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The article presents information related to manipulation in the microbiology paper published by scientists at Taiwan-based National Chung Hsing University in the October 20, 2006 issue of the periodical "Cell." The paper, which questioned prevailing views of how transcription of a gene's DNA begins in bacteria, was challenged publicly on 16 November 2006 when an anonymous posting appeared on an electronic bulletin board run by Chinese students in the U.S. The posting alleged that many images in the paper had been manipulated. However, Ban-Yang Chang, the corresponding author of the paper has denied the allegation and stated that the conclusion made in paper is true on the basis of their data.

Introduction: More and more universities are receiving accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), which is an international association for promoting quality teaching and learning at business schools. To be accredited, the schools are required to meet a number of standards ensuring that certain levels of teaching quality and students' learning are met. However, there are a variety of points of view espoused in the literature regarding the relationship between research and teaching, some studies have demonstrated that research and teaching these are complementary elements of learning, but others disagree with these findings. Case description: Unlike past such studies, we focus on analyzing the research performance of accredited schools during the period prior to and after receiving accreditation. The objective is to answer the question as to whether performance has been improved by comparing the same school's performance before and after accreditation. In this study, four AACSB accredited universities in Taiwan are analyzed, including one teaching oriented and three research oriented universities. Research performance is evaluated by comparing seven citation statistics, the number of papers published, number of citations, average number of citations per paper, average citations per year, h-index (annual), h-index, and g-index. Discussion and evaluation: The analysis results show that business schools demonstrated enhanced research performance after AACSB accreditation, but in most accredited schools the proportion of faculty members not actively doing research is larger than active ones. Conclusion: This study shows that the AACSB accreditation has a positive impact on research performance. The findings can be used as a reference for current non-accredited schools whose research goals are to improve their research productivity and quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to re-examine the effects of funding on university autonomy since the relationship between university autonomy and funding is likely to be interpreted as a linear effect; namely, the more funding the greater autonomy. Such a simplistic vision is less than complete since it ignores the complicated nature of university autonomy. The nature of the latter should be defined contextually and politically. Its interpretation should also be placed in the changing government-university relationships. This paper argues that the effect of funding on university autonomy is conditioned by the nature of university autonomy in a given country. While university autonomy involves more than a financial tie, greater efforts on the part of universities to diversify their funding bases may well not enhance, at least directly, their autonomy. Through an extensive literature review, and empirical studies conducted in England and Taiwan, the argument of this paper is supported. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In response to the global competitiveness in higher education, the government, in recent years, has encouraged Taiwan colleges and universities to seek international accreditation, which raises several questions, such as jurisdiction over national accreditation, a single set of standards for local and global quality assurance, demand for the mutual recognition of review outcomes, etc. With the looming pressures for change that international accreditation will likely pose on a Taiwan national framework of quality assurance, multiple impacts on institutions and national accrediting agencies in Taiwan are now beginning to be increasingly felt. Hence, this paper examines current academic international accreditation programs and institutions, recognizes Taiwan's accrediting organizations, and analyzes the challenges that institutions and national accrediting agencies are facing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The electronic learning (e-learning) has gradually become more and more important in today’s school in Taiwan. Many colleges and universities offer distance e-learning courses or programs for students. An effective teaching or learning through a distance web e-learning system depends on many factors (or criteria). The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) model is suitable for dealing with the multi-criteria problems. This paper utilizes the consistent fuzzy preference relations (CFPR) in AHP model to evaluate these factors. The CFPR is computational simplicity and guarantees the consistence of decision matrices. Rating the criteria is important. An empirical example using CFPR in AHP model to find the weights is presented. The weight can point out which factor is important, especially when the time, manpower, and financial support are limited. The rating results can be directly used to evaluate the distance e-learning effectiveness and can provide teachers and decision-makers in schools important information for improving e-learning practice in the future. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

This study examines the preliminary results of patenting and licensing activities in Taiwanese Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) from 1997 to 2001. We propose a framework to analyse the influence of a university's internal Intellectual Property Right (IPR) management and external research partnerships on creating income through patenting and licensing. Through a postal questionnaire survey, all 122 HEIs in Taiwan were surveyed. The empirical results demonstrate that internalised IPR management capability and external research partnerships have substantially increased the amount of academic patents and licensing income. The paper reveals that the relation between external research partnership and patterns of academic licensing is moderated by industry research funding, towards more domestic and partner-oriented licensing. This has crucial policy implications for enhancing effective national triple-helix interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]