Forming expert environment for accreditation of educational programs: A case of Ukraine

The new system of educational programs’ accreditation and the establishment of the National Agency for Higher Education Quality Assurance (NAQA) as an independent regulator has led to the demand for professional experts who can evaluate the educational programs of universities at a qualitatively new level. The paper aims to analyze the formation of the expert environment in Ukraine by conducting numerous training in various formats, as well as to assess the relationship between training and the quality of accreditation visits. The correlation analysis was used to substantiate the conclusions. Based on a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the experience of training experts in the accreditation of study programs in Ukrainian higher education institutions, the results of a pro-active approach by the NAQA in 2019–2021 were presented. It is shown that the accreditation system has been working without red tape, the taint of corruption, using transparency mechanisms, and expert advice since the end of 2019. The accreditation format according to the ESG-2015 standards made it possible to form an expert environment in Ukraine in a short time and encourage changes in higher education. Despite many pieces of training and consultations, many experts and representatives of the Sectoral Expert Council (SEC), evaluating study programs, still provide criticism, prejudice, and not advice and assistance. To minimize such negative practices, NAQA regularly conducts online webinars, briefings for expert groups and heads of study programs, and rotates experts and members of the SEC.

SDG 4 and SDG 8 in the knowledge economy: A meta-analysis in the context of post-COVID-19 recovery

Almost all human activity spheres, from the health care system to the education system, were unprepared for the pandemic. This, in turn, has slowed down the progress in achieving sustainable development goals. The Sustainable Development Goals 4 “Quality Education” and 8 “Decent Work and Economic Growth” were particularly vulnerable. In addition, the widespread concern was caused in the context of the transition to a “knowledge-based economy”. This paper analyzes the readiness of the scientific community to provide preconditions for the acceleration of these SDGs achievements. To do this, a meta-analysis of the academic literature on SDG 4, SDG 8, and the knowledge-based economy during 2015–2021 was conducted. Several special methods and instruments were used, including Scopus, WoS, VosViewer, Publish or Perish, Google Trends, and Google Books Ngram Viewer. The results show the inability of the modern academic community to provide a theoretical and empirical framework for a successful transition to a knowledge-based economy, taking into account the need to achieve sustainability. This is partly due to the relative subject novelty and the lack of academic attention. The challenges posed by the pandemic (lockdowns, unemployment, closing of educational institutions, financial flows reorientation, etc.) together with potential threats (new pandemic, climate change, population displacement, armed conflicts, etc.) necessitate a radical intensification of academic activity in economics to achieve SDGs.

Involving Ukrainian early career scientists in publishing practices and their attitudes to scholarly communication

This paper highlights the authorship, co-authorship, and peer review experience of Ukrainian early career scientists to see their attitudes to scholarly communication. A questionnaire was distributed through Facebook groups and university networks all over Ukraine. Results from 630 respondents demonstrated contradictory tendencies of Ukrainian early scientists’ publication activity. Most respondents try to gain recognition, adhere to high standards, and improve their writing skills. Meanwhile, there is a problem of low motivation, violations of academic integrity, detachment from the international scientific community, etc. 5.6% of respondents admitted that they wrote articles where they substituted the results without conducting experiments, deliberately distorted the results of research, and forged experimental data. Above a half of the respondents (52.9%) have experience of reviewing and consider it to improve their authorship skills, engage in scientific dialogue, cope with new methods and theories, etc. But 95.0% of reviewers had problems, for example obviously poor-quality articles for review (47.5%), a request for a review when the article does not match the reviewer’s qualifications (32.5%), no access to data to check dubious results (15.0%), lack of instructions for reviewers (10.0%), ignoring significant remarks by authors (7.5%). The survey showed a significant predominance of co-authored articles. Among the main motives for publishing co-authored articles, respondents highlighted the following: saving time, intellectual development, co-payment of publications, access to expensive equipment, the chance of being quoted, and cooperation.

