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In today's age of knowledge and technology, societies are changing fast, on both macro and micro levels. Hardly anyone could have predicted several years ago such an acceleration of change and its impact on society, and in particular, on higher education. In Europe as well as globally, higher education has been undergoing many changes for more than two decades. In many countries, the number of higher education institutions has increased, mass education has replaced more elite systems, universities have adopted different agenda, and research has become more competitive. In this new context, doctoral education has also needed to be redefined in order to better respond to societal and academic challenges. Doctoral education—a crucial segment of higher education and the main link between the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area—has been receiving continuous attention for more than 15 years. This paper provides an overall view on changes in doctoral education in Europe, the background of this change process, and the context that led to these major changes. The main analysis will be presented from a European academic context perspective, but it will also reflect a global perspective. It will provide an analysis of all the milestones and consider the relevant policies and recommendations on the supranational level and their reflection on the national level. While taking the reader on a 15‐year journey of the doctoral education system in Europe, a brief look to the future of doctoral education will be sketched as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The emergence and development of quality assurance schemes in European countries over the last 15-20 years has inspired many national case studies of the systems and procedures adopted. The methods, contexts, and procedures associated with this policy change are diverse. But although individual countries have set about changing policy in different ways there appear to be some common developmental patterns within the Europe of the Bologna Process. How can these developments be conceptualised? In a first step this paper advances a typology based on the quality assurance literature. In a second step, the paper applies the typology to quality assurance developments in three countries. The third part of the paper discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the modelling approach in the light of the empirical evidence and a political science analysis of policy change. The paper concludes with a discussion on future directions for the comparative study of policy change within the European Higher Education Area on the basis of this conceptualisation of developments in quality assurance policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper introduces a tool, which simplifies the description of Wireless Sensor Networks (WSN) applications by means of a visual language and automatic generation of executable code. The tool has been used to provide non-experienced students with a practical introduction to WSN concepts in a short period of time. Using the tool allowed students to quickly develop their own applications and test with them, focusing on their functional aspects rather than on programming and platform-dependent matters. This has yielded good results in the adaptation to the new European Higher Education Area (EHEA) envisaged by the Bologna Process, promoting an increased role of students in education as well as improving their motivation. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 20: 692-701, 2012 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Government policies are central factors shaping the environment of higher education institutions. European governments have included in their higher education political strategies the principal goal of implementing the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). The perceptions that key actors of higher education institutions (HEIs) have about political developments are important as they may influence the achievement of government policy. The Bologna Process is at the heart of policy coordination, the instrument selected at European and national levels to establish EHEA. This article seeks to discuss empirically the views of institutional actors about the Bologna Process, taking into consideration the achievement of EHEA. The discussion is based on the analysis of the EHEA implementation in seven HEIs located in four higher education systems - Germany, Italy, Norway and Portugal. This paper draws on the theoretic-methodological approach of the policy cycle to analyse the perceptions of HEIs' constituencies about Bologna. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the network of international student mobility between OECD and European Higher Education Area (EHEA) member countries between 2000 and 2009. It aims to investigate the link between countries' levels of democracy and how this impacts on their ability to attract degree‐mobile students from abroad. Social network analysis and exponential random graph modelling are used to show that the ties of student mobility occur more often when both countries in the dyad have either low or high levels of democracy and when the receiving country is also economically wealthy. The network is characterised by a core–periphery structure where a few countries act as hubs with numerous strong ties. The overall results lend support to homophily assumptions about the network of internationally mobile students and show a considerable confounding of effects of democratisation and economic prosperity on international student mobility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Distributed systems programming (DSP) is an important subject in the Computer Engineering undergraduate degree. The use of a version of the SIMCAM simulator adapted to the educational context enabled our DSP students to exercise important facets of DSP that are otherwise difficult or impossible to incorporate in student activities. Analyzing and quantifying the assumed benefits of this educational intervention on student learning enables us to better adapt such interventions to student needs. To investigate the impact on student learning of this novel use of a simulator we analyze both the course‐assessment results and the constructors of the technology acceptance model, the latter via an initial survey of student perceptions carried out at the beginning of the course and another carried out after completing the simulator‐based assignment. We observe, in particular, an improvement in the overall grades between the target year and those of the year previous to the simulator introduction. Moreover, other statistical findings are also of interest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Competition‐based policy programmes are an external steering mechanism to create beneficial outcomes for societies that are entering the Continental