Partnerships between industry and higher education

Using the experience of the Industrial Division of Honeywell Control Systems in the UK, this article examines the way in which partnerships between industry and education can enhance the development of engineers-to-be     

Measuring higher education outcomes with a multidimensional Rasch model

A multidimensional Rasch model was applied to two instruments measuring abilities in two related areas of a university general education curriculum. Grades from related courses were also calibrated using the Rasch model. Thus, course grades, test items, and persons were all placed on the same metric. Incorporating grades within the metric provided additional meaning to the measures; instructors could see which items were matched to students in a particular grade range for a course. This could help not only in interpreting items but also in interpreting grades. Test items and grades fit the model reasonably well, with adequate person separation reliability.     

Total quality management, investors in people and higher education

This article argues that the UK `Investor in People' programme has advantages for universities and other higher education institutions over other quality improvement schemes. It offers the opportunity to make total-quality-management (TQM) initiatives more meaningful within the current higher education context. Many total-quality-management programmes have not been that successful because they are excessively top down and have little or nothing to do with the everyday experience of the vast majority of staff. The Investors in People initiative can be endorsed as an opposite vehicle for developing internal mechanisms and processes of a transforming nature rather than the more commonly held `business' definitions of TQM with the associated `inappropriateness' of the TQM language. The article concludes that the Investors in People standard integrates well with other processes of institutional change, is externally assessed and leads to a national standard, yet is flexible enough to be implemented meaningfully in a unique way within each institution. It can only be successful, however where it is seen as integral to the planning process and not `just another initiative'     

Measuring client satisfaction with public education II: comparing schools with state benchmarks

Because the results of the client satisfaction evaluation trials conducted in the state's public schools revealed that levels of client satisfaction differed in significant and meaningful ways between parents and students as well as between types of schools, this research consultancy provided school versus benchmark comparison reports based on groups of generally comparable school types. The state benchmark for each set of comparable schools estimated how easy it was, on average, for the members of the benchmark group (parents or students) to endorse each of the 20 School Opinion Survey Likert-scale items (King and Bond, 2003). The school satisfaction level for each item was calculated by a similar process to estimate how easy it was, on average, for the members of the school sample (parents or students) to endorse that item. Reports to individual schools used easy to interpret Parent/Student Satisfaction Graphs which plotted the Rasch-modeled differences between the state benchmark level and the school level for each item. In very small schools where the small amount of data did not allow for item-by-item graphs to be constructed, overall satisfaction graphs provided one global comparison with the appropriate benchmark to be reported.     

Measuring knowledge flows between countries: The use of scientific meeting data

The present paper tries to compare international flows of knowledge as measured in meetings with flows as measured with papers in order to see what meetings can add to bibliometric studies. It is shown that most of known bibliometric results are confirmed with meetings, although more skewly: the concentration of proceedings, the dominance and attraction of the United States, and the decline of United Kingdom. However, important limitations are associated with ISTP, namely the low rate of authors' addresses, a limitation which reduces the interest of ISTP for bibliometric studies. Presented at the Sixth International Conference on Scientometrics and Informetrics, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, 16–19 June 1997.     

发达国家研究生教育质量外部保障体系比较研究

历史文化传统和社会发展环境的差异,使西方发达国家发展研究生教育理念和路径不同,各国研究生教育质量外部保障体系具有不同的特点。根据政府、中介机构和高校三个因素在研究生质量保障体系中所起的作用,将发达国家研究生教育质量外部保障体系分为三种基本模式,分别进行对比和分析,得出各国存在评估主体趋向多元化、政府间接参与度提高和社会中介机构日益受到重视的共同发展趋势,对于提升我国研究生教育质量具有重大的现实意义。     

Quality in higher education

Quality in higher education can be defined as a matter of `specifying worthwhile learning goals and enabling students to achieve them'. With this as their aim, it is first necessary for teachers to distinguish between different kinds of learning and to know what to do to help students achieve their learning goals and, secondly, to distinguish between students' different preferred learning styles and to accommodate them. This paper explains and illustrates how these things can be done     

Measuring scientific activity in lesser developed countries

Quantitative indicators of scientific and technological activity are often of questionable validity and reliability. This is particularly true in lesser developed countries, where the lack of data gathering skills may frequently result in the development of misleading indicators. A number of manpower, education, expenditure, and publication indicators are examined for thirteen Middle Eastern countries. Reliability and validity problems are discussed for each indicator. The indicators are found to correlate with each other in reasonable ways, suggesting that despite their possible flaws, they nonetheless appear to measure scientific activity with some consistency.     

