Inter- and Transdisciplinary University: A systems approach to education and innovation

In response to various pressures for change arising from the present situation, the university will have to adopt a new purpose which may be recognized as a means of increasing the capability of society for continuous self-renewal. With this new purpose in mind, the structure of the university will be determined by the concept of an integral education/innovation system for which four principal levels are considered: empirical, pragmatic, normative and purposive levels. From multi-, pluri-, and crossdisciplinary approaches, all pertaining to one systems level only, the university is expected to develop increasingly interdisciplinary approaches, linking two systems levels and coordinating the activities at the lower level from the higher level through common axiomatics. Ultimately, the entire education/innovation system may become coordinated as a multilevel multigoal hierarchical system through a transdisciplinary approach, implying generalized axiomatics and mutual enhancement of disciplinary epistemology. Current university approaches to develop interdisciplinary links between the pragmatic and normative systems levels are discussed. Finally, a transdisciplinary structure for the university is briefly outlined; its main elements are three types of organizational units—systems design laboratories, function-oriented departments, and discipline-oriented departments—which focus on the interdisciplinary coordination between the three pairs of levels in the education/innovation system, i.e., on method and organization rather than on accumulated knowledge. An important role for policy sciences is seen in the linkage between the top pair of systems levels.Dr. Erich Jantsch is currently Richard Merton Professor at the Technical University, Hanover, Germany. While developing some of the concepts reported in this paper, he held a visiting appointment as Research Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.     

社会主义核心价值体系引领下的大学生价值观教育引导机制研究

社会主义核心价值体系是党在思想文化建设上的重大理论创新,它在国家竞争、民族发展以及满足人民群众精神生活需要等方面具有重要作用.加强大学生价值观教育,应努力从社会主义核心价值体系及其建设中汲取理论智慧和实践营养,以社会主义核心价值体系为指导,对大学生价值观教育进行认同机制、动力机制、联动机制、体验机制、参与机制、情感机制的构建,努力推进价值观教育实践的全面创新,实现社会主义核心价值体系的实践价值.     

A systems thinking approach to the integration of food insecurity policy

Food insecurity represents a growing problem in the United States, with levels of household insecurity hovering around 12.5% of national population. Policy leaders and advocates have long struggled to define adequate solutions, mired in concerns about food access and affordability, as well as overlays of equity and social justice, in part because of the numerous many ways we have measured the problem and defined and evaluated solutions. Most food security programs are designed as temporary assistance and few policy leaders or advocates are well‐placed to address leverage points for durable policy change, both because they are focused on short term solutions and because they are unable to collaborate to identify leverage points within the food policy system that would enable long term solutions. This paper offers a systems thinking assessment of a recent food policy symposium, illuminating the problem and causes as perceived by those practitioners involved in addressing household food insecurity, highlighting the lack of coherence among current stakeholders and an inability to collaboratively address the problem of food insecurity. It concludes with suggestions for future research.     

A policy framework for surface water and shallow groundwater allocation,with special reference to the Komadougou Yobe River Basin,northeast Nigeria

The Hadejia and Jama'are rivers rise on the Basement Complex of Kano and Bauchi States, and on entering the area underlain by sedimentary rocks, they lose most of their water in their passage through Jigawa, Yobe and Borno to Lake Chad. Water resource developments on the Hadejia branch are now so far advanced that effectively the entire flow is consumed before the confluence, where the river changes name to the Yobe. These developments have taken place in the absence of a coherent, integrated water management policy, either nationally, for the river basin, or at a local level. The Jama'are tributary is so far undeveloped, although this is unlikely to remain so for much longer. In this article proposals for an analytical framework for water allocation policy in the river basin are made, together with an analysis of the characteristics of the major existing water-using activities. The article argues, not for a particular water allocation policy, but for clarity and transparency in the development of such policy by the relevant authorities in Nigeria.     

用"六个为什么"加强大学生社会主义核心价值体系教育

＂六个为什么＂,对涉及当今中国＂举什么旗、走什么路、以什么样的精神状态、朝着什么样的发展目标继续前进＂等方面的六个重大问题作出了全面准确、深入浅出的回答,对于大学生自觉学习和践行社会主义核心价值体系,提高大学生的思想政治素质,促进自身的健康成长具有重要意义。高校应该用＂六个为什么＂加强大学生社会主义核心价值体系教育。     

Forecasting and the systems approach: A critical survey

Long-range forecasting for social systems deals with complex feedback interactions between all sectors and elements of such systems, and thus inherently implies facing the challenge of the systems approach. The latter may be characterized as an attempt to understand the self-organizing behavior of social systems and to grasp its potential dynamic implications. A survey of current approaches to forecasting attempts to discuss the state of the art and potentials for further development in this light. Many modelling approaches—in particular econometrics—are inherently restricted to mechanistic modes of behavior. Formalized man-technique interaction—for which innovative approaches have become known—may aid forecasting for adaptive modes of system behavior; computer simulation of structural models has considerable potential in this area. Finally, forecasting techniques may be applied so as to stimulate human inventive thinking. The systems approach provides the proper perspective for the meaningful use of formalized approaches to forecasting.This paper is based on a contribution to the conference on Long Term Planning and Forecasting sponsored by the International Economic Association in Moscow, December 11–16, 1972. A related paper, outlining the theoretical frame of reference, will be published under the title Forecasting and Systems Approach: A Frame of Reference inManagement Science in 1973.     

Stakeholder approach and the impact of brand image within higher education in the Middle East: Student and staff perspective

Higher education institutions should take into account the needs of stakeholders in the planning and development of quality educational services. In general, the stakeholders are divided into two categories: internal and external stakeholders. This study aims to explore the diverse basic needs of the university internal stakeholders (students, academic staff, and employees) and the impact of the services on the brand image of the educational institutions. Consensus has been built that an organization's image can only be or assessed by its stakeholders or constituents. Utilizing the qualitative approach through empirical semi‐structured interviews, data were collected from both Benghazi University in the country of Libya and Yarmouk University in the country of Jordan. To gain an in‐depth understating of the basic services, interviews were conducted with 41 university internal stakeholders (students, academic staff, and employees). The findings have a remarkable impact on the education services quality and the perception of brand image of both institutions, which subsequently affects the Libyan and Jordanian economy. The paper explores the differences between the needs of the three groups. This study is of value to educational leaders as it serves as contribution to the well designing of comprehensive plans of the university, by providing the decision makers with information on the needs of the university internal stakeholders. Managements can develop policies, which will improve the safety of customers and staff and increase collaborations with both universities stakeholders, etc. Accordingly, the results provide a foundation on which future research can be built.     

高教改革中的政府行为分析

在当前发展民办高教的过程中,政府应该调整、充实和完善其具有的支持、引导和监督管理职能的内涵并予以正确地实施.在支持职能方面,必须从民办高教准公共产品的属性出发给予营利合法地位,明确并准予民办高校具有营利或非营利性质,同时还需要结合实际对民办高校予以一定的资助;在引导职能方面,要着力引导兴办以附属运行为办学模式,以高等职业技术教育为办学类别和层次的民办高校;在监督管理职能方面,要建立新的涉及民办高校办学全过程的监督管理制度和监督管理指标体系,如必须重新建立公平合理的对民办高校教育质量评估的指标体系.     

高等职业教育与区域经济发展探析

高等职业教育在新时期区域经济建设中发挥了重要作用,其传播知识、培养人才、推广科学技术等都是围绕地方经济与社会发展展开的,高职教育与区域经济协调发展密切相关,要不断加大对高等职业技术院校投入,确保高等职业技术教育实现又好又快发展。     

关于高等教育内涵式发展的理念分析

党中央深刻分析国内外高等教育发展趋势,准确把握高等教育发展规律,党的十八大提出了"高等教育内涵式发展"的论断,为实现建设人才强国和人力资源强国的宏伟目标而做出的重大决策。在深刻理解内涵式发展的理论基础上,分析内涵式发展所包含的内容以及意义。     

Legislative systems with absolute party discipline: Implications for the agency theory approach to the constituent-legislator link

This paper examines how the presence of absolute party discipline forces one to re-examine some of the issues surrounding the constituent-legislator link. With absolute party discipline, slack at the individual district level is determined by the policy choices of a political party, rather than by the choices of the individual legislator. This party discipline not only has implications for the representational effectiveness of individual legislators, but also results in the terms “slack” and “shirking” no longer necessarily being synonymous. The empirical work shows that Canadian political parties engaged in wide scale shirking on the 1988 U.S.–Canada Free Trade Agreement.     

