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This position paper describes the legal framework requirements when crediting digital teaching formats towards the teaching load in higher education medical teaching, as exemplified by the Federal State of Bavaria in Germany. It reveals the need for precise rules adapted to the advances in technology, if the process of digitalisation in higher education (HE) is not to come to a halt. If HE institutions are to act as centres of innovation with respect to the implementation of digital teachingand learningformats, then structural and strategic positioning with regard to e- and blended learning above all is called for in addition to financial resources, as well as the distribution and sustainable incorporation of digital offerings in faculties and HE institutions. There is a great deal of insecurity however with respect to the legal framework requirements and how best to count digital teaching towards one's own teaching load. This results to some extent from the complexity of current laws and regulations partially overtaken by didactic and methodological changes in education, with decentralised educational federalism only adding to the complexity. Bearing in mind teaching and learning formats that are undergoing change or have already been transformed, ways of adaptingthe (legal) framework to the digital shift need to be found, last but not least in order to offer enthusiastic teaching staff incentives to develop and expand digital formats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the new contemporary pandemic paradigm, higher education in public administration and beyond knows challenges, barriers, and opportunities for the academic process. Shocks, environmental changes and physical distancing in recent years have led to the implementation of efficient solutions in educational services, based on artificial intelligence (AI). Thus, in the global academic landscape, many international universities have adopted a 'chatbot', a digital interface designed to stimulate conversation with people. Modern algorithmic communications have effects, such as: increasing the number of enrollments in public administration programs, improving academic experience and active student participation, while reducing administrative tasks on university staff. This paper aims to provide a glimpse on the perceptions of the potential impact of conversational artificial intelligence on public administration (PA) programs from universities and to reflect on its implications for university leaders and staff work and also on students' engagement. The paper will focus on how AI tools will help university programs to be more effective, and how technology will support the limited human resources in this sector. In order to gather the data for this research, the interview was used as well as case studies from international universities that have implemented a chatbot. The research findings capture technological and digital advances that will continue to shape the higher education landscape and its curricula, especially in PA programs. As a result, leaders will need to monitor how artificial intelligence, in particular conversational agents, influences universities' images; attraction and retention for students in PA programs and other important partners; staff productivity, and how to be more proactive in initiating pilot projects. This is one of the few publications that looks at the expectations for conversational AI in higher education today. In this sense, implementing a chatbot can be a competitive advantage in a market where modern technologies weigh heavily and make a difference. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a multiattribute group decision-making (MAGDM) based on the CoCoSo method under the intuitionistic fuzzy sets (IFSs) environment for quality evaluation of innovation and entrepreneurship education (IEE) in vocational colleges. First of all, this paper extends the CoCoSo to the IFSs environment. Second, a new MAGDM model for quality evaluation of IEE in vocational colleges based on the CoCoSo algorithm is built. In this algorithm, the attribute weight is derived by subjective weight and objective weight, and the objective weights are defined by using the CRITIC method. At the end of this given study, some comparisons are given to verify the decision effectiveness of the algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One innovative strategy that can improve higher education is undergraduate students' engagement in research. Mentoring is one of the few opportunities that afford extended face-to-face and one-on-one instruction. However, mentoring undergraduate students in doing research is not the same at different types of colleges and universities. This paper gives insights from my perspective on how undergraduate students are being mentored in doing research in different university/college settings, namely a premier university (University of the Philippines Los Baños), a public research university (University at Buffalo), a public senior college (York College) and a private university (Pace University). The main goal of this paper is to compare the undergraduate research structure at the four institutions. I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of each setting, emphasizing how I engaged my students to do research with emphasis at Pace University. This paper also includes the similarities and differences in how students achieved the following learning outcomes: knowledge, skills, attitudinal outcomes, and learned abilities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student retention has emerged as a significant and expensive challenge for higher education institutes worldwide. Although several studies have been conducted on increasing student numbers and diversity in higher education institutes, studies on the relationship between student retention and entry grades are limited, particularly in the UK. The aim of this paper was to examine the relationship between entry grades and student attrition in the context of higher education in the UK. A quantitative methodology was used in this study, wherein data were derived from secondary sources, including University and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) tariff points and full- and part-time undergraduate student enrolment between 2012 and 2017. The data were extracted and analyzed using Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) performance indicators. The findings indicate that there exists a clear association between entry grades and student retention for part-time students, which may aid policy makers, academics, university staff, and higher education stakeholders