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The Paper Chase model is a synchronous collaborative approach to manuscript development. Through a structured and team-based design, authors participate in a "marathon" of writing, editing, revising, and submitting their publications within a specified period. This active-learning approach is considered a high-impact practice by engaging students in research dissemination through a collaborative project. This study sought to evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of a virtual Paper Chase exercise. We conducted the Paper Chase with six teams led by multidisciplinary faculty (with 24 undergraduate students and four graduate students). All participants were given pre-and post-surveys, with both open- and closed-ended questions. Results indicated that the process increased cooperative and problem-solving components of group work attitudes, increased participants' confidence in writing skills, increased understanding of research processes and that participants appreciated putting their skills immediately into practice. Participants identified strengths as well as opportunities for improvement in online modules and facilitation. The process was effective in that half of the manuscripts were submitted to peer-reviewed outlets within 90 days of the event. The positive evidence for learning in the virtual Paper Chase model supports future applications and may strengthen the involvement of students in research dissemination. Additional research may expand upon the findings by assessing group work dynamics, quality of final products, and conducting the process in a hybrid model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"The Real World of College: What Higher Education Is and What It Can Be" by Wendy Fischman and Howard Gardner is a book that examines the state of higher education in the United States. The authors conducted 2,000 interviews over five years at ten colleges to gain insight into current expectations and experiences of higher education. The book explores different justifications for engaging in higher education, such as inertia, transaction, exploration, and transformation. While the book defends traditional humanist scholarship, it could have made a stronger case for the liberal arts. However, it lacks awareness of sociological problems associated with the university and does not consider the broader issues affecting higher education. Overall, the book provides a harmless addition to the library of defenses of liberal education. [Extracted from the article]

Compared to the abundant generic research on technologies and education, few studies focus on the scope of whether the technologies used meet the expectations set forth in international reports and to what extent technology contributes to transforming educational practice. Our objective was to identify and analyze the characteristics of educational practices that are being developed in higher education and to assess the value that technology brings to educational practice. We conducted a systematic review of academic papers published in scientific journals: a corpus of 1,207 articles from six journals included in indexed databases (JCR and SJR), selected using Google Scholar Metrics. According to the various records screened, the study we present is based on 49 articles, published between 2018 and 2019. We conclude that beyond their reproducible, enriching, or transformative nature, most of the articles analyzed address the improvement of students' performance, engagement, or self-perception, in which they positively value the experience of learning mediated by digital technology, although they do not have an impact on the transformative value. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) instruments can be administered online or with paper and pencil. These procedures involve different interactions between respondents and instruments which could cause errors when administrators and researchers want to compare or relate online results with paper-based results. This study aimed to analyze if the Romanian version of the Student Evaluations of Educational Quality instrument presents similar psychometric characteristics regardless if it is completed online or by paper and pencil. Data was collected from two groups of students (N = 809). One group completed the SEEQ on paper-pencil support (312 responders, 38.6%). The other group completed the scale for the same teachers and courses, but online and one year later. Psychometrical checks and measurement invariance analysis suggested that the Romanian version of SEEQ has passed the internal validity and reliability test and presented configural, metric, and scalar invariance across the results obtained from both administration procedures. • Nowadays, SET instruments are administered online or by paper-pencil procedures. • The procedures involve different interactions between respondents and instruments. • Checking the measure invariance is necessary when using both SET procedures. • The SEEQ has good invariance indices across data collected with both procedures. • The SEEQ has a good fit for the Romanian population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents a comprehensive study and analysis of the intelligent grouping of papers in adult higher education using a random matrix approach. Using the results of random matrix theory on the eigenvalues of the sample covariance matrix, the energy of each subspace is estimated, and the estimated energy is then used to construct a subspace weighting matrix. The statistical properties of the sample covariance matrix eigenvectors are analyzed using the first-order perturbation approximation, and then, asymptotic results from random matrix theory on the projection of the sample covariance matrix signal subspace to the real signal parametrization are used to obtain the weighting matrix based on the random matrix eigenvectors. Dynamic adjustment according to the fitness of individuals in the population is performed to ensure population diversity, while the combination of the small habitat technique can avoid the algorithm from falling into early convergence. The algorithm introduces chaos theory to optimize the population initialization process and uses the dynamic traversal randomness of chaos to select individuals in the population so that the initial population is close to the desired target solution. The design of the fitness function in the genetic algorithm generally maps the objective function of the problem to the fitness function. A good fitness function can directly reflect the quality of the individuals in the group. Based on the in-depth study of the basic attributes of the test questions and the principles of test paper evaluation, the mathematical model and objective function of intelligent paper grouping are determined by the difficulty, knowledge points, and cognitive level of the test questions as the main constraints, and NCAGA is applied to the intelligent paper grouping method, which better completes the intelligent paper grouping session for the computer system architecture course. In the process of designing the intelligent grouping algorithm, for the situations of premature convergence and convergence to locally optimal solutions that easily occur in the traditional genetic algorithm, this paper adopts the approach of adaptive adjustment of crossover probability and variation probability to improve the algorithm and achieves satisfactory results. Based on extensive business research, this paper completes the requirement analysis of the online practice system based on the intelligent grouping of papers and presents the functional design and database design of the key functional modules in the system in detail. Finally, this paper conducts functional tests on the system and analyses the test results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highly cited articles have been revealed as being informative for research fields, topics, and trends. Through reading highly cited articles, researchers can gain fruitful results from previous studies and can identify essential clues and potential future research directions for their own research. Aiming at exploring the possibility of the application of and innovations in flipped learning, this study reviewed 100 highly cited articles related to flipped learning. By performing a literature review of the highly cited studies on flipped learning, we have discovered the proposed new learning strategies and flipped learning applied to the research topics that seldom draw attention, and the research fields that are less-frequently examined, including those research issues that are rarely discussed. We have also noticed that many studies have focused on comparing different flipped learning modes and identifying more effective flipped learning approaches. Only a minority of studies have compared the influences of flipped learning and traditional learning. Moreover, we found that researchers have tended to focus more on students' learning achievements and learning behaviors. Lastly, based on the reviews of the past flipped learning articles, this study provides suggestions from different perspectives. We hope to provide a reference for researchers and teachers to conduct flipped learning studies and design flipped learning activities in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to explore the note-taking experiences of university students using paper-based (non-electronic) and paperless (electronic) resources. By means of a hermeneutic phenomenological approach, the note-taking experiences of 18 students from an international program at a university in Belgium were examined throughout a semester. In order to document these students' practices with paper-based and paperless resources, four data collection methods were used: (a) in-depth interviews (b) observations (c) focus group discussions and (d) document analysis of students' lecture notes. The results showed that students experience note-taking as a complex phenomenon in which lived body, lived human relations, lived space and lived time come into play, and in which they try to find a balance between multiple engagements, between autonomy and authority, between attention and distraction, and between being original and mirroring others. This struggle for balance occurs irrespective of which medium (paper-based or paperless) they choose to use. These results provide an in-depth view of the phenomenon, and also highlight the complexity of the note-taking experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The objective of this study was to identify and characterize the reading and writing tasks that university students perform to learn, taking into account the discipline (sciences vs humanities) and the support used (printed vs digital). Four hundred and four students completed an online questionnaire that included 13 tasks which involved reading-writing to learn the contents of the subject. The tasks varied according to their level of complexity, the number and type of sources needed, the level of composition required and the degree to which the information from the sources was processed. Students indicated performing, with higher frequency, tasks that promoted more superficial learning. Humanities students mentioned carrying out tasks that promoted deeper processing. Regarding the format of the materials used, science students reported using the digital format more frequently. However, printed support seemed to be more commonly used when students performed tasks to learn in a relatively superficial way the contents of the subjects. By contrast, students used the digital format to perform complex reading and writing tasks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to analyze the relative efficiency of graduate programs in terms of the quality of their scientific publications in journals. To this end, we applied Data Envelopment Analysis to the fields of Public and Business Administration, Accounting, and Tourism, using data from the 2017 Quadrennial Evaluation developed by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior ["Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel", CAPES]. The results suggest that efficient graduate programs are concentrated in the center-south axis of Brazil, in the areas of Administration and Accounting. Despite the overall publishing strategy in journals of various ranks (strata), efficient graduate programs allocate their efficiency primarily to Qualis A1 journals, A1 being the excellence rating in the CAPES scale. We conclude that legitimized research practices pressure graduate programs to improve the quality of their publications while threatening the survival of programs that fail to conform to the assessment rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Feminist classrooms employ a variety of teaching strategies that empower students and inspire equity and justice. In this paper, we argue that integrating student-made documentary filmmaking into the college classroom is a powerful and effective form of feminist teaching. Specifically, feminist pedagogy views students as knowledge creators and demands collaborative, non-hierarchical learning experiences. These outcomes suggest that documentary filmmaking is a compelling and effective way to engage students in our increasingly visual and video-based culture. Based on our experiences teaching sociology at a women's college in the U.S., we illustrate the impact that documentary filmmaking has for student learning, empowerment, and justice work. We also develop and strengthen students' technical, multi-media skills, arguing this outcome expands feminist pedagogy to meet contemporary culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently, the Association of University and College Counseling Center Directors (AUCCCD) published a White Paper on a multidimensional understanding of organizational structures for counseling centers (Mitchell, Oakley & Dunkle 2019). This article provided a historical overview of such structures, argued that there is no one optimal structure for all campuses, provided recommendations for factors to consider in related decision-making, and advocated for collaboration regardless of structure. The authors of this article extend the conversation by elaborating on some of the ethical issues involved in collaboration, as the White Paper did not address the limits of acceptability in such processes. Given that the authors are psychologists, we will be focusing on the Ethical Principles for Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2017) of the American Psychological Association (APA). Similar language can be found in the ethical codes of other mental health professionals, and we note these sources as well. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The first wave of environmental justice literature tended to define environmental racism as the disparate siting of toxic waste facilities in low‐income areas and communities of colour. More recently, environmental justice scholars have turned to a critical environmental justice framework to explore questions of spatial equity in relation to movements like Black Lives Matter. It is increasingly clear that the state, the built environment, economic development, and race converge in communities who face increased surveillance, divestment, and gentrification. Using Hyde Park on the South Side of Chicago as a case study, I draw on qualitative and historical methods to interrogate dominant narratives surrounding policing in urban environments. This paper highlights how Black geographies, as an analytic, highlight the intersection of police brutality and the built environment in Hyde Park. Legacies of urban renewal, now framed as neighbourhood revitalisation, and narratives around criminality and race all influence community police relations in the area. As the University of Chicago expands, so does its police force, and so do conflicts over who can use public spaces and how these spaces are used. I argue that institutions like the University of Chicago rely on the police to racially manage and expand their built environment. I also look to Black Lives Matter as a way to understand police brutality as enmeshed with toxic ecologies. This pairing of activism, ecology and policing allows a more nuanced analysis of the racialised underpinnings of the built environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on the challenges of transition experienced by local high school graduates of the Arabic school system in the Kingdom of Bahrain, in the Middle East, as they are shaped into the person of a professional nurse through a Western model of nursing education. It investigates the elements that comprise a Bahraini student's first-year nursing experience in transnational education, and considers how this experience is navigated by the student. Drawing on best international practice, it concludes with recommendations of how to better support Bahraini nursing students' first-year experience of transnational education, which may be usefully applied to other international contexts providing transnational nursing education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sociologists have shown that moral understandings of market exchanges can differ between historical periods and institutional settings, but they have paid less attention to how producers' moral frameworks vary depending on their unequal positions within both markets and institutions. We use interviews and ethnographic observations to examine the vibrant market of research shops selling academic work to students around two of Uganda's top universities. We identify three groups of researchers—Knowledge Producers, Entrepreneurs, and Educators—who construct different professional identities and moral justifications of their trade, and who orient their market action accordingly. We demonstrate that these identities and moral frameworks reflect an interplay between the institutional contexts and the social class positions that researchers occupy within this illicit market. Knowledge Producers and Entrepreneurs both experienced a sense of "fit" with their respective institutional cultures, but the former now see their work as compromising ideals of research, whereas the latter capitalize on what they view as a broken system. Educators, disadvantaged at both institutions, articulate a framework countering the dominant institutional cultures and sympathetic to underperforming students. This approach illuminates how institutional contexts and individual class positions within them influence producers' moral frameworks, leading to differentiation of the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2016 the Government invited English local authority employers of social workers and university providers of social work qualifying programmes to apply jointly for funding to become social work teaching partnerships. This was in response to its concerns about the limited engagement of local authorities with qualifying training programmes. It was also part of the Government's strategy to ensure that students qualified as social workers with what it considered to be the right knowledge and skills and to improve their recruitment, retention and development and overall quality of practice. Following an evaluation of one partnership, this discussion paper addresses the evolution of these arrangements as found in consultations with representatives of 10 social work teaching partnerships (held 2017–18), the four original pilots and the six others that were subsequently funded. Drawing on a synthesis of the partnerships' reported experiences, this paper reports the variations in their approaches and sets out the challenges they faced and addressed, contextualising this in the policy landscape in which they were introduced and operated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The primary objective of this research was to evaluate long-term user acceptability of menstrual cups in a student population in South Africa. A cohort of female students aged 18–24 years attending 10 further education institutions including 22 campus sites in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, were offered menstrual cups after receiving education and training in their use. The students were followed for up to 12 months to assess menstrual cup acceptability, user experiences and continuation. A total of 509 students were enrolled. Disposable pads were the primary menstrual hygiene product used in the 3 months prior to the baseline interview (95.5%, n = 486), and 8.1% (n = 41) of students reported that they had used toilet paper or newspapers. Of the 463 (91%) students interviewed at 1 month follow-up, 86% reported that they had tried to use the menstrual cup. There was mixed reporting on ease of insertion and removal on first use. Of those who attempted use, half (49.5%, n = 197) reported that inserting the menstrual cup on first use was very easy or quite easy. Of those who did not find it easy, 80% reported that two to three insertions were required to achieve comfort. A maximum of five insertions was mentioned to achieve comfort. The majority who had used the cup (>90%) reported they would continue to use it at each follow-up visit. The menstrual cup was well accepted among this student population and should be considered as a cost-effective and environmentally sustainable option in menstrual health management initiatives in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous research exploring how working-class women experience UK Higher Education (HE) work has made evident recurring themes around social segregation and corresponding difficulties with feeling they belong. This paper develops this work by exploring the ways in which UK, HE based working-class women lecturers talk about their sense of belonging. It was found that, in contemporary UK HE, lecturing work is located within a marketised space where caring for students is central and the deployment of emotional labour to seen to be a necessary requirement to meet those demands. In addition, this labour is understood to be work that working-class women can readily take up, and as one of the few vehicles to enable feelings of value and belonging. However, this work is also devalued, unaccounted for and potentially harmful to those who do engage in it, therefore shoring up/ reinforcing a class and gender stratified UK academy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the Journal of Geography in Higher Education provides a forum for geographer to present the results of research and to share and discuss common educational interests It mentions the journal focuses on teaching and learning of Geography in the context of higher education. It also mentions that the journal was originally established to create a space where issues of teaching and learning could be shared between practitioners.

Nowadays the size of university classes along with the growing number of students to be tested for final examination raise unprecedented challenges relating to the management, monitoring and evaluation of learning. Technology may provide some solutions that deserve to be investigated. This paper explores the potentialities and limitations of Computer‐Based Testing (CBT), specifically BYOD e‐test, compared to traditional Paper‐Based Testing (PBT) to verify whether, and to what extent, an electronic mode of assessment can become a suitable alternative to PBT. It is based on a study carried out at the University of Florence during 2016/17. 606 students participated in the study, of whom 443 opted for CBT using their own devices, while 163 preferred PBT. Participants who experienced CBT also answered a survey on perceptions, self‐efficacy and satisfaction. The results show that students' performances were better with CBT, and that a positive relationship exists between the perceived level of self‐efficacy and the propensity to adopt digital tests. In addition, students greatly appreciated the electronic system, especially for the possibility of immediate feedback. Some critical issues emerged relating to on‐screen reading, which suggests the need for careful design of testing tools. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK’s Research Excellence Framework of 2014 was an expensive high stakes evaluation which had a range of impacts on higher education institutions across the country. One component was an assessment of the quality of research outputs where a major feature was a series of panels organised to read and rate the outputs of their peers. Quality control was strengthened after the Research Assessment Exercise of 2008, but questions still remain about how fair it is to rate all papers on the same scale by raters who may vary in both their reliability and their severity/leniency. This paper takes data from a large department in which 23 senior staff rated the outputs from 42 academics. In total, 710 ratings were recorded. The analyses, using the Rasch model, showed that: a single scale described the data well; most raters were reliable although two were idiosyncratic; there was, however, a noticeable variation in the severity/leniency of the raters, which should be taken into account in the overall assessment. Suggestions for future exercises include a pre-appointment procedure for panel members and statistical adjustments for the severity/leniency of raters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As an increasing number of British universities are now requiring/encouraging mathematics applicants to have taken ‘extension papers’ such as the Mathematics Admissions Test (MAT), Advanced Extension Award (AEA) and Sixth Term Examination Paper (STEP), current students were asked how useful they were in preparation for their degree. The MAT was most commonly described as good preparation for undergraduate mathematics, whilst most participants who had taken the AEA were indifferent regarding its usefulness. Participants were positive about STEP, commending its similarity to undergraduate-style assessment and its challenging questions. The students’ views suggested that those wishing to be well prepared for tertiary mathematics should take one of these papers, preferably STEP. However, whilst universities may not necessarily wish to require applicants to pass extension papers, it may be beneficial for universities to recommend students to take them in order to improve their mathematical thinking and expectations of undergraduate mathematics study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies published over the last four decades provide the basis for a systematic review of the impact of mentoring in higher education (HE) on student career development. We review 73 papers published between 1986 and 2023 and develop a framework to examine the relationships between mentoring approaches and career development outcomes. Here, we distinguish between different student populations (female students, under-represented groups). Notwithstanding an overall positive verdict on mentoring's career development potential, with particular emphasis on career choice and transitioning behaviour, the results are not always positive, and many nuances in the data are evident. At a time of increased concern about student transitions into the labour market, practical implications can be derived which may strengthen mentoring's benefits, e.g. the value of peer mentoring for female students, and cultural proximity of mentors for under-represented minority students pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) careers. Key research recommendations include:(1) developing novel impact indicators related to emotion such as career inspiration and passion; (2) examining under-researched impact indicators related to non-traditional student careers (e.g. entrepreneurial intentions), and employment and socioeconomic impact indicators; and (3) investigating the role of context and mentoring content and delivery modalities, in helping to explain inconsistent findings across the reviewed papers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that the threat Large Language Models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, pose to writing instruction is both not entirely new and a welcome disruption to the way writing instruction is typically delivered. This new technology seems to be prompting many instructors to question whether essay responses to paper prompts reflect students' own thinking and learning. This uneasiness is long overdue, and the hope is it leads instructors to explore evidence-based best practices familiar from the scholarship of teaching and learning. We've known for some time how to better teach our students to think and write. Perhaps the arrival of LLMs will get us to put these lessons into widespread practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a draft plotline for the transformation of design learning, the paper introduces a new Creative Futures Pedagogical Framework for creative Higher Education as a mechanism for addressing the need for the sustainable transformation of creative teaching and learning. The Design, being piloted within a government funded, transdisciplinary, distributed, national Creative Futures Academy (CFA) project, shapes an exploratory intervention in the education system that begins to tell a different future story. The paper seeks to evidence the application of Futures thinking beyond the content and communication of design learning, and instead, utilises it to radically re-imagine a curriculum capable of framing a future for design knowledge creation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: This paper aims to identify how the faculties of a Colombian University have understood the concept of sustainability and the way they have embedded it into their training. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative research was done using documentary and content analysis which allowed researchers to recognize features correlated to sustainability which are needed to promote and act for social equity, ecological care and economic development. Findings: It was found that most faculties at the university do not conceptualize it; ergo, courses are designed neither for promoting sustainability nor sustainable education. Besides this, almost no level of integration was identified among faculties on this topic. Research limitations/implications: Many people agree education for sustainability is a key action to overcome the complex challenges the planet is facing; nevertheless, the prejudice that training to solve sustainability problems is an exclusive task of certain disciplines is common. This misunderstanding reduces the possibilities of pursuing a sustainable future, considering that these issues affect all humankind and that they can only be solved through interdisciplinary and collaborative work. Practical implications: The paper also outlines some actions that Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) can take to consider sustainability issues, and they are as follows: identification of competencies to include in the curricula; recognition of the potential of integrating education for sustainable development (ESD) into the curricula by strengthening the competencies and capacities; strengthening the competencies and capacities of the academic staff through ESD training processes; articulation of research with the curricula in such a way that the results of research processes permeate the curricula. Social implications: This study has some limitations. For instance, regarding the survey, the size of the sample may seem too small, a bigger sample will allow better information for the results. Regarding the case studies, a greater diversity of programs could have provided a wider range of results. Despite these limitations, for UPB, the study shows a snapshot of the literature review and the articulation of sustainable development and climate change education (CCE) in all programs the university has. The implications of this paper and research are the following. First, it reiterates the importance of having within the same institution a common language to talk about sustainability. Second, it recognizes the competencies and skills that should considered when implementing ESD and CCE in curricula. Originality/value: This idea corresponds to a lack of debate about what the term signifies and means. It is believed that, as sustainability has been highly researched in the past two decades, it is a cross-cutting element in any faculty proposal; however, due to the complexity of the term, it is understood differently by each member of the same academic community, affecting their ability to design a systemic and systematic curriculum that enables to educate for sustainable goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies educational inequality in the Philippines from 1950 to 2015, examining changes in the association between social origin and educational attainment against a backdrop of educational expansions and fluctuating economic conditions. Using data from the World Bank STEP Skills Survey, the study employs a sequential logit model to illustrate trends in secondary and college completion, followed by a multinomial logit model to look into differences in college destinations (type and status) between advantaged and disadvantaged students. The findings indicate that despite sustained expansions in the past six decades, disparities in secondary and tertiary completion deepened in relation to social background. The paper also finds that although expansions occurred mainly in public higher education institutions, it did little to alter the trends in college destinations, with advantaged students still more likely to complete in "high-status" universities than disadvantaged ones. Finally, the paper sheds light on how economic recessions have varying consequences on educational attainment, routing disadvantaged students out of college in the short term, while resulting in significant declines in the likelihood of completing higher education for advantaged students enrolled in "high-status" public entities in the long term. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Higher Education Institutions are expected to stimulate the innovation system and to contribute to the development of societies in a global perspective. Within this context, there is an increasing focus on internationalization. HEIs are developing institutional mechanisms to support internationalization while academics are expected to carry specific practices that allow them to improve the internationalization of knowledge production. At the same time, they are encouraged to engage with non-academic partners to co-produce and transfer knowledge, contributing, in this way, to economic and social development. Although there is some research on the impact of internationalization on academic entrepreneurship, studies on the effects in other dimensions of academic engagement with society are almost absent. This paper aims to fill this gap by analyzing the relationship between academics' internationalization practices and perceptions and the development of different types of academic engagement. Our analysis draws on quantitative analysis with data provided by an international survey (APIKS) and explores the Portuguese context. Findings show that the different practices and perspectives on internationalization impact differently on the way scientists engage. While there are positive effects of internationalization of research on engagement, the time academics stay abroad and the high focus on publishing in internationally high-rated journals may negatively affect academics' orientation towards the local community. This paper contributes to the debate on the role of the internationalization in the context of a knowledge-based society, considering different dimensions and a broad spectrum of knowledge-based engagement activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ideological discourses of Central Asia have been subject to much research. However, the use and the role of ideological discourses in framing internationalization of education policy has been largely overlooked. While much has been studied on how and why internationalization of higher education (HE) became indispensable part of tertiary sector, the cases where internationalization of HE is confronted by a government ideology agenda has largely remained outside of scholarly attention. This pioneering research offers analysis on ideology-based resistance to internationalization of education in authoritarian regimes. The paper argues that it is the framing of internationalization as a threat to national ideologies and a national model of education that confronts HE internationalization in some authoritarian political orders. The paper uses the case of post-Soviet Uzbekistan that promoted national ideologies as the basis of its education model. To support its argument, the paper analyses the official discourses of former President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan (1991–2016) and the statements of government officials on the country's national education model. It also analyses the interviews held with staff of HE institutions in Tashkent. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of qualitative research on academic inbreeding in Czech higher education, the first of its kind. Its focus is on exploring the significance of academic inbreeding, its types, practices, and possible solutions. The research for this paper was done among academic staff at eight institutions of higher education in the Czech Republic. It was conceptually informed by ideas about different types of inbred employees (immobile, mobile, silver-corded, and adherent) and available policy tools. The results show that academic inbreeding has long flown under the radar as an issue. Its impact is perceived ambivalently, as both positive and negative, by academics and experts alike. Generally, its avoidance has not been taken into account in staff recruitment, which has allowed it to become widespread among Czech higher education institutions. The policy tools for combatting academic inbreeding include nodality (open recruitment), reorganization of recruitment procedures, capacity-building (including stays abroad), and hortatory proclamations (paying attention to the issue). Overall, the evidence gathered in the course of research suggests that some progress has been made in limiting academic inbreeding at some workplaces, and that what we would call purely immobile inbred employees are giving way to mobile and "silver-corded" inbred academic staff. Finally, Czech higher education institutions register few cases of pseudo-inbreeding, combining work at the same institution where a PhD was taken with an academically relevant position in a state research institute or the Academy of Sciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, I discuss the gendered‐racialised interactional and contextual dynamics hindering the socialisation of ethnic minoritised women (EMW) within Belgian higher education. Based on in‐depth interviews, I develop the concept of 'socialisation climates' to explain the key aspects that determine EMW's socialisation process. Three socialisation climates are identified: integration, negotiation and interrogation. Findings show that insiders play a crucial role in hindering or facilitating EMW's socialisation. Developmental relationships are gendered‐racialised relations in which EMW's identity impacts supervisor and peer support. The departmental context in terms of hierarchy, an Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion culture, and team composition is relevant to their socialisation process. EMW are able to socialise rapidly only in a context that is (radically) inclusive which is still rare in academia. This paper informs higher education institutions to be aware of the gendered‐racialised climate and interactions that influence EMW's socialisation and increase the risk of pushing them out. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The journey to pursue and persist with a career in STEM is a complex process that begins at a young age, continues across secondary education and the end of school transition to university. Such decisions are influenced by a range of personal, social and environmental factors, highlighting the practical complexities of supporting young people in their transition to university. This paper explores the post-school transition of two students, one female and one male, with strong technological dispositions and aspirations to pursue careers in STEM fields. We focus on two STEM disciplines, Information Technology and Engineering, chosen by our participants. We employ the theory of practice (Bourdieu 1977) to analyse two students' experience of transition. The findings from these case studies are not intended to be generalised. Rather the in-depth stories and theoretical case analysis provides a nuanced account of transition to study STEM disciplines. Importantly, the pathways into university were not equal for the participants. Class and gender intersected with university structures to enable and constrain students' transition highlighting the significance of institutional supports within STEM disciplines to better support diverse students across the period of transition to university. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper considers the topic of student wellbeing using the lens of a different type of support mechanism – 'dog borrowing' – which builds on prior research about emotion work and human-animal interactions but in the context of student transitions and pastoral care in higher education. This novel study was about the experiences of students settling into their university life and how, through a facilitated opportunity for students to connect to a dog and community partners, universities can meet mental health standards for wellbeing support. The findings outlined in this paper provide new insight into; how the university ethos and environment can be viewed as more personalised and emotionally supportive, how different kinds of relationships can support emotion state regulation conducive to wellbeing and effective learning and the ways that a human-animal bond can enhance connection with the community and provide social support for university students who have moved away from home. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For over 30 years, the notion of authentic assessment in higher education has been adopted in academic practice, but it has managed to escape substantial critique. Although there have been multiple definitions and operationalisations of authentic assessment, current practice tends to foreground mimicking of work tasks. Authenticity cannot be completely unmoored from the reality of workplaces, the demands of the discipline, and the overall intended learning outcomes, however, a restricted view of how these aspects are represented in assessment can limit the sector's ability to prepare graduates who can engage with and shape the changing world. This paper elaborates the multiple challenges that some conceptualisations of authentic assessment contribute to assessment planning, recognising that assessment design always requires compromise. Three theoretical perspectives on authenticity are introduced to open new possibilities for authenticity in assessment. These are (1) psychological authenticity; (2) ontological fidelity; and (3) practice theory perspectives. The final section discusses how learning design might offer a means to operationalise theory. The paper concludes by suggesting that authenticity in assessment continues to hold value for the sector beyond its current uses through stronger theoretical conceptualisation and operationalisation of authenticity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few issues have attracted as much policy interest in the tertiary