European Higher Education landscape. The Excellence Initiative in Germany aimed to enhance research quality, international visibility and support peak performing universities. We want to study if there was a side effect of the Initiative on academic entrepreneurial activity and if so, whether or not it was a system‐wide and/or a winners effect. We measure entrepreneurial activity by the patenting activity and industry collaboration of a university. The analysis is based on 73 German universities observed from 2004 to 2011. Employing a difference‐in‐differences estimation, we find that the Initiative created an advantage for the whole of Germany while being an Excellence University does not have an impact on academic entrepreneurship with regards to patenting activity. However, we find a Matthew effect concerning rewards in industry collaboration. We conclude that the Initiative had positive side effects for the system and partly also for the winners of the competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Higher education policy has long had important domestic, intergovernmental and values‐based features. However, through the Bologna Process, the European Union (EU) has influenced these traditional features and helped to develop an external dimension to higher education policy in and beyond Europe. Despite these significant changes, scholarship on the EU has not yet interrogated directly the external dimensions of Bologna and the influence the EU wields through this process. This article employs Market Power Europe (MPE) as a conceptual framework to examine the Bologna Process and the EU's role in these important changes. Focusing on the notion of externalization, the article reveals the importance of market factors, multiple means (externalization tools) and actors (beyond intergovernmental) through which the EU influences other actors in higher education policy. The findings contribute to the MPE conceptual framework and encourage further research into the causal mechanisms at play in the under‐studied external dimensions of this policy area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The application of ICT in the field of teaching has meant that learning objects can be used to fulfill an important role in the student‐centered learning process that is being widely promoted across the European Higher Education Area (EHEA). For this study, learning objects were designed as a resource to support teaching and encourage autonomous learning practices in the subject of Graphic Expression belonging to the Architecture Degree. An analysis of their application was performed that involved evaluating the “usability” ratings of students who tested the learning objects. Survey results reveal positive scores were consistently awarded to all three usability components (effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction), indicating receptiveness to said learning objects on the part of students. This positive feedback has proven encouraging with regards to continuing with the design and development of new learning objects, and the study of their application in other areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The non-binding nature of the Bologna Declaration and loose policy-making and implementation through the open method of coordination ( OMC) have led to varied national responses to the Bologna Process. The OMC has allowed countries room for manoeuvre to interpret Bologna policy and attach different degrees of importance to it. Looking at the interplay between agency and structure in policy implementation, this article aims to illustrate the localised character of Bologna policy implementation driven by national priorities and political agendas, a reflection of the 'policy as text' metaphor (Ball, 1994). The analysis is driven by an agentic understanding of the policy process, highlighting 'actors' perceptions, perspectives, preferences, actions and interactions' (Trowler, 2002). Three different country reactions are examined - England, Portugal and Denmark, described as selective acquiescence, creative commitment and strategic conformity to capture the essence of the cases in question. In analysing the countries' responses, the article considers national readings of Bologna, motivations behind responses to the Process, as well as its reception and implementation at national level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Course planning is one of the important problems in the education systems of universities. The processes cannot continue efficiently without planning, and various interruptions can appear in the system. This way decisions concerning which courses, when, how, and for what purposes should be answered by considering the available resources and stakeholders' preferences. Besides, universities aiming to be in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) have to adapt their systems to the Bologna process in order to create a lifelong student-centered, learning-oriented area based on quality assurance. In this study, an integrated approach based on the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and multichoice goal programming (MCGP) model was proposed to construct an efficient course plan following the Bologna process. The proposed approach was applied in an industrial engineering department. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The participation of Spain in the European Higher Education Area (EHEA) involves a number of important challenges for academics. Adapting to an educational model that is characterised by competence-based teaching is a difficult task, yet it is of paramount importance in the context of current reforms. In an educational system in which the traditional lecture prevails, learning-centred teaching represents a major cultural change with significant consequences. The objective of this study is to offer economics lecturers some practical techniques for use in the classroom. Specifically, it includes suggestions for the planning, preparation and teaching of lectures, seminars, tutorials, case studies, debates, and computer-based learning. It also provides practical advice on student assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article focuses on recent trends in quality assurance initiatives, analyses how the European Higher Education Area promotes quality enhancement mechanisms and their implications for quality cultures in universities. It presents and discusses two approaches towards quality enhancement both at the institutional and programme level: 1. Quality Enhancement at programme level: the Tuning approach and 2. Scottish Enhancement-led Institutional Review. It also argues that current approaches towards quality culture are reorienting the focus from quality assurance towards contextual quality enhancement and that quality enhancement becomes the primary responsibility of universities and university stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]