Biblioteca Digital

An integrated platform for the support of teaching activities as been developed and deployed at the Aveiro Norte Polytechnic School of the University of Aveiro. In this paper we present an approach to Learning Roadmaps for Higher Education based on this platform. The aprend.e platform – Electronic Integrated System for Learning and Training - has at its core a Learning Management System with a number of plugins. It represents a new challenge for the University of Aveiro for higher education and is already being at its core is the concept of learning roadmaps that act upon two fundamental axes: education and learning. For the teachers, it aims at becoming a self-supporting tool that stimulates the organization and management of the course materials (lectures, presentations, multimedia content, and evaluation materials, amongst others). For the students, the learning roadmap aims at promoting self-study and supervised study, endowing the pupil with the capabilities to find the relevant information and to capture the concepts in the study materials. The outcome will be a stimulating learning process together with an organized management of those materials.

This paper presents partial results from a research project about the use Portuguese Public Higher Education Institutions are doing of Communication Technologies to support education. The paper describes the project rationale and the methodology used. Some results are also presented concerning the strategic dimension of the use of Communication Technologies to support learning, and their respect to teachers and to staff with institutional responsibilities. Finally, some conclusions are also discussed.

This paper presents and discusses the research rationale adopted to study the institutional perspective of the Portuguese higher education institutions as far as the use of communication technologies to support education is concerned. The paper presents the research questions, the analysis model, the methodology used and the outline of the data collection instruments eveloped. Some preliminary results are also presented and the next steps of the research project are outlined.

Recognizing the crucial role of higher education for the development of nations and individuals, many countries have recently established ambitious targets for the percentage of graduates in their population by 2020. In peripheral European Union countries, however, such objectives may be difficult to attain. In fact, both the current stringent fiscal consolidation processes and the overall depressed economic environment may exert negative effects upon domestic demand for higher education. Such uncertain context increases the need for efficient policies and henceforth the value of obtaining reliable information on the variables that are more likely to influence demand. In this study, we employ the partial least squares methodology, which allows modeling with many variables, even with relatively few observations, to identify the most relevant determinants of demand for higher education. We focus in the case of Portugal, a country where applications for higher education are centralized and thus provides a long and reliable set of data on aggregate demand. The results of our empirical analysis suggest that the most relevant determinants of demand are institutional and/or policy dependent and...

This report demonstrated that the key for success in a globalized world lies increasingly in how effectively a country can assimilate the available knowledge and build comparative advantages in areas with good growth prospects and how it can use technology to address the most pressing environmental challenges. Higher-level institutions in Sub-Saharan Africa that is equipped to impart quality education and conduct relevant applied research can play a critical role in producing workers with the skills to assimilate technology and make effective decisions that help industry to diversify into a broader range of products. Good-quality and relevant higher education is also a key to stimulating innovations in new varieties of crops, new materials, or sources of energy that would facilitate progress toward reducing poverty, achieving food security, and improving health. This report is a follow-up to the 2008 study. It examines current practices in financing higher education in Sub-Saharan Africa, taking into account the significant differences that exist among countries. Drawing on experience from around the world...

The higher education and research sector in the French-speaking countries of Africa has, for more than a decade, been in a state of severe crisis, stemming from an increasing disparity between the requirements vital to providing high quality education and the available resources. The goal of this article is to: i) highlight the factors which have lead to the development of this situation in most countries; ii) identify the conditions for creating a framework to regulate the trends in the higher education and research systems and allow them to be more financially sustainable; and iii) identify ways of increasing funding for this sector as well maintaining its level of quality. The Main tools to support financially-sustainable policies include: i) controlling student inflows into higher education in order to avoid an increase in the student population that will be difficult to manage; ii) targeting student assistance more effectively towards the most disadvantaged and deserving students; iii) limiting the duration of study at the higher education level in order to prevent the number of students from building up in the institutions; iv) guiding students more effectively towards courses that offer better employment prospects; v) trying to promote a higher education private sector through fiscal and non-fiscal incentives; vi) reducing unit education costs; and vii) mobilizing additional self-generated resources.

The study reviews the experience in the EU8 countries of the emergence of private higher education institutions and introduction of fees for student who do not gain regular admission. This has resulted in a dual-track system that is affecting the equity of access to higher education. The authors have addressed this with a variety of financing mechanisms in the EU8 countries and seek to develop some useful policy options to "level the playing field" for countries contemplating further reforms, which would include the introduction of variable fees, needs-based grants and loans to increase private financial flows into higher education while facilitating equal access across the board. The study begins with and introduction. Chapter 2 provides an overview of current higher education systems in the EU8 in a comparative perspective. Chapter 3 suggests some directions for further reform initiatives. Chapter 4 concludes.

This report maps and assesses the status and practice of higher education quality assurance (QA) in Sub-Saharan Africa. It centers on quality assurance in degree-granting tertiary institutions, but also incorporates, where available, information on other types of tertiary education. A main finding is that structured national-level quality assurance processes in African higher education are a very recent phenomenon and that most countries face major capacity constraints. The research for this report was conducted between November 2005 and December 2006 through document and web reviews, interviews and six detailed country case studies covering Cameroon, Ghana, Mauritius, Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania. This study has two main purposes, one being to establish a baseline on the status of quality assurance in higher education in Africa. A second is to provide information to education policymakers, stakeholders (including employers) and development partners involved in tertiary education in Africa that may assist them with identification and prioritization of capacity enhancement needs for quality improvement.

The demand for skills has been increasing significantly in Vietnam, due to a combination of inter-industry employment changes, capital accumulation and some evidence which is consistent with skill-biased technical change. As a result employment opportunities for tertiary graduates now exist in most sectors. Higher education graduates are also shown to contribute positively to firm productivity. On the one hand, this evidence provides a strong justification for further expansion and improvement of higher education in the country. On the other hand, low research and development (R&D) capacity, increasing evidence of skill bottlenecks and the still inequitable distribution of higher education opportunities, combined with broad institutional and financing constraints, suggest that the higher education system does not yet have the tools it needs to adapt to the growing and changing needs of an increasingly dynamic economy. Moving towards a first-class high performing higher education system will require a set of reforms that create a more flexible and diverse system...

Since joining the Bologna process in 2005, the Armenian government and higher education institutions have made significant progress in reforming the higher education system. Despite reforms, the public perception of higher education governance and management is poor. Reasons for the poor public perception of higher education governance are primarily embedded in system-wide factors. Recent research has identified a governance structure and regulatory framework as key to the development of overall higher education systems. The study finds that underperformance of the higher education system is associated with a legal framework that lacks coherence and the entire system lacks capacity to effectively exercise autonomy and accountability.

The introduction provides background on higher education reforms in Tajikistan and the rationale for this study. Chapter one presents an overview of the higher education system. Chapter two outlines the system-wide governance framework for Tajikistan s higher education system. It examines the regulatory framework governing higher education, system-level and institutional-level governance, stakeholders participation, and corruption. Chapter three reviews international trends in quality assurance as a benchmark for Tajikistan and examines Tajikistan s existing quality assurance system. Chapter four analyzes the higher education financing model in Tajikistan. Chapter five assesses the feasibility of using Information and Communication Technologies to improve access, quality, and relevance of higher education in Tajikistan. It also presents the results of an innovative pilot project to apply ICT-based solutions for higher education challenges. Chapter six concludes with a summary of findings and policy recommendations.

In recent years, Portuguese universities have diversified their strategies for the promotion of entrepreneurial education among (under/post) graduates, both through formal education and non- formal and informal activities. Indeed, Higher Education Institutions can provide entrepreneurial learning opportunities for students, stimulating new attitudes and behaviours towards entrepreneurship. In terms of non-formal and informal learning, various types of activity are of particular significance, and include entrepreneurship promotion and skills-based training, as well as monitoring of the development of ideas and projects. These activities are undertaken by various higher education stakeholders and key-actors, who contribute to the construction of an entrepreneurial ecosystem, and increase entrepreneurial spirit in (under/post) graduates. The research reported here is based on the main findings gathered from the ongoing project "Entrepreneurial Learning, Cooperation and the Labour Market: Good Practices in Higher Education (POAT-FSE)", focusing particularly on the results of a survey questionnaire completed by a diverse sample of entities linked to Portuguese public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) and working to promote non-formal and informal entrepreneurial activities...

This article presents the development of a small-world network using an adapted version of the large-group problem-solving method Future Search. Two management classes in a higher education setting were selected and required to plan a project. The students completed a survey focused on the frequency of communications before and after the project. The findings support the successful development of a small-world network using the selected problem-solving technique in a collaborative project, thus constituting an innovation in a higher education setting.

