scholarly journals Research as a Base for Sustainable Development of Universities: Using the Delphi Method to Explore Factors Affecting International Publishing among Vietnamese Academic Staff

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (8) ◽  
pp. 3449 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trung Tran ◽  
Thao-Phuong-Thi Trinh ◽  
Cuong-Minh Le ◽  
Linh-Khanh Hoang ◽  
Hiep-Hung Pham

In recent years, the Vietnamese government has put significant effort into the internationalization of research in the higher education system via the use of international publications (i.e., publications indexed by citation databases such as ISI Web of Science and Scopus) in evaluating their academic staff and doctoral students. Academic staff in Vietnam, who traditionally have low numbers of international publications, have thus been pushed to improve their competencies in order to meet the new requirements for research productivity. However, we have little understanding of the factors influencing international publication as perceived by Vietnamese academic staff. This study aims to fill the gap by using the Delphi method. Academic staff with at least one international publication were invited, via purposeful sampling, to participate in a two-round Delphi survey. The survey revealed 14 key factors, which were further classified into three dimensions: “policy-related factors,” “capability-related factors,” and “networking-related factors”. These factors were the key determinants in the success of international publishing, according to the study participants. The findings provide implications for policymakers and university leaders for enhancing the research capacities of Vietnamese universities, forming a basis for the sustainable development of the higher education sector in Vietnam.


2021 ◽  
Vol 73 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-123
Author(s):  
Tomasz Kasprzak

Abstract The history of educating doctoral students with disabilities at Polish universities, at least in institutional terms, is not very long. From the very beginning, universities educated individuals with disabilities and it was possible as long as these people could cope on their own or with the help of their family and friendly academic staff. This study presents the situation of doctoral students with disabilities in the higher education system, indicates the results of research, as well as “good practices” and recommendations for the academic education system for the in-depth inclusion of people with disabilities in higher education.



Author(s):  
Dr Syed Faisal Hyder Shah ◽  
Musharaf A. Talpur ◽  
Dr Abdul Razaque Channa

This paper investigates and analyses various push and pull factors affecting Pakistani female doctoral students to pursue international higher education in Malaysia. The study implemented an open-ended interview approach to collect qualitative data and analysed it using a constant comparative analysis originally developed from Grounded Theory (GT) methodology. The study findings discovered affordability as a major push factor besides other relevant but not less important push factors, such as scholarship conditions to choose Malaysia as a country of destination because of its affordable tuition fees and living expenses. In contrast, this study also identified the principal pull factor that makes Malaysia as a preferred Muslim country for Pakistani women seeking higher education. Other general pull factors, including cultural diversity, lifestyle, security of women and freedom of women, were also found as significantly important as the remaining individual pull factors, such as personal comparison made between Pakistani and Malaysian higher education, students’ previous international experience and family bond. Based on these findings, some lessons are learned and discussed in the details for internationalizing our higher education system in Pakistan in the future.



2021 ◽  
Vol ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeniffer Fonseca Zanitt ◽  
Izabela Simon Rampasso ◽  
Osvaldo Luiz Gonçalves Quelhas ◽  
Milena Pavan Serafim ◽  
Walter Leal Filho ◽  
...  

Purpose This study aims to analyse how the materials selection courses of engineering undergraduate programmes can be better aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Design/methodology/approach Initially, a content analysis was performed in 39 materials selection course descriptions from 40 engineering undergraduate programmes of Brazilian higher education institutions, and subsequently, Delphi method procedures were conducted with professors that teach or have taught the course and are knowledgeable in the subject of sustainability. Findings Considering the analysed course descriptions, it was shown that most of the materials selection courses do not consider or present little emphasis on sustainability aspects. Regarding the Delphi method, eight items were evidenced to consider sustainability aspects in the analysed courses. Originality/value This study contributes to the debates about sustainability insertion in engineering undergraduate programmes. More specifically, the findings presented consolidated information that professors and coordinators can use to align materials selection courses with the SDGs better.



