El papel de la convivencia escolar en la formación inicial del profesorado de educación infantil y primaria

La convivencia en los centros educativos supone un tema de interés en cuanto que condiciona sustancialmente los tipos y calidad de los aprendizajes. Pero la gestión de la convivencia escolar no es una cuestión fácil de abordar y requiere, al menos, una adecuada formación del profesorado. Por ello, el principal objetivo de esta investigación fue analizar qué contenidos, objetivos, competencias y recursos se están trabajando en la formación inicial del profesorado de Educación Infantil y Educación Primaria. Para ello se analizaron las guías docentes (2019-2020) de las Facultades de Educación españolas posicionadas en el Shanghai Ranking (2.224 guías analizadas). Las cuestiones para analizar giraron en torno a: (1) la conceptualización y dimensionalidad de la convivencia, (2) la configuración y tipologías de conflictos escolares y (3) estructuras del modelo integrado de gestión de la convivencia escolar. Los principales resultados indicaron una fuerte presencia de algunos elementos configuradores de la convivencia, como la comprensión por las demás personas y la interdependencia positiva, pero dicha presencia fue muy restringida en cuanto a los valores del pluralismo como elementos constituyentes de la convivencia. Si bien es cierto que algunas tipologías de conflictos escolares se encontraron en la formación inicial del profesorado, como los problemas de disciplina, el acoso entre iguales o la violencia, por el contrario, el tema del vandalismo, el acoso sexual o el plagio generalmente fueron inexistentes. En las titulaciones analizadas se encontraron diferentes estrategias, técnicas y herramientas para la gestión de la convivencia, pero no se encontraron incardinadas en un modelo integrador. Por todo ello, se puede concluir que la formación inicial del profesorado debe seguir mejorando en algunas direcciones concretas.

Evaluating universities' strategic online communication: how do Shanghai Ranking's top 50 universities grow stakeholder engagement with Facebook posts?

PurposeThis study is dedicated to universities' strategic social media communication and focuses on the fan engagement triggered by Facebook postings. The study contributes to a growing body of knowledge that addresses the strategic communication of universities that have thus far hardly dealt with questions of resonance and evaluation of their social media messages.Design/methodology/approachUsing the Facebook Graph API, the authors collected posts from the official Facebook fan pages of the universities listed on Shanghai Ranking's Top 50 of 2015. Specifically, the authors retrieved all posts in a three-year range from October 2012 to September 2015. After downloading the Facebook posts, the authors used tools for automated content analysis to investigate the features of the post messages.FindingsOverall, the median number of likes per 10,000 fans was 4.6, while the number of comments (MD = 0.12) and shares (MD = 0.40) were considerably lower. The average Facebook Like Ratio of universities per 10,000 fans was 17.93%, the average Comment Ratio (CR) was 0.56% and the average Share Ratio (SR) was 2.82%. If we compare the average Like Ratios (17.93%) and Share Ratios (2.82%) of the universities with the respective Like Ratios (5.90%) and Share Ratios (0.45%) of global brands per 10,000 fans, we may find that universities are three times (likes) and six times (shares) as successful as are global brands in triggering engagement among their fan bases.Research limitations/implicationsThe content analysis was solely based on the publicly observable Facebook communication of the Top 50 Shanghai Ranking universities. Furthermore, the content analysis was limited to universities listed on the Shanghai Ranking's Top 50. Also, the Facebook posts have been sampled between 2012 and September 2015. Moreover, the authors solely focused on one social media channel (i.e., Facebook), which might restrict the generalizability of the study findings. The limitations notwithstanding, university communicators are invited to take advantage of the study's insights to become more successful in generating fan engagement.Practical implicationsFirst, posts published on the weekend generate significantly more engagement than those published on workdays. Second, the findings suggest that posts published in the evening generate more engagement than those published during other times of day. Third, research-related posts trigger a certain number of shares, but at the same time these posts tend to lower engagement with regard to liking and commenting.Originality/valueTo the authors’ best knowledge, the automated content analysis of 72,044 Facebook posts of universities listed in the Top 50 of the Shanghai Ranking is the first large scale longitudinal investigation of a social media channel of higher education institutions.

Highly prestigious international academic awards and their impact on university rankings

This study uses the checklist method, survey studies, and Highly Cited Researchers to identify 100 highly prestigious international academic awards. The study then examines the impact of using these awards on the Academic Ranking of World Universities (the Shanghai Ranking), the QS World University Rankings, and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Results show that awards considerably change the rankings and scores of top universities, especially those that receive a large number of awards and those that receive few or no awards. The rankings of all other universities with relatively similar numbers of awards remain intact. If given 20% weight, as was the case in this study, awards help ranking systems set universities further apart from each other, making it easier for users to detect differences in the levels of performance. Adding awards to ranking systems benefits United States universities the most as a result of winning 58% of 1,451 awards given in 2010–2019. Developers of ranking systems should consider adding awards as a variable in assessing the performance of universities. Users of university rankings should pay attention to both ranking positions and scores.

Corporate Governance and Disclosure of Information on Corporate Social Responsibility: An Analysis of the Top 200 Universities in the Shanghai Ranking

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and its disclosure in the university environment is a topic of current relevance, as it makes the entities’ commitments visible and provides indicators that enable them to improve the institution management and communication with stakeholders. The goal of this study is to determine to what extent the structure and mechanisms for governance and the demands of stakeholders influence policy for disclosing CSR information, both in general (more related to a strategic perspective) and specifically (more focused on specific social, environmental, economic, and educational issues). The results of our analysis of a sample of the top 200 universities in the Shanghai Ranking show no association of the profile and gender of the university’s rector and frequency of board meetings with CSR disclosure policy, but leadership team, the size of governance board, committees in the governance board and stakeholder participation are factors determining disclosure of information on matters of CSR. The results show that proximity to the day-to-day, diversification of functions, and communication with interest groups are crucial to transparency and disclosure of CSR information.

From accreditation to ranking (functioning vs development)

The essence, strengths and weaknesses of the accreditation and ranking mechanisms for assessing the institutional capacity and performance of higher education institutions are analyzed and systematically compared in the article. Significant advantages of the ranking over accreditation are proved, as well as the subordination of the second one to the first one, given the leading role of higher education in ensuring and accelerating human progress that has a research-innovative and competitive character. The necessity of urgent introduction, as well as the main stages of practical implementation of the national general and sectoral ranking based on the methodology of the Shanghai ranking (ARWU), are substantiated. It is proposed to use a national ranking for modernization of the national network of higher education institutions. It is argued that accreditation and ranking are fundamentally different mechanisms for assessing education quality with significantly greater possibilities for ranking. Accreditation focuses on the thresholds (minimum) standards and requirements (conditions) and is not suitable for an objective comparative assessment of institutions (educational programmes), taking into account their level of excellence. The rank implies the ranking institutions in the order of their achievements, therefore, in terms of importance and significance, and can be used for relief modeling the landscape of the network of higher education institutions (not only in terms of their territorial or sectoral accumulation, but also in terms of competitiveness). Given this Ukraine with 289 successfully accredited institutions remains a white spot in Europe and the world according to interpretation of the Shanghai ranking of 2018. Unlike accreditation, which, due to limited capabilities, is unable to separate a mass low-order higher education from an innovative high-order higher education, the ranking mechanism reveals the first one as well as the second one. It was clarified that in contrast to providing motivation of obligation (performance) for developing culture of the minimum sufficient quality by accreditation, the ranking forms motivation of encouragement (creativity) for developing culture of the maximum possible quality. The culture of the maximum possible quality under the current conditions of the research and innovation type of progress and competition is a priority because it enhancing competitiveness. In addition, ranking implies the existence of a developed autonomy, able to respond promptly and effectively to the results of the ranking assessment. Autonomy, basically, is non-critical for accreditation. The results of the ranking can be successfully used for accreditation under the conditions of real autonomy, but the conclusions of accreditation for the ranking of institutions – no. Accreditation is inherently affected by a subjective factor, at the same time, ranking (for example, ARWU) can be constructed with the exclusion of a subjective component, with transferring ranking functions to independent artificial intelligence in the future. It has been shown that the research and innovation essence of higher education needs an appropriate valid mechanism of assessment of higher education institutions excellence, which is capable of permanently (for example, annually) to record level of institutions development in view of the ability to predict and project the future of society. Therefore, the trend of the rapid development and spread of international and national rankings is actual. It is argued that the creation of the national ranking of higher education institutions is an urgent objective and should be carried out in several stages: its legislative regulation, the determination of the system of objective indicators agreed by the leading Ukrainian universities (it is advisable to unite them into the leading Association of Ukrainian Universities), organizational and legal, financial support for administration of the ranking (e.g. the National Higher Education Quality Assurance Agency), the annual ranking of institutions and according to its results elaboration and implementation of measures to improve the network of higher education institutions in Ukraine, primarily to consolidate and integrate them.

Modelo de estimación de los indicadores del Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Ranking)

El interés en los rankings globales de universidades ha crecido significativamente a lo largo de los últimos 10 años. El uso de indicadores simples y sintéticos, la facilidad de interpretación de la información que contienen, el fomento de la competencia entre las universidades, así como la posibilidad de compararlas entre sí, son algunos de los factores que han popularizado su aplicación. Al mismo tiempo, sus críticos han identificado problemas en relación a cuestiones tanto conceptuales como técnicas y metodológicas. Este artículo aborda tres temas que han suscitado un intenso debate metodológico sobre los rankings de universidades: la replicabilidad de los resultados, la relevancia de los indicadores, y la recopilación de datos. También propone una herramienta para estimar las puntuaciones de los dos indicadores de mayor interés para la mayoría de las universidades (Documentos publicados en Nature o Science y publicaciones en WoS). Se informa sobre un método alternativo desarrollado para calcular la puntuación de cualquier universidad en los dos indicadores de ranking más importantes de Shanghái. Una de las principales características del método propuesto es que los input necesarios son fácilmente accesibles para los gestores de política científica, autoridades académicas, estudiantes, y otros grupos de interés, pudiéndose aplicar directamente. Además, con este modelo también se pueden estimar las puntuaciones para las universidades que no figuran entre las primeras 500 en el ranking de Shanghái.