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The purposes of this paper are twofold: a presentation of the theoretical basis of benchmarking and a discussion on practical benchmarking applications. Benchmarking is also analyzed as a productivity accelerator. The authors study benchmarking usage in the private and public sectors with due consideration of the specificities of the two areas. Special attention is paid to the presentation of the current picture of higher education and conditions for the application of benchmarking. The chosen examples of benchmarking projects conducted in higher education illustrate the spectrum of benchmarking usage. The authors conclude the paper with a recommendation for the employment of benchmarking in the higher education environment, especially in the light of competition pressures and rapid economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As more countries are planning to inaugurate or enlarge student loan schemes, much of the debate is over the question of the optimal form of the repayment obligation: specifically, whether it should be according to a fixed schedule of payments or a percentage of earnings or income. This paper argues that the current fascination with income contingency is frequently based on a set of supposed advantages, some of which are mistakenly attributed to income contingency either out of misunderstanding on the part of advocates or for political purposes of overcoming resistance to the underlying notion not of loans, per se, but of cost-sharing itself. The paper goes on to advocate a hybrid loan scheme, which can offer the best of both forms of repayment obligation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The finance of higher education faces a clash between technological advance, driving up the demand for skills, and fiscal constraints, given competing imperatives for public spending. Paying for universities is also immensely politically sensitive. This paper sets out core lessons for financing higher education deriving from economic theory, including the desirability of loans with income-contingent repayments. Subsequent discussion includes a general strategy for OECD countries derived from the theoretical analysis, and reforms in England in 2006 which illustrate the strategy. The paper concludes with discussion of the appropriate role of government in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The state and status of higher education in different countries and regions has been the subject of considerable debate, research and publication; yet little continental scale research has been undertaken except in the United States of America. This paper reports on large-scale cooperation taking place in European higher education. It particularly examines the development, role, activities and actions of Thematic Network Projects (TNPs) that have been established to support the modernization of higher education and therefore the implementation of the Bologna Process. The paper reviews the operation and structure of TNPs in the context of the Bologna Process and their contribution to the European Higher Education Area, presenting research of the development, activity and some outcomes of thematic networks in higher education in order to examine the impact of such networks as agents of change in turbulent educational times. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bologna Process is fostering a change in higher education systems in order to attain the objectives of educational convergence, comparability and mobility of students and academics. As a consequence, the structure of degrees, syllabuses, pedagogy and evaluation and assessment systems (for students, teaching staff and programmes) must be revised. The present paper presents a comparative analysis from an accounting education perspective of the educational context in the United Kingdom (UK) and Spain identifying differences in their institutional characteristics, culture, etc. This paper evidences that a comparative analysis of the conditioning factors of the change will be necessary to facilitate any implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the relationships between higher education and the labour market in Serbia. In order to understand this relationship better, this paper will first provide a brief history of the country and the history of its higher education structures. The paper will then discuss higher education from post Second World War until the fall of communism, highlighting how tertiary education met the goal of preparing young people for life in a socialist economy. The second part of the paper will discuss higher education after the fall of communism, and will show how higher education is not inadequately preparing Serbian graduates for the needs not only of the free market, but the new global economy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper, based on extensive empirical work with Polish and Bulgarian scientists in Germany and the UK, examines the impact of the EU enlargement including the free movement of persons provisions on the mobility of scientists from Eastern to Western Europe. It focuses on early career researchers and particularly PhD candidates and begins by sketching out the status and ensuing free movement rights of those scientists in European Law. It then moves to discuss the policy rationale for promoting scientific mobility and examines how this fits with the scientists' own perspectives. Following on from there the paper looks at various areas where the EU enlargement has had an impact including the continuing transitional agreements, cheaper travel and the question of tuition fees, and goes on to consider the symbolic power of law in influencing scientific mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'World class universities' (WCU) are an issue of intense debate among the academic community. To define a WCU supposes that only those universities that fit the 'quality' criteria established under benchmarking conditions can be considered as such. The good news is that several dimensions could be used to defined excellence, not only classical academic and research criteria. This paper intends to address conceptual aspects of WCU with regard to relations between university 'mission' development and why, how and when an institution is considered a WCU from non-classical criteria. The main purpose of this paper is to propose new dimensions to rank University Missions. Going beyond teaching and research, the University Third Mission - services to Society - has at least 3 dimensions: a non profit - social - approach; an entrepreneur focus; and an innovative approximation. This paper will consider the various implications that a third mission measurement and benchmark could introduce in the controversial ranking business. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper traces the development of professional doctorates within UK higher education and highlights some of the issues relating to quality and standards that have emerged. It is based on a review of the literature in the field, which is limited at present; interviews with a number of programme directors and examiners; and the personal experience of the author as director of two professional doctorate programmes. It should also be noted that the author has supervised over twenty PhD students and is therefore experienced in both PhD and professional doctorate programmes The paper is not based on an extensive research project, but rather represents personal reflection by an experienced practitioner in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the paper is to elucidate the different meaning of university autonomy historically and comparatively. The paper examines the shift in the definition of the university autonomy in England and Japan. It argues that the definition of university autonomy in England and Japan differed traditionally. In England, university autonomy functioned as the universities' ideology to protect the universities from outside of pressure. In Japan, university autonomy was understood in relation to the Ministerial coordination. The market-oriented policies in those countries have changed the meaning of university autonomy, bringing about “contractual autonomy” in England and institutional autonomy in Japan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence of the knowledge society and the development of knowledge-intensive employment functions do not seem to improve dramatically the situation of humanities graduates on national labour markets. This paper gives an overview of the employment situation of French humanities graduates and summarizes recent attempts to improve it. A description of how the employment for humanities graduates has developed in the course of the last decade is followed by an analysis of two complementary governmental initiatives: the development of Higher Vocational Education degrees and the professionalization of all curricula. The paper concludes with three propositions based on personal teaching experiences and a broader analysis of the French higher education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the development and validation of a two-level hierarchical cost model for tertiary education, which enables prospective students to compare the total cost of attending a traditional Baccalaureate degree education with that of the same programme taken through distance e-learning. The model was validated by a sample of Greek university students familiar with both traditional and distance learning who evaluated them in a survey, indicating that the cost advantage of distance e-learning was tempered by the perception that traditional learning has an advantage from the standpoint of quality. The paper also offers several strategies that might help address students' concerns about the quality of distance e-learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper approaches the multiple employment issues in Romanian Higher Education with a special focus on "Babes-Bolyai" University (BBU) in Cluj-Napoca. There are 119 higher education institutions in Romania and it is becoming increasingly common for the academic staff to have at least two to three paid teaching loads, while undertaking almost no relevant, internationally recognized, research. The paper analyses the environment in which BBU is acting; the dangers of decreasing the quality of teaching and research/services; possible types of desirable multiple employment and the measures taken to diminish the consequences of undesirable multiple employment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When the legislation on higher education in Serbia was enacted in the summer of 2005, Serbian universities started a reform process, which has still not been completed. Since the new law leaves room for any institution to organize itself within the given framework, it is hard to predict the final shape the universities are going to adopt. Consequently, this paper focuses on the existing practice in recruitment policy indicating the eventual pitfalls that threaten the institution in the reform process. In order to allow for a better understanding of the environment in which recruitment is taking place, the first part of the paper outlines the existing environment in terms of the institutional structure, financing and management. The second part concentrates on the recruitment policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective in this paper is to provide an overview of the key themes that can be identified by looking across the contributions to this special issue, and highlight a number of the important observations that emerged during the seminar in which these papers were originally presented. The seminar, which took place in Berlin in October of 2005, was organized by UNESCO-CEPES in collaboration with the Observatory of the Magna Charta Universitatum and the German Commission for UNESCO. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to outline the main higher education reforms in Germany, including the implementation of the Bologna Process. It takes as its focus the doctoral phase, conceptualised by "Bologna" as the third cycle of study but held by many to be the first phase of independent scientific research. In the context of increasing internationalisation of higher education and the European Commission's forecast that 700,000 more researchers will be needed (European Commission, 2003), it is vital to get the reform of the system right. The paper considers the effects of the German Higher Education Framework Act and regional laws as well as those of the Bologna Process on Germany's ability to recruit and train national and international doctoral candidates in the natural sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the main results of a recent survey of private higher education institutions from twelve selected European countries (Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Poland, Estonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Ukraine, Russia) [in the framework of the UNESCO‐CEPES project on “Private Higher Education in Europe and Quality Assurance and Accreditation from the Perspectives of the Bologna process Objectives”, designed and implemented in collaboration with “Leon Koźmiński Academy of Entrepreneurship and Management (LKAEM) and the World Bank]. After a brief review of the current incidence of private education in the selected European countries, the authors give a description of the survey. Then the main findings are structured according to the nine goals of the Bologna Process and their corresponding level of implementation in private higher education institutions, and also to provide comparisons with public higher education institutions. The paper concludes with a discussion of the results and with some general remarks about the role of private higher education institutions in building the EHEA. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Education for All initiative is one of the best known and most widely referenced policies in the development field. This paper investigates the extent to which the most recent EFA conference in Dakar (2000) addresses the complex issue of women and higher education. Two questions guide this inquiry. First, what are the basic concepts and definitions used in a feminist policy analysis? Second, to what extent, and in what ways is the topic of higher education and women referenced in the document (Dakar Framework for Action, 2000).2 Employing content analysis, this paper reveals the EFA policy's minimal attention to tertiary education for women throughout the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the mid 1990s of last Century, university rankings have become very popular in China. Six institutions have published such rankings; some of them have also detailed their ranking methodologies. This paper features a general introduction to university ranking in China, and to the methodologies of each ranking discussed. The paper also addresses the characteristics inherent to Chinese university rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is about the experience of labour migration among skilled Romanians, mainly Information Technology workers and highly qualified researchers. It is based on a questionnaire survey where, among other elements, the researcher investigated the push-pull aspects of qualified migration and the strategies of labour migration. This paper considers the perspective and personal experience of 'brain' protagonists, the effective reasons of their migration and their future perspectives. Some significant elements refer to the importance of electronic 'transnationalism', the relatively limited and unlikely possible return of 'brains' and a denunciation of immigration barriers and difficulties. The study is part of the author's PhD Research Project, 'International Patterns of Migration: The Recruitment Strategies of Firms and the Aspirations and Migratory Projects of Highly Skilled Workers'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The transitional process of the FYR of Macedonia since independence in 1991 has been marked by a severe economic crisis, which has led to a significant increase in the levels of unemployment (31.9 percent in 2002) and poverty (22.7 percent in 2001). The turbulent situation in the Balkan region (war in the countries of the Former Yugoslavia) and finally the internal conflict in 2001 have created a strong tendency for migration. The present study is focused primarily on providing evidence for the migration and outflow of skilled labour. It looks in more depth at the reasons for brain drain, at the current policies of the country to tackle it, and gives some practical recommendations for policy-makers in the area of brain drain. The paper explores the links between unemployment of the highly educated in the FYR of Macedonia and brain drain. Further, the paper discusses the situation within higher education: why has the number of domestic students risen so drastically in recent years and why have more and more students opted to study abroad? What damage will this tendency cause in the short and medium term? Are there some returns from high skilled emigration that offset or even improve source country development prospects? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Transparent and consistent credit transfer procedures are essential if EU Universities are to successfully build the European Higher Education Area and thrive in the emerging global knowledge economy. Currently, the European Credit Transfer System is the most widely used mechanism to enable credit transfer between universities in different EU nations. Using data from 20 universities in four EU member states, this paper examines the problems in calculating and using ECTS grades. The results demonstrate that the alignment of ECTS grades varies within nation states and show that, despite the fact that ECTS grading is a norm-referenced system, while national systems are usually criterion-referenced, the ECTS conversion tables provided by universities indicate straight line transference from institutional to ECTS grades. Given the anticipated increase in student mobility following the EU enlargement to 25 nations, this paper proposes a re-alignment of ECTS towards a criterion-referenced system. Such a new system would acknowledge and build on the diversity of EU higher education systems, unlike the current mechanistic system. The latter masks this diversity and is flawed in calculation and ad hoc in operation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purposes of this paper are to derive a connection between the quality of accreditation and education in one country and the public protection function of professional regulation in another and to highlight the critical importance of international standards for quality assurance of accreditation and education for consumer protection. Using the United States as a case study, the author outlines the forces influencing the setting of educational standards. These forces include multinational factors such as NAFTA and GATS, the economics of professional regulation, and immigration reform in the United States. The conclusion of this paper is that the critical key to ensuring public protection within and across nations is the quality assurance of education and accreditation through international standards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents key new developments in the THES - QS World University Rankings in 2007, related to enhancements to the Peer Review, Data Collection and Statistical Aggregation utilised in this ranking as well as discussing the decision to utilise Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) figures for personnel statistics. Indicator correlation is also discussed as well as the role/purpose of the rankings. The paper reflects a continuing effort to refine the measures used in the ranking, QS have recommended some subtle but significant changes to both the methodology and the data collection approach that have been embraced by THES and will have an impact on 2007 results and beyond in order to reach some measure of understanding the relative quality of different higher education institutions around the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

2010 sees the end of the process of establishing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). Although not all countries may have achieved all the objectives, many are those countries and universities who have implemented many of the targets set. Within the Bologna Process, there have been many developments such as: European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) for the transfer of period of study abroad; joint degrees; and quality assurance aspects among others. Guidelines for Quality Assurance and the development of an overarching European Qualifications Framework have been developed. While the Bologna Process brings with it many advantages on an education level, the discussion has not really considered the legal aspects of such a system. Once the EHEA is implemented comprehensively across Europe, situations may arise which would require universities to consider the legal aspects of learning that students may have experienced within different tertiary institutions. This paper considers what problems may arise, for example with fraudulent behaviour by students in the acquisition of ECTS credits in another university; with weaknesses or failure to prove quality of learning following an external quality assurance audit in another university; with the failure to deliver learning by one of the partner universities running joint degrees etc., and explores the possible legal implications of such situations as well as identifying the legal lacunae which exist and which need to be taken into consideration if the EHEA is to maintain the reputation that it aims for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student loans schemes have developed rapidly alongside China's move towards mass higher education. In this paper, the main features of the existing four types of student loan schemes are compared. In particular, the providers of principal loan, borrower eligibility, loan size, loan origination, interest subsidy, risk-sharing, repayment conditions and loan collection are examined. The authors of this article will then predict the problems and challenges confronting the reform of the student loans system in China and suggest that the feasible option for the future is to allow for the co-existence and competition of a variety of student loans schemes and to explore more mature student loans schemes through institutional innovations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most countries have experienced soaring enrolment rates into tertiary education. While this is beneficial both to involved students and to knowledge-based societies, it also makes the funding issue even more crucial than it is usually seen to be. This paper presents first results from an analysis of the effectiveness of student loans as a funding strategy using unique student-level data from Finland. The focus is on the effect of student loans on the likelihood of graduation, as well as on the socioeconomic background dimension of such an effect. We find no evidence in support of the latter effect being significant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Hungarian student loan system was introduced in 2001. It has four main attributes: universal access and universal conditions; income contingent repayment; private funding; and self-sustaining (zero-profit) operation without direct state subsidy. This latter characteristic makes the scheme quite unique in international practice. Empirical facts support the original idea: default rate is relatively low (1-2 per cent), administration costs per year are around 1 per cent of the portfolio value. This paper focuses on three issues: how the Hungarian model works; why a 'specialized institution' model is superior to a 'retail bank' model; and finally, why adverse selection is not as menacing as the literature may suggest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper is concerned with the influence of student loans on the accessibility of disadvantaged groups to higher education. Three key conditions are necessary for success, but are often neglected. These are: that effective eligibility and screening criteria are in place and that pro-active targeting measures are employed to reach out to the most deserving sections of the target population defined in terms of those most in need of help; that the scheme is sufficiently sizeable to achieve an impact nationally; and individual loans are sufficiently large to cover the needs of the students at whom the scheme is directed. The varied experience of loans schemes in Asia, aimed directly at enhancing the access of students from low-income backgrounds, is examined. These schemes are often to be faulted because they lack a number of necessary prior conditions for success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The relatively short repayment periods of four or six years after graduation under the Government-Subsidized Student Loan (GSSL), the main student loans programme in China, has, since its implementation in 1999, imposed considerable hardship in repaying loans. This paper presents a new diversified repayment model, the 'geometric proportion repayment' model in which the repayment ratio is kept within 10 per cent of income, thus both easing the burden of repayment and reducing subsequent default. The results of an ordinal regression model, based on data from a sample of university graduates, provides a method of estimating the (unknown) salaries of graduate borrowers on the basis of known information of their work/employment situation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While higher education is regarded a high priority for economic development in many countries, public budgets often fall short to support desired levels of expansion in higher education. This leads to cost-sharing: students and their families are required to contribute more to the costs of higher education. This paper explores worldwide trends to cope with this issue based on the following questions: Is it fair to ask for larger contributions from students? What are the global patterns and forms of higher private shares in the costs of higher education? And what is the impact of cost-sharing on higher education access and equity? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Bologna Declaration attempts to reform the structure of the higher education system in forty-six European countries in a convergent way. By 2010, the European space for higher education should be completed. In the 2005-2006 academic year, the University of Murcia, Spain, started promoting initiatives to adapt individual modules and entire courses to the ECTS-compatible credit system. In this paper, we describe the development of an experiment under the ECTS credit scheme for the module English Language and Literature I, a course for first year students of French Studies. This experiment took place in the 2005-2006 academic year. This was the first experiment of its kind to be carried out in the Faculty of Arts under the Bologna principles. A teaching team made up of three experienced language teachers was put together for this purpose. The experiment would have a very strict follow-through: three different types of questionnaires were designed and given to the students, teacher and observers respectively in order to establish how the new teaching plan was working. The data obtained from the questionnaires revealed how successful and rewarding this experiment was for the students and teachers involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the results of a case study exploring perceptions of selected administrators and instructors at a Ukrainian state institution regarding the effectiveness of the Bologna Process at their institution. Data were collected from focus group interviews with five volunteer instructors involved in the implementation process. The findings indicate that the success of the new initiative was hindered by: centralized administration; insufficient training; scarce resources; participants' attachment to the old system; the perceived decreased quality of education; and loss of tradition. Recommendations are presented for other institutions experiencing a similar transition, keeping in mind their individual history, culture, location, financial resources, students and staff. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the main functions that university plays in society and describes the seminar methodology created at Ramon Llull University. Specifically the article focuses on and explains how seminars help to promote complex knowledge in students. An empirical study with students participating in seminars is designed to assess the improvement in students' cognitive complexity. Cognitive complexity is understood as personal construct system complexity measured through different differentiation and integration indexes. Results are that participation in a semester seminar work results in an increase in cognitive complexity, improving all differentiation indexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a growing awareness in the UK and mainland Europe of the importance of higher education to the development of a knowledge-based economy. European universities are increasingly required to produce highly mobile graduates able to respond to the ever-changing needs of the contemporary workplace. Following the Bologna Declaration (1999), higher education across Europe has expanded rapidly. This has resulted in questions being raised about the quality of the graduate labour market and the ability of graduates to meet the needs of employers. This paper analyses graduate and employer perspectives of graduate employability in four European countries (UK, Austria, Slovenia and Romania). In doing so it adds to current debates in this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