to develop appropriate strategies to address attrition levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides the results of the survey conducted among the teachers and principals of comprehensive secondary schools of Kharkiv as to their awareness of how to abide by, draw up and defend intellectual property rights. The paper suggests implementing a system of actions to further the qualifications of educators in this area by introducing relevant special courses, delivering lectures and workshops, or obtaining a second higher education degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today's world requires people who manage their learning and professional updating processes, which claims for a change in educational practices in all levels of education. However, in Higher Education, this transformation relies mostly on teacher's efforts to innovate within the learning environments, requiring institutional efforts to generate strategies towards educational innovation. This paper presents the analysis of didactic trends and training needs of teachers at UNIMINUTO Colombia, based on the data gathered at the Annual Meetings for Innovative Pedagogical Practices and an additional survey applied on-line, to determine teachers' training needs and, furthermore, institutional strategies to strengthen the teaching-learning process. The study uses a mixed methodology through a concurrent triangulation design with qualitative and quantitative methods, with an exploratory scope; both quantitative and qualitative parts of the study counted on a voluntary sampling method. Trend analysis shows that the most used didactic methods are Project-Based learning, Research-Based Learning, and Collaborative Learning. However, the analysis of teachers' appropriation of knowledge about didactics, especially on those strategies, is low or basic, which compared to the training needs expressed by teachers demonstrate that training processes in educational innovation and new teaching methods is crucial to help educational innovation initiatives to evolve. The study stablishes a trend towards the use active-learning methodologies in pedagogical practices, highlighting the necessity of teachers' training in how and when to use them, and setting the importance of including communication skills as a topic in teachers' training programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims at verifying the measurement capacity of a tool for teaching assessment at the University of Padova (Italy). The study is part of a project for improving academic educational innovations and the quality of academic teaching: an evaluative research approach thus allows reflection on useful teaching practices to share problems and find common solutions. This paper focuses on the contents and characteristics of statistical validity and reliability of the tool used, in an online survey to measure students' opinions of teaching (first-cycle, second-cycle, and single-cycle degree courses). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities have discovered that learning need not dwell inside the confines of the four traditional classroom walls. The internet provides a vital link to information like never before. As the number of internet users has increased, universities have begun to rely more heavily on technology in the delivery of course content and instruction. The use of technology has been purported to have the potential to lead the way in developing more competent technology and educational leaders in schools as well as reforming leadership preparation and reaching a more inclusive population of administrator aspirants. Online education seems set on its course to overtake traditional colleges within the next few decades, especially as society becomes ever more dependent on the internet to get work done. This research paper examines areas in which educational programs can meet today's global standards, allow for the greatest flexibility in meeting student needs, and yet continue to increase leadership and educational opportunities for all student groups. The purpose of the study is to outline: whether distance technology is indeed used; what types of distance technology are employed; what goals drive the implementation of distance technology; and what factors inhibit the successful use of distance technology in higher education engagement graduate employability. The paper aims to focus on the issues involve the role of higher education in improving employability in developing the students' potential and flexibility to adapt their knowledge, skills, and attitudes to the labor market. In view of this, distance universities may have an important role in designing and implementing accreditation standards for employability. The attention should be paid to the development of transferable skills such as critical thinking, oral expression and team work to promote employability while raising the quality standards of the Higher Education Degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The call for the decolonisation of universities and curricula in South Africa was at the centre of the 2015 Fallist protests. The protests, which left a trail of destruction and many universities closed for periods of time, had as one of their positive outcomes the precipitation of a renewed interest in the decolonisation of university education debate. The debate on decolonisation at the Durban University of Technology (DUT) in South Africa is long overdue, given that the Western model of academic organisation on which it, like most South African universities, is based, remains largely Eurocentric. This paper adds to the debate by discussing what decolonisation might mean to the DUT's students, staff and the greater community. It explores the importance of decolonisation and how this process can be taken forward at DUT. The purpose is not to prescribe how decolonisation is to be done but to open up ways of (re)thinking university curricula and opportunities for further discussion and action. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the paper is to examine if 'Mode 3' universities represent a new and advanced type of an entrepreneurial university, perhaps transcending the entrepreneurial university, and identify the specific characteristics of 'Mode 3' universities. According to its definition, a 'Mode 3' university represents a type of organisation capable of higher order learning and in this regard a type of open, highly complex, and non-linear knowledge production system that seeks and realises creative ways of combining, recombining, and integrating different principles of knowledge production and knowledge application (e.g., 'Mode 1' and 'Mode 2'). Thus, 'Mode 3' universities clearly encourage diversity and heterogeneity, while they emphasise and engender creative and innovative organisational contexts for research, education, and innovation. Several examples are offered in this context in order to demonstrate how and why the concept of 'Mode 3' universities is better endowed for addressing the current and future challenges compared to a simple 'entrepreneurial university' approach. The full exploration of 'Mode 3' universities furthermore demands a strong linkage and contextualisation with (entrepreneurial) ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper identifies what can be called the 'paradox of interdisciplinarity' (Weingart ) in Australian higher education research governance and explores some of its constitutive dimensions. In the Australian context, the paradox of interdisciplinarity primarily concerns the proliferation of a programmatic discourse of interdisciplinarity in government reports and government policy and strategy documents, often tied to notions of innovation and applicability, parallel to the persistence or even reinforcement of modes of governance and associated mechanisms that almost exclusively rely on rigid discipline-based classification systems to evaluate and fund research. Two interrelated dimensions of this apparent paradox are discussed. First, the conceptions of knowledge that underpin the use of notions of disciplinarity as well as interdisciplinarity in Australian government reports and policy and strategy papers are analysed. Second, an analysis of the Australian research governance system and its underlying mechanisms is presented, as they pertain to interdisciplinary forms of research. On the basis of these analyses, it is concluded that there is a significant mismatch between the discourse of interdisciplinarity and associated conceptions of knowledge on the one hand, and current, relatively inflexible governmental research funding and evaluation practices on the other. It is finally proposed that the occurrence and perpetuation of such a mismatch in the Australian context can only be understood properly if placed in the context of a more general paradox of research governance, where a politically charged rhetoric of innovation conflicts with the actual trend toward an increasingly diminishing scope for the self-organisation of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper outlines the contribution made by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) towards enhancing the integration of sustainable development concerns in Africa through its initiative, the Mainstreaming Environment and Sustainability in Africa (MESA) Universities Partnership, during the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD). The paper underscores Africa’s wealth and diversity of natural resources while illuminating sustainable development challenges facing the region in order to highlight the need for African universities to respond appropriately. It furthermore outlines the role of education in sustainable development and attempts to contextualise higher education in Africa by exploring universities’ (historical and current) role with regard to ESD. The paper goes onto describe the MESA partnership and list the programme’s key milestones by outlining ESD innovations in African universities, as well as by examining ESD in terms of its global impact and influence on policy to date. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes how an intelligent chip architecture has allowed a large cohort of undergraduate (UG) students to be given effective practical insight into integrated circuit (IC) design by designing and manufacturing their own ICs. To achieve this, an efficient chip architecture, the "Superchip," was developed, which allows multiple student designs to be fabricated on a single IC, and encapsulated in a standard package without excessive cost in terms of time or resources. This paper demonstrates how the practical process has been tightly coupled with theoretical aspects of the degree course and how transferable skills are incorporated into the design exercise. Furthermore, the students are introduced at an early stage to the key concepts of teamwork, exposure to real deadlines, and collaborative report writing. This paper provides details of the teaching rationale, design exercise overview, design process, chip architecture, and test regime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

THE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF RESEARCH publications are used as benchmarks to monitor the performance of South Africa's national system of innovation. The indicators are pertinent to the policies of the Department of Education, which distributes funds for research at institutions of higher education by measuring the volume of research outputs. In this article, we present a scientometric assessment of research in South Africa in the context of the rest of Africa and in comparison with Brazil and India—two countries with which South Africa aims to develop strong scientific ties. We find that South Africa has published a significant number of papers in all 22 disciplines represented in the ISI's Essential Science Indicators. The largest numbers of journal articles in a 10-year period (1996-2005) were published in the categories Clinical Medicine, and in Plant and Animal Sciences, with over 7000 papers each. Three groupings, namely, Chemistry, Geosciences, and Environmental/Ecology, form the second cluster of disciplines in terms of the highest number of publications (2966, 2488 and 2386, respectively). In all 22 subject categories, India and Brazil are rated higher than South Africa in terms of number of publications, but South Africa is ranked above these countries in relation to citations per paper in all disciplines. Egypt outranked South Africa in three disciplines in the period 1995-2004, namely, Chemistry, Engineering, and Materials Science, as did Nigeria in Agriculture in 1996-2005. In addition to the three disciplines in the earlier period, Egypt outranked South Africa in 1996-2005 in Physics, Agricultural Sciences, and Pharmacology/ Toxicology. However, South Africa scored higher than both African countries in all disciplines in terms of citations per paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose - This paper aims to investigate the influence of professional and academic identities in online teaching practices in higher education. Design/methodology/approach - This paper draws on data from a longitudinal study of five professional degree academics teaching subjects in nursing, teaching, engineering, allied health sciences, and journalism (here a "subject" refers to a course or unit