2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (7) ◽  
pp. 1017-1041
Author(s):  
Alexander Tarvid

Purpose In the context of falling demand for higher education and, in particular, doctoral studies, it is important to understand how to attract new students. The purpose of this paper is to present an analysis of the decision-making process the PhD students of Baltic universities followed when choosing whether to continue their education at doctoral level and in which institution to do it. Design/methodology/approach It uses the data gathered in 2014 from all major Baltic universities providing access to higher education at doctoral level. Findings At macro-level, the three Baltic countries (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) are rather different in the supply of doctoral programmes and the level and dynamics of the popularity of doctoral-level studies in the population. Besides, strong country-specific effects on the goals students pursued when they enrolled in a doctoral programme and the information about the university or the programme they found useful are observed at micro-level. The main result is related to systematic differences in the perceptions students have about the benefits they will get from a doctoral degree across the current (at doctoral level) and previous (at Bachelor’s and Master’s levels) fields of study, as well as depending on labour-market experience and family and social circle. Practical implications These findings suggest that Baltic higher education institutions should employ different marketing communication strategies when attracting new doctoral students, depending on the field of study and the country they operate in. Originality/value This is the first comprehensive study on the motivation of enrolment at doctoral level in the Baltic countries. It gives the management of Baltic universities a general picture of the motivation to get a PhD degree and factors affecting the choice of university, which can be readily incorporated into universities’ strategy.



Author(s):  
Caroline Henry ◽  
Nor Azura Md Ghani ◽  
Umi Marshida Abd Hamid ◽  
Ahmad Naqiyuddin Bakar

<span>Research Productivity (RP) is the key element in the establishment of ranking and rating system in the Higher Education (HE) sector. Despite of the many initiatives taken to enliven the research culture among academic staff, there are still constraints and resistance towards conducting research. Therefore, this study attempts to identify the factors affecting RP and develop an appropriate model to determine the RP of an academic staff in Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM). In this study, 5 research related indicators were used in the determination of RP. Since the population size of UiTM is large, the primary data was collected by using questionnaire survey and stratified random sampling. The variables that were found to be significant in determining RP of an academic staff were age cohort, highest qualification, cluster and track emphasis. Satisfaction towards annual KPI, UiTM current policy and monthly income were also found to influence the RP of an academic staff. In addition, perceiving the role of principal investigator as a chore and burden and supervising and graduating a PhD student perception as burden and pleasure were also found to be affecting RP. Using these variables, Logistic Regression Model was used to determine the RP of an academic staff in UiTM. In conclusion, personal, environmental and behavioural factors were found to have influence on the RP among academic staff of UiTM. Therefore, generally it is possible to maximize the RP of academic staff by identifying the factors influencing RP followed by strategic management and proper monitoring system.</span>



Author(s):  
Mohammed Saleh Al Balawi

Factors affecting faculty decisions in the conventional university setup in Saudi Arabia for participating or not participating sin Web-based instruction (WBI) were investigated in this study. Incentives and barriers to WBI, faculty attitudes, and participants’ demographic information were also explored. The study was aimed to investigate the attitudes of the faculty members at three Saudi universities toward WBI in an effort to describe the current status of WBI in the Saudi higher education system. In addition, results of the study could also provide the Saudi universities and the faculty with insight into factors affecting adoption of WBI. Finally, since there have been few implementations of WBI across the country, it was important to explore how WBI is currently used in Saudi universities and to determine critical factors that could affect the implementation of WBI.



2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 16-30
Author(s):  
Masoud Rashid Al Hinai ◽  
Abul Bashar Bhuiyan ◽  
Nor Azilah Husin

The Omani higher education system has enlarged noticeably since 1970 both in the number of students and in the infrastructure.  As a result, there has been a wide investment to provide quality higher educational institutes capable of providing suitable graduates to fulfill the requirements of both public and private sectors with a focus on females to assure equal gender educational and career opportunities chances. Therefore, graduates’ readiness for employability has become a major issue for Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) in Oman due to the growing concern from governments and industries on the quality of the graduates.  Therefore, the main objective of the current study is to develop a conceptual framework for the graduate readiness for employability and incorporates the graduate attributes including human capital attributes, social capital attributes, individual attributes, institution-related attributes, and active learning attributes moderated by gender, career, and moral mindset among Engineering Graduate in Oman. The study uses available sources of existing literature based on the four main keywords ‘higher education’, ‘graduate attributes ‘or ‘readiness for employability, and ‘skills gaps in Oman’. The study also justified by the following theories which are human capital; education and economy development; behavior theory; and motivation theory. The literature utilized for this study covers the latest literature (from 2013 to 2020) extracted from Google Scholar, ProQuest, and Scopus, and other online resources. Based on the summary findings, the study develops a framework that analyses the effects of influential factors on the graduate readiness for employability that will be considered as an empirical study on the graduates of the engineering colleges in Oman. Moreover, the study also concluded that there are moderating effects of gender, moral mindset, and career mindset on the influence factors and the graduate readiness for employability among Omani engineering colleges’ students. The results of the study will fill the gap in understanding the main factors affecting the attainment of graduates’ readiness for employability skills in Oman. The study recommends justifying this conceptual framework by empirical data from the Engineering Graduate in the Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and draw a policy guideline for ensuring of readiness of engineering graduates for employability in the HEIs in Oman.



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