Book chapter
Higher Education Expansion in Brazil, Russia, India, and China
Despite the differences in political, social, economic, and cultural histories, Brazil, Russia, India, and China share the common characteristics. The BRIC countries are very large in terms of population, territory, and economy. Each country has great economic and political influence in the regions, as well as dominance in education sphere (Altbach et al. 2013). They are emerging markets as their economies have been rapidly growing for the last decades while remaining lower middle income or upper middle income countries (World Bank 2016). The experience of these countries is critical for understanding the higher education system dynamics in large countries with limited resources.
In book
Universities are a powerful attractor of youth, including remain the main resource for preserving and attracting talent to the regions. In this study, we have analyzed two main peaks of youth migration - “school-university” and “university-labor market”. The relevance of the study is due to the development of regional systems of higher education, taking into account the positive forecast of the demographic growth of young people, as well as an increase in the rate of growth of educational migration. In addition, we have carried a qualitative analysis of the motives and factors of educational migration on the example of applicants from several regions of the Russian Federation.
The institution of the university comprises one of the most important actors within national, regional or metropolitan economic systems. Typically, metropolitan universities are seen in terms of components of the respective national economic system. However, the object of our research is the institution of the regional university, which is defined in terms of a regional economic actor. There are various models for analysing the impact of universities on the regional economies. Several studies have studied this phenomenon in terms of providing employment, increasing expenditures and exporting educational services to other regions. However, in emphasising the role of universities in regional economies within the knowledge economy, most contemporary researchers consider the university as a major producer of scientific knowledge. Different "helix" models and models of university engagement are constructed in the context of this position. In order to overcome problems concerning terminological and methodological diversity, we propose to employ an institutional approach to the analysis of economic phenomena. Institutions are understood as comprising a set of formal and informal norms, as well as the mechanisms required to implement their conformance with these norms. The aim of our study is the development of a typology of institutions of scientific knowledge generation according to the different phases and stages of scientific production. In order to avoid an artificial gap in the subject-object relation, we analyse the problem on the basis of the methodological unity of actors, stakeholders and institutions, as well as their interactions with the environment (natural, political, social, economic and cultural). For the classification of institutions, several dimensions were referred to: the stages of knowledge generation (production, exchange, dissemination and consumption); management functions (planning, organisation, control and motivation). The model of circulation of explicit / tacit knowledge SECI developed by Nonaka and Takeuchi for the corporate sector is also thought to be relevant in this connection. On the basis of this model, we have identified the institutions of socialisation, externalisation, combination and internalisation of knowledge. The results of the study will be used in the further analysis of case studies of universities, both in Russia and elsewhere.
The scope of our research is the university as the key actor of economic change. Historically, it is possible to allocate four types of the university by analogy to four industrial revolutions. In the conditions of the fourth industrial revolution, there is a radical shift in the university model. From research and development and technology transfer, the university moves to the creation of the intellectual capital. The university does not simply conduct R&D for business but creates essentially new industries. The university becomes the center around which the new hi-tech enterprises grow. This phenomenon has been entitled entrepreneurial university that is the main actor of the entrepreneurial (startup) economy. In this study, we examined the different approaches to the evaluation of universities, first of all, global university rankings. Each ranking methodology assesses the different functional areas; a unified methodology of the evaluation of university as a complex system is currently lacking. At the same time, we tried to define the mechanism of the impact of the universities on regional economic growth grounding on a case of Russian universities. A comparative study of Novosibirsk and Tomsk universities has revealed key problem areas and barriers in the process of university engagement in regional economic systems. The findings will be used in further theoretical and applied research, as well as decision-making in the area of educational policy.
Sustainable development is a worldwide recognized social and political goal; it is discussed both in academic and political discourse. According to the authors, the formation of a new way of thinking will help to achieve this goal. A lot of research is related to sustainable development in higher education. However, mental models are formed even more effectively at school age. The paper was written in the context of Russia, where the subject of sustainable development in education is extremely poorly developed. The case of Ural Federal University was presented. The University has been working for several years on the creation of a device for the purification of sewage industrial water in the framework of an initiative student group. Recently, schoolchildren have joined this work. Such projects have been called university-to-school projects. Successful solution of inventive tasks contributes to the formation of mental models. The case has been analyzed in terms of institutionalism. The authors argued the primacy of mental institutions over normative in the process of sustainable society construction.
