JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PLANNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Year:2019 | Volume:25 | Issue:1 |Papers Count:6

The analysis of Iran's knowledge economy suggests that the main weakness of the Iranian economy is the lack of processes of innovation and innovative entrepreneurship for the exploitation of new knowledge and technology. These processes fundamentally formed in the knowledge-based entrepreneurship ecosystems that did not developed in Iran economy and has not even known. Therefore, the purpose of this paper was to analyze development requirements of university– based entrepreneurship ecosystem in Iran. For this purpose, interpretative structural modeling was used. The use of this method requires identifying the components of the ecosystem based on the literature of the subject and the consideration of the relevant experts and relevant managers and policy makers to explain the relationship between them. Then, the required data needed to analyze the relationship between the requirements were obtained by completing the matrix questionnaire through survey with 20 experts and 10 managers. The research findings indicated that the development of university– based entrepreneurship ecosystem in Iran requires the development of 15 components of this ecosystem and 4 components related to its ecology. Only the development of four components of ecosystem including, the production of technological knowledge and innovative human capital, and the development of entrepreneurship knowledge workers, the creation of knowledge-based entrepreneurship processes are available at the universities. Developing components of the ecology of ecosystems including, open and competitive economy, open society, knowledge culture, and good governance that play a fundamental role in the development of the ecosystem, are only available to the government.

The purpose of this research was to identify and prioritize the barriers to the development of academics’ spin-off companies by using a mixed method in Kermanshah province. In the qualitative stage, using a grounded theory, a sample of 13 people consisting of managers of the academics’ spin-off companies and Kermanshah specialists. Data were gathered through semi-structured interviews. To increase the internal validity of the research, the results and the extracted model, were evaluated through a sample of 100 experts. The result of this section has led to the elimination of some concepts and changes in the classification of others. Using Charmaz's constructive approach, the research results identified and prioritized nine barriers in development of academics’ spin-off companies. The most important barriers included weaknesses in marketing plan and market development, lack of investment and financial resources, weaknesses in infrastructure and legal and support infrastructure, lack of adequate support from support groups, teamwork and management weaknesses, miscalculating economic estimates, inconsistencies with technological changes, weakness in entrepreneurial personality traits, and weakness of consulting and training services. Finally, solutions were proposed for elimination and correction of barriers.

Unemