Quality Assurance in Open and Distance, Education： a Case Study of Kota Open University

After a brief analysis of the concept of quality in open and distance education, information technology for quality assurance and Indian initiative for quality improvement, the paper examines the quality assurance measures at Kota Open University under the following areas ： planning academic programmes ; developing academic programmes ; producing learning materials ; implementing programmes ; reviewing courses/programmes ; and ing human resources.     

Does Neoliberalist-based Internationalized Higher Education Function in Chi-nese Context? A Case Study of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China

Despite the dispute on whether the impacts of globalization and internationalization on the development of economy, society, culture and education are true, the fact we cannot deny is that neoliberalis...     

Does Neoliberalist-based Internationalized Higher Education Function in Chinese Context? A Case Study of the University of Nottingham Ningbo China

Despite the dispute on whether the impacts of globalization and internationalization on the development of economy,society,culture and education are true,the fact we cannot deny is that neoliberalism and marketization have impose a great transformation on our daily lives(Mok,2010).China,as one of the powerful countries in the world,is inevitable to be involved in this trend.While confronting the changes in higher education in mainland China brought by neoliberalism,I intend to propose a question:Does Neoliberalist-based internationalized higher education function in Chinese context?In line with my research question,this article attempts to examine the validity of neoliberalism through a case study of University of Nottingham Ningbo China.The next section is a theoretical approach,and then is a case study.In conclusion,this article indicates that the function of neoliberalism,especially in the higher education in mainland China,is still way off.     

The ‘McDonaldization’ of Higher Education: food for thought?

Abstract

Having completed its reform of the schools and colleges of further education, government is now set to reform higher education. At issue here is higher education in Scotland, but the analysis has wider applicability. It operationalises Ritzer's concept of ‘McDonaldization’, and the latter's dimensions of efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control (both formally bureaucratic and informally fraternising). The analysis is set in relation to the government's earlier educational reforms, particularly of further education, and argues that its plans for higher education are of a piece. All this is related to current economic and cultural change: that is, to the fiscal pressures on the welfare state, and to the emergence of post‐modern culture. In conclusion, it is argued that policy for higher education will come to express what Charles Jencks has called (in relation to architecture) ‘double‐coding’: a mix of the bureaucratic form of modernity, tempered by appeals to post‐modern culture.     

Estimating the Effects of Students’ Social Networks: Does Attending a Norm-Enforcing School Pay Off?

In an attempt to forge tighter social relations, small school reformers advocate school designs intended to create smaller, more trusting, and more collaborative settings. These efforts to enhance students’ social capital in the form of social closure are ultimately tied to improving academic outcomes. Using data derived from ELS: 2002, this study employs propensity scores in the context of multilevel models to estimate the effects of a specific school-level variant of social closure, referred to as a norm-enforcing school, on students’ mathematics achievement. Results estimate that attending a norm-enforcing school has no effect on 12th-grade mathematics achievement. This result questions the presumed benefits of social capital and its emphasis on norm-enforcement and social control. Policy implications are discussed in light of contemporary urban school reform initiatives that focus on reductions in school size.     

National Devolution in Swedish Higher Education -- A Quest for New Local Leadership. The Case of Leadership Development at Göteborg University

In 1993 a new national form for governance was introduced in Swedish higher education. The new regime, best described in terms of deregulation and decentralisation, among other things, required a new individually based leadership at universities.The paper describes the development of one particular 10-day interfaculty leadership training course for heads of departments, directors of study and other local managers, its content and methods and some implications for strategic management in higher education institutions.Four such implications are covered: constructing a new social identity as leaders, getting leadership acceptance in an individualistic academic-freedom culture, training academic leaders in accordance with professional values, and dealing with accountability in a collegial decision-making environment.     

Does Critical Thinking and Logic Education Have a Western Bias? The Case of the Nyāya School of Classical Indian Philosophy

In this paper I develop a cross‐cultural critique of contemporary critical thinking education in the United States, the United Kingdom, and those educational systems that adopt critical thinking education from the standard model used in the US and UK. The cross‐cultural critique rests on the idea that contemporary critical thinking textbooks completely ignore contributions from non‐western sources, such as those found in the African, Arabic, Buddhist, Jain, Mohist and Nyāya philosophical traditions. The exclusion of these traditions leads to the conclusion that critical thinking educators, by using standard textbooks are implicitly sending the message to their students that there are no important contributions to the study of logic and argumentation that derive from non‐western sources. As a case study I offer a sustained analysis of the so‐called Hindu Syllogism that derives from the Nyāya School of classical Indian philosophy. I close with a discussion of why contributions from non‐western sources, such as the Hindu Syllogism, belong in a Critical Thinking course as opposed to an area studies course, such as Asian Philosophy.     