University rankings often include surveys that involve self-assessments, but little is known about the effects of these self-assessments on results. This paper tests for the existence of leniency effects and differential leniency effects, terms borrowed from the performance assessment literature, with a data set of ratings and rankings of Australian university disciplines by Australian academics. It finds support for the leniency effect - these academics rate and rank their own universities higher than others do. It finds less support, however, for the differential leniency effect - academics at the lower-rated universities do not seem to overrate their universities more than do academics from the higher-rated universities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rankings of universities that are based on aggregate measures ignore the discipline coverage within institutions. In this paper, for each of Australia's thirty-seven public universities, performance in research and teaching in broad discipline groups is evaluated and then aggregated up to obtain whole-of-institution rankings. Relative staff numbers are used as weights to aggregate research performance; student numbers are used to weight teaching performance. The performance attributes chosen are those that contribute to international academic standing. We find that the rankings of the Australian National University (ANU) and some technologically oriented universities are raised when scope is allowed for, but elsewhere the changes are minor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today the worldwide web (web) is one of the main sources of information and the main showcase for everyone (institutions, business enterprises, individuals, etc.) who wants to be recognized on in the 'real world'. At the academic level, universities have a very important role as a means to communicate scientific and cultural achievements. Web publication by scholars is not only a tool for scholarly communication but it is also a means to reach larger audiences and in general a reflection of the performance of the institutions. There have been several efforts to develop web indicators that can ultimately lead to build a university's rankings. This paper presents the Webometric Ranking of World Universities which is built using a combined indicator called WR that takes into account the number of published web pages (S) (twenty-five percent), the number of rich files, those in pdf, ps, doc and ppt format (R) (12.5 percent), the number of articles gathered from the Google Scholar Database (Sc) (12.5 percent,) and the total number of external inlinks (V) (fifty percent). The results show that there is a larger than expected academic digital divide between higher education institutions in the United States and those in the European Union. This kind of rankings using web indicators should be used to measure universities' performance in conjunction with more traditional academic indicators. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses one of the weaknesses of many rankings - the exclusion of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) from university and discipline cluster ranking systems and examines some ways in which this situation can be corrected. In particular, it traces the development of indicators such as 'target expanded' citation analysis and tiering or ranking of outlets, including books and conferences as well as journals. It draws on experience in Australia, especially with the attempt to construct consensually derived tiered outlets for numerous disciplines including those in HASS in the context of the introduction of a new Research Quality Framework along the lines of similar exercises in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2004 the Slovak Academic Ranking and Rating Agency (ARRA) was established as an independent body with the main goal of comparing the performance and quality of Slovak higher education institutions (HEIs) and providing the general public, the academic sector, and the government with an independent view of the quality of the country's HEIs. The first two rankings were published in 2005 and 2006 and the latest one was published at the end of 2007. The twenty public universities and their ninety-nine faculties were ranked in clusters according to the Frascati Manual. This paper describes the methodology and indicators used in this ranking exercise. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of a case study of the University of Maribor. We emphasize that ranking of heterogeneous young universities without established reputations must be conducted very carefully. Usually, such universities do not appear in lists of the top universities in the world. This should not be understood as a problem, but as an opportunity for development: global university rankings can strongly contribute to university development. Our results show that more successful institutions can have a stimulating effect on the less successful ones. A healthy competition between institutions emerges, representing an important driving force in assuring further development and achieving higher status. The results present an example of good practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How influential has the US News Best Colleges ranking been over the last twenty-five years since it was first started in 1983? In what ways does this influence manifest itself? There is strong evidence of the impact of the US News rankings among consumers, prospective students and their parents, and the higher education establishment in the United States. Their influence has now gone global since the US News rankings, according to some, have been the model for what has become a worldwide trend. This paper will look at all of these effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the ranking of higher education institutions (HEIs) has become more and more popular, there are increasing concerns about the quality of such ranking. In response to such legitimate expectations, in May 2006, the International Ranking Expert Group (IREG) developed and endorsed a guideline document - the Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions (hereafter called the Berlin Principles), which consist of sixteen descriptive and prescriptive principles for ranking covering four aspects: the purpose and goal of ranking; the design and weighting of indicators; the collection and processing of data; and the presentation of ranking results. The purpose of this paper is to examine selected HEIs rankings according to the Berlin Principles as well as to propose concrete 'Fourteen Criteria' which, if followed, could enhance the quality of ranking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Classification' and 'ranking' are tools for comparing colleges and universities, albeit for different purposes. Although 'classification' focuses on identifying similarities rather than ordering institutions, it is closely intertwined with 'ranking', whether directly through its content, structure, and procedures, or indirectly through the ways it is used and understood by the wider community of users (e.g., researchers, policymakers, institutional leaders, etc.). For this reason, many of the standards, protocols, and best practices established for ranking systems apply as well to the case of classification. This paper examines the interplay between 'classification' and 'ranking' in some detail, and applies the Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions which were adopted in May 2006 to the case of classification, focusing on the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rankings have become a widespread phenomenon in an increasingly competitive world of higher education. They differ with regard to their aims, objectives, target groups, and with regard to their relationship to quality and quality assessment. Generally, rankings are an external assessment of the performance of higher education institutions; they enable transparency about systems of higher education. This paper discusses the relationship of rankings and quality assurance on an institutional and a system level. A clear conception of the differences between rankings and other forms of assessment of higher education institutions helps to understand the usefulness as well as the limitations of rankings and helps to prevent false or unrealistic expectations of rankings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of appropriate indicators of public and private expenditures, from which statistically significant differences in funding policies can be identified, constitutes a solid foundation in which the assessment of the role of governments in promoting higher education can be grounded. Based on a carefully selected set of Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development indicators, this paper explores the effects of education funding policies, along with research and development expenditures and tax levels, on the entry rate to higher education. The results from the statistical analysis of the data confirm the existence of two distinct approaches to higher education funding, the Scandinavian approach and Anglo-American approach, and help to define their characteristics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the feasibility of higher education in relation to the demands of work life. The research is a comparative study involving four European countries: Sweden, Norway, Poland, and Germany. The research focuses on the view of freshmen, senior students and later graduates in Psychology and Political Science. Data were obtained by semi-structured interviews, which were subjected to qualitative analyses. The results indicate that higher education, with some exceptions, seems to produce a discipline-based identity among the students. These findings may be indicative of the value for employability of classical academic generic skills. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) has been developed and instituted to facilitate student mobility and academic recognition. This paper presents, discuss, and illustrates the pertinence and the limitation of the current statistical distribution of the ECTS grades, and we propose an alternative way to calculate the ECTS grades attribution in order to improve the ECTS system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to undergraduate education has expanded rapidly in recent years. This is one manifestation of a rise in the relative importance of market-based resource allocation in higher education and a weakening of allocation based upon traditional views of merit. This change in priority has influenced the content of the undergraduate curriculum and introduced both content and methods whose legitimacy and educational value some question as universities market their products to attract enrolment. The paper discusses the relationship between allocation mechanism and "curriculum as product" and examines critically some of the more significant implications for undergraduate education such as course rigour and full-spectrum grading. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper gives a short overview of the history of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEF) and European Language Portfolio (ELP)1 and explains their aims and functions. It then provides a summary of the ELP use in Europe and in Spain by showing a pilot study of its implementation carried out at the Schools of Civil Engineering and Architecture in the Polytechnic University of Madrid, as well as including specific data derived from this study. The general results obtained so far have been mixed. Thus, whereas positive effects on the learning process, learning outcome, and learner motivation have been observed, many drawbacks have been likewise encountered by students and teachers, such as the rigidness of the self-assessment descriptors, the difficulty in handling and updating, and the amount of time and work that the implementation of the ELP involves. Finally, in view of these difficulties and drawing from our own experience, some suggestions particularly applicable to our case study are shown. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]