International Journal of Higher Education Management

In this paper the authors discuss if and how pedagogical principles, originally developed for on-campus courses, can be equally applicable to online courses. The authors present and argue for six pedagogical principles that guide the development of current and future courses at a large Scandinavian business school; academic challenge, interaction and collaboration, engagement and motivation, diversity and flexibility, academic socialization, and personal development and integrity. The authors describe how these pedagogical principles guided a recent online initiative in which three fully online courses were developed. Based on post-course in-depth interviews with 19 students, the authors discuss to which degree the pedagogical principles were met in the online setting. They conclude that online courses are largely able to support existing pedagogical principles and thereby become an integrated rather than independent form of teaching and learning. Finally, the challenges and dilemmas that surfaced as a consequence of the alignment of the online format and the pedagogical principles are discussed.

The demand for a flexible educational opportunity led to the ‘anytime, anywhere’ distance learning based on technology-mediated instructional designs. Such educational design integrates a multi-sensory approach to maximize learning opportunities and outcomes. Learning in this format is goal-oriented and centered on the learner, driven by personal situations of time and distance, as well as work and family responsibility constraints. This paper examines effective facilitation methods for online teaching and principles of best practices for use in an online nursing learning program. The aim of such a review is to ensure adequate online instructional designs the goal of which is to maximize students’ learning opportunities and outcomes. The needs of online learners reflect those of face-to-face learners and more due to physical and geographical distance. The unique characteristics of the learner and the adult learning principles guide the behaviors of the instructor in online nursing programs. Effective facilitation methods of online teaching entail commitment on the part of the management in educational institution in creating an integrative learning environment that promotes a sense of community, social presence, and connectedness with resources that facilitate personal and collective interactions between and among faculty and students.

Saudi’s mission to diversify its economy depends heavily on innovation and entrepreneurship. The discussion evaluated the role of universities in building a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship in Saudi Arabia, employing a literature review and gap analysis method to design an approach for universities to play the aforementioned role. The literature review reveals that the role played by universities entails providing entrepreneurship education, providing support resources, and partnerships with non-academic institutions, while the gap analysis undertaken reveals that Saudi Arabia has made significant strides towards equipping its universities to contribute to innovation and entrepreneurship, but lags behind the top ten leaders. The proposed initiative model entails seeking strategic alignment between university contributions and local and national economic goals, collaborating with international institutions to replicate best practices in Saudi Arabia, and establishing formal frameworks for partnerships with relevant stakeholders in innovation and entrepreneurship. Upon evaluation, the main arguments for the model rest on its focus on strategic alignment and partnerships, while counterarguments involve bureaucratic restrictions on innovation and entrepreneurial spirit owing to formal frameworks with the government, as well possibilities of exportation of ideas and benefits away from Saudi Arabia through international partnerships. To address the aforementioned c

The goal of the current study is to investigate elementary school students domain identification and their representations of scientists compared to other professions (e.g., teacher, veterinarian). Research shows that students stereotypes about scientists may affect their science self-efficacy and interest in science (Losh et al., 2008). Studies investigating children's representations of scientists using the Draw a Scientist methods (DAST) indicates that most students hold stereotypes about the role of the scientist and about the identity of a scientist. Findings from such research show that there is a bias regarding the demographics and gender variations in children representations of scientists (Finson, 2002). A large number of scientists are depicted as white males; Hispanics and Asian scientists are underrepresented and women are depicted mostly as œsuperwomen. The sources of these misconceptions are various, including media, children's literature, and lack of students experiences with the work of a scientist. This proposal is a work in progress; data collection will be completed in October 2015 and data analysis will follow up shortly after all data will be cleaned and organized. Participants (approximate N=200) will be elementary students from Romania enrolled in public and private schools, in both rural and urban areas ranging in age and grade level (i.e., grades 1 to 5). Study findings will be discussed in relationship with research related

Management education accreditation is an industry in need of restructuring. Highly concentrated accreditation organizations in the United States and Europe are preserving decades old criteria. Those decades old criteria reflect the state of the industry in different times. Things have changed and with them the very nature of management education and, in no less measure, the monitoring and accreditation norms. . The industry suffers from conceptual and operational flaws. The need for restructuring is evident. The article provides a review of the structure of the industry today. This is followed by an analysis of the conceptual and operational weakness of the existing frameworks. A possible substitute based on systems and metrics analysis is then explored. Multiple metric-rooted performance parameters provide an overall assessment and lead to an Accreditation Score Card. Accreditation Score Cards could have tangible impact on the practice of management program, and institution, accreditation process and the assessment of scope, content, approach and effectiveness of management education efforts.

The purpose of this paper is to provide a conceptual account on the applicability of Competency-Based Training as a model for capacity building in the South African local government. The South African Local government has since the transition into democracy in 1994, invested on workforce development, aimed at improving municipalities’ capacity to deliver their mandates as described by the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996. These efforts are shadowed by the ever increasing levels of service delivery protests, supplemented by unpleasing audit outcomes over the past two decades of democracy. The paper argues therefore that among other challenges of local government in South Africa, is the lack of conceptuality of capacity building as critical aspect of local government strategy. This challenge of the context of local government capacity therefore result in local government being unable to measure the account of capacity interventions in the municipalities. The paper in its purpose will use literature to back-up a hypotheses that using Competency-Based Training as a model in capacity building can be fruitful in the South African local government. On the basis of such a conceptual account the paper concludes that Competency-Based Training can be a driving force behind a professional, competent and self-driven local government workforce, where capacity intervention can be clearly measured.

This paper outlines a course in business analytics that provides a rigorous, logical, analytical, yet intuitive and practical approach to business problem solving using Microsoft Excel. The course concept, methodology and pedagogy are illustrated through a variety of business applications. The course primarily addresses problems involving optimal resource allocation (how to best utilize given resources) and risk analysis (how to analyze decisions involving uncertainty), although some Excel tools for data analysis (how to estimate model parameters) and forecasting (how to extrapolate past observations into the future) are also covered. In each area, we consider specific problems in operations, finance and marketing, build models to set them up on Excel spreadsheets, analyze and solve them using the available Excel commands, tools and add-ins, and study their economic interpretations. In this sense, the course also integrates various functional areas of business management on a common Excel platform. This practical approach to problem solving in Excel has proved to be readily accessible to managers, who usually find spreadsheets natural, intuitive, and user friendly medium for organizing information and performing “what if’ analyses, which has made them indispensable tools of modern business analysis.

The business simulation games, which expose the players/managers to a broad range of learning objectives, on many occasions fail to provide a template model that can govern the desirable actions. Hence, these games are not always effectively linked to the repetitive cycles of arriving at decisions or confronting results in the long-term interest of business. The current research paper foresees an incremental improvement that can be allowed to occur during the product life-cycle of a business simulation game and how such a process can lead to an appropriate methodology with enabling framework of application and validation as a form of typology.