Higher Education in Federal Countries: A Comparative Study is a unique study of higher education in nine federal countries—the United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Mexico, Brazil, Russia, China and India. In this book, leading international scholars discuss the role of federalism and how it shapes higher education in major nation-state actors on the world stage. The editors develop an overarching comparative analysis of the dynamics of central and regional power in higher education, and the national case studies explain how each federal and federal-like higher education system has evolved and how it functions in what are highly varied contexts.
The book makes a major contribution to higher education studies and defines a new field of comparative analysis. It also provides important insights into comparative governance and the study of federalism and federal arrangements, with their particular historical, political, legal and economic dimensions.
The role of higher education in shifting the economy to an innovative development path is considered. It is shown that innovations in the sphere of material production and in other sectors of the economy are carried out at low rates, and the higher school of Russia makes a very modest contribution to their implementation. The reasons for the current situation are analyzed, among which are insuffi cient funding for universities, deregulation of the labor market, curtailing scientifi c research. The ways of mobilization of the innovative potential of higher education are proposed, among them are the updating of the content of education and the strengthening of the relationship of universities with science and production through the development of targeted training. The management issues of higher education and science are touched upon.
This book constitutes the proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Massive Open Online Courses, EMOOCs 2019, held in Naples, Italy, in May 2019.
The 15 full and 6 short papers presented in this volume were carefully reviewed and selected from 42 submissions. Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have marked a milestone in the use of technology for education. The reach, potential, and possibilities of EMOOCs are immense. But they are not only restricted to global outreach: the same technology can be used to improve teaching on campus and training inside companies and institutions.
The chapter 'Goal Setting and Striving in MOOCs. A Peek inside the Black Box of Learner Behaviour' is open access under a CC BY 4.0 license at link.springer.com.
We investigate the main question of whether higher education institutions are able to increase their performance due to mergers, takeovers, or organizational restructuring. The problem of measuring performance when there are several “output” and “input” indicators can currently be solved by recourse to a proven data analysis method (data envelopment analysis, DEA). Two models are presented to assess the educational and research performance of universities. The DEA model, which is input orientated and has constant returns to scale, was used to perform calculations. To conduct a comparative analysis of groups of universities that are at various stages of the restructuring process, the study authors proposed several classifications of universities:
by number of consolidated and/or eliminated organizational units,
by period when restructuring was completed,
by type of restructuring mechanism, and
on the basis of whether technical colleges have been joined to the university in question.
We used nonparametric statistical methods for comparing averages to test the proposed hypotheses. Our study sample consisted of 132 universities whose parent agency is the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. The authors did not discover that the performance of the universities deteriorated as a result of the restructuring process. It turned out that universities that actively participate in restructuring processes in fact increased their performance level relative to other universities.
The study did not reveal that institutions that are currently in the process of being merged with or taken over by other institutions experience a temporary decline and subsequent restoration of their performance level. The performed analysis did not confirm the hypothesis that universities that absorbed technical colleges experienced a drop in their performance level. The results of the study unanimously show that by 2015 universities made progress in bridging the gap with the performance level of their leading competitors compared to 2010. The authors are aware that the verification of the accuracy of the proposed arguments requires a more detailed study of the universities. Because many countries have already accumulated a large amount of experience in how to restructure institutions of higher education, the results of the present study of the restructuring of Russian universities make it possible to draw comparisons as well as to use the developed theoretical concepts to explain and predict the possible consequences of using various restructuring mechanisms. The study is based on the widely accepted method of data envelopment analysis. This article represents the first time that this method has been used to benchmark university performance over time.
This paper summaries the experience of a group of tutors making research-oriented seminar for masters’ students during the period of 2011–2015 years. For standard curriculum enhancement, the following methods were used: the balanced scorecard, subject-oriented approach for learning process modeling, e-learning platforms, virtual seminar concept, and many others.