate software from the socio-technical environment in which it is used.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figure

GROUNDING IN FACE-TO-FACE CONVERSATION: AN ETHNOGRAPHY STUDY

Grounding is the process of achieving mutual understanding or belief about what was said between participants in a conversation. Its role is of a paramount important in communication to succeed. This paper examines the models of grounding styles that commonly occur among the teens. The study employed qualitative approach to analyze specific utterances using Clark’s and Traum’s theories of grounding in communication. The research has shown the use of tag questions is less than the use of interrogative forms. The switch of topic dialogue from an uninformative to informative one is another grounding style that the respondents adopted

Open Knowledge Resources for Higher Education: Scholarly Publications, Course Materials, Academic Software

This paper will explain why electronic knowledge resources in academia cannot only be regarded as private commodities, but also as public goods. After sketching a concept of public goods for a postnational, global society, three types of electronic knowledge resources are distinguished: scholarly publications, course materials and academic software. With the help of practical examples, similarities between these resources are developed. Finally, it will be explained what advantages the status of public good for knowledge resources would have and how it could be achieved by the academic community

ISOFAR-Newsletter No. 2, May 2004

The second newsletter of the International Society of Organic Agriculture Researhch ISOFAR contains the following information: Announcement of 1st call for papers International Scientific Conference on Organic Agriculture ISOFAR’s worldwide activities How to become an ISOFAR member ISOFAR’s structure: Sections and working groups News from the Working Groups Organic Research News from around the World Events Positions Books and Resources Contact address International Society of Organic Agriculture Research (ISOFAR) c/o Institute for Organic Agriculture IOL Prof. Dr. Ulrich Köpke (President) Ms. Anke Dunsche (Secretary) Katzenburgweg 3 D-53115 Bonn Tel. +49 228 735616 Fax +49 228 735617 E-Mail [email protected] Homepage http://www.isofar.or