It is time to MOOC and SPOC in the Gulf Region

In this paper we will explain massive open online courses (MOOCs)-how they started, their targeted audience, and what services they provide- and demonstrate selected MOOC service providers that best suit the Arabian Gulf region. The record annual growth for MOOCs has made many respected institutions reconsider their educational strategies. Many elite universities have started to join the stream; others are expected to join very soon. In this paper we will focus on select MOOC providers that will help institutions or individual instructors ride the stream before it is too late. All MOOC providers have been carefully selected to meet the author’s criteria of either having crossed a capacity range limit or being tailored to meet the Arabian Gulf region needs. Finally, the paper summarizes the best practices and gives recommendations for any Gulf region institution or individual for better implementation of MOOCs into their learning system.     

Beyond Commercialization: Science, Higher Education and the Culture of Neoliberalism

Since the 1980s, scholars and others have been engaged in a lively debate about the virtues and dangers of mingling commerce with university science. In this paper, we contend that the commercialization of academic science, and higher education more broadly, are best understood as pieces of a larger story. We use two cases of institutional change at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to shed light on the implications of neoliberalism for public research universities in the United States. We conclude that instead of neoliberalization being a timely strategy for the specific fiscal and other problems facing public universities today, it has become an omnibus solution available to be employed when any opportunity arises and, in fact, helps to define the “problems” of the university in the first place.     

论高校道德教育的问题与对策

随着时代的不断发展,我国高校道德教育面临着诸多的问题和挑战。高校道德教育如何能够满足时代发展的要求,适应当下的社会需求,关键在于对自身进行改革。改革将有助于改变我国高校道德教育的现状,促进高校道德教育的发展。本文旨在探索高校道德教育目前存在的问题,以及应采取的对策,从而为高校道德教育改革提供思路。     

英国大学治理结构的演变

英国大学治理结构的演变表现为"牛桥"的"学者自治"、城市大学的"学者主导"、联合大学的"联邦制"、新大学的"共同治理"以及"92后大学"的"双会制"等五种模式。英国大学治理结构模式的变迁反映了特定历史阶段的社会需要、政治权威集团自身的需求以及大学自身的逻辑,大学治理结构的变革在实践上主要是从政府与大学两个方面进行。     

On analysis of electrical engineering programme in GCC countries

Electrical engineering (EE) curricula in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region have gone through an evolutionary process, and are now approaching a maturity level. In order to address academic and local industrial needs in a unified way, a need has been felt to investigate EE curricula in a way that highlights theoretical understanding, design experience and skills development. This paper focuses on a comparative study of electrical EE programmes offered in various GCC region universities. The general and some focused programmes are analysed with respect to their breadth and depth. Using cluster analysis, we identify five major distinct EE programme clusters, each grouping a set of universities. This outlines where EE programmes in the GCC region are headed.     

Bioinformatics in Middle East program curricula—a focus on the Arabian Gulf

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the inclusion of bioinformatics in program curricula in the Middle East, focusing on educational institutions in the Arabian Gulf. Bioinformatics is a multidisciplinary field which has emerged in response to the need for efficient data storage and retrieval, and accurate and fast computational and statistical methods to handle huge amounts of biological data. Bioinformatics is an important field and has great impact on advances in biological, medical, and pharmaceutical research. Although, several worldwide universities have already implemented bioinformatics in their undergraduate and postgraduate programs for more than a decade, the results of our investigation show that very few educational institutions (less than 1 %) have recently implemented bioinformatics in their undergraduate programs. Therefore, it is important to promote this field in the region and to include it in undergraduate program curricula, and thereby introducing students to bioinformatics tools for solving biological problems, preparing them for future careers taking into account job market trends, and preparing students who wish to pursue research career to make significant contribution to the field.     