Swedish development aid policy: A discussion with reference to Ethiopia

Formal Ethio-Swedish development co-operation began in 1945 with the signing of a technical assistance treaty in vocational and technical education. Since then Swedish aid has been extended to health, nutrition and agriculture, with agricultural aid constituting the largest share since 1967. Swedish agricultural aid could be classified broadly into the comprehensive and the minimum package programmes. This paper discusses the changes in Swedish rural development assistance from the project to the country programming approach as reflected in the comprehensive and minimum package programme. This paper shows that the country programming approach to international development assistance is an important contribution to the strategies of delivering foreign assistance. Since the approach utilizes existing government programmes as the starting point for development assistance, and attempts to integrate aid into the national resource base, it can build confidence and mutual working relationships among donors and aid recipients. Moreover, the approach as utilized by Sweden has a three-year time-frame, allowing the transfer of funds within Swedish sponsored programmes. The overall strategy objective supports and broadens existing programmes directed to improving the welfare of the rural poor.     

高等教育国际化发展的动因思考

高等教育国际化越来越受到人们的关注。现代高等教育产生和发展的基本动力是满足探索真理和发现知识的需要,二战之后的高等教育国际化主要是政治范畴在起作用,而当今高等教育国际化则注重追求经济利益。当然,现代信息技术的迅猛发展和广泛普及,为实现高等教育国际化发展奠定了物质基础。     

刍议构建高校教育质量预警机制的必要性和可行性

提高高校教育质量,促进高等教育的可持续发展已经成为近年来我国高教界共同关注的重要课题。笔者通过对高校教育质量的调查及反思,大胆引用危机预警理论分析了高校建立教育质量预警机制的可行性和探讨建立高校教育质量预警机制的必要性。     

From the curriculum to the classroom: The urgent need for preservice human rights teacher education in the United States

Abstract

Despite recent progress made by the human rights education movement in the United States to bring human rights education into curriculum standards, textbooks, and classrooms, preservice and in-service teachers have few opportunities to receive human rights education themselves. I argue that future teachers urgently need to receive preservice human right teacher education for a number of reasons. First, social studies curriculum standards in forty-two US states include human rights standards (Advocates for Human Rights 2016). Second, human rights education allows learners to engage with the human rights framework and gain skills to advocate to end human rights violations. Third, for human rights education to be effective in ending human rights violations, teachers must teach in a way that can help to dismantle oppression rather than perpetuate it. Thus, teacher educators must implement preservice human rights teacher education thoughtfully. I address challenges to, critiques of, and recommendations for implementation. Following this, I build on these ideas with my own recommendations for implementation. These recommendations are based on interviews I conducted with members of Human Rights Educators USA, a national volunteer network of educators and advocates who promote human rights education in the United States (HRE USA 2018).     

Semiotising the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher education

This article presents a semiotic analysis of the student perception of learning outcomes in British higher education. It centres on three annotated images in Frank Furedi’s article “The Unhappiness Principles”, published in Times Higher Education in 2012. Drawing upon Peircean semiosis and iconicity, it provides a rhetoric-infused interpretation of the word–image complementarity exhibited in student participants’ written commentaries on the three images. This leads to a dialectical view of formative and summative assessment, in which process and product create each other through the same continuum of learning and teaching. In highlighting intellectualism as central to the ethnography of university life, this article argues that learner autonomy and the potential for transformation is deemed essential to the student experience in higher education.     

在课堂教学中加强大学生社会主义核心价值体系教育

结合从事《毛泽东思想和中国特色社会主义理论体系概论》的教学实践,探讨如何在思想政治理论课课堂教学中对大学生进行社会主义核心价值体系教育。     

高等教育管理须在新高度上发展

高校教育管理工作,是高校生存与发展的生命线,因此,提升其管理水平势在必行。