Perceptions on the role of practical and simulated learning in promoting successful entrepreneurship

Practical work-based learning (WBL) or simulated learning has been widely recognized as essential for developing desirable cognitive and behavioral qualities among university learners. Despite this recognition, most practical and simulated learning experiences have been directed to facilitate learners’ employability rather than to promote entrepreneurship. The study aimed to examine the perception of students on the usage of WBL to foster entrepreneurial intention at higher education institutions in South Africa. The study employed mixed research methods. The results show that opportunity recognition, desire to exploit entrepreneurial opportunities, increasing knowledge and skills, desire to be involved in starting a business, desire to own or manage a new business, desire to own or manage an old business, attitude towards entrepreneurship, motivation to be an entrepreneur, and fascination with entrepreneurship were key impacts of WBL among entrepreneurship students. Friedman test was carried out to compare the mean ranks of the nine impacts and test whether there were any significant differences in agreeableness to their impact. The test result was significant, and Kendall’s coefficient of concordance of 0.023 indicated no significant differences among the nine impact factors, which are not different in their strength as a key result of WBL. The study recommends the adoption of WBL strategies in entrepreneurial programs at universities.

Knowledge management in the environment of cross-functional team coopetition: A systematic literature review

Knowledge is crucial, but a transient resource that decides over the success or failure of business operations. Consequently, companies aim for the most profitable method to achieve high gains and conservation of knowledge, while excluding rivals to maintain the position of economic advantage as long as possible. To maximize the efforts of knowledge generation, new concepts of organizational processes were established in recent years. To provide a conceptual foundation and identify promising niches for future studies in the important field of team coopetition, existing literature on the factors of cross-functional team coopetition was reviewed, concluding in a systematic review. For this purpose, leading peer-reviewed journals from 2010 to 2021 offered 25 articles that fall within its established search inclusion criteria. Adding to the change of stakeholder project management, the shift from traditional, cooperative-led organizational approaches towards coopetition between two or multiple rivals can lead to promising results. However, it was indicated that this concept often fails due to misleading coordination in a coopetitive tension. Current studies extracted their results from applied team management mostly on short-term organizational, financial, and technical benefits or drawbacks, excluding long-term innovation effects. Most studies were categorized into three outcomes contributing to knowledge management: performance, relationship, and innovation. As a result, it is pointed out that several factors derived from the literature significantly influence the outcomes.

Data mining as a cognitive tool: Capabilities and limits

Due to the large volumes of empirical digitized data, a critical challenge is to identify their hidden and unobvious patterns, enabling to gain new knowledge. To make efficient use of data mining (DM) methods, it is required to know its capabilities and limits of application as a cognitive tool. The paper aims to specify the capabilities and limits of DM methods within the methodology of scientific cognition. This will enhance the efficiency of these DM methods for experts in this field as well as for professionals in other fields who analyze empirical data. It was proposed to supplement the existing classification of cognitive levels by the level of empirical regularity (ER) or provisional hypothesis. If ER is generated using DM software algorithm, it can be called the man-machine hypothesis. Thereby, the place of DM in the classification of the levels of empirical cognition was determined. The paper drawn up the scheme illustrating the relationship between the cognitive levels, which supplements the well-known schemes of their classification, demonstrates maximum capabilities of DM methods, and also shows the possibility of a transition from practice to the scientific method through the generation of ER, and further from ER to hypotheses, and from hypotheses to the scientific method. In terms of the methodology of scientific cognition, the most critical fact was established – the limitation of any DM methods is the level of ER. As a result of applying any software developed based on DM methods, the level of cognition achieved represents the ER level.

Reforming the education system to prevent labor migration

The world economy is in an unprecedented situation, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the health care crisis. It’s currently difficult to predict all the consequences, but there are undoubtful changes in migration flows, unemployment and poverty increase, and their impact on national economies and globally. The paper aimed at analyzing the cases of educational reforms in different countries, revealing new trends in education and learning that may prevent labor migration or mitigate it. To support feasibility of the study, a bibliometric analysis was implemented on the basis of Scopus tools and VOSviewer software. In this paper, the content analysis of several cases in a sphere of educational reform was performed, namely educational systems of some EU countries and their former members (UK, France, Finland) as well as the most developed world economies (USA, China, and Japan). The distance learning is considered as fundamentally necessary in today’s conditions and a milestone of the global educational system development. The paper investigates the essence and distribution of mass online courses as a typical type of distance learning. The case of virtual exchange that was managed and organized by several institutions within the COIL initiative was also analyzed the alternative to traditional learning. The recommendations about the further development of educational systems were made, as well as suggestions about the competitiveness of national economies due to the migration process. Acknowledgment and funding This research was funded by a grant from the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine “Reforming the lifelong learning system in Ukraine for the prevention of the labor emigration: a coopetition model of institutional partnership” (No. 0120U102001).