对我国部分公立高校实行教育股份制的思考

笔者在梳理前人研究的基础上,提出公立高校教育股份制体制创新的关键是要明晰运作中的产权及建立现代高校法人治理结构,并以图的形式加以说明。笔者对沈阳师范大学部分二级学院实行教育股份制的实例进行了考察与分析,在此基础上定义了公立高校教育股份制,并提出了我国部分公立高校实行教育股份制应注意的几个问题。     

Incorporation of national universities in Japan design, implementation and consequences

As of April 1 of 2004, Japanese national universities became National University Corporations (NUCs hereafter). While the reform was implemented in a wave of initiatives for restructuring government activities, it reflected to an extent the current global trend toward marketization of higher education. Examination of this reform will not only help understand the current reforms in Japan, but also illuminate some of the fundamental issues that the higher education systems in the world are facing. In this article, I shall outline the historical and political backdrops of the reform (Sect. 1), outline the basic construct of the NUC (Sect. 2), examine the process of implementation and the issues revealed in the process (Sect. 3), and discuss basic problems involved in this scheme.     

对新建本科院校可持续发展问题的若干思考

虽然新建本科院校在近几年得到迅猛发展,成为中国高等教育的一支生力军,但升本后这些学校也面临着许多问题,只有及时解决这些问题,新建本科院校才有可能继续发展壮大.基于此,本文分析了新建本科院校当前面临的若干问题,并提出了相应的解决办法.     

Motivation of Faculty Members at a Latin American University: A Case Study

The purpose of this study is to analyze the kind of motivation in academia at a university in Argentina, taken as an example of a Latin American country. The study used a questionnaire containing the same 37 attitudinal statements that At-Twaijri et al. used recently for a large university in the Arabian Gulf. Motivators in both universities are compared. Despite being two very different academic cultures, there are analogies between the responses of lecturers: financial rewards are the least motivator in both cases; the most important items affecting the university professors’ motivation deal with the internal reward along with a feeling of accomplishment in the Argentine, and self-achievement and social respect in the Arabian Gulf. This paper also serves to make the international academic community aware of the Spanish ‘Intercampus’ programme. This programme allows the interchange of a significant number of students and professors between universities of Spain and the Latin American community.     

北京城市学院公共事业管理专业定位思考

北京城市学院在2007年设立了公共事业管理专业,同其他高校本专业一样,公共事业管理专业在定位与专业建设上面临很多新问题。本文通过对国内高校本专业培养目标的比较,以及分析相关领域的调研结果,试图使北京城市学院公共事业管理专业的定位更加明晰。     

一个成功的跨国医学院：海湾大学医学科学学院

本文介绍了海湾大学医学科学学院成立24年来的教育经验,包括学院的规划与发展、课程设置及跨国协作等.希望其先进教学方法、理念能够进一步推动我国医学教育的发展.     

The spectacle of global tests in the Arabian Gulf: a comparison of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates*

Although scholars have examined the effects of global tests on national and regional educational governance, few researchers have studied their impact on education in the Arabian Gulf. This research fills the knowledge gap by studying the international spectacle of PISA, TIMSS and PIRLS results in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) – two small rich states at the periphery of knowledge production processes. I argue that an analysis of these narratives reveals how global accountability discourses are translated into the Arabian Gulf context as truth claims that performance in league tables is an accurate and objective representation of educational quality. Four themes emerge from the analysis: integration of test results into national visions; measurement of educational progress based on test results; ranking of student performance; and policy changes to improve test results. In conclusion, I suggest that the over-dependence on global tests in defining educational quality in Qatar and the UAE erodes educational sovereignty and restricts the capacity of small states to develop and nurture alternative, indigenous and localised solutions for guiding educational reforms.     

CONFLICT OF INTEREST BETWEEN CENTRALIZED AND UNIVERSITY‐LEVEL GOVERNING BODIES: THE TURKISH CASE

University governance in Turkey has undergone drastic changes throughout its history. At times, all policy‐making and planning were left to the universities, with no accountability to any outside body, even though these were state‐funded institutions. In 1981, a Council of Higher Education was established to serve as a planning and coordinating body. It also sets minimum requirements for curricula, which otherwise are designed by the individual university. Turkey has thus been able to achieve academic autonomy combined with the accountability of the universities to the community.     

Why are there so few world-class universities in the Middle East and North Africa?

