About Forum Supervision

Forum Supervision

Forum Supervision is the German-language academic journal for counseling science and supervision — the "Onlinezeitschrift für Beratungswissenschaft und Supervision" published in open access by the Bielefeld University Library, the free journal for the reflexive profession, the open-access platform where the supervision discourse lives — and the profession's theoretical home since 1993. Since 1993, the semiannual journal has published scientific and practice-oriented contributions on all topics of supervision and pedagogical counseling, aiming to professionalize supervision as an independent reflexive form of counseling — the journal that has accompanied the German supervision profession's academization for three decades, from the 1993 founding to the open-access present. Each issue is built around a focus theme; the contributions represent a theoretically guided, reflexive collegial exchange between the practitioners and the researchers.

Overview

Forum Supervision appears semiannually as an open-access online journal — free to all readers, the diamond open-access model — published by the Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld, the university library as the publisher. The ISSNs are 0942-0045 (print) and 2199-6334 (online) — the print past and the digital present documented in the two numbers. The journal publishes scientific and practice-oriented contributions on all topics of supervision and pedagogical counseling: the theory, the practice, and the professionalization of supervision as an independent reflexive counseling form — the academic journal for the supervisors, the counselors, and the counseling researchers.

The contributions are first a theoretically guided, reflexive collegial exchange — the practitioners and researchers reflecting together on the supervision practice, the journal as the profession's seminar room. The reference points are a recognition-theory-accented, non-clinical psychoanalysis, social psychology, and social science/sociology — the theoretical profile that distinguishes the journal: supervision understood as a reflexive practice, grounded in the recognition theory and the social sciences, not as a clinical technique — the supervisor as the reflexive practitioner, not the therapist. Each issue has a focus theme (Schwerpunktthema) that structures the contributions — the journal as the profession's theoretical forum, one deep topic per issue, the semiannual depth that the quarterly journals cannot match.

History

Forum Supervision was founded in 1993 by Gerhard Leuschner and Gerhard Wittenberger — the beginning of the German-language supervision journal that would accompany the profession's academization, the journal founded when supervision was professionalizing as a distinct counseling form, the founders' vision of a theoretical forum for the reflexive practice. From 2007 the journal appeared in parallel (print and online) — the transition years bridging the print tradition and the digital future; since 2012 it has appeared exclusively online in open access (free) — the complete transition to the free digital journal, published by the Bielefeld University Library, the university as the publisher, the knowledge as a public good, the university's service to the profession and the public — and the model for the academic publishing of the future.

The current editors are Katharina Gröning, Monika Althoff, Miriam Bredemann, Heike Friesel-Wark, Regina Heimann, Dorothee Lebeda, and Volker Jörn Walpuski — supported by a fixed editorial team (feste Redaktion), the seven editors and the team shaping the semiannual issues. The journal's three decades document the supervision profession's development: from the practice's professionalization to the counseling science's academization, the journal as the record of the German supervision discourse — the theoretical debates, the practice reflections, and the profession's self-understanding, issue by issue, focus theme by focus theme, from the 1993 founding through the 2007 digital parallel to the 2012 open-access present.

Coverage and Content

The journal publishes scientific and practice-oriented contributions on all topics of supervision and pedagogical counseling: the supervision theory, the counseling practice, and the profession's development — the full spectrum of the supervision discourse, from the theoretical foundations to the practical applications. The aim is the professionalization of supervision as an independent reflexive counseling form — the journal as the profession's theoretical organ, the publication that defines what supervision is and should be, the standard-setter for the reflexive practice. Each issue's focus theme structures the contributions: the deep treatment of one topic per issue, the semiannual rhythm giving the space for the theoretical depth — the slow journalism of the academic profession.

The contributions' character is the theoretically guided, reflexive collegial exchange — the practitioners reflecting on their practice with the researchers' theories, the theory tested against the practice and the practice illuminated by the theory, the journal as the profession's ongoing seminar. The reference disciplines — the recognition-theory-accented non-clinical psychoanalysis, the social psychology, and the social science/sociology — give the journal its theoretical profile: the supervision understood as a reflexive practice, not a clinical technique, grounded in the recognition of the other and the analysis of the social — the theoretical foundations of the reflexive counseling. The Springer citation (Zimmer-Leinfelder 2012, "Mein Coach ist Supervisor" — on supervision in coaching, in the Springer volume on supervision in coaching) documents the journal's reception in the academic literature: the journal's contributions cited in the scholarly discourse on supervision and coaching — the journal's ideas traveling beyond its pages.

Organization and Ownership

Forum Supervision is published by the Universitätsbibliothek Bielefeld — the university library as the open-access publisher, the institutional home of the journal since the 2012 online transition, the university's commitment to the free circulation of the supervision knowledge. The editors are Katharina Gröning, Monika Althoff, Miriam Bredemann, Heike Friesel-Wark, Regina Heimann, Dorothee Lebeda, and Volker Jörn Walpuski; a fixed editorial team (feste Redaktion) supports the editors — the editorial infrastructure of the academic journal, the editors and the team that shape the issues.

As an open-access journal, the economics are the university's: the Bielefeld University Library publishes the journal free to readers — the diamond open-access model, no subscriptions, no article fees documented — the knowledge as a public good, the university's service to the profession and the public. The journal's independence from commercial publishing is the institutional guarantee of its academic character: the editors' theoretical program, not the market's demands, shapes the issues — the freedom to pursue the professionalization project without the advertiser's constraints. The founders Gerhard Leuschner and Gerhard Wittenberger established the journal's mission in 1993; the current editors continue the professionalization project — the continuity of the mission across the editorial generations.

Digital Presence

The journal's digital home is the Bielefeld University Library's open-access platform — the complete archive freely available online, with the ISSN 2199-6334 marking the online edition, the three decades of supervision discourse at everyone's fingertips, the profession's memory open to all. Since 2012 the journal has been online-only; the 2007–2012 parallel phase bridged the print and digital eras; the 1993–2007 print phase founded the tradition — the three phases of the journal's media history. The open-access model makes the three decades of supervision discourse freely available to the profession and the public — the practitioners, the researchers, the students, and the interested readers, all reading the same journal without paywalls, the democratic access to the profession's knowledge.

For the supervision profession — the supervisors, counselors, and researchers who practice and theorize the reflexive counseling, the profession that reflects on the work's relationships — Forum Supervision's semiannual issues provide the academic journal of the field: the scientific and practice-oriented contributions on supervision and pedagogical counseling, the focus themes, and the theoretically guided collegial exchange — the open-access record of the German supervision discourse since 1993, the journal that has professionalized the profession it serves, and the free knowledge base for the next generation of supervisors — the journal that keeps the profession thinking.