Quality enhancement in higher education

The context of quality in higher education is briefly explored. The author argues that there is an overemphasis on accountability at the expense of quality enhancement at the present time. The author presents a picture of quality enhancement in practice at local and national levels, illustrating a variety of stages of development in approaches to quality management and institutional change in higher education. The paper concludes with some suggestions for practical action in putting quality enhancement at the top of local and national agendas in the UK     

高校图书馆与学生信息素质教育

分析了网络环境下开展大学生信息素质教育的必要性;提出了高校图书馆在开展学生信息素质教育中的优势:丰富的馆藏资源、先进的技术设备和高素质的图书馆员;探讨了开展学生信息素质教育的内容和途径,其中包括信息意识教育、信息能力的培养以及文献检索课教学的改革。     

Measuring and diagnostic systems in biomedical education

A rising demand for specialists in measuring and diagnostic systems (MDS) able to apply multidisciplinary knowledge from medicine, theory of measurements, automation and physics was the stimulus for launching a course in this field for students of biomedical engineering at Wroclaw University of Technology. The course was to provide training in medical system design, development and implementation, and cover the topics of general mathematical models of the phenomena, data acquisition, data processing, interpretation and result visualisation. The main aim was to link modern technology with the traditional measurement approach to biological quantities. During the course students are presented with real-world problems from the field of medicine. This article outlines the course curriculum and its Web-centric approach to laboratory equipment     

国外高等教育认证制度

随着教育国际化、多元化和市场化的发展,教育的过程和质量逐渐成为社会关注的焦点.推行教育认证制度,开展教育质量认证工作,建立一套完善的学校教学质量管理体系及评价教育质量的标准和指标体系,借助社会非政府组织力量来评估和保障教育质量成为国际上通行的做法.     

Information technology diffusion in higher education

This project examines information technology (IT) planning, implementation, and diffusion in an academic environment, that of Portland Community College (PCC), the largest college in Oregon. PCC tries to keep pace with the latest technologies by anticipating and implementing new technology solutions in efficient and effective deployments. IT managers and employees at PCC were asked to complete a survey that included questions about IT planning, implementation, and diffusion. This paper proposes a conceptual framework based on previous models of technology adoption. The integrated, three-stage framework involves IT planning, actual IT implementation, and IT diffusion. The study identified adequate training and resistance to change as leading obstacles to IT deployment processes.     

Learning outcomes and their assessment in higher education

A learning outcome is a statement of learning achievement which may take the form of the acquisition of knowledge, understanding, an intellectual skill or a practical skill. Well expressed statements of intended learning outcomes help both tutors and students. They provide a clear explanation of what is required to complete successfully a module in a programme of study providing there are strong links between the learning outcomes, the assessment criteria and the assessment methods. Learning outcomes are not a new idea but are now required for subject review by the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education     

The electronics industry challenge to higher education

Change in the electronics industry continues at a pace, fuelled by the constant developments in technology and the requirement to evolve a cost-competitive business position. This paper summarises the position of the electronics industry in Scotland and provides an assessment of the challenge to higher education (HE) generated by that industry. The author provides a view of industry partnership with HE facilitating the sharing of new methods and technology competencies     

Quality management systems for higher education?

Quality, its assurance, management and assessment, has become a topical issue in higher education. This paper outlines some of the issues involved in setting up quality management systems in an educational environment. In discussion of quality audit and assessment in higher education is followed by a brief review of current approaches to quality management in industry. The Engineering Professors' Conference (EPC) approach to quality assurance in higher education is introduced, to provide a conceptual framework for quality system development. A case study of the implementation of a quality system in one university engineering department is provided. Finally some practical conclusions are drawn, which should help a department set up its own quality system     

An Inno-Qual performance system for higher education

Due to the overall decrease in quality of Taiwanese universities in recent years and the resulting drastic loss of competitive advantage against foreign countries, improving the Taiwanese university system has become an urgent issue requiring immediate attention. Evidence suggests focusing on total quality management (TQM) and that innovation is the key way to effectively upgrade the operation performance and is thus highly advised. Although there are a number of measurement models for TQM and innovation, early models evaluate the performance of each element separately, making evaluation inefficient and inappropriate for practice. There is a new measurement system, the network hierarchical feedback system (NHFS), which integrates the concept and characteristics of both elements; however, the major concern is that the NHFS does not take external organization-oriented improvement into account, such as service quality in higher education, especially in innovation orientation. Additionally, due to the above dilemmas faced by Taiwanese universities, attracting more students has now been a major priority. Thus, we argue that in order to successfully attract potential students, improving TQM and innovation cannot just focus on internal organization-oriented improvement, and we further extend the effectiveness and suitability of the NHFS to a novel and more utilizable performance measurement system, the solid Inno-Qual performance system (IQPS). A hybrid model based on a decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory, a fuzzy analytic network process (FANP), an importance–performance analysis along with in-depth interviews; a fuzzy analytic hierarchical process, and a technique for order preference according to similarity to an ideal solution were adopted to complete the construction. The IQPS is the first measurement system with the most effective characteristics of TQM and innovation embedded for both new and traditional universities of different types. It is intended to enhance and evaluate performance on both external and internal organization-oriented levels, generating synergy and performance improvement.