sector as graduate employability. Graduate employability positions universities and their students as key players in the national economy. At the same time, the standard conception of graduate employability, as it has evolved from human capital theory and modified by neoliberal ideology, has met with significant criticism. This paper reports on our analysis of the strategic plans of Australia's 42 operating universities current in 2018 to better understand (1) the extent to which employability was embedded in each university's strategic priorities and (2) the ways in which employability was characterised in those plans. Our paper provides empirical evidence of the way in which Australian universities universally and uniformly adopted a particular model of employability, simultaneously claiming its distinctiveness. Our analysis suggests the need for Australian universities to take a more thoughtful and nuanced approach to graduate employability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In more fluid higher education environments, the concept of third space has been developed to explore the activities of groups of staff who do not necessarily fit formal institutional descriptors. This paper draws on qualitative data from 26 respondents, in eight UK universities, who described significant elements of their work as occurring between professional and academic spheres of activity. Comparing individuals categorised as fully fledged 'third space professionals' with those categorised as simply 'working in third space', the paper suggests that the way individuals build and use social capital, and the recognition accorded to them by institutions, not only impacts on the way that they develop their roles but also is a significant factor in determining their career direction and aspirations. Furthermore, this has led to a general shift from the concept of service to one of partnership between colleagues, whether they are formally classified as 'academic' or 'professional'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities, significantly impacted by the shift to online learning during pandemic, must critically evaluate their teaching methods and outcomes to enhance performance in the post‐pandemic era. However, there has been a limited examination of whether students achieved comparable levels in cognition and social interaction during the pandemic compared to traditional face‐to‐face learning. Addressing this gap, this exploratory study utilized a quasi‐experimental design to analyse and compare the learning performance and outcomes of two cohorts of students (totalling 45) in a 12‐week university course delivered through the computer‐supported collaborative learning (CSCL) approach, both during and after the pandemic. Employing quantitative analysis and lag sequential analysis, the study examined students' behaviours, similarities and differences in performance within CSCL environments under two distinct social situations. Results indicated that students engaged in complete online learning with CSCL and those in face‐to‐face teaching with CSCL achieved similar levels of conceptual understanding. Additionally, a comparable distribution pattern of learning behaviours was observed. However, significant differences in behaviour sequences emerged between the two implementations, with students exhibiting a higher level of engagement in CSCL activities during the post‐pandemic period. These findings inform the design of CSCL environments should integrate student‐centred activities and include guiding scripts, prompts and scaffoldings in navigating learning endeavours effectively. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic The CSCL environment could facilitate teacher‐student and student–student interaction in learning activities. Studies have been conducted on the impact of scripts and prompts on students' cognition and social interaction in CSCL environment. There is a crucial need for conducting more in‐depth data analysis to comprehensively explore the CSCL process within university settings. What this paper adds A well‐designed CSCL environment, coupled with effective instructional strategies, exhibits resilience, sustaining its beneficial effects on students' academic performance and interaction. Both cohorts demonstrated a proclivity for engaging in repetitive behaviours, particularly focused on reviewing and reading activities. The latter cohort displayed a preference for individual tasks over collaborative efforts, showcasing a relatively higher frequency of individual work as opposed to group activities. Notably absent in both groups were crucial behavioural sequences, namely VR‐IA and VC‐IA, underscoring potential areas for CSCL improvement. Implications for practice and/or policy In the CSCL environment, a variety of activities rooted in student‐centred pedagogy (ie, self‐regulated learning, inquiry‐based learning and peer feedback) should be seamlessly integrated. It is recommended to furnish students with scripts, prompts and scaffoldings to bolster their navigation through collaborative and independent learning endeavours within CSCL environment. Students are encouraged to bridge their newly acquired knowledge with their existing understanding, for enhancing engagement and promoting deeper comprehension. What is already known about this topic The CSCL environment could facilitate teacher‐student and student–student interaction in learning activities. Studies have been conducted on the impact of scripts and prompts on students' cognition and social interaction in CSCL environment. There is a crucial need for conducting more in‐depth data analysis to comprehensively explore the CSCL process within university settings. What this paper adds A well‐designed CSCL environment, coupled with effective instructional strategies, exhibits resilience, sustaining its beneficial effects on students' academic performance and interaction. Both cohorts demonstrated a proclivity for engaging in repetitive behaviours, particularly focused on reviewing and reading activities. The latter cohort displayed a preference for individual tasks over collaborative efforts, showcasing a relatively higher frequency of individual work as opposed to group activities. Notably absent in both groups were crucial behavioural sequences, namely VR‐IA and VC‐IA, underscoring potential areas for CSCL improvement. Implications for practice and/or policy In the CSCL environment, a variety of activities rooted in student‐centred pedagogy (ie, self‐regulated learning, inquiry‐based learning and peer feedback) should be seamlessly integrated. It is recommended to furnish students with scripts, prompts and scaffoldings to bolster their navigation through collaborative and independent learning endeavours within CSCL environment. Students are encouraged to bridge their newly acquired knowledge with their existing understanding, for enhancing engagement and promoting deeper comprehension. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teaching and learning in higher education have increasingly become digitalized and associated with innovative pedagogical methodologies over the past decades. Following the sudden onset of the pandemic in March 2020, several studies tended to focus on traditional students' experiences with emergency remote education while literature is scarce on non‐traditional students (or adult learners) pedagogical experiences in Distance Education contexts. Using a qualitative case study approach, this study explored how digital technologies mediated instructors' and adult learners' educational experiences during COVID‐19 and their first‐time experiences with blended learning. Between October 2021 and July 2022, semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 40 adult learners and 20 instructors in three selected public higher education institutions (HEIs) in Ghana. Data analysis followed Braun and Clarke's (2012) thematic analysis approach. The results showed that the transition to blended learning was supported by the adoption and integration of varied virtual online technologies. The themes highlight the positive and negative impacts of technology in mediating the educational experiences of instructors and adult learners in blended learning environments. The themes which reflected both instructors' and adult learners' experiences were enhanced course delivery and pedagogy, competency development, technological issues and poor‐quality pedagogy. Blended learning facilitated by technology could be the ‘new normal learning’ post‐pandemic for adult learners pursuing Distance Education in Ghana. The study recommends the implementation of agile strategies and policies by HEIs to ensure sustainable quality education in distance learning. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic The COVID‐19 pandemic necessitated the adoption of innovative pedagogical approaches in higher education contexts. Technological transformations in information and communication technology (ICT) have enhanced remote teaching in higher education institutions globally. The educational experiences of educators and learners differ in blended learning contexts. What this paper adds Instructors and adult learners' positive experiences with navigating a variety of web‐based technologies during the educational process are negatively impacted by technological difficulties during online instruction. Participants' experiences of blended learning are mixed with a preference for face‐to‐face dimension of blended learning instead of the online dimension. The paper identifies four themes that characterize instructors and adult learners' experiences with technology‐enhanced learning including enhanced course delivery and pedagogy, competency development, technological issues and poor‐quality pedagogy. Implications for practice and/or policy The study provides evidence‐based information on the relevance of digitizing distance education for sustainable development and promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for distance education students. The research recommends that higher education institutions (HEIs) implement agile policies to facilitate a seamless shift to distance learning. HEIs may adopt open distance learning frameworks to streamline 21st century pedagogical and learning practices in distance‐blended learning environments for quality course instruction. The study highlights the potential distance learning modalities that HEIs can consider for Distance Education students to sustain effective quality teaching and learning. What is already known about this topic The COVID‐19 pandemic necessitated the adoption of innovative pedagogical approaches in higher education contexts. Technological transformations in information and communication technology (ICT) have enhanced remote teaching in higher education institutions globally. The educational experiences of educators and learners differ in blended learning contexts. What this paper adds Instructors and adult learners' positive experiences with navigating a variety of web‐based technologies during the educational process are negatively impacted by technological difficulties during online instruction. Participants' experiences of blended learning are mixed with a preference for face‐to‐face dimension of blended learning instead of the online dimension. The paper identifies four themes that characterize instructors and adult learners' experiences with technology‐enhanced learning including enhanced course delivery and pedagogy, competency development, technological issues and poor‐quality pedagogy. Implications for practice and/or policy The study provides evidence‐based information on the relevance of digitizing distance education for sustainable development and promotion of lifelong learning opportunities for distance education students. The research recommends that higher education institutions (HEIs) implement agile policies to facilitate a seamless shift to distance learning. HEIs may adopt open distance learning frameworks to streamline 21st century pedagogical and learning practices in distance‐blended learning environments for quality course instruction. The study highlights the potential distance learning modalities that HEIs can consider for Distance Education students to sustain effective quality teaching and learning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student evaluations on the teaching efficiency of faculty members are significant in Higher Education because they allow decisions makers to identify potential inefficient faculty members and by making appropriate decisions, to improve the quality of the teaching process of their Institution. In this paper, we revisit the methodology framework of the previous paper of Sivena and Nikolaidis in order to expand it in various ways. More specifically, we examine in detail and evaluate through simulation, several popular types of X ¯ and X ˜ control charts, identifying the most suitable among them, using various statistical properties of control charts as optimization criteria. Additionally, we present two more tools that will allow Higher Education Institutions if exploited in real life, to find differences in the teaching performance between evaluated faculty members, either the latter are compared in one or more pairs. All in all, we provide Higher Education decision-makers with easy-to-use and reliable tools for monitoring the teaching process of their Institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this special issue, we explore the opportunities and challenges of using Generative AI (GenAI), in particular, text generators in higher education learning and teaching. As GenAI has become increasingly popular with many staff and students, this special issue provides an overview of the current state of the field and offers insights into future research. This introduction paper consists of four parts. It begins by providing an overview of AI and Generative AI, identifying the gap and framing the special issue relating to the gaps. The second part explores the opportunities and challenges of GenAI in higher education, as identified in the literature. The third part provides an overview of the papers included in the special issue. The final part is the self-reflection of the lead author. The special issue aims to serve as a valuable resource for higher education stakeholders, such as students, practitioners, researchers and managers. We hope this collection will help advance knowledge and future research, encourage innovation and inform evidence-based policy and practices in the field of Generative AI in higher education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]