International Seminar on University Governance and Management: An Overview

Tertiary Education and Management -     

The credibility of online news: an evaluation of the information by university students / La credibilidad de las noticias en Internet: una evaluación de la información por estudiantes universitarios

Abstract

The spread of online disinformation is one of the 10 global risks of the future according to the World Economic Forum, and 51% of experts believe that this situation will not improve in the coming years. By 2022, half of the news will be fake news. In terms of users, young people and adults have problems understanding where the information they find online comes from and what sources to trust or not. In order to ascertain the degree of credibility that young users in Andalucía give to information, this study presents the results of the evaluation of online news by university students pursuing degrees in communication and education (N = 188), using the CRAAP test. The data reveal differences in gender and degree programme in the credibility assigned to the news. The conclusion is that university students have difficulty differentiating the veracity of the sources, in line with previous studies, with fake news earning higher ratings than real news.     

Has California's Passage of Proposition 227 Made a Difference in the Way We Teach?

The Urban Review - Passage of Proposition 227 has almost effectively eliminated bilingual education in California public schools, tying the hands of teachers who still have to educate students not...     

Moving beyond the predictable failure of Ed-Tech initiatives

ABSTRACT

The development of Information and Communication Technology has created waves of excitement about its power to fix educational problems and improve learning results, prompting a succession of policy efforts to integrate digital technology into education. Educators, schools and corporations are increasingly driving these initiatives. This article makes the argument that a narrow vision of digital technology, which both ignores the complexity of education and wastes valuable public resources, is becoming an obstacle to significant improvement and transformation in education. Utilising our research and experience in the field of educational technology, this paper problematises the common elision of ‘technology’ and ‘digital technology’. From this basis, we then critically reflect on various common approaches to introducing digital technology in education under the guise of promoting equality and digital inclusion. These include national government-led programmes, more recent trends for local school-led initiatives, and the role of non-formal education initiatives led by corporations/foundations. Amidst the varying surface-level ‘failure’ and/or ‘success’ of these approaches, we point to limited underpinning ‘information and knowledge society’ logics in framing the application of digital technology to education. As such we conclude by considering the educational challenges for future Ed-Tech initiatives.     

Integrating History of Science in Science Education through Historical Microworlds to Promote Conceptual Change

This paper proposes a new way to integrate history of science in science education to promote conceptual change by introducing the notion of historical microworld, which is a computer-based interactive learning environment respecting historic conceptions. In this definition, “interactive” means that the user can act upon the virtual environment by changing some parameters to see what ensues. “Environment respecting historic conceptions” means that the “world” has been programmed to respect the conceptions of past scientists or philosophers. Three historical microworlds in the field of mechanics are presented in this article: an Aristotelian microworld respecting Aristotle’s conceptions about movement, a Buridanian microworld respecting the theory of impetus and, finally, a Newtonian microworld respecting Galileo’s conceptions and Newton’s laws of movement.     

Sustainable development as a driver for educational innovation in engineering school: the case of UniLaSalle

ABSTRACT

The potential relationships between innovation and sustainability processes, in engineering education, is neither obvious nor simple, especially when innovation, generally speaking, is promoted regardless of sustainability. We used UniLaSalle (In January 2016, the ‘Institut Polytechnique LaSalle Beauvais’, a French engineering school, merged with another higher education engineering school (ESITPA, Rouen). Both campuses (Beauvais and Rouen) have a common name: UniLaSalle (www.unilasalle.fr). As the interview began during 2015, this article only describes the situation of the Beauvais campus.) as a ‘living Lab’ to identify and analyse the reasons for the integration of innovation and Sustainable Development (SD) in training programmes. The aim is to explore, in a perception and reflective approach, how SD can be understood as a driver for specific innovation attitudes in higher education engineering school. This paper adopts an empirical approach based on a qualitative study, using NVivo 9 software to analyse non-numerical data. Our research suggests that SD can be a structural driver for innovation if it is integrated in a transdisciplinarity approach and not just as a discipline per se.     

Experiments of two-level training in Hungarian higher education

An experiment designed to train engineering students to two levels of terminal achievement within single institutions is reported. The operative engineers (formerly high level technicians) qualify after three years whilst research and development engineers (fully qualified engineers) take five years. Organisational and curricular problems necessarily created by such integrated schemes are described and discussed. Social attitudes in society in general and in the student body in particular make the task of directing students towards the shorter form of training complex and difficult. From the experience gained so far it can confidently be asserted that the experiments in two-level training have been successful.Note by the Editor: This article is an abbreviated version prepared by the Editor of a 90-page UNESCO (copyright) report with the same title, Document ED. 75/WS/64, dated October 1975. We are grateful to the authors and to UNESCO for permission to print this summary of the report.