scholarly journals Investigating Spatiotemporal Variability of Water, Energy, and Carbon Flows: A Probabilistic Fuzzy Synthetic Evaluation Framework for Higher Education Institutions

Environments ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (8) ◽  
pp. 72
Author(s):  
Abdulaziz Alghamdi ◽  
Guangji Hu ◽  
Gyan Chhipi-Shrestha ◽  
Husnain Haider ◽  
Kasun Hewage ◽  
...  

Higher education institutions (HEIs) consume significant energy and water and contribute to greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. HEIs are under pressure internally and externally to improve their overall performance on reducing GHG emissions within their boundaries. It is necessary to identify critical areas of high GHG emissions within a campus to help find solutions to improve the overall sustainability performance of the campus. An integrated probabilistic-fuzzy framework is developed to help universities address the uncertainty associated with the reporting of water, energy, and carbon (WEC) flows within a campus. The probabilistic assessment using Monte Carlo Simulations effectively addressed the aleatory uncertainties, due to the randomness in the variations of the recorded WEC usages, while the fuzzy synthetic evaluation addressed the epistemic uncertainties, due to vagueness in the linguistic variables associated with WEC benchmarks. The developed framework is applied to operational, academic, and residential buildings at the University of British Columbia (Okanagan Campus). Three scenarios are analyzed, allocating the partial preference to water, or energy, or carbon. Furthermore, nine temporal seasons are generated to assess the variability, due to occupancy and climate changes. Finally, the aggregation is completed for the assessed buildings. The study reveals that climatic and type of buildings significantly affect the overall performance of a university. This study will help the sustainability centers and divisions in HEIs assess the spatiotemporal variability of WEC flows and effectively address the uncertainties to cover a wide range of human judgment.

Author(s):  
Roxana Stefanescu ◽  
◽  
Mariana Iatagan ◽  
Cristian Uta

The management of teaching is connected and could be increased by using a wide range of different methods especially when we refer to Online and Blended learning. In the first part, the paper is aiming at reviewing the literature regarding the concepts and benefits of Online and Blended learning. Based on this considerations, 8 partner universities from 8 countries jointly developed the Project “Modern competences of academic teachers – the key to modern Higher Education Institutions (HEI)” – Acronym MOCAT. The paper underlines the goals and achievements of the MOCAT project that proposes a conceptual process to increase the management performance in teaching. The paper shows in an organized manner the main deficiencies that are altering the teaching competencies of academic teachers and in connection with this, the project offers solutions to improve the methodological competency of the teachers regarding the development and use of modern approaches. The outcomes of the project consist in the development and implementation of a Multicultural Model of an Academic Teacher Competencies and in 10 online courses that represent modern training materials in the field of teaching methodology. In the end are exposed the way the results of the project can be evaluated in time as well as the anticipated effects of the project implementation.


Author(s):  
Anita Kéri

Consumer satisfaction has long been a question of great interest in a wide range of fields. Existing research recognizes the critical role played by student satisfaction in higher education. It has been noted that students have changing and variable needs. A considerable amount of literature has been published on the fact that higher education institutions have to react promptly and satisfy students’ needs in order to keep their students and rankings. As student satisfaction is highly dependent on teaching quality, it is essential for higher education institutions to implement new teaching methodologies. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of a teaching methodology, namely co-creation, and to examine its applicability in the field of economics. With the methodology of co-creation, teachers are able to involve students into the creation of curriculum, which might enhance student involvement and increase student satisfaction.


Author(s):  
Olga Santos ◽  
Jesus Boticario

The chapter introduces some key issues of a general framework to support the full participation of students with functional diversity issues (i.e. disabilities) in the learning process by covering the full life cycle of service adaptation at Higher Education institutions. This support is achieved in terms of combining universal design approaches and personalization techniques. Firstly, standards and specifications that try to cover the wide range of possible user needs are considered. Secondly, dynamic contextual recommendations are applied during the course execution to provide the inclusive personalization support. The approach is designed for Higher Education institutions, which are required to integrate this inclusive support into their existing services infrastructure. This framework is analyzed in the context of the EU4ALL project. In particular, the authors of this chapter describe the key components where the research has focused; specifically service based recommendations in order to support some adaptive and inclusive end-user services at UNED.


2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (3) ◽  
pp. 496-505
Author(s):  
Emily Andrade ◽  
A. James McKeever ◽  
Roberto Rivera ◽  
Elizabeth Withers ◽  
Hyeyoung Woo

There have been numerous discourses around millennials and some of them may sound worrisome. To discuss millennials and moral panic, this study looks at three different areas (i.e., criminal justice, teaching at higher education institutions, and transitions to adulthood in South Korea) with some issues pertinent to millennials and younger generations faced in society currently. Drawing on a wide range of the literature, this study attempts to recognize unique characteristics of our younger generations, to find ways to better understand them using multiple angles, and to identify reasons why we should stay hopeful about the future. Our society will continue to change, often in unpredictable ways, and there will always be a new generation on the horizon. Efforts should be made to work with younger generations, learning from each other and finding ways to work together.


Author(s):  
Jing Lu ◽  
Chad Laux ◽  
Jiju Antony

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate whether a Lean Six Sigma (LSS) leadership model could be effectively utilized to resolve efficiency and effective issues like rising costs, quality of education, graduation and retention rates encountered in higher education institutions (HEIs) in the modern era. Design/methodology/approach The authors systematically reviewed the literature on key concepts of LSS and leadership in HEIs in to develop a theoretical model using an inductive theory-building approach in accordance with the exploratory nature of the study. Findings The results of the study proposed a conceptual LSS leadership framework, which provides a basis for testing of LSS leadership representations in HEIs. The results suggest that LSS leadership has advantages for HEI to overcome currents issues and challenges. Research limitations/implications This research is a theoretical study based on the existing literature that identified characteristics that may be adopted in higher education. The proposed LSS leadership framework is based upon leadership, statistical thinking, continuous change and improvement. This model is based upon service and the concepts of adaptive, rather than technical work, of leaders in higher education. Practical implications The proposed LSS leadership framework brings new aspects and perspectives of leadership in HEIs. LSS leadership model has its practical meaning in providing a fundamental base for HEIs to overcome challenges, fulfill missions, and sustain improvements. Social implications HEIs are a foundation for principles of democracy, equality and diversity. HEIs have been a path for citizens but HEIs are facing challenges that are reducing the ability of individuals to improve themselves. Leadership of HEI needs to incorporate new principles to adapt to a changing society. Originality/value LSS project leaders have achieved improved bottom line results and customer satisfaction in a wide range of industries, but LSS application in the HEIs remains to be explored. This paper proposes an effective LSS leadership model, which can help improve the quality of education, reduce non-value added costs and enhance operational efficiency of HEIs.


2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-25
Author(s):  
Blanca L. Delgado-Márquez ◽  
Yaroslava Bondar ◽  
Luisa Delgado-Márquez

In global knowledge economies, the relevance of higher education has been described as more important than ever as mediums for a wide range of cross border relationships and continuous flows of people, information, knowledge, technologies, products and financial capital. Moreover, in a context characterized by an increasing competition among university institutions, reputation is constantly used as a screening mechanism of service suppliers and it provides interesting benefits to educational stakeholders, such as faculty and students. In this sense, higher education ranking systems play a crucial role in classifying universities according to different criteria. Henceforth, in this paper (a) focuses on those educational institutions placed in the upper side of the hierarchy established by higher education institutions ranking systems to (b) investigate the influence of top university institutions’ research, teaching and internationalization on their level of corporate reputation. To address such aim, we take two datasets from Times Higher Education Supplement ranking as basis for our analyses, i.e., the world universities ranking and the reputation ranking. Results reveal that, while research and teaching positively influence top universities’ reputation, internationalization does not exert a significant direct influence. Key words: higher education institutions, internationalization, teaching, reputation, research.


2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nighat Moin , Professor Dr. Syed Shabib-ul Hassan

Leveraging and fostering those resources for non-stop increase of the organization is similarly critical for somebody serving in a business to a person serving in teachers. Whether or not it is a worker of any organization or of any educational institute, a trained and content college can lead the institute to new heights whilst an opposite you'll be able to abate it badly. So, every resignation stored is each greenback earned and it’s the faculty who provides standards and shapes the prospect of the kingdom through growing skills of the students because the facilitator and teacher for their self intensification as well as the increase of the financial system. A low retention price creates luxurious financial and academic effects for establishments and academic departments. Monetary outcomes consist of a misplaced go back on a preceding investment, the monetary expenditure of recruiting an alternative, and the instance of different universities and institutions diverted to the hiring manner. This article is reviewing and highlighting the prospects that effective Faculty employment is critical in attaining a first rate dwelling fashionable, social and economic development, and personal fulfillment. Further, these employees want to understand how additional praise and development are related to overall performance. This may help to take away any uncertainty as to what is expected of them and increase Faculty Retention


2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
Inna Khovrak

The basis for sustainable and environmentally friendly development is gradually becoming aware of the importance of working more ethically and transparently and in a more humanistic way, as well as addressing the needs of people and society. In this case, the key challenge for higher education institutions (HEIs) is to train the conscious and responsible citizens who can take care of the country’s future. This article focuses on comparing the ability of HEIs in Poland and Ukraine to promote sustainable development (SD) by implementing the concept of social responsibility (SR). The research is based on the methods of statistical analysis, sociological survey, case study, abstract-logical, tabular and graphical method. The paper argues that HEIs have a wide range of tools to promote SD. These tools should be divided into three groups, namely: 1) including SD issues in educational programs; 2) developing knowledge and solutions for SD; 3) creation and participation in SR initiatives. The proposed mechanism of the impact of HEIs on SD through the implementation of the concept of SR will allow HEIs to take an active part in the life of the region and the country, namely: identify the needs, engage the stakeholders, facilitate the interaction, disseminate the effective practices, and develop SD strategies. The practical value of the obtained results is that the implementation of SR initiative by HEIs will promote the environmentally friendly development of the country and regions. As a result, it will increase the impact of HEIs on economic, technology and cultural development, human capital formation, solving social problems, building civil society, improving the environmental status.


2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 222
Author(s):  
Gaurangi Sen ◽  
Hing-Wah Chau ◽  
Muhammad Atiq Ur Rehman Tariq ◽  
Nitin Muttil ◽  
Anne W. M. Ng

Universities and higher education institutions play an important role in achieving a sustainable future through their teaching and by undertaking cutting edge research to combat climate change. There have been several efforts towards a sustainable future and achieving carbon neutrality at higher education institutions in Australia and around the world. This study has reviewed the sustainability strategies of numerous universities in Australia and has identified as study cases six universities that are committed to and leading the implementation of initiatives to achieve carbon neutrality. The initiatives implemented at the selected universities were classified into eight “sustainability categories”, namely, built environment, energy, food and gardens, GHG emissions, natural environment, resource and waste management, transport, and water. Among the selected leading universities in sustainability, Charles Sturt University and the University of Tasmania (UTAS) are the only universities in Australia certified as carbon neutral. An interesting aspect of this review is the way in which universities are implementing sustainability initiatives in line with their mission and strategies. Despite striving towards the same end goal of achieving carbon neutrality, different institutions offer individually unique approaches towards sustainability. For example, UTAS values the creation, expansion and dissemination of knowledge and the promotion of continual learning, which is clearly demonstrated through its initiatives and policies. The findings in this review are critical in identifying those institutions of higher education which are role models in their strong commitment to achieving carbon neutrality. Such role model universities can pave the way for similar climate action at other universities.


2008 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 131-144
Author(s):  
Saad Elzalitni

AbstractOver the past few decades the Higher Education system in Libya has witnessed a rapid growth in student numbers and a massive expansion in its programmes and services. Despite the contribution of Higher Education provision in the development and progress of Libyan society, the large increase in the number of Higher Education institutions has considerably exceeded the actual needs and demands of the country. Past and present studies highlight several shortcomings and limitations that significantly impede the overall performance and operation of the Higher Education system in Libya. This study supports the need for a comprehensive and critical evaluation of Higher Education provision in order to understand better its current status and role in modern Libyan society.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document