which is usually undertaken over a semester and forms a part of a larger degree program). The research utilises community of practice as a social theory of learning, and the construct of identity, to better understand the connection between academic teachers' pedagogical beliefs and their teaching practices in a web-enhanced learning setting. The authors contend that lecturers' online teaching practices are mediated by their continually negotiated identities as members of multiple communities of practice. Findings - This research has found that the professional degree lecturers intentionally utilised the available technologies and tools to enact pedagogical strategies in ways that enabled them to manage the integrity of their occasionally conflicting identities as educators, professional practitioners and institutional employees. Originality/value - This research goes beyond the assumption that past experiences flavour teachers' pedagogical styles. A lecturer continually negotiates and maintains multiple identities where each represents a fundamental understanding of the world and can sometimes be at odds with one-another. This study has revealed how educational technologies have mediated the gap between the multiple identities held by teaching academics and been used as a bridging mechanism to connect beliefs with practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Progress files, involving personal development planning (PDP), are becoming a feature of many higher education systems internationally. In the UK they will become mandatory for all undergraduate students from 2005. This presents a major implementation challenge, because while reflection has been a cornerstone of practice in some areas of higher education for a considerable time, its generalisation as national policy changes its discursive location. The paper presents findings from a case study of the implementation of PF in one UK Higher Education Institution (HEI). It reports on how staff in one institution understand PF in the context of national policy, and on how they interpret the challenges they face in facilitating reflection for all students. The paper argues that pedagogical innovations take on a different meaning when applied to the system as a whole. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the crossroads of current innovation policies towards a European Research Area (ERA) and a European Higher Education Area (EHEA) lies an important province of higher learning and research: doctoral training and the further careers of PhD graduates. A considerable number of higher education systems across Europe shift their paradigms for doctoral training away from the traditional so-called Humboldtian model towards the so-called professional model. On this background, the paper discusses (1) the German pattern of a strong link of the PhD to the labor market outside academe that is based on a traditional academic-disciplinary mode of apprenticeship training, and (2) approaches that argue for a new mode of knowledge production replacing an academic-disciplinary model of research training by a hybrid model that crosses disciplinary and organizational borders. The paper argues that a diversity of organisational and structural forms as well as different validation criteria and procedures will probably determine the future face of research training. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses the driving forces behind the Bologna process, its advantages and possible negative effects. It also analyses the dangers that may result in commoditisation of the European higher education systems, in emergence of rigid accreditation systems and of a centralised bureaucracy that will impair innovation and creativity.The paper develops the idea that the Bologna process may be interpreted as a step in the neo-liberal movement to decrease the social responsibility of the state by shortening the length of pre-graduate studies and transferring responsibility for supporting employability to individuals through graduate studies.Consideration is also given to the mechanisms and forces behind the Bologna process that try to present an apparent climate of consensus despite some obvious difficulties and disagreements at the level of implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sustainability has received increasing attention in management education over the past ten years. This article reviews a decade's worth of research in a systematic analysis of 63 articles published in international higher education and management education journals between 2003 and 2013. The purpose of this article is to map and review the publications based on the analysis according to the following four categories: (1) Types of papers, (2) Challenges, (3) Teaching techniques, and (4) Curriculum orientation. The scientific value of this article focuses on three main contributions to management education. First, while most articles are descriptive, focusing on specific, unique experiences in a given institution or with a particular teaching method or tool, few situate themselves within the broader philosophy and design of management education. The second contribution is an evaluation of the status of sustainability in management education as a field of study. This systematic review highlights the lack of consistency in the concepts used: no stable categories emerge from these articles and very few studies integrate the three levels of educational philosophy – teaching, program design, and learning. Third, this review highlights future directions for sustainability in management education institution-wide. While all articles highlight the need for curriculum change, very few specify how this change could and would be achieved by course design or explicit educational paradigms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper the authors will discuss a pilot project conducted at the Tritonia Academic Library, Vaasa, in Finland, from September 2010 until May 2011. The project was designed to investigate the application of e-readers in academic settings and to learn how teachers and students experience the use of e-readers in academic education. Four groups of students and one group of teachers used Kindle readers for varied periods of time in different courses. The course material and the textbooks were downloaded on the e-readers. The feedback from the participants was collected through questionnaires and teacher interviews. The results suggest that the e-reader is a future tool for learning, though some features need to be improved before e-readers can really enable efficient learning and researching. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While it is common to claim that university reforms are based on universal and standardised ideas about 'modernising' the university, few studies have examined in a more coherent way how the combined external pressure for change with respect to the areas of education, research and innovation has affected the university. In this paper it is argued that one can identify three different sets of logics concerning the current external reform agenda, and that these logics together create new challenges as to how knowledge is created, diffused and governed by the university. In the conclusion, it is discussed whether the current pressure for reform might change the university as we know it, or whether new institutional translations might emerge from the process renewing the university while maintaining its identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a study that focused on long-term web-supported learning diffusion among lecturers at Tel Aviv University (TAU), from an organizational point of view. The theoretical models we used to examine this process are Rogers' model for "Diffusion of Innovation" (1995) and Bass's "Diffusion Model" (1969). The study was conducted between the academic years 2000/01 and 2007/08. At that time TAU implemented a project aimed to integrate knowledge technologies in academic instruction. The main results show that the diffusion process among lecturers using web-based instruction was rapid and reached over 77% of the total lecturer population. However, differences in diffusion among lecturers were found in terms of academic units. The diffusion process found behaves similarly to Rogers' Diffusion of Innovation theory and Bass's diffusion model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on research that has been carried out into the use, process, and effectiveness of an asynchronous online seminar within an undergraduate sports studies degree programme. Contemporary sources are used to justify the use of technology supported learning (TSL) in higher education and to inform a reflective and critical account of the planning and delivery of an asynchronous online seminar. Through student feedback gained from qualitative questionnaires, we conclude that the online seminar made a positive contribution to the learning experience of the majority of participating students. However, encouraging widespread participation was problematical. It was also clear that some participants only took part because of the extrinsic rewards on offer and that this might have had some impact on the quality of their learning experience (Biggs, 2003). Despite the benefits of the online seminar, we would also suggest that where student numbers are manageable, the benefits of a "blended" approach, delivering online seminars in conjunction with more traditional face-to-face seminars, should be considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to be able to cope with many authentic challenges in increasingly networked and technologically mediated life we need to construct opportunities for participants in higher educational settings to practice the advancement of self-directing intentional learning projects. In addition to teaching general strategies for carrying out these projects more emphasis should be put on acquiring some expertise regarding the selection and combination of a diverse set of technological means for own purposes. The various practices that are emerging around social media seem to be a promising field of experimentation in this regard. The knowledge and skills needed to select, use and connect different social media in a meaningful way form an important part of the dispositions in self-directing intentional learning projects. This paper argues for a course design in which participants are not simply engaged in developing knowledge, skills and orientations in regard to curricular subject matter and the use of technology but actively involved in self-directing intentional learning projects with the support of social media. The theoretical framework of this research is inspired by conceptual ideas developed within iCamp (http://www.icamp.eu) project. We will illustrate our line of argumentation with some empirical data collected from a pilot course taught at Tallinn University, Estonia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a research paper which aims to explain the potential of Web 2.0 and its knowledge system or episteme to counter the transcultural learning zones in higher education in the context of internationalisation and massification. The study shows how non-foundational method of Web 2.0 provides capacity in constructing postcolonial transcultural learning zones that are open to knowledge discourse and systems. Results of the study show that socially oriented episteme of Web 2.0 allow educators to construct postcolonial transcultural learning zones in which privilege in knowledge system or discourse is not inherent.

The growing importance of knowledge, research and innovation are changing the social role of universities in the globalized world. One of the most popular concepts used to approach these changes in post-industrial and post-modern societies is the concept of ‘Knowledge Society’. In this paper, we will analyse the roles higher education is expected to play with regard to various knowledge society discourses. We will begin with analyzing the uses of knowledge society as an intellectual device and continue by reflecting on how changes in higher education are related to knowledge society discourses in national, regional and global levels. In the final section we will reflect on current challenges and expectations generated within these discourses for higher education and the implications these expectations have for higher education research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper describes a study that explored the utility and efficacy of the application of a Web-based tool to promote learner engagement among first year students in a large class in an undergraduate communications degree. The Web-based tool was developed to support an inquiry-based learning approach that was characterised by strong learning scaffolds, meaningful contexts, feedback and support and administrative efficiencies. The study explored the forms of engagement that the Web-supported inquiry-based learning approach was able to engender among first year undergraduate students and the factors that were found to influence students’ levels of engagement and achievement in the approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Globalisation, together with readier access to capability-enhancing technologies and to technological insights once restricted to a few leading economies, are resulting in