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2. Exploring beyond the obvious: Social skills needed for agricultural communication baccalaureate graduates
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Leal, Arthur (author), Telg, Ricky W. (author), Rumble, Joy N. (author), Stedman, Nicole LaMee Perez (author), Treise, Debbie M. (author), and Universit of Tennessee, Knoxville University of Florida Association for Communication Excellence
- Format:
- Journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2019
- Published:
- United States: New Prairie Press
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 15 Document Number: D10428
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Applied Communications
- Journal Title Details:
- 103(2)
- Notes:
- 22 pages., Via online journal., This national study sought to expand on current research to identify the importance of and graduates’ ability to perform selected social skills to aid in curricula evaluation and small program development. Using three evaluation groups – agricultural communication graduates, communication industry professionals, and agricultural communication faculty members – 193 individuals responded to the online survey. The most important social skills were those associated with having work values and transitioning into an organization to be a productive member in the workplace. Graduates placed a higher importance on social skills than the other two evaluation groups. All three evaluation groups showed some agreement on graduates’ highest ability to perform several social skills: The ability to be trustworthy, trained, reliable, professional, dedicated, and behave ethically were assigned the highest mean ability. A significant difference was found with the ability graduates afforded themselves in having common sense, being professional, and encompassing maturity versus the other two evaluation groups. Recommendations included incorporating and identifying social skills into instruction for students. Group work, presentations, internships, and student organizations were proposed as opportunities for social skill attainment. Agricultural leadership principles, oral communication, and professional development courses were recommended for new and developing agricultural communication programs that could serve to incorporate the most important social skills. Faculty members could benefit from research that can identify more effective measures to evaluate social skill attainment. Recommendations for future research included a similar assessment with technical skills and for other elements of the Agricultural Communication Program System Model to be assessed.
3. From their mouths to our ears: research practices and needs of agricultural scientists at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Delserone, Leslie M. (author) and Dinkelman, Andrea L. (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- 2017
- Published:
- Taylor & Francis
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 18 Document Number: D10486
- Journal Title:
- Journal of Agricultural & Food Information
- Journal Title Details:
- 18(3-4): 373-400
- Notes:
- 29 pages., via online journal., University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Libraries was one of 19 participants in a national study of the research practices and needs of agricultural researchers. Two UNL Libraries faculty members interviewed 11 UNL scholars during the summer of 2016. The ethnographic research approach revealed four core themes: interdisciplinarity and collaborations, scientific communication practices, scientific research data issues and practices, and challenges and opportunities. Illustrated by the sample of faculty comments presented here, the themes have direct implications for the UNL Libraries, while in other cases these point to concerns and opportunities for the university, the academy, and the nation.
4. Introducing the academic discipline of agricultural communications to the United Kingdom: a needs analysis
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Maples, Sara Kathryn (author) and University of Arkansas
- Format:
- Thesis
- Publication Date:
- 2018
- Published:
- Ann Arbor: ProQuest
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 17 Document Number: D10468
- Notes:
- 97 pages., Via ProQuest Dissertations and Theses., There is a current need to identify and describe opinions of prospective employers and current agricultural students about the prospects of developing an agricultural communications academic discipline in the U.K. An understanding of the competencies employers would expect of agricultural communications graduates, as well as an understanding of what students would expect to learn, would form the conceptualization and development of the discipline in the U.K. A total of 22 agricultural communications professionals and 67 agricultural students from across the United Kingdom completed the survey. Collected data showed agricultural students and agricultural communications professionals answers overall were not statistically different. Both groups found many of the competencies such as writing skills and general communication skills to be important for an agricultural communications graduate in the United Kingdom. Future studies should investigate the need for an agricultural communications academic discipline in the communications profession in the United Kingdom.
5. Overcoming disciplinary divides in higher education: the case of agricultural economics
- Collection:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center (ACDC)
- Contributers:
- Ng, Desmond (author) and Litzenberg, Kerry (author)
- Format:
- Online journal article
- Publication Date:
- unknown
- Published:
- palgrave macmillan LTD
- Location:
- Agricultural Communications Documentation Center, Funk Library, University of Illinois Box: 12 Document Number: D10366
- Journal Title:
- Palgrave Communications
- Journal Title Details:
- 5
- Notes:
- 7 pages., Article 26, Via online journal., As global problems have become ever more complex, the production and organization of knowledge in society is increasingly based on the sharing, integration and collaboration of diverse experiences. For instance, global ‘grand challenges’, such as world hunger, poverty, climate change, and sustainability often require an interdisciplinary (ID) approach, in which integrating the insights of different disciplines provides a more comprehensive solution than can be offered by any given discipline. Universities or higher educational institutions face increasing pressures to engage in such interdisciplinary collaboration. This interdisciplinarity, however, raises particular organizational challenges to departments in higher educational institutions. In particular, while departments have been traditionally organized around a disciplinary core, interdisciplinarity has placed increasing pressures on departments, such as agricultural economics, to integrate insights from disciplines that do not advance a department’s disciplinary core. Few ID researchers have addressed the issue of how this internal conflict can be resolved in a departmental setting. Resolving this internal conflict is important to developing a greater interdisciplinarity among the disciplines of departmental units where a greater variety of disciplinary insights can be drawn upon to solve complex social problems. Here, we call for a unique organizational structure that can resolve this internal conflict. In using agricultural economics departments as a case study, we appeal to a concept of a “gatekeeper” whose role is to institute “loosely coupled” connections that can reconcile a department’s internal conflicts. This “gatekeeper” can advance the “normal science” of a department’s core and peripheral disciplines, while at the same time support a ‘common ground’ that appeals to these disciplines’ common interests. A key conclusion is that “gatekeepers” can sustain the integration of disciplinary insights necessary for the advancement of interdisciplinarity in higher educational institutions.