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The SIR Iber highlights the geographical location of Ibero-American universities by positioning them according to the indicators grouped into three main factors: research, innovation and social impact. The 2020 edition highlights the formation of three groups of countries according to the production capacity of higher education institutions. In group 1 we have: Brazil, Mexico, Chile, Argentina, and Colombia as Latin American countries that managed to publish more than 60,000 papers in the period 2014-2018. This paper analyzes and compares the indicators from the five (05) Latin American countries in group 1 of the SIR Iber 2020 referring to investment in I+S as a percentage of its Gross Domestic Product (PIB), the number of full-time equivalent researchers (Inv JCE), the production (%) of scientific works in the university education sector, to name a few. A conglomerate formed with the Normalized Impact (NI) of public and private IESs is presented, regarding the global average of citation, with the data published in the SIR IBER 2020 Report, and highlights that Chile has a normalized impact above the World average for both public and private IES publications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Now, paper management is becoming an important work in many colleges and universities, and the digitization of paper management is a significant constituent part of the information of college management. We have studied a universal framework of comprehensive management system spanning departments and geographical positions by taking the opportunity of the developing of the paper management system. The framework provides support for setting up large complicated distributed application fleetly, efficiently, expansively and safely, and it is a new project to realize the standardization of paper information management. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

At present, universities are facing a critical period of transition from digital campus to smart campus. Because cloud service data has the characteristics of diversity, in addition to structured data, there are also unstructured data, which play an important role in the study and life of the majority of students. Therefore, it is very important to improve the construction level of smart campus cloud service platform. At this stage, there are great differences between the service platform under the traditional model and the smart campus platform under the big data computer system. Under the traditional mode, the construction method of smart campus cloud service platform in the city has some shortcomings. Therefore, it is urgent to build a smart campus cloud service platform. Based on this, this paper compares the smart campus cloud service platform of the traditional service platform and the big data computer system. The results show that the latter has a timely response speed and can bring high-quality and efficient data services to users. At the same time, it also analyzes the ideas and goals of building an intelligent cloud service platform, and puts forward corresponding construction methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates how exposure to a field of study influences students’ major choices. If students have incomplete information, exposure potentially helps them to learn about the scope of a field as well as how well the field matches their interest and abilities. We exploit a natural experiment where university students have to write a research paper in business, economics, or law during their first year before they choose a major. Due to oversubscription of business papers, the field of the paper is assigned quasi-randomly. We find that writing in economics raises the probability of majoring in economics by 2.7 percentage points. We show further that this effect varies across subfields: the effect is driven by assignment to topics less typical of the public's perception of the field of economics, suggesting students learn through exposure that the field is broader than they thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the approaches for gluteal tendinopathy which includes education plus exercise and corticosteroid injection.

This conceptual paper aims to investigate the interrelationship between intellectual capital (IC) and frugal innovation (FI) in higher education institutions (HEI), considering the mediating role of information technology (IT) capabilities. With many private HEI facing financial challenges, it is crucial to explore how IC can be effectively managed to achieve frugal innovation. By drawing on the knowledge-based view (KBV), this study examines key factors that influence intellectual capital and its impact on frugal innovation in HEI. The findings emphasize the importance of leveraging intangible assets in HEI to enhance their capabilities and address the dynamic business environment. Specifically, the study highlights the need to identify the extent to which HEI can exploit IT capabilities to develop intellectual capital aligned with the criteria of frugal innovation for value creation. This research contributes to the development of evolving approaches in IC knowledge for effective IC management and highlights the benefits for HEI, including a focus on core functions, stronger integration with industry and local/international communities, and enhanced operational efficiency. By shedding light on the formalization, capture, and leveraging of intangible assets, rather than solely focusing on tangible assets, HEI can achieve frugal innovation. Overall, this paper provides a novel perspective by bridging the gap between frugal innovation and IC research in the context of HEI. It highlights the mediating role of IT capabilities in the relationship between IC and frugal innovation, adding valuable insights to the existing literature and contributing to the ongoing scholarly discourse in this field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper discusses the possibility of increasing the effectiveness of strategic management of research and development activities in higher education institutions. To achieve this goal, the authors proposed an algorithm for selecting competencies, which allows for the distribution of university employees and students among research and development teams in accordance with their individual competencies for carrying out research and development work. The paper covers the problem statement of competence selection, an overview of natural language processing methods for algorithm development, problematic areas of the algorithm, and prospects for its implementation in university management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many research studies confirmed that the application of machine learning methods for predicting students at risk of academic failure can be beneficial for improving student performance in higher education institutions. Simultaneously, these studies emphasised the importance of the input data quality, its precise pre-processing and thoroughly selected features on final performance metrics of the applied classification algorithms. However, the stand-alone application of well-known classification algorithms still has performance limitations, which can be outperformed using ensembles of classifiers. Therefore, this paper aims to evaluate the overall contribution of the selected ensemble methods to the early prediction of students at risk of dropping out of learning courses. All phases of CRISP-DM methodology are described in this study to explain the complexity of the problem of the practical adoption of voting-based heterogeneous ensemble methods in the case of data obtained from the course of the university learning management system compared to traditional classification algorithms enhanced by ensemble learning with AdaBoost and XGBoost methods. As a result, the study confirmed that the features which characterise the students' performance and their interactions in the course can be considered the most significant for the identification of the students at risk of dropping out. Moreover, in the case of advanced ensemble algorithms, the overall accuracy, recall, precision, and f1 score were improved by 2-4%. The proposed method has demonstrated exceptional performance. Finally, the paper summarises the findings and their implications for effective prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video consultations and telemedicine play a key role in healthcare. It is crucial to assist institutions in identifying which patients are more likely to use them, increasing the adoption rate. Even though Artificial Intelligence models are