greater competition within Europe, and more widely within the developed world, for influence of all kinds (not just influence over the choices that foreign students make about the Higher Education courses on offer to them from Europe, but also influence of a more overtly imperialist kind, extending to the policies, incomes and futures of others). This article looks at trends in one important market for European Higher Education, the Middle East (particularly the GCC countries), which has many providers from North America and Australia. As observed by the late Edward Said, the USA is particularly forceful in the Middle East. Its technological superiority is accompanied by fervour to introduce American methods and curricula, and strong belief in their merit, reminiscent of the belief of the old French empire that ‘France had a “mission civilisatrice”, to civilize the natives”. The danger, highlighted in a recent UNESCO report ‘New Ignorances, New Literacies’, is that the natives will not be listened to. Is Europe listening more or less than the USA, and is it being listened to? Despite attention-gaining initiatives such as the proposed European Institute of Technology, EIT, and the commitment of EU governments to the Lisbon goals on competitiveness, there are indications of a drop in the influence of European Higher Education institutions in the Middle East. This paper explores the kinds of issues that may be at work, and the implications for European Higher Education policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents results from an interview investigation with teachers in Swedish nurse education especially interested in internationalising the education. The aim has been to study teachers’ understandings and experiences of internationalisation against the backdrop of the strong concern for internationalisation expressed in policy documents. The results are seen in the context of globalisation, constraints to educational change, in a cultural perspective, and in relation to the need of a curriculum theory. The teachers united the global, in the form of personal experiences of other countries and cultures, with the national and local. Their experiences abroad were a basis for their interest in, and choice of content in, their teaching, considered to represent internationalisation of the education. The teachers were interpreting internationalisation in line with there understanding of nursing and the general approach to nursing in the education, without making any clear distinction concerning what specifically was internationalisation. The teachers seem to represent an important resource in internationalising the education. However, their understanding of and approach to internationalisation did not represent a shared culture and there was no shared curriculum including a distinct understanding of internationalisation. This is seen as a big challenge to both policy makers and teachers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As new technologies become a part of the ‘landscape’ of universities and colleges, many questions arise concerning the transformation resulting from their utilization in these institutions. This paper discusses the increasing use of technology for education, training, and development in higher education, and challenges that higher education faces in its integration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Internationalisation' became a key theme in the 1990s, both in higher education policy debates and in research on higher education. The process is accompanied by a European policy that seems to favour a de-nationalisation of higher education, a growing responsibility of individual institutions of higher education and an increasing popularity of managerialism. This paper addresses the traditional controversial role of higher education as regards internationalisation and the nation -state, comparing the mainland European and the Anglo-Saxon approach. Assessing the different impacts of internationalisation as a challenge to European and German higher education, it analyses the role of the European Union and the Bologna process, as well as the icebreaker function of internationalisation for higher education reform in Germany. A closer look at the complex and dynamic multi-level set-up of internationalisation in European higher education reveals that it not only means varying border-crossing activities that are on the rise, but rather substantial changes towards systematic policies and a growing awareness of international cooperation and competition in an increasingly global higher education market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The university is a small nation which has it's own beliefs and values. The culture, image and the personality of each and every higher education establishment are created in the first place by the people that compose the establishment. The study of the culture of an higher education establishment is essential because an organization can't be ruled without knowing it's values. The university is a center of research and innovation which forms the professional competences according to the national and European market demands of labor by taking over and applying the evolved knowledge as a source of inventions, innovations and development in the technological and socioeconomically plan, provider of specialized services for the community. The culture of the organization exerts a very powerful influence on everyone which compose it: teachers and non-teachers, beneficiaries teachings thus meaning the whole academic community. It's effects are not directly quantifiable, but they create a frame which allows to mend the obtained results, the efficiency of the activity and of the academic demarches as well as it's effective evolution. In order to succeed and resist in the future, in the context of European integration, of the rank of the higher education institutions, they will be needed to utilize direct methods, strategies and structures adapted to the labor market, but also some indirect methods which can have behavior influences, especially in enhancing or if it's the case, systematic transformation of the culture of the organization. To successfully transform a university in Romania with bureaucratic accents, mostly protected and isolated, inside a flexible institution, frequent able and opened if time is needed, trust and perseverance, but also of an adequate legislation that can answer to the needs of the contemporary society in the context of allegiance to the European space. Surely a change program won't solve the situation without being accompanied by changes at the structural levels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]