This paper explores the reshaping of higher education within a neoliberal paradigm of economic development and the implications for universities and colleges as sites of citizenship formation. The work of Torfing, in particular his critical integration of the work of Laclau, Mouffle, and Zizek, provides the theoretical framework for the analysis. After revisiting the relation between higher education and the development of the welfare state, the paper examines the restructuration that is taking place in curriculum, pedagogical method, governance, and administration. Constructivism, dominant paradigm in educational circles, the author argues, supports the neoliberal ideology within the global economy. The implications of the changes are also evident in the deregulation of fees and the sanctioning of private degree-granting institutions. The paper not only examines how the institutions are contributing to the expansion of the hegemonic discourse but also refers to emancipatory movements emerging from the areas of health, environment, social equity, and motivated by democratic concerns. Higher education has a role in political resistance.

The main goal of this article is to analyze the implications of computer supported collaborative learning in higher education. To achieve this goal, we will describe the situation of the current research in this field and will focus our attention on the issues relating to the design of the conditions to promote collaborative processes and knowledge building. In the second part of the article, we will concentrate on the analysis of the results that we have obtained with the use of the programme Knowledge Forum as a support during the collaborative process in higher education.

Higher Education institutions have developed online information services and degrees as an echo of the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) incidence in all society fields. Equal access to education is a fundamental right; but equal access to higher education for people with disabilities is far from being achieved yet. To this inequality has to be added the difficulty of some groups to participate in the information society, the so called infoexclusion. The short number of students with disabilities in higher education makes evident the presence of barriers for this people to get into this educational level. One of them is the low degree of accessibility to digital services and studies offered by the Universities, something that can be considered a new kind of segregation.

In this article I examine information and communications technology (ICT) in the context of changes to higher education. My analysis uses Ontario as a case study to illustrate that ICT and the knowledge society discourse is not about technological innovation per se. Rather the discourse legitimates neoliberal reforms to the higher education sector to lay the ground for participation in international markets. That is, these reforms enable privatization of higher education in keeping with pressures exerted by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the General Agreement on Trade and Services (GATS). The case of Ontario is interesting because of the strategies used to "sell” massive neoliberal reforms to a public that has been, generally speaking, quite protective of its public services. The strategies and mechanisms used to "plug Ontario into the Knowledge Society" reveal how GATS works in local jurisdictions, and contributes to the study of how education within social welfare states comes to take on market characteristics.

A review of research on deaf students in higher education reveals a significant body of knowledge about the barriers these students face in gaining access to information in the classroom. Much less is known about the potential solutions to these problems. In addition, there is a dearth of research on the effectiveness of such support services as interpreting, note taking, real-time captioning, and tutoring, particularly with regard to their impact on academic achievement. This article summarizes relevant research and suggests directions for educational researches interested in enhancing academic success and the retention of deaf students in higher education programs.

Over the past two decades there has been much written in the literature about the importance of reading and the importance of teaching students reading strategies to improve their reading comprehension. Reading is one of the most important academic tasks encountered by students. In higher education, students are exposed to a number of texts and textbooks that require independent reading. At this level they are expected to comprehend what they read so that they can analyse, critique, evaluate and synthesize information from various sources. Many students entering higher education are not adequately prepared to meet these challenges. This article highlights the literacy situation in South Africa with a particular focus on reading both in school and in higher education. In addition, the article highlights the importance of teaching students reading strategies across the curriculum in order to improve their reading comprehension, thereby enhancing their chances of academic success. The implications of this research for policy makers and academics in higher education institutions are outlined and some suggestions are made.

In a shrinking world, in which a neo-liberal discourse has permeated sub-Saharan African higher education, critical reflection is required to assess the merits and demerits of globalisation. Research, intensive discussion and hearings conducted over a two-year period by the Task Force on Higher Education and Society, convened by the World Bank and United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) for the purpose of exploring the future of higher education in the developing world, led to the conclusion that without more and better higher education, developing countries would find it increasingly difficult to benefit from the global knowledge economy. A decade later, we argue for a radical change in the traditional discourse on globalisation because of the emergence of countries such as China, South Africa, India, and Brazil as global players in the world economy. These emerging global powers, reframe the political and imperial philosophy at the epicentre of globalisation discourse - an economic creed, through their mutual consultation and coordination on significant political issues. Their economic and military capabilities enable them to influence the trade regime and thereby strengthen the voice of the developing world as a whole. In relation to this paper's inquiry...