important, certain cases require a human centric approach to inform patients and doctors, ensuring trust in the tools provided. This can be achieved through interpretable Machine Learning models and Statistical Analysis. In this paper we show that even though the accuracy of the Machine Learning models used (Decision Trees, Logistic Regression, and Random Forest) was between 84%-89% on the training set and 69%-76% on the test set the models lacked good ability to identify the users. Afterwards, additional statistical analysis evidenced that the main driver to use video consultations in a sample of participations with a higher-than-average education is the presence of one or more chronic diseases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, higher education institutions are focused on understanding which factors are associated with the failure or success of students to, early on, be able to implement measures that can reduce the low performance of students and even dropout. The retention rate is positively and negatively influenced by factors belonging to several dimensions (personal, environmental, and institutional). We aim to use information from those dimensions to identify students enrolled in a Computer Networks course at risk of failing the subject. Besides, this needs to happen as early as possible, to be able to provide the students, for example, with extra support or resources to try to prevent that negative outcome. For predicting the grade level on the first test, the best accuracy obtained was 55%. However, most C-level grades were correctly classified, with 63% accuracy in predicting the students that are most at risk of failing, which is one of our main objectives. As for the prediction of the second test's grade level, the best accuracy obtained was 89% and concerned data regarding the students' interaction with the LMS together with students' grades history. All the C-level grades were correctly classified (100% accuracy) and so we were able to correctly predict every student at a high risk of failing. Using the procedure described in this paper, we are able to anticipate the students needing extra support, and provide them with different resources, to try to prevent their negative outcome. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education institutions in Indonesia are required to report their academic data to the national higher institution database (namely PDDikti) through a synchronization mechanism. Because the PDDikti database has been used as the reference for nationwide programs such as university ranking, diploma verification, faculty promotion, and tenure, academic data in their reports have to be valid, accurate, and up to date. Yet, data quality is an issue among higher institutions, while data governance is the heart of data quality. This paper investigates challenges encountered by a public university in Indonesia in implementing data governance and how to resolve them. The findings outline six main challenges in data governance implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we analyze the problem of data-driven university management. We propose a concept of an intelligent strategic decision support system (ISDSS) to ensure that informed decisions are made in the management of higher education institutions. We show that the underlying task of various decision support tasks in university management is the analysis and forecasting of scientific and technological trends. We propose an approach to solving this task which includes determining promising emerging and existing technological areas, forecasting the further development of each of the selected areas, generating possible scenarios of their development and preparing suggestions for decision makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Analyzing the effects of knowledge management in higher education is challenging because of various aspects of tasks such as teaching effectiveness, administrative services, and research communications. Employees' job performance is crucial in higher education institutions in order to disseminate innovations, knowledge, and collaboration. Thus, studying the relationship between knowledge management practices and job performance is essential. Therefore, this literature review and topic analysis aims to provide a concept-driven approach for synthesizing and analyzing numerous available literature bases. Collected journal articles and conference papers were scrutinized based on this research work's above-mentioned aim. Finally, 41 relevant papers have been studied in this work. The presented work advances the understanding of the role of knowledge management processes in higher education institutions in increasing job performance. Findings suggest that individual, national, and professional teams, language issues, and trust can impact knowledge-sharing practices and job performance of higher education institutes' employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of organizations are encouraging and accepting the research information management system in the institute level to assess the research progress of the organization and bring out a report on scholarly communication activities. Open and commercial product on the Current Research Information System (CRIS) is emerging in the last decade. The Directory of Current Research Information system listed 25 CRIS system across European countries. The European Current Research Information System (euroCRIS) support the CRIS thought the European countries through the conference, working group and pioneer in the advocacy since 2002. This paper considers the recent development in the CRIS related activities around the world and recent progress in India. This paper describes the various challenges to setting up the RIM for the higher education institutions including identification of nodal officers, collecting faculty profile information, retrieving scholarly communication activities from internal and external sources, etc. Also, discuss the training programme to the nodal officer level and institute level to promote the academic identities and their importance. The paper also discusses the impact of the IRINS in the higher education system in India and its use case with different stakeholders such as students, scholars, faculty members, scientists, research administrators, funding agencies and policymakers, etc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, the role of entrepreneurship education has grown dramatically in significance, as a driver for innovation, employment, and economic development. The acquisition of entrepreneurship skills empowers individuals to recognize and capitalize on opportunities, effectively manage risks, and navigate the dynamic landscape of the Deep Tech industry. These skills enable engineers to identify viable business models, understand market dynamics, secure funding for research projects, and effectively communicate their ideas to stakeholders, including investors, industry partners, and policymakers. To realize the aforementioned objectives, Higher Education Institutions play a critical role by educating future (engineering) experts and are seen as drivers of innovation. This paper presents a use case in the form of an educational toolkit. It focuses on how to professionalize entrepreneurship education, fostering entrepreneurial mindsets among engineering experts, academic staff, and non-academic staff at Higher Education Institutions in Deep Tech-related disciplines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to build a smart campus teaching system with good teaching efficiency, this paper improves the traditional ZigBee algorithm and builds a smart campus teaching system based on ZigBee wireless sensors. Moreover, this paper improves the estimation algorithm of students' specific location and direction on campus, and analyzes the network structure of the smart teaching system based on the actual needs of smart teaching, and builds a three-tier teaching structure system. In addition, on the basis of demand analysis, this paper sets the system function modules, analyzes the data processing effect of the network nodes of this smart campus through experimental research, and evaluates the system teaching effect. Finally, this paper uses simulation technology to analyze 100 sets of data to evaluate the data processing effect of ZigBee network. Through the experimental research results, we can see that the smart campus teaching system constructed in this paper has good results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates online learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and explores the possibility that procrastinators have been impacted differently as compared to others. The research is explorative in nature and employs interviews from participants at a higher education institution in Norway as a primary method of investigation. The preliminary findings presented in the paper highlight differences between procrastinators and non-procrastinators regarding the desire to study and satisfaction with learning outcomes. The procrastinators are encountering a higher degree of challenges related to motivation as opposed to non-procrastinators. The preliminary findings also highlight challenges associated with student engagement and the use of the camera during online classes for all the students. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the rapid development of higher education in China, more and more archives are managed by the archives of colleges and universities. Therefore, many colleges and universities have equipped archives management software to manage archives by computer. However, at present, the mainstream archives management software for colleges and universities does not have the function of automatic classification of archives. In order to reduce the workload of college archives staff, this paper explores a text automatic classification method suitable for college archives. Classification tree algorithm is a method of organizing and storing information. The classification tree is used to classify data into various categories, such as customers and products. It also provides an effective way to search for data using keywords or phrases. Classification tree is very useful in document processing, because it can help us find documents with similar characteristics, such as customers with similar requirements, products with similar functions, etc. The working principle of classification tree algorithm is to decompose the problem into smaller subproblems, and then solve one subproblem at a time until all problems are completely solved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of this paper is to explore the success factors and barriers to digital co-creation between Higher Education Institutions (HEI) and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO). The analysis is based on a qualitative approach, and particularly 80 semi-structured interviews with experts in digital co-creation from HEIs and NGOs from Poland, Germany, Turkey and Italy. The article identifies key success factors, including country's level of digitalization, individual's motivation to engage with digital platforms and methods, common goals, attitudes, and expectations. The study also highlights several barriers to successful digital co-creation, including variety of digital platforms, interpersonal connection, disengagement, and decreased attention spans. Among the success factors and barriers both external and internal factors were identified, all comprising a network of driving fosters and limitations to digital co-creation. Main of them include country's level of digitalization, motivation to engage with digital technology, digital literacy, incentives for engagement, shared goals and mutual understanding, variety of digital platforms, fear from losing interpersonal interactions, disengagement, and decreased attention span. The findings of this study will be of interest to HEIs, NGOs, policymakers, and other stakeholders involved in digital co-creation initiatives, providing insights on how to overcome barriers and optimize success factors to achieve effective and sustainable partnerships. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most instructors and staff in a university environment use manual methods of tracking student attendance and college assets. However, these methods have several disadvantages; the major drawbacks of taking attendance manually are errors in data collection and the loss of part of the lecture time. As for asset tracking, the common issues are human errors in data collection, wrong inventory estimation and time wastage during the process. Automated identification and data capturing technologies can help address these issues. This paper investigates the implementation of one such system, the barcode technology, to read and process student attendance data in classroom settings and to track periodic inventory of assets within the college facilities such as devices, equipment, office furniture, classrooms, and laboratories. The paper measures faculty members and staff response on usability, comfort level, and efficiency for the proposed barcode system. This work shows that barcode technology eliminates data entry errors and improves efficiency for entering data with a minimum cost of creating barcode tags and hardware. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher education institutions (HEIs) can play a key role in the transition to the circular economy (CE) given their missions, characteristics and role in shaping the coming generations of citizens and leaders. The aim of this paper is to provide a comprehensive examination of HEIs as microcosms for transitioning to circular models. Through a semi-systematic literature review, it focuses on the systemic transformation of HEIs and uses quantitative and qualitative content analysis to map 72 research papers covering the topic. The paper also introduces a methodological approach to address the complex nature of HEIs as intricate systems. The analysis reveals the presence of six main themes relevant to CE implementation in HEIs: education and research; campus physical facilities; tools and activities for greening the campus; material flows and waste management; collaboration, stakeholder engagement and behaviours; and frameworks for CE implementation. The analysis showed a growing interest in CE implementation in HEIs and evidence of the potential of HEIs to foster the transition towards it. However, an organized approach is currently lacking as is an understanding of how to apply CE practices within HEI systems. Recommendations for future research include comparing academic research findings with grey literature from HEI networks and other credible organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the introduction of COVID-19 vaccines, many colleges and universities decided to mandate vaccination for all students and employees. The objective of this paper is to empirically investigate the effect of the mandate policy on Fall 2021 COVID-19 cases in institutions of higher education. We construct a unique dataset of a sample of 94 colleges and universities in the east and southeast regions of the United States, 41 of which required vaccination prior to Fall 2021. A difference-in-differences analysis is conducted, considering vaccine requirement as a policy implemented only in a sub-group of these institutions. We control for several factors, including state-level case per capita and student population. Our analysis shows that mandatory vaccination substantially decreased cases in institutions of higher education by 1,473 cases per 100,000 student population (95 CI: 132, 2813). The results suggest that a COVID-19 vaccine requirement is an effective policy in decreasing cases in such institutions, leading to a safer educational experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Development and implementation of Current Research Information Systems (CRIS) is one of the most transparent and practical approaches to curate research information on a national level. The process of building and implementing such systems is a complex and time consuming where successful results heavily depend on the established research information infrastructure of a country, the interoperability of the systems and the quality of the information which reside in them. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the existing Ukrainian Research Information Infrastructure and identify which databases could be reused and integrated with a national Ukrainian Current Research Information System (URIS). The analysis showed that there are functional databases and registries that collect data on research activities and could be used as a data sources for the URIS. In particular, the Unified State Electronic Database on Education is a potential data source on higher educational institutions, the National Repository of Academic Texts — on metadata on research output, internal database of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine and database on research projects maintained by Ukrainian Institute of Scientific Technical and Economic Information — on projects. Secondly, it was identified that Ukrainian research infrastructure lacks complete, up-to-date registry on researchers. Finally, we discussed the challenges and solutions for further steps in building national CRIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The fact that the world community is engaged in pursuing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) means that an unrivalled opportunity is provided to universities, both in respect of teaching and in research, on individual SDGs, as well as in pursuing their "third mission" linking up with external stakeholders and society. However, not many universities have realised that and many are falling behind. This paper explores the many advantages of the introduction of the SDGs into teaching and suggests that it can catalyse the engagement of students in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) with the concepts of sustainability. The paper fills in a research gap by surveying the current state of the art regarding the theme, presenting current data outlining the extent to which HEI are using SDGs to support their sustainability work. The reasons why some institutions are currently not engaging is also shown. The paper, which consists of a worldwide survey deployed to collect data on the SDGs and sustainability teaching at universities, concludes by providing some recommendations aimed at encouraging further engagement of HEI in incorporatingSDGs as part of their teaching programs. This research is unique in the sense that it provides for the first time offers an overview of the level of emphasis selected universities currently place on the SDGs. Finally, it provides a contribution to current state of knowledge by outlining some actions universities may take, to move forward with their implementation. • The implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at universities is still on its infancy. • The SDGs may assist universities to better relate with external stakeholders and society. • A greater involvement of students may be achieved by the integration of the SDGs in teaching. • More systematic efforts are needed to increase the presence of the SDGs in higher education institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green and Sustainability Offices are special settings which assist initiatives within higher education institutions to coordinate their efforts and work in the field of sustainable development. The set-up of such offices is known to be an effective tool in supporting the implementation of sustainability initiatives on campuses, and in fostering awareness among students and staff on matters related to sustainable development. But despite their usefulness and proven effectiveness, the use of Green Offices and Sustainability Offices is not as wide as it could -or should-be. Also, there is a limited amount of empirical international work performed to date, which have investigated the various barriers related to their works. This paper, which focus on the role played by green offices in a higher education context, addresses a research gap. On the basis of the need to address this research gap, this paper presents the results of an international study on Green and Sustainability Offices, performed with a sample of 70 higher education institutions from round the world. The study consisted of an on-line survey which identified the extent to which Green Offices or similar governance structures are being deployed, some specific aspects of their operations and the barriers or difficulties related to their activities. The study concludes by suggesting some topics higher education institutions may take into consideration, in order to maximise their potential benefits. • Green Offices may concretely support institutional efforts in pursuing and implementing sustainability. • Some obstacles hinder the realization of sustainability objectives at the institutional level. • Lack of specific funding and lack of support from the administrations are key problems. • Greater efforts are needed to institutionalise sustainability infrastructures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• There are numerous implementation structures for sustainability in HEIs. • Policy, Strategies, Initiatives and Outreach approaches are varied. • Numerous drivers, barriers and best practices exist. • Monitoring of sustainability progress is not standardized. • Access to sustainability information can be challenging. Higher Education Institutes are being called upon to integrate sustainable development into their organisation, driven by national and international events, policies and environmental targets. This paper maps sustainability policies and initiatives of a select number of Irish and international Higher Education Institutes, exploring their integration of sustainability on-campus, testing of new ideas and technologies, and the amplification of lessons learned within society and economy. It provides a comparison of Irish Higher Education Institutes with international examples. Sixteen case studies were selected; seven from Ireland and nine international. A literature review was conducted with a focus on papers that dealt explicitly with sustainability education and outreach. Three site visits of Higher Education Institution campuses took place, as did interviews with energy and transport managers and academics of each institute. The results show the integration of sustainable development into Higher Education Institutes follows no standard approach, with the number of initiatives for sustainability outweighing the number of strategies and policies, presenting a general bottom-up process. Overall, Higher Education Institutes lack a systemic approach. The majority of initiatives focus oncampus actions, with outreach neglected. Higher Education Institutes represent significant resources in implementing sustainable development. To maximise their potential a mixture of top-down and bottom-up processes are necessary, with management support essential if sustainable development is to survive in the long-term, and for lessons learned to be successfully amplified to wider society and economy and assist in meeting national and international environmental targets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many higher education institutions have started to develop academic curricula, research capacity and outreach activities related to circular economy. However, little is known yet on how to apply circular economy thinking to sustainable campus management. In an attempt to address this gap, this paper proposes a methodological framework and guidance to help universities develop a circular economy strategy aimed at improving resource efficiency and environmental sustainability of their campus operations. The approach is compatible with sustainability management frameworks as it follows the well-known iterative process of planning, doing, checking and improving. The framework involves three main steps: analysis of current situation with respect to circular economy within the organisation; stakeholder engagement to get a buy-in and inform the development of a circular economy strategy; and implementation of the strategy following the guidelines provided within the framework. Application of the framework is illustrated through a case of the University of Manchester, demonstrating how circular economy principles can be used to benchmark existing sustainability policies and action plans. The paper also shows how engaging key stakeholders can be used to identify challenges and opportunities for embedding circular economy thinking into the university's sustainability management systems. The proposed framework and the guidelines for implementation of circular economy thinking are generic and can be applied by any institution across the higher education sector. Image 1 • There is a lack of knowledge on how to implement circular economy in universities. • A simple but powerful framework is proposed to guide institutions in that process. • Application of the framework is illustrated through a real case of a large UK university. • Challenges and opportunities for CE are discussed based on stakeholder interviews. • Guidelines are provided for the development and implementation of a CE strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Ecological civilization education is a critical, educational support for construction of ecological civilization. The structure chart of ecological education evaluation below shows that process evaluation plays a decisive role in determining the results of summary evaluation. The construction of an indicator system in this paper is just by focusing on the core content of ecological education –Educational PROCESS – so to incorporate the theory of ecological civilization into the whole college education. This paper is based on the