Auf uns hört ja keiner! Wie kann die Rolle der Hochschuldidaktik in der Organisation Hochschule erfolgreich gestaltet werden? Ein Werkstattbericht

This report describes the methodology and the results of a workshop on the role of university didactics in bodies of academic governance at the annual conference of the German Association for educational and academic staff development in Higher Education (dghd) in 2019. The workshop was devoted to the question how the role of university didactics in higher education institutions can be shaped successfully. The aim was to discuss university didactics' influence on the strategic development of teaching and learning at the university via the participation in self-governing bodies in comparison to using other paths. One notable insight of the discussion was that the role and functioning of legally proscribed self-governing bodies in institutions of higher learning are sometimes a "black box" for the members of these institutions, notwithstanding the high expectations of their influence on the quality of teaching.Der Werkstattbericht beschreibt die Methodik und die Ergebnisse eines Workshops im Rahmen der dghd 2019 zur Rolle der Hochschuldidaktik in Gremien der akademischen Selbstverwaltung. Ausgangspunkt des Workshopkonzepts war die Frage, wie die Rolle der Hochschuldidaktik in der Organisation Hochschule erfolgreich gestaltet werden kann. Ziel des Workshops war, die Einflussmöglichkeiten der Hochschuldidaktik auf die Gestaltung der Lehre an Hochschulen durch die Beteiligung an Selbstverwaltungsgremien zu diskutieren und anderen Möglichkeiten der Einbindung in die hochschulweite Organisation der Lehre gegenüberzustellen. Dabei hat sich u. a. gezeigt, dass die vom Gesetz vorgegebene Rolle von Selbstverwaltungsgremien für viele Hochschulangehörige eine "Black Box" ist, obwohl die Erwartungen an deren Einfluss auf die Qualität der Lehre hoch sind

24 Konzepte - 1 Strategie? Zur Vielfalt von Digitalisierung an einer Volluniversität

Wohin führt es, wenn eine Digitalisierungsstrategie für Studium und Lehre ausgehend von den einzelnen Fächern bzw. Disziplinen entwickelt wird? An der Ruhr-Universität Bochum erfassten im Jahr 2017 alle Fakultäten und Zentralen Wissenschaftlichen Einrichtungen (ZWE) den Ist-Zustand zur Digitalisierung in Studium und Lehre für ihren jeweiligen Bereich. Darauf aufbauend erstellten sie jeweils fachspezifische Digitalisierungskonzepte. Diese bildeten die Grundlage der universitätsweiten Strategie der RUB. Vorangegangen war eine Diskussion auf zentraler Ebene unter Einbezug von Lehrenden und Studierenden unabhängig von der Fakultätszugehörigkeit. In ihrem Praxisbericht stellen die Autorinnen und der Autor Erfahrungen mit den zentralen und fakultätsinternen Diskussionen dar. Sie zeigen, wie heterogen die Zugänge zur Digitalisierung an einer Volluniversität sind, welche Vorbehalte es gibt und wie gangbare Lösungen für einen gemeinsamen Weg gefunden werden können. (DIPF/Orig.

Promoting active learning in universities

Thematic peer group repor

Experimental platforms for the investigation of spatiotemporal patterns in the rhizosphere-laboratory and field scale

The numerous feedback loops between roots, microorganisms, soil chemical and physical properties, and environmental variables result in spatial parameter patterns which are highly dynamic in time. In order to improve our understanding of the related rhizosphere processes and their relevance at the soil–plant system scale, experimental platforms are required. Those platforms should enable (1) to relate small scale observations (nm to dm) to system behaviour, (2) the integration of physical, chemical and biological sampling approaches within the same experiment, and (3) sampling at different time points during the life cycle of the system in question. Here we describe what requirements have to be met and to what extent this has been achieved in practice by the experimental platforms which were set up within the framework of DFG priority programme 2089 ‘‘Rhizosphere Spatiotemporal Organisation—a key to rhizosphere functions’’. It is discussed to what extent theoretical considerations could be accommodated, in particular for the comparison across scales, i.e., from laboratory to field scale. The latter scale is of utmost importance to overcome the trade-off between fraction of life cycle covered and the avoidance of unrealistic root length densities

Root hairs matter at field scale for maize shoot growth and nutrient uptake, but root trait plasticity is primarily triggered by texture and drought

Aims Root hairs are important for uptake, especially for nutrients with low mobility in soils with high sorption capacity. Mutants with defective root hairs are expected to have lower nutrient uptake, unless they compensate with more root growth. Since root hairs can also contribute to the plant's water uptake their importance could change over the course of a growing season. It was our objective to investigate the role of root hairs under field conditions. Methods The root hair mutant rth3 of Zea mays and the corresponding wild-type were grown for two years under field conditions on sand and loam. Results Shoot growth and P and K uptake of the plants were promoted by the presence of hairs at all growth stages. Differences between genotypes were greater on loam than on sand until tassel emergence, presumably as additional exploitation by hairs is more relevant in loam. Compensation for the absence of root hairs by increased root growth was not observed in absolute terms. The root to shoot ratio was higher for rth3 than for wild-type. Root traits showed high plasticity in response to texture, the most salient being a greater mean root diameter in sand, irrespective of genotype. The mechanism causing the increase in mean root diameter is still unknown. Root length density was higher in sand, which can be explained by a greater need for exploration than exploitation in this substrate. Conclusion The role of hairs for nutrient uptake could be confirmed under field conditions. The large impact of texture on root growth and consequences for carbon balance require further investigations

Reproducibility of fluorescent expression from engineered biological constructs in E. coli

We present results of the first large-scale interlaboratory study carried out in synthetic biology, as part of the 2014 and 2015 International Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competitions. Participants at 88 institutions around the world measured fluorescence from three engineered constitutive constructs in E. coli. Few participants were able to measure absolute fluorescence, so data was analyzed in terms of ratios. Precision was strongly related to fluorescent strength, ranging from 1.54-fold standard deviation for the ratio between strong promoters to 5.75-fold for the ratio between the strongest and weakest promoter, and while host strain did not affect expression ratios, choice of instrument did. This result shows that high quantitative precision and reproducibility of results is possible, while at the same time indicating areas needing improved laboratory practices.Peer reviewe