Showing papers by "Kees Boersma published in 2008"

The Role of Language in the Internationalisation of Higher Education: an example from Portugal

Abstract: This article discusses the impact of internationalisation on the strategy and language policy of the Portuguese University of Aveiro. In addition, it analyses how the Department of Languages and Cultures of the University contributes to the language policy. For the University of Aveiro, internationalisation is a priority and a distinctive feature of its profile. It is a member of many international networks and consortia in Europe and participates in a wide range of international study and research programmes. The principles of the Bologna Process have challenged UA policy makers to adopt a language policy and to give study programmes a more international profile by considering the option of English as a medium of instruction. At the same time, and paradoxically, the role of the Portuguese language will become increasingly important in the near future because many of the foreign students at Aveiro come from the former Portuguese-speaking colonies. We conclude that the question of language has led to local dilemmas, discussions and sometimes tensions about the role of the English language in processes of internationalisation and curriculum change at the University of Aveiro.

Learning in a fragmented emergency response room in the city of amsterdam

Abstract: During the last decades there has been a lot of attention to issues of safety, emergency response and crisis management. Emergency response rooms (ERRs) are interesting public sector organizational arrangements in this respect. In our paper we pay attention to emergency response rooms in the Netherlands and especially in Amsterdam. Using an ethnographic approach, we studied the fire brigades (red), the medical services (white) and the police (blue) including their back-office organizations, their habits, and the systems in-use. As could be predicted, the (technical) integration of ERR systems in the Netherlands was not unproblematic. In our contribution we will make clear that the organization of the safety response in Amsterdam is rather fragmented. The latest discussion in the field is about the