modified AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) to establish a comprehensive evaluation model, construct judgment matrix and correct the weights, and to construct the framework and indicator system for evaluation of ecological civilization education in colleges and universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract This paper aims to illustrate the cross-boundary research collaboration (CBRC) landscape of waste management (WM) by various collaboration networks. Through a set of rigorous procedures, a total of 15,396 research papers were extracted from eight subject-related journals published between 1981 and 2016. The authors utilized CiteSpace , a Java programme that helps visualize and dissect patterns in scientific literature, to evaluate the content through individual, institutional, national, and disciplinary perspectives. The evaluations of three former perspectives revealed a steady rise in CBRC within WM over the last thirty-five years, although the overall intensities proved fairly low. Inter-individual collaboration groups were limited to their respective regions and only loosely connected, but as more and more academic institutions and universities engaged in WM research, the number and quality of the collaborations increased. Developed countries, chiefly in North America and Western Europe, comprised the bulk of the WM research, whilst the mounting contributions from developing countries, China in particular, forecasts greater diversity in the future. The analysis also suggested that the intensity of the interdisciplinary collaboration network declined slightly, however, the intensity proved low to begin with. Previous WM research focused more on "hard" technologies than "soft" measures. Future endeavors to encourage CBRC in WM should promote more innovative research to tackle waste challenges globally in a sustainable way. Highlights • No core scholars stood out from cross-boundary research collaboration networks. • No institution occupied a critical position. • Old-line developed countries stay in the center of research than developing ones. • More research has focused on "hard" technologies than "soft" measures. • CBRC from different perspectives were limited but increasing steadily over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to understand how the difficulties associated with the inclusion of sustainability in engineering education are related. From the literature review, eleven difficulties were compiled and posteriorly, a panel of experts was conducted to divide them into two groups, namely “difficulties associated with structure and planning” and “difficulties observed in didactic practice”. These groups were used as a basis of a survey, involving Brazilian lecturers who work with sustainability in engineering courses. The collected data were analysed through Structural Equation Modelling, using Partial Least Squares method. The validation of the model was divided into nine different steps. A causal relationship between the two groups was verified through the present research, that is, the greater the difficulties associated with the structure and planning, the greater will be the difficulties observed in didactic practice. The results of this paper may be used by researchers in their future studies and by lecturers and coordinators as a guide to the inclusion of sustainability in engineering education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to research on integrated and sustainability reporting at higher-education institutions in the context of voluntary reporting by focusing on an innovative Spanish university. It examines the developments for the implementation of sustainability and integrated reporting at this university by critically analysing what, why, who and how the new models of reporting have been implemented. The paper provides a case study using documentary analysis and qualitative data based on semi-structured interviews. The results show that the report is mainly focused on social and sustainability values and can not be considered an integrated report that connects all the capitals creating value. The key driver has been stakeholders' interests, represented by the university's social council, aiming at increasing competitiveness and achieve third mission objectives. The paper contributes by pointing out the challenges and principal issues of the process of implementation. An important issue for successful implementation is introducing it as a managerial and accountability tool, and linking it to the organisation's strategic objectives. This can be used for learning processes at other universities that want to follow this path. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper profiles Australian universities’ website communications about sustainability initiatives, especially relating to Talloires Declaration signification and the ten recommended actions. The research involves a content study of Talloires signatories’ websites and their semiotic and signaling theory aspects across time. The source is publicly available information (time period 2014 and 2015 respectively) in context with education for sustainable development (ESD) in society and the transaction model in communication theory. It is found that some of the signatory universities in Australia exemplify a few of the Talloires ten agreed actions in their public communications, but each point is not emphasised with equal priority. The variance may be due to divergent underlying objectives; such as public communication of Talloires toward genuine benefit for the environment, or to create a strategic positioning tool to signal the university as an environmental champion within the broader society. Focusing upon secondary data from signatory university websites in Australia, the paper provides a study of higher education signification of Talloires. It assists the initial understanding of signaling theory in the public communication transactions that promote Talloires action and implementation. The findings encourage further studies of related communication issues in universities in other countries. The paper also deepens local and global understanding of perceptions of sustainability and contributes to the body of comparative literature of sustainability in higher education as a development component of strategic management of ESD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Websites are one of the most widely distributed information resources. Educational institutions use this resource to ensure that the best quality of information transmission is achieved. As such, academic sites have become a very important aspect of academic institutions, one that affects their overall quality. Bearing in mind the importance of university websites’ quality, the authors of this paper presented a multi-criteria model for evaluating the quality of university websites. This paper presents the hybrid IR-AHP-MABAC (Interval Rough Analytic Hierarchy Process - MultiAttributive Border Approximation Area Comparison) model. The model is adapted to group decision making as based on the application of a new approach to treating uncertainties through the use of interval rough numbers (IRN). The modified IR-AHP method was used to determine the weight coefficients of the criteria in the group decision-making process. The results of the IR-AHP model are compared with results provided by the traditional AHP method and the fuzzy AHP approach. The IR-MABAC model was used for the evaluation of university websites. In order to verify the results of the IRN based approach, the IR-MABAC model was compared to the F-TOPSIS (Fuzzy Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution), F-VIKOR (Fuzzy MultiCriterion Optimization and Compromise Solution), F-COPRAS (Fuzzy COmpressed PRoportional ASsessment), F-MAIRCA (Fuzzy MultiAtributive Ideal-Real Comparative Analysis), and F-TODIM (an acronym of Interactive and Multi Criteria Decision Making in Portuguese) models. The credibility of the IR-AHP-MABAC model was demonstrated by comparing the results of different multi-criteria techniques and analyzing viability. The results of the IRN approach and fuzzy comparison have shown that the new approach to dealing with imprecision yields credible, reputable ranks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Websites have evolved into an excellent medium of information dissemination and visibility. Hence governments and organizations around the world have websites as primary medium for information communication. The universal accessibility of this web medium remains a major challenge for both web developers and accessibility researchers. Conformance of WCAG 2.0 