Mitigating Unintended Impacts? The Effects of Premiums for Underserved Populations in Performance-Funding Policies for Higher Education

Performance funding is an increasingly prevalent policy state officials use to allocate a portion of state funds to public colleges and universities. Researchers have begun to evaluate the effect of these policies, finding bleak evidence of their effectiveness in yielding intended outputs and suggesting the policies may even result in limited college access for underserved students. There may also be differences in policy effects depending on performance-funding policy designs, which vary considerably across states. Of particular interest to this study are premiums—financial bonuses to institutions—for promoting access and success for specified underserved student groups. Using difference-in-differences models and an original dataset on premiums in funding models, this study evaluates the impact of premiums for underserved students in performance-funding models on selectivity and the enrollment of minority and low-income students at 4-year universities from 1993 to 2014. We find that the share of both low-income and Hispanic students increases in institutions with performance-funding premiums for underserved students compared to institutions subject to performance funding without such premiums. Effects vary depending on premium type and longevity. The findings also reveal unexpected, negative effects of premiums on Black student enrollments. Our findings suggest that, by incorporating premiums, performance-funding model designers might prevent, minimize, or reverse the negative consequences of performance funding on vulnerable student groups. However, given variation in premium effects across student groups, performance- funding model designs should be tailored to local contexts.     

Are There Any Gender Differences in the Perception of University Support During the Transition Period to Higher Education?

The purpose of this study is to determine if there are gender differences in the perception of university support. The study is based on a survey of 368 students in a Hong Kong university. The findings of the study are threefold. First, female students perceive the university as being more supportive in their academic adjustment than do male students (t = ?4.256, p < 0.001). Second, male students perceive the university as being more supportive in their social adjustment than do female students (t = 2.156, p < 0.05). Last, male students perceive the university as being more supportive in their psychological adjustment than do female students (t= 2.401, p < 0.05).

     

The Winds of Change in Russian Higher Education: is the East moving West?

In the last 30 years, major changes have taken place in the public sector worldwide under the rubric of New Public Management [NPM]. The education sector is perhaps one of the key areas drawing an intense interest and discussion in the wake of NPM. The Russian State seems to be no longer an exception to this global trend. In line with this, the Russian education sector was declared as a large-scale top priority national project in the late summer of 2005, which was aimed to help raise the living standards of each Russian citizen. This empirical paper seeks to reveal the major institutional and legal changes taking place in Russian higher education over time. This insight is vital as it points to the contexts in which Russian public universities operate. To make the acquaintance of a system of Russian higher education, this research sketches its evolution. It commences from the Soviet era to the present time, highlighting the most significant government initiatives.     

Cliff or Step? Posture‐Specific Learning at the Edge of a Drop‐Off

Infants require locomotor experience to behave adaptively at a drop‐off. However, different experimental paradigms (visual cliff and actual gaps and slopes) have generated conflicting findings regarding what infants learn and the specificity of their learning. An actual, adjustable drop‐off apparatus was used to investigate whether learning to distinguish a step from a cliff transfers from crawling to walking. Experienced 12‐month‐old crawlers (n = 16) refused to crawl over risky drop‐offs but novice 12‐month‐old walkers (n = 17) stepped repeatedly over the edge. Experienced 18‐month‐old walkers (n = 18) refused to walk over risky drop‐offs but descended using alternative methods. These findings suggest that infants do not acquire generalized responses like fear or wariness of heights. Rather, infants learn to perceive affordances for the experienced action.     

Russian in the University Curriculum: A Case‐study of the Impact of the First World War on Language Study in Higher Education in Britain

The outbreak of the First World War and the emergence of Russia as Britain’s ‘glorious ally’ swiftly changed public attitudes in Britain, which had been largely, but not entirely, hostile to Russia. The sense that Britain needed to cure its ‘abysmal ignorance’ of Russia, coupled with the strong desire to replace Germany, the enemy, as a trading partner with Russia led to the initiation of the teaching of the language at eight or more university‐standard establishments. The material and intellectual foundation of the nascent departments of Russian was a partnership between commercial‐financial and academic interests. Money from business sources was crucial in the introduction of Russian teaching at several of them. It was, however, only at Nottingham that the commercial sector actively tried (unsuccessfully) to control the behaviour of the college by restricting promised funding. Meanwhile, partnership with technical schools in recruiting teachers was a significant feature of the introduction of Russian to the higher and further education sector. Staff recruited consisted of both British scholars and expatriate Russians (or other Slavs). Russian departments or divisions were often actively supported within the university by specialists in other fields, who were strongly of the opinion that any serious university system should accommodate the study of a society and culture as significant as that of Russia. When it became clear after the October Revolution that Russia would not continue to support Britain, France and America in the war against Germany, the withdrawal of interest external to the universities did not cause the immediate demise of Russian studies in higher education; they were by this time established firmly enough to survive for intellectual reasons alone, and indeed they survive to this day in most of the institutions discussed here. University College, Nottingham, later to become the University of Nottingham, exemplifies in microcosm the principal trends and features of the national situation.     