The impact of collaboration strategy in the field of innovation on the effectiveness of organizational structure of healthcare institutions

The need for innovative development of healthcare institutions is determined by the necessity to increase the efficiency of organizational processes based on the formation of new models of cooperation, which will make it possible to get access to new technologies and knowledge. The goal of the study is to determine the parameters of the impact of innovative open cooperation strategy and the strategy of innovative closed cooperation of healthcare institutions on the effectiveness of their organizational structure in the context of dissemination and the use of knowledge. Simulation modeling was applied to generate the most effective organizational management structure in the context of innovative cooperation and knowledge exchange within the organizational processes “Inside-out” and “Inside-in”. It is substantiated that the strategies of innovative cooperation “Open Innovation/Closed Innovation” have a significant impact on the organizational structure of management of healthcare institutions in terms of the “degree of centralization” (Dci), “degree of mediation” (Dii), and “degree of centralization of powers” (Dpi). The values of the selected criteria range from 25,52% to 61,50% in the case of Dii, and from 34,53% to 52,63% in the case of Dci, which indicates a higher efficiency of organizational knowledge exchange processes in healthcare institutions, which adhere to the Open Innovation strategy of innovative cooperation. Therefore, there are significant differences in the effectiveness of the management’s organizational structure depending on the degree of openness of innovative cooperation of healthcare institutions. The strategy of innovative openness allows increasing the number and quality of connections in the context of knowledge exchange between the subjects (actors, agents) of the organizational structure (in a broad sense, considering internal and external levels of externality) of healthcare institutions, regardless of the distance between them and the level of similarity.

Reviewing articles as a way of professional evaluation of scientific texts: organizational and ethical aspects

The purpose of the paper is to summarize the organizational and ethical aspects, problems and prospects of peer reviewing. To do this, from September 2019 to January 2020, a survey of Ukrainian scientists registered in Facebook groups “Ukrainian Scientific Journals”, “Ukrainian Scientists Worldwide”, “Pseudoscience News in Ukraine”, “Higher Education and Science of Ukraine: Decay or Blossom?” and others was conducted. In total, 390 researchers from different disciplines participated in the survey. The results of the survey are following: 8.7% of respondents prefer open peer review, 43.1% – single-blind, 37.7% – double blind, 9.2% – triple blind, 1.3% used to sign a review prepared by the author. 75.6% of respondents had conflicts of interest during peer reviewing. 8.2 % of reviewers never reject articles regardless of their quality. Because usually only editors and authors see reviews, it can lead to the following issues: reviewers can be rude or biased; authors may not adequately respond to grounded criticism; editors may disregard the position of the author or reviewer, and journals may charge for publishing articles without proper peer review.

Information technologies for developing a company’s knowledge management system

Escalating competition, technological changes and the struggle for innovation present companies with a knowledge management (KM) challenge. To implement it at the modern level, it is necessary to develop a knowledge management system (KMS). Significant opportunities for this are created by information technologies (IT), qualitatively changing approaches to knowledge management. Therefore, the study aims to clarify the theoretical foundations of shaping the company’s KMS and conceptualize information tools for its formation. Within the theoretical foundations of KM, its essence (as a systematic management activity and a set of measures to ensure the business processes of obtaining, storing, disseminating and using knowledge in the company), the subject (the aforementioned processes and various types of knowledge), and links with other types of management (innovation, information, personnel management, etc.) are specified. Given the main goals, principles and tasks of KM, its main approaches, key processes and control elements are summarized. The conceptual foundations of KMS development are formulated and its subsystems (methodological, planning, information, and functional subsystems for ensuring business processes for obtaining, distributing and using knowledge) are highlighted. Given the importance of IT, the following concepts have been formulated: a portal for R&D management, innovation management platforms, and a tool for formalizing knowledge and corporate knowledge base. Their purpose, functionality, and the role of ensuring work with knowledge and KM implementation are described. The problem of their implementation, operation and improvement is emphasized. The research results allow creating a new technological basis for the introduction of knowledge management.