guidelines by web pages is a significant factor in measuring universal accessibility. This paper presents an exploratory study about the accessibility of Indian university website homepages. We have analyzed the homepages of 302 Indian universities under different conformance levels of WCAG 2.0 recommendation using automatic accessibility evaluation tools to find accessibility report of websites and then classified them comparatively into three groups namely low accessible websites called Tier-III, medium accessible websites called Tier-II and high accessible websites called Tier-I. Statistical classification and accessibility report of websites shows that an array of further improvements have to be made in order to make them more accessible and usable in terms of WCAG 2.0. Based on the results of the analysis, this paper proposes the necessary steps which shall be taken to further enhance the accessibility of the websites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new methodology of the infomatization construction of the higher education institutions based on IT capability for solving the information technology (IT) productivity paradox existing in informatization construction of higher education institutions at present. It analyzes the reasons that lead to the IT productivity paradox problem, expounds the factors and influence mechanism of IT capabilities in higher education institutions and proposes a way to improve the IT capability in higher education institutions by importing IT governance framework to make sure that the IT development is consistent with the development strategy of higher education institutions, to maximize the benefit of IT investments, and to take a good care of the accompanying risks occurred in the IT development process. In general, this paper proposes an effective solution to the problem of IT productivity paradox in the informatization construction of higher education institutions at present. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By developing and implementing environmental concerns in its principles and infrastructure, universities are becoming increasingly active in promoting societal changes towards sustainable development. These environmental concerns are translated into comprehensive and transversal environmental education programs aimed at building capacities and promoting awareness not only for students but also to the surrounding communities. This paper aims to develop a Balanced Scorecard strategy map for implementing and monitoring environmental education programs in universities. To accomplish this objective, we conducted a literature review on environmental education in higher education, finding 10 primary indicators and 40 sub-indicators needed to implement environmental education programs in universities. Fifteen experts in sustainability research were asked to evaluate these indicators and sub-indicators. Then, those indicators and expert evaluations were used to build a decision tree that supports the Balanced Scorecard. Based on our findings, we created and adapted a strategy map for environmental education based on five dimensions: sustainable development; environmental education; teaching processes and environmental management; learning and environmental growth; and economic and financial responsibility. The main contribution of this paper is to propose a theoretical proposal that can serve as a guide to implement and monitor environmental education programs in universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes the significance of international conferences for higher education institutions (HEIs)’ promotion of sustainability. The paper has undertaken a detailed review of the scientific literature on strategies of HEIs to promote sustainability, hence identifying eight HEIs strategies that these institutions can adopt to become more sustainable (developing an Institutional Agenda, promoting Research, improving Teaching, enhancing green Campus Operations, stimulating community Outreach, and promoting Knowledge Dissemination). Based on this review, and focusing on knowledge dissemination, particularly on the academic events (conferences, seminars and workshops), 69 international academic conferences on sustainability were selected for analysis (from 2012 to 2016). From these conferences 21 proved suitable for a text mining analysis due to the data availability - i.e. articles published online. These articles were organized and submitted to the Collocations Extraction process, creating a list of important terms for each conference, based on their frequency in the articles. Furthermore, the relevance of these terms was tested using the Google Trends tool, to evidence the frequency of their Google searching. Finally, two conferences were selected for a more in-depth analysis, exploring their results and contributions (REGSA and LINKS conferences) to promote sustainability. The main results of the paper outline that international conferences have become important HEIs’ strategies to promote various issues of sustainability, through sharing knowledge, experiences, projects, initiatives and methods. It can be noticed a high interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary character of these events, illustrated by the multitude of promoted topics and participation, but also an increasing interest to actively involve stakeholders in discussing and promoting sustainability and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the macroeconomic determinants of first enrollment in private higher education institutions, as a dependent variable, for 21 Departments of Colombia plus the capital city of Bogotá from 2005 to 2020. The bases of the human capital theory were contrasted with the empirical evidence for the case studied, and the effect of currency devaluation represents a new contribution to the literature. We used the Prais-Winsten methodology with corrected standard errors and first-order autocorrelation correction to estimate the econometric model. The results suggest that favorable variations in GDP, wage expectations, and population positively impact the dependent variable. However, the devaluation of the Colombian peso against the US dollar, represented in the trm variable, has a negative effect, i.e., the devaluation of the peso would lead to a reduction in the dependent variable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scooter sharing has gained tremendous popularity among university campuses as in other places with many visitors. In practice, shared dockless scooters are more widely used than dock-based scooters. However, dockless scooters can cause inefficient mobility in case of the needs such as recharging and finding the nearest scooter among scattered ones in various places. Since the scooter-sharing literature still has significant knowledge gaps regarding identifying an optimal deployment of scooter-sharing stations, this paper aims to determine the necessary criteria to be considered while deploying scooter-sharing stations and identifying the best locations based on a university campus case using an integrated interval type-2 fuzzy BWM-MARCOS model. This study focuses on a university case that can be exemplary for other universities and similar locations, including many people in their various parts. Universities are bounded areas, and their visitors are mostly the same people for a long time. Therefore, first location selection and corrective actions in time may give more traceable and precise results. This research identifies the main criteria and presents a systematic road map for location selection of shared e-scooter stations, applying ITF2-BWM to determine the importance weights of the location selection criteria and employing IT2F-MARCOS to select the most optimal shared e-scooter stations. Hence, the current paper differs from past studies concerning the studied case and the proposed integrated model. A comparative study with IT2F-TOPSIS is employed to strengthen the accuracy of the results produced by the proposed model. Also, a sensibility analysis of the results was performed to test how changes in criteria weights would affect the final scores of alternative locations. • An integrated interval type-2 fuzzy BWM-MARCOS method has been employed. • The most critical determinant of the optimal location is the transportation. • A case of a university campus was studied. • A novel sensibility analysis of the results was performed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To succeed in the international labor market, the competence of the workforce is crucial. The need to continually update competence has put life-long learning to the top of the political