This article explains why there are so few world-class universities in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region today. It first summarises the systemic exogenous economic, political and social problems facing all countries in the region, and the impact of these on the development of their higher education sectors in recent times. Then, with reference to the Times Higher Education and Webometrics rankings of the world’s leading universities, the article describes several endogenous explanations for the absence of world-class universities in the 19 countries of the MENA region. These include the lack of strategic investment in research and teaching in local universities; the absence of intellectual freedom and the constraints imposed on the free expression of ideas in all MENA universities; the failure of universities in the region to encourage, monitor and reward high-quality and high-impact research (and teaching) in the natural and social sciences, the humanities and the liberal arts; and the anti-scientific mind-sets of local ruling political elites, many Islamic theologians, and those who are responsible for the oversight and administration of universities in the region. The limitations of this exploratory study and suggestions for future research are then described. The article concludes by explaining why it is highly unlikely that the political and educational leadership of countries in the MENA region will initiate the institutional higher education reforms that would be required to build world-class research-teaching universities in the foreseeable future.     

一流大学建设背景下高等教育竞争的新样态及其反思

遍布全球的一流大学建设项目,催生了高等教育竞争的新样态:竞争不再局限于个人和国家间,研究型大学成为主要竞争对象,呈现出“个人-团体-机构-国家-国际”多层次且以质量为中心的竞争样态;竞争采用大数据等评判工具,不再仅凭个人主观判断,愈发体现制度化、规范化;竞争标志着政府由“管理”走向“治理”执政方式的重大转变,按照市场规则配置资源的趋势更加明显;竞争影响范围广,从高等教育结构到机构内部各要素都受其影响。然而,新的竞争样态也导致了诸多问题。因此,应该进一步增强政府及高校内部治理能力,在竞争的同时,增进高等教育机构间合作,从而以“一流大学建设”项目带动高等教育系统的整体提升。     

构筑人类命运共同体:大学治理全球化的中国逻辑

大学治理离不开全球治理的国际政治环境,西方"逆全球化"动向与中国人类命运共同体战略形成价值张力,大学治理模式出现新的可能性。人类命运共同体是中国全球化战略的理论和实践支点,为讨论大学治理全球化提供了思想资源。理论上的大学治理全球化存在统一模式,但不是当前模式的任何一种。中国大学治理模式"强政府"的制度特征和兼容并蓄的文化基因为全球大学治理提供了更多可能性。人类命运共同体是中国大学治理全球化的实践逻辑,为大学治理全球化提供了在组织、国家和全球层面的治理框架:构筑以信任为特征的大学内部治理,构筑以提升大学治理能力为核心的大学外部治理,构筑以人类命运为支点的大学治理全球化。     

商洛学院大学英语分级教学的实践与思考

国内各级各类高校都在以不同形式进行着大学英语分级教学改革,教育教学工作者在实践的基础上进行了大量的理论研究。借鉴国内普通高校大学英语教学改革的方法和措施,商洛学院进行了大学英语分级教学的尝试。结合目前商洛学院大学英语分级教学的实践。系统分析了分级教学现状及实践中分级过粗、教学环节失当、师生心理状况不稳定等突出问题。根据学院的现状及发展的前景规划,从加强教学组织管理、教学过程科学化、完善课程考核体系等方面提出了适合商洛学院这样一个新建地方本科院校大学英语分级教学的改进意见和建议。     

超越大学治理结构——关于大学实现有效治理的思考

仅仅完善大学治理结构并不能实现大学的有效治理。大学内部的人际关系、中高层行政人员的领导力,对于大学能否实现有效治理至关重要。我国大学要真正实现有效治理,需要进行顶层设计,用一种系统的眼光审视存在的问题,既要完善大学治理结构,又要重视组织文化建设。     

UNIVERSITIES AS CENTRES OF CULTURE: AN HISTORICAL APPROACH TO HIGHER EDUCATION IN CENTRAL ASIA

Although numerous Russian intellectuals and academics had travelled to and had settled in Central Asia and in Kazakhstan prior to 1917, institutionalized higher education came to the region only as a result of the Great Socialist October Revolution of 1917. First came the State University of Tashkent in 1924 followed by universities in other parts of Soviet Central Asia. These universities had to face a number of special problems due to the backwardness of the societies in which they were located and to the multiethnic and multilingual student populations which they served and are still serving today. They also had to give special attention to the emancipation of women in what were predominantly Moslem societies. Yet the new institutions have successfully risen to the challenge and today are contributing to the spreading of culture, creativity, and socialist development in the parts of the Soviet Union where they are situated.