JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PLANNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Year:2008 | Volume:14 | Issue:2 (48)|Papers Count:9

The aim of this research was to study the effect of student evaluation on faculty members' educational performance thorough 2000-01 to 2005-06. A sample of 192 faculty members of Shahid Beheshti University were randomly selected from all faculty members whom their educational performance were evaluated thorough 2000-01 to 2005-06. The information about demographic characteristics was analyzed with descriptive statistics. In order to analyze the data, first 5 indicators were defamed("education and teaching", "relation with students", "observance of educational regulations", "develop the thinking and personality of students", "total satisfaction from faculty member"), then after computing these indicators, the collected data were analyzed by inferential statistics. The results revealed that there was not significant difference between the mean of evaluation scores of faculty members in "education and teaching" indicator, but there were significant differences between the means of evaluation scores of faculty members in other indicators.

University presidency requires professional competencies. A collection of competencies has been recognized from the related literature in higher education and management which covers both skills and roles.A group of 14 experts among academic and executives have identified the most important competencies (18 out - of 63) using fuzzy rating and aggregation Method. Finally these factors were classified into two main categories namely academic leadership and executive management.

This articles aims at evaluating the effects of self-selection problem and treatment on returns to higher education caused by individuals' decision to attend colleges or universities. We apply conditional earnings functions to tackle the problem of self-selection bias. Using data from the Tehran province survey of socio-economic characteristics 1380 and the U.S. National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1976 and 1994, we found that (1) education is an investment with high returns for the employees of Tehran province, (2) the returns to higher education is substantially more than those to the general education, (3) taking into account the problem of self-selection increases the returns to education estimates, and (3) the findings of Tehran province sample are similar to those of the U.S. samples. Therefore, the pattern of the findings are the same and also consistent with theoretical considerations stating that the conventional estimates which do not deal with the problem of self-selection and treatment effects produce biased and inconsistent results. Policies based on such estimates then can be misleading and severely deteriorate the allocation of resources in the society.

This study aims at the investigation into the Quality of Work Life (QWL) and Job Satisfaction(JS); among the faculty members of the Universities of Tehran (UT) and Sharif(SUT). 144 members were randomly selected from the academic member according to their academic rank in academic groups. The collected data were analyzed by using Pearson correlation method, t Test and the step-wise regression. The findings indicate: a) The faculty member of both UT and SUT are in relative unfavorable QWL condition, but at the same they enjoy a fairly high level of job satisfaction with regard to their jobs; b) There is a positive relationship between QWL factors and JS; c) There is not a significant difference in the level of QWL and JS among the faculty members of two universities; but, however, there is a small difference in social integrity and cohesiveness between two populations. Put differently, the members of SUT hold an upper level of social integration and cohesiveness in comparison with the members of UT; d) The results of the step-wise regression indicate the fact that organizational legality, providing constant growth and security opportunities, and developing human capabilities as QWL have multifarious correlation with job satisfaction.

During recent decades, we increasingly encounter with new gains in ICT applications in the field of education and research. These developments have changed the expectations of those involved in education and research of the level of services which are provided. Nowadays, professors and students like to have an easy and instant access to new scientific and research sources and references, to interact with each other without a need for a face-to-face meeting, and to employ technology to teach and learn efficiently. To fulfill these expectations, universities and higher education institutes should continuously assess and well equip themselves to reach a desired level of access to and use of ICT. In this study, an e-readiness assessment model for universities is designed based on reviewing literature on e-readiness assessment models and opinions of ICT experts at universities and higher education institutes; then it is modified to adapt to social and technological conditions of the country. This model consists of four dimensions including "management, strategies and policies based on ICT", " ICT access and” infrastructures", "human resources", and "the use of ICT at universities and higher education institutes". Besides, it is composed of 25 indicators. The model was implemented at two universities, Iran University of Science and Technology (a state university) and Qazvin Islamic Azad University (a private one); then their e-readiness is measured and assessed. The proposed model is recognized as an appropriate tool for identifying the strengths and weaknesses of the universities and higher education institutes in their efficient access to and use of ICT and analyzing the digital divide among them.

Organizational Development could be defined as a "System wide organizational change to increase organization's effectiveness and health". Organization, as an open system has numerous and various subsystems, chief among them are goals and values subsystem, technical subsystem, structural subsystem, psychological subsystem and managerial subsystem. Managerial subsystem with functions like planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, has a pivotal position, as other subsystems are heavily depended on it.This article is about managerial subsystem of higher education in Iran which is based on chapter two of a doctoral dissertation titled: "Organizational Development in Managerial Subsystem in Higher Education in Iran". The article starts with an overview of changes and challenges of German and French universities in eighteen century. Then characteristics of Humboldt and Napoleonian types of universities are outlined. Finally a meta analysis of managerial subsystem of higher education in Iran (Past, Present, and Future) is presented which is based on content analysis of interviews done with some of dignitaries, holding top administrative positions in the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology during 1990's and 2000's.

Nowadays, higher education environment increasingly has been competitive and students expect higher levels of services. So, education administrators consider many concepts which have been applied in business since many years ago. As in a business which has been customer oriented and attempt to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, these concepts have been customized and applied in higher education. A business concept which can be used in higher education is customer relationship management (CRM) which in education, it is called student relationship management. This system like CRM system needs requirements and enablers. If universities are not ready in these dimensions, project risk will be increased and project goals may be achieved with delay. In this paper, we attempt to provide a comprehensive model to assess readiness of universities for implementation of this project and reduce the project risk. For this goal, we recognized critical success factors of these projects by reviewing the literature and then priority and weight of these factors were determined. Finally, SRM readiness of university of Tehran was assessed using a questionnaire which is based on extracted measures.