Dearing is Dead – Blunkett is Born? The Future Funding of Higher Education

The Dearing Report's most substantial and rigorous piece of work on funding has been rendered irrelevant by the government's decision to adopt a different approach which Dearing had not considered. Much time, effort and money could have been saved if the government had made its objectives clear before the Report was finalised rather than on the day it was published.
Yet the Dearing chapters on funding are not wasted because they provide the case for a student contribution to tuition costs on the grounds of equity. These arguments are examined and supported in the paper. The Report is criticised for missing the opportunity to argue for credit-based funding in relation to both the public and student contributions.
The reasons for the government preferring its particular mix of means-tested fee and loan instead of means-tested maintenance grant are explained in terms of its political objectives. The effect of the government's proposals is that no student or parent pays more now for higher education than under existing arrangements. The extra private costs are incurred by graduates in repaying their additional loans out of their future income.
Finally, the misplaced emphasis on dealing with the full-time student funding problem led the Committee to give insufficient attention to other students. The adoption of a genuine lifelong learning model of higher education might have generated more relevant proposals not only on funding but elsewhere.     

The Self‐evaluation of Teachers: a Strategy for the Improvement of Teaching at Higher Education Level

Teaching assessment at higher education level is required in order to improve the quality of teaching in universities. As both teaching staff and students are equally involved in the teaching/learning process, the views of both must be taken into account when determining the quality of teaching. Basically, a self‐evaluation process has two aspects. On the one hand, there is the source of information, the teacher in this particular case. He or she has the opportunity to reflect upon the actual teaching situation by evoking his or her own point of view in regard to his or her vision of reality even if it might be judged as a complementary view as opposed to other views. On the other hand, the objective of the process might be one either of providing a means of checking (process evaluation) or of improving (result evaluation). A detailed analysis of the two characteristics will enable us to appreciate properly their inter‐connectedness. This analysis, as well as the prior experience of the authors in the domain of teaching assessment within their university, enables them to present a model of self‐evaluation applicable to the context in which they are working.     

Does Developmental Education Help? Findings from the Academic Performance of Adult Undergraduate Students in Community Colleges

ABSTRACT

This paper examines the association between participating in developmental education and degree attainment within 6 years for adults (age 24 and older) who entered one of 10 Ohio public community or technical colleges for the first time in 2002–2013. Degree attainment is modeled using annual data on course enrollment and completion measures. Results from both a logistic regression (with fixed effects) and propensity score matching provide different estimates of the impact of developmental education on degree attainment. The study identifies a range of intermediate educational characteristics such as credit completion and persistence that are associated with final degree completion. Based on the results of this study, educational institutions that provide adult developmental education need to design specific educational interventions that will address the barriers adult undergraduates face.     

A Historic Choice： The Ningbo Module of Vocational Higher Education for Serving the Community and Society

Higher education, especially vocational higher education should serve society, the community and the enterprises to motivate a win-win result of mutual development and cooperation for Chinese society and higher universities. Taking the strategic action to serve the society in Ningho professional technology institute for instance, the research summarizes theoretically the inevitability and the feasibility of the interaction with mutual benefit in the model of the combination between the universities and society, which becomes the engine of social progress esp. in the manufacturing industry. Meanwhile the research conclusion warns the society that the universities serving the society should avoid the tendency of excessive utility and shouldn＇t ignore the serving ＇object of education—university students. People must persist in the quality of scientific, higher educational, practical applicability and perceptiveness.     

Implementing Education for All—Whose agenda,whose change? The case study of the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition

With the onset of the Education for All (EFA) agenda in 1990, the international development community has seen new forms of international cooperation forming around the pledge for EFA. This paper analyzes a case study of activities and challenges of a civil society coalition, the Ghana National Education Campaign Coalition (GNECC), in pursuing the goals of Education for All within the national context of Ghana. The key findings of this case study concern the major challenges that GNECC faces as a national education coalition implementing the global agenda of EFA. These challenges include broad goals and objectives, unsustainable funding, and a lack of local participation and ownership of activities. The research concludes that while GNECC has been successful in implementing certain aspects of national and international programming, at the local level it remains woefully behind as a result of inadequate funding of community level activities, poor participation, and external impetus. In essence, GNECC has been operating as a national activity implementing NGO as opposed to a collaborative community coalition aimed at resolving educational issues, leading to the conclusion that an externally initiated coalition is not the most influential tool for achieving progress on international agendas such as EFA.     

Does concept‐mapping strategy work for everyone? The levels of generativity and learners' self‐regulated learning skills

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of concept-mapping strategies with three different generativity levels (expert-generated concept map, partially learner-generated concept map, fully learner-generated concept map) on knowledge acquisition. Interaction between learners' self-regulated learning (SRL) skills and different levels of generativity was also tested. One hundred twenty-four undergraduate students, randomly assigned to three different concept-mapping groups, were differentiated by high and low levels of SRL skills. The findings suggest that the participants in the fully learner-generated map group significantly outperformed the participants in the expert-generated map group, and participants with high SRL skills significantly outperformed those with low SRL skills across all treatment levels.