Quality Higher Education at the University of Novi Sad

As Serbian universities inherited a reputation for very high quality from the days of socialism, they have been somewhat reluctant to reform themselves, particularly to adopt the 3+2 degree award system as per the Bologna Process recommendation. In fact, Serbian universities are more successful in the international arena at macro-level than at micro-level. Still, the author's university, the University of Novi Sad, is reforming itself along the lines of the Bologna recommendations.     

Chemical Engineering and Environmental Engineering Education in Hungary

Engineering education has more than 200 years of tradition in Hungary. Chemical engineers are trained at the Technical University of Budapest (TUB) and at the University of Veszprém. The curriculum of the TUB chemical engineering education is given. Undergraduate environmental engineering education is offered at the University of Miskolc, at the Janus Pannonius University in Pécs and at the University of Veszprém. Curricula of the latter two are given. The TUB has several environmental specialization opportunities for engineering students, but at present no separate undergraduate environmental engineering education is offered. Such a curriculum is now under preparation and will be introduced in 1998. Several technical colleges also offer environmental engineering education, where the duration of the training is 3 years. Postgraduate education is a very suitable form to add environmental knowledge to the existing engineering knowledge of graduate engineers. The TUB and the universities in Miskolc and Veszprém are all very active in this field.     

Student Perspectives on Higher Education as a Factor in the Founding of Knowledge Societies

The Chairperson of ESIB--the National Union of Students in Europe, a student union umbrella organization--briefly traces the origins of her organization and argues vigorously for strong government support for well-developed and diverse tertiary education systems. These must be broadly engaged both in their respective societies and internationally so as to prepare civil society for participation in so-called knowledge-based society.     

The Establishment of Quality Assurance Mechanisms at the University of Nis and Other Systemic Changes in Serbian Higher Education

The author, the Rector of the University of Nis in Serbia and Montenegro, describes the recent introduction of quality control mechanisms and other reform measures in his university. These reform measures are intended to help adapt the university to the Bologna Process. The carrying out of these reforms has been aided by a university-wide evaluation that was conducted in 2002 by a team of the European Association of Universities. A second impetus for reform has been the participation of the University of Nis in the activities of the Regional University Network on Governance and Management of Higher Education in South East Europe.     

Waves: a fast multi-tier top-<Emphasis Type="Italic">k</Emphasis> query processing algorithm

In this paper, we present Waves, a novel document-at-a-time algorithm for fast computing of top-k query results in search systems. The Waves algorithm uses multi-tier indexes for processing queries. It performs successive tentative evaluations of results which we call waves. Each wave traverses the index, starting from a specific tier level i. Each wave i may insert only those documents that occur in that tier level into the answer. After processing a wave, the algorithm checks whether the answer achieved might be changed by successive waves or not. A new wave is started only if it has a chance of changing the top-k scores. We show through experiments that such lazy query processing strategy results in smaller query processing times when compared to previous approaches proposed in the literature. We present experiments to compare Waves’ performance to the state-of-the-art document-at-a-time query processing methods that preserve top-k results and show scenarios where the method can be a good alternative algorithm for computing top-k results.     

Student misconceptions, declarative knowledge, stimulus conditions, and problem solving in basic electricity

Previous research has indicated that students' prior inaccurate conceptions about physical concepts interfere with the solution to physics problems and the acquisition of new concepts. In the present study, the effects of students misconceptions, declarative knowledge, and stimulus conditions on student solution to a problem in basic electricity were investigated. The results indicated that students performance was influenced by their knowledge of relevant declarative facts and the stimulus conditions of the experiment as well as by their models (or misconceptions) of the electrical situations. The theoretical and educational implications of the findings are discussed.     

Students' Views of Science and Technology When Entering University

We conducted a survey of first year French University students for the purpose of discovering their views and opinions on the subject of Science and Technology. These views provide valuable information on that which is considered to be essential by the students, while having the advantage of a certain amount of detachment in relationship to the academic course content. Certain implications may be deduced concerning University teaching as well. Content analysis was used to study scientific titles and texts produced by the students; the resulting classification system made it possible to deduce the main ideas on themes such as scientific discovery and conquest, man's need to understand his environment, the future, etc.     

Offering prescriptions of leader– member exchanges towards developing academic talent in higher education

This paper examines leader–member exchange behaviour for the development of academic talent in higher education. Drawing from a sample of academic leaders at a large South African university, interviews conducted with the chairs of departments (CoDs) provide new insight on development practices and actions for follower development within a leader– member exchange relationship. The study reveals significant differences in the behaviours of CoDs with low LMX scores and those with high LMX scores in the task of developing academic staff. Suggestions for enhancing academic follower development within this relationship are also offered. This study provides academic leaders with a comprehensive and constructive perspective for developing academic talent in higher education.     

Equity in Spanish higher education

The most outstanding event in the recent evolution of higher education in developed countries has been the continuously increasing proportion of students entering higher education and, therefore, its extension to more and more inclusive groups. It seems reasonable to assume that the expansion of higher education must have facilitated access of less privileged social classes, but it is important to analyze to what extent this significant increase in higher education participation has reached all social, economic, and cultural groups. This analysis could be useful in designing a policy to help those students who have more difficulty accessing higher education. The goal in this paper is to analyze this subject thoroughly focusing especially on the level of participation of young adults in Spanish higher education controlling for economic level, parental education and occupation, and other environmental characteristics. We present a logistic model which jointly values the influence of different family and social characteristics of the individual on his/her decision to enroll in higher education. The main conclusions of the study are these: (a) There has been improvement in the equity of access to higher education. In spite of this overall improvement, about 30 per cent of the less privileged population is still underrepresented in higher education, (b) Family educational level is the most important factor in the decision to enter higher education. The weight of these educational characteristics exceeds by far the influence of family income level.