Institutional transformation at South African universities: Implications for academic staff

In South Africa the restructuring of the higher education system and the transformation of higher education institutions are located within the country's broad political and socio-economic transition to democracy. This paper focuses particularly on institutional transformation, and pays attention to the implications of the process of transformation for academic staff.The following five interlinked and interdependent issues characterizing institutional transformation in South African higher education are identified:democratising the governance structures of institutionsincreasing access for educationally and financially disadvantaged studentsrestructuring the curriculumfocusing on developmental needs in research and community serviceredressing inequalities in terms of race and gender.Although the overall effect of institutional transformation is experienced rather negatively by many academic staff members, the paper concludes that academics have to be empowered by means of staff development to remain active partners in the transformation process.     

大学学术组织结构的创新

大学学术组织的外在表现是院、系、所等 ,而其内在结构传统上包括专业科层结构、事业部结构和矩阵结构。此类结构往往过分强调分工 ,忽视整合 ;静止僵化 ;管理层次过多 ,阻碍信息交流 ;扼杀个性 ,不利于学术人员创造性的发挥。网络组织结构、虚拟组织结构、学术团队作为创新的大学学术组织结构 ,则克服了上述弊端。     

Allocation of students in North African universities

In recent years, student bodies at public universities in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia have grown rapidly, outside the direct control of university authorities. But although entry to higher education remains open to all who pass the baccalauréat examination, the prospect of continued expansion has led to reevaluations of how universities are to serve society by producing trained professionals. Government officials, school authorities, and the public have focussed attention on the entry point as a crucial moment for maintaining educational standards within universities and other higher institutes and for determining the social and economic outcomes of higher education. In this article initial attention is given to how the three North African nations differ in their policies regulating which students may study which subjects. This is followed by a discussion of the implications of these policies for the goals higher education is ostensibly meant to serve.This article is based on field research in North Africa. I am indebted to the Spencer Foundation for their support of my study.     

基于学术属性的现代大学组织结构

在对现代大学组织结构分析的基础上,比较了中外大学组织结构的差异.借鉴国外现代大学治理的经验,根据学术为本的原则,提出了适合我国国情的现代大学组织设计思路与模式,为现代大学制度建设提供必要的理论支持.     

China's universities and Western academic models

China's Cultural Revolution began in the universities where Mao was able to gain strong support for his vision of radical societal transformation by a focus on two issues: the need to uproot persisting traditional values and patterns, summed up under the four olds, and a call to shatter the shackles of all foreign dogmas which was clearly directed at prominent Soviet influences in Chinese higher education. This essay briefly summarizes the main characteristics of China's traditional scholarly institutions, then considers the western academic models introduced by foreign missionaries, those selected and implemented by Chinese modernizers and finally the Soviet academic model adopted by Chinese Communist leaders in the fifties. The historical lessons drawn from this overview provide a context for some critical reflection on the ways in which western academic models are once again affecting reforms underway in Chinese higher education since 1978.     

地方综合性高校硕士研究生学制改革初探

硕士研究生学制改革问题是近几年教育界讨论的热点问题之一,针对国内与国外部分国家硕士研究生现行学制情况、我国地方综合性高校的特征及现行硕士研究生学制中存在的主要问题,笔者认为应将现阶段硕士研究生分为研究型硕士研究生与应用型硕士研究生两类,并在学制上加以区别:研究型硕士研究生学习年限为3～4年,应用型硕士研究生学习年限为2～3年.     

Preparing academic staff to use ICTs in support of student learning

There is pressure on academic staff to respond to changes produced by the increasing globalization of education markets, and the capacities of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to transform the ways education is delivered. This presents a serious challenge for many academics whose own formative educational experiences and professional orientations were shaped under different circumstances. This paper will focus on an innovative scheme designed to support university staff in their understanding and application of ICTs in student learning. The course was delivered to a small pilot group of experienced teaching staff who wished to explore the uses of ICTs. It aimed to provide an understanding of the available technologies, and how these might be utilized in the support of teaching, learning and assessment. Throughout the course's duration, one of the authors conducted an independent evaluative programme of research involving confidential questionnaires and observation sessions. The paper's two remaining authors have made further contributions as participant and course leader. Combining these sources of data, the paper reviews the course evaluation and discusses how staff approached the development and use of ICTs with varying levels of confidence, and with different practical issues and agendas concerning the incorporation of ICTs in teaching and learning. Placing the study's major themes within the changing contexts facing university staff, it concludes with a discussion of its wider implications for all practitioners involved in staff development that is both general and ICT-specific.     

Examining opportunities for mobility for professional staff in state universities

Professional staff of colleges and universities usually do not have the kind of clearly defined paths for advancement that are available to members of the faculty. The results of a survey examining opportunities for professional staff are presented in this article. Information obtained from the survey was organized into five categories: (a) job classification system, (b) salary and wage schedules, (c) job-performance evaluation process, (d) promotion process and (e) incentive programs, and these categories were used as a basis for comparing responding universities. The conditions of employment of professional staff at selected state universities are presented and recommendations are provided for improving the upward mobility of members of this vital support group.     

高校教学档案建设与教务信息管理

高校教学档案是衡量高校教育质量和教务管理水平的重要标志之一。而真实、完备的教学档案源于规范、系统的教务信息管理。本文阐述了高校教学档案的重要作用,并从教务信息管理的角度,探讨了加强高校教学档案建设的举措。     

我国高校教育职员制的实施现状与改进研究

本文总结了近年国内高校在推行教育职员制的过程中取得的经验和遇到的问题,提出了职员制的改进思路。并提出如果要达到教育职员制度的实施目标,就应该加强高校教育职员的专业化职业转变,建立健全完备、系统的教育职员专业化职业制度体系。     

Academic staff and academic drift in Australian colleges of advanced education

The Australian colleges of advanced education have been developed since the mid-1960s mainly on the initiative of the federal government with the aim of creating a separate sector of higher education parallel to the universities. They illustrate well what has been referred to in the literature as academic drift, a process whereby non-university institutions aspire to become more like universities. Academics in the colleges of advanced education have contributed to the process of upward drift. Academic drift in turn has produced important changes on some key characteristics of college academics.     

Job satisfaction among academic staff: An international perspective

This study examined aspects of academics'satisfaction with theirjob across the eight nations (Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, Mexico,Sweden, UK, USA). Interesting patterns emerged across countries reflectingdifferences in the international academic climate. The study also exploredpatterns of job satisfaction and dissatisfaction more closely for theAustralian data, and examined the impact of context elements, includingworking climate and atmosphere, on general levels of job satisfaction.Results indicated that factors related to the environment in which academicswork, including university atmosphere, morale, sense of community, andrelationships with colleagues, are the greatest predictors of jobsatisfaction. Implications for university management and governing bodiesare discussed.     

上海来华韩国留学生的学习适应影响因素研究

对上海高校韩国本科留学生的学习适应影响因素进行了调查研究.研究对象包括复旦大学、上海交通大学和华东师范大学的218名的韩国留学生.研究发现,中国高校的教学设施、课堂教学,韩国学生的学习能力、学习态度和汉语水平,以及留学生与老师和同学的交流显著影响韩国留学生的学习适应.就如何帮助韩国留学生更好适应在华学习的问题,从中国高校留学生管理与教学方面,以及韩国留学生自身方面提出了若干建议.     

两次学术革命与研究型大学的发展

科学研究被引入大学的第一次学术革命 ,造就了研究型大学。此后科学研究这一大学(主要是研究型大学 )的社会职能逐步走向职业化和专业化 ,从“小科学”步入“大科学” ,研究型大学也由此在今天成为新知识与新经济的策源地 ,以致人们提出大学正经历着把经济发展也引为学术使命的第二次学术革命。     

Perceptions of the prevalence and seriousness of academic dishonesty in Australian universities

Academic dishonesty is a fundamental issue for the academic integrity of higher education institutions, and one that has lately been gaining increasing media attention. This study reports on a survey of 1206 students and 190 academic staff across four major Queensland universities in relation to student academic misconduct. The aim of the survey was to determine the prevalence of academic misconduct, and to investigate the extent to which perceptions of dishonesty are shared between students and staff, as preliminary steps toward developing effective strategies to deal with the academic dishonesty/misconduct problem. Results indicate a higher tolerance for academic misconduct by students in comparison to staff, particularly with respect to falsification of research results and plagiarism, as well as considerable underestimation by staff of the prevalence of virtually all forms of student academic misconduct. Overall, the study’s findings confirm the significance of the issue of academic dishonesty within the Australian tertiary sector, indicating considerable divergence between students and staff in terms of perceptions of the seriousness and prevalence of student academic misconduct. We suggest that university administrators need to examine this issue closely in order to develop mechanisms for managing and curtailing the level of academic misconduct, since a failure to do so may lead to a further undermining of the academic integrity of the Australian tertiary sector.     

A case study of academic staff integration in a post-merger Chinese university

The aim of this study was to discover and better understand through a case study, the phenomenon of academic staff integration in a post-merger Chinese university. The analysis was undertaken by using a cultural framework derived from relevant literature. The results indicate that adjustments to academic values and beliefs, the cultural dimension, are crucial in the integration process. This study also identified factors, which could affect academic staff integration, such as leadership, organisational objectives, regulations, geographic division, and cultural differences. Being aware of these factors could provide university managers with useful guidelines on how to facilitate the integration of academic staff members from different pre-merger institutions.     

高校教学秘书队伍建设中的问题及对策

高校教学秘书团队普遍存在队伍不稳定、专业知识教育培训、知识老化、创新能力不足等问题.高校教学秘书队伍的建设还得不到应有的重视,工作任务重、待遇低,培训深造、进修机会少,领导对秘书队伍教育管理的重要性和科学性认识不足等诸多主客观因素造成了这些问题的产生.应强化人本管理,充分调动教学秘书工作的积极性.教学秘书自身也要注重提高个人素质,树立终身学习的理念.     

Shaping a culture: oral histories of academic development in Australian universities

Academic development has had an approximately forty‐year history within Australian higher education, paralleling the major expansions and changes in the sector, both nationally and internationally. Its principal concerns have been the improvement of teaching and the professional development of the academics who teach. The history of academic development has gone largely undocumented and unexamined at a national level, in Australia and elsewhere. However, as university teaching has increasingly become important in relation to quality in higher education, academic development has become a central player in the work of universities. It becomes of particular importance at this time to garner a more thorough understanding of the continuities as well as the discontinuities in the meanings and practices of university teaching and in the work of those whose role has been to support its development. This article presents a discussion of two key themes identified from a set of oral history interviews conducted with early leaders in academic development in Australia. These themes offer different insights into issues and understandings of academic development in today’s university. The first concerns a perennial issue in academic development – the struggle to define academic development’s emerging ethos in relation to research and service to the broader university’s endeavour. The second theme represents an issue that has been forgotten or marginalised in the official accounts of academic development but which lives on in the ‘lore’ of the field – the role of activism in the shaping of university teaching and academic development.