and research agenda internationally, and higher education plays a key role in the effort to manage this challenge. As working life is changing rapidly, so must businesses and the public sector. In a wide range of organizations and industries, project work is now a common practice and a main catalyst for change. Hence, competence in project management is highly wanted, and has resulted in many courses offered by higher educational institutions. This paper examines the spreading of further education courses on project management and project work offered by public higher educational institutions in Norway. The focus is on which professional fields dominate the teaching of project management and what forms of learning they apply. The study maps the extent to which student active learning is implemented in the course design by looking at which methods of assessment are utilized. The findings show that the professional fields of business administration as well as engineering and technology dominate teaching in project management and project work. There are also indications of widespread use of student active learning in courses of project management, although it is not consistent and how it is implemented in practice needs further investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the challenges in achieving success in the global competition for the government is to set up higher education institutions to be able to become a World Class University (WCU). It is believed that to address this challenge they need effective collaboration for both internally and externally where information technology (IT) is set as an enabler. However, in fact, this research has found that it is still not utilized effectively although the need for the collaboration has clearly stated in the organization’s strategic direction. This paper aims to increase such an effective collaboration model for higher education in Indonesia towards WCU. By using one of reputable state Islamic universities in Indonesia as research object, UIN Maliki Malang, which consist of more than 17,000 students and staffs, this paper proposing a collaboration architecture model equipped with suitable supporting tools. As approaching methods, we use business model design and transformation by mapping study object’s business strategic programs into proven collaborative model and their strategic planning of IS/IT. The result of the analysis conducted in the research shows that the majority of the strategic direction of UIN Maliki Malang requires collaboration using information technology both internally and externally. Additionally, UIN Maliki Malang also has facilitated by several collaborations tools within the organization. However, they still need a formal collaboration architecture model to achieve their strategic direction goals effectively. Thus, through the achievement of collaboration effectiveness using information technology, the achievement of a world class university can be realized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, data warehouse tools and technologies cannot handle the load and analytic process of data into meaningful information for top management. Big data technology should be implemented to extend the existing data warehouse solutions. Universities already collect vast amounts of data so the academic data of university has been growing significantly and become a big academic data. These datasets are rich and growing. University’s top-level management needs tools to produce information from the records. The generated information is expected to support the decision-making process of top-level management. This paper explores how big data technology could be implemented with data warehouse to support decision making process. In this framework, we propose Hadoop as big data analytic tools to be implemented for data ingestion/staging. The paper concludes by outlining future directions relating to the development and implementation of an institutional project on Big Data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper deals with the complex study of the acoustic rehabilitation of an educational building belonging to the Faculty of Electrical Engineering of the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca and with the presentation of the measures to be adopted to fully satisfy the basic requirement of buildings “protection against noise” and to provide optimal speech intelligibility in lecture and seminar rooms. In spite of the fact that the building in question exhibits many of the features of green buildings, in fact, it was not subjected to a sound-based research and hence the purpose of this paper lies in drawing the attention to the need of taking into account aspects also related to the acoustic comfort. The goal of the acoustic design lies in showing how to bring noise down to the limit values imposed by acoustic comfort requirements in buildings and built environment and to provide a proper sound quality in public audition rooms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The world's economy is becoming increasingly knowledge intensive. This will drive further technological, societal and organisational change. A knowledge intensive economy gives the producers of knowledge – universities – a potentially key role in shaping our future. However, this paper shows that neither Australian industry, nor universities are good at collaborating for innovation. Change is needed but change is hard, resource intensive and never ending. This paper demonstrates why change is so difficult and suggests steps for success. It demonstrates why effective leadership is central to the change process and suggests further applied research to understand the practical obstacles that are preventing universities from developing partnerships for innovation. It defines a principle for evidence-based innovation that is fit for the Anthropocene and proposes the sustainable development goals as a measure to understand the impact of university research in order to help move society in the direction society is seeking. It also pries into the Pandora's box of the role of Universities in partnering for innovation in the Anthropocene and proposes further research on the role of ‘leading by doing’ on potential partnerships for innovation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous materials and products used on university campuses, especially in chemistry schools, have the latent possibility to become hazardous waste. As described in this work, the Facultad de Ciencias Quimicas of the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon initiated a hazardous waste classification program in 1994. Later, in 2003, a new comprehensive program for hazardous waste management emerged to provide a systematic program of collection and classification of hazardous waste generated in laboratories, for the purpose of confining and reducing the amount of hazardous waste produced by the Facultad de Ciencias Quimicas. This paper presents the scope of this program and describes how the comprehensive program for hazardous waste has impacted the Chemistry School and the Universidad Autonoma de Nuevo Leon community in the period from 2009 to 2013. The classification of hazardous waste by type has been useful and was quickly adopted by the student community as well as academic and non-academic staff. The largest quantities of generated hazardous waste consisted of liquid acid waste and toxic inorganic materials with corrosive characteristics. The largest quantities of generated solid hazardous waste were pieces of glass impregnated with toxic hazardous substances. Additionally, the comprehensive program for hazardous waste contributed to the acknowledgement of the Facultad de Ciencias Quimicas by the Mexican Government with a Certificate of Environmental Quality, making it the first educational organization in Mexico to be given this distinction. However, the most important result of the comprehensive program for hazardous waste management is the legacy of environmental care imparted to the student community. The scientific value added in this paper is the development of a new classification of hazardous waste, which can be useful in chemistry schools in any university. Finally, this work acknowledges the challenge for universities and organizations to act, develop sustainability, and change the paradigms and assumptions on which these organizations are currently based. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Waste minimization in campus sustainability can be an effective showcase of sustainability governance in translating the elusive concept of sustainable development in the context of Higher Education Institution into more tangible outcome of sustainable consumption, reduce environmental effect from campus activities and create conducive campus environmental for behavioral change. As part of the sustainability initiative in Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, the establishment of a Green Office reveals the complexity of institutionalizing waste minimization in campuses as well as demonstrate the potential of living laboratory framework as an integrative, transformative and structural approach of the triangulation elements of Higher Education Institutions; teaching & learning, research and operation. The first part of the study begins with the science approach in develop waste profile with its’ strategic implication; i. correction on waste generation 0.83 kg per capita per day in campus instead of 3.47 kg per person per day received from the waste collector in 2011 and, ii. strategize and justify the campus sustainability initiatives based on waste characterization figures; 46% compostable or food waste and 40.6% dry waste or recyclable items (paper 39.7%, followed by plastic packaging 31.8%, plastic bottles 17.2% and aluminum cans 11.3%) in 2011. The Green Office practices designed to minimize dry waste and provide situational and systemic changes for behavior, such as Sustainable Meeting, Saving Paper and Practicing Recycling, resulted in campus paper reduction rates of 30% (2011), 42% (2012) and 58% (2013). The economic sustainability dimension from the total paper reduction consumption is 35, 089 reams, amounted saving of MYR 561.424 or US$ 130,563 (2009–2013). The result equivalences with the carbon emission reduction 6047.58 kg and the energy saving amounted 4,414,196.2 GJ/t as an environmental sustainability dimension. The second part of the study, which is more on the social science approach, analyze through the participatory based approach, governance and institutionalization process of waste minimization. The process involves decentralization of solid waste management, established co-production of knowledge and co-implementation as well as effective monitoring. Those aspects contributes to the development of sustainable consumption in general and behavioral changes of the campus society. The study demonstrates and explains in detail the adoption of waste profile data resulted from research has corrected function for better management of waste minimization as to support integrated solid waste management in campus. The result discloses several challenges in introducing such a task by introducing Green Office initiative in systemic approach which reflects in waste data performance and monitoring. The scientific evidence with a combination support top down and bottom up governance approach showcase the successful of waste minimization initiatives in campus sustainability. Furthermore, the study suggests the Green Office awards and certification as to increase the competitiveness of CoR or Green Manager and involves the cleaner services in the process as to sustain the Green Office performance in the long term. This study provides a practical experience and detail process of adaptation waste minimization in the context of campus sustainability which adds to the new dimension of growing body of knowledge in waste management from the perspective of sustainability science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green public procurement has been considered an important policy instrument on the path toward realizing sustainable consumption and production. Additionally, universities are important to the promotion of sustainable consumption through their positive effects on students and other stakeholders. This paper analyses the contribution of universities to sustainable consumption through Green Public Procurement initiatives, from both external and internal perspectives. From an external perspective, how universities express their “green” image outwardly has been analysed. The results show that 21.5% universities have put into practice different initiatives related to green procurement (having a public procurement manual), and 72.5% of them have a department in charge of environmental subjects. From an internal perspective, how universities currently position themselves in terms of green procurement policies has been analysed. The results reveal that universities generally include environmental criteria in the public procurement contract specifications and that they regularly organise awareness and media campaigns. The results reflect the perceptions of people in charge of promoting green initiatives inside the universities; however, they may or may not be involved in their institution's mission. The value of this paper lies in its contribution to the knowledge of how initiatives implemented at higher education institutions can contribute to sustainable consumption using theoretical and practical approaches. The biggest obstacle was the difficulty in locating the different initiatives at universities' websites and also in the lack of uniformity for the comparison, dissemination and communication of environment-related activities. The conclusions show that green public procurement is a relatively new activity in Spain, especially in relation to sustainable consumption; however, it needs to be studied thoroughly because it can prompt policymakers to increase green practices through the adoption of measures that actually contribute to sustainable consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper uses a nationally representative sample from the 2004–09 Beginning Postsecondary Students (BPS) survey to examine the effect of education tax benefits on college completion. The paper employs a propensity score matching approach to correct for differences between eligible and ineligible students. Results suggest that tax benefits increase the likelihood of completing a college degree by 8 percentage points. The effect of tax benefits is largest for students who attended private and four-year institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Building university timetables is a complex process that considers varying types of constraints and objectives from one institution to another. The problem solved in this paper is a real one featuring a number of hard and soft constraints that are not very conventional. The pursued objective is also novel and considers maximizing resource utilization. This paper introduces a genetic algorithm that uses some heuristics to generate an initial population of feasible good quality timetables. The algorithm uses a simple weighted sum formula to respect professors’ preferences and handle conflicts. In order to reduce waste, a crossover type focusing on the utilization rates of learning spaces is introduced. A targeted mutation operator that uses a local search heuristic is also employed. The algorithm applies a composite fitness function that considers space utilization, gaps between events and a maximum number of lectures per day. A large dataset with real data from the Faculty of Commerce, Alexandria University in Egypt was used to test the contributed algorithm. The algorithm was also tested against two difficult benchmark problems from the literature. Testing proved that the developed algorithm is an effective tool for managing timetables and resources in universities. It performed remarkedly well on the large datasets of the two benchmark problems and it also respected more constraints than those stated in the initial problem statement of the two benchmark datasets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In modern ages, universities have shaped the civilized society and contributed to its knowledge base by educating the workforce, and providing consultation to government and businesses. In the wake of globalization, it is necessary to establish mutual beneficial relationships between universities and their urban areas; hence, the university - city complex model. In the context of Vietnam, most universities are located in urban areas; none of which, however, has fully engaged in the local community in meaningful ways. With the core idea of “Building an intelligent and ecologically friendly city”, this paper proposes the design of a university - city complex in Hung Yen province, Vietnam. This design will stimulate sustainable development of the local community through green architecture, spatial planning of university complex, and careful design of education programs and services. This paper will also present the conceptual knowledge of the subject, potential factors driving the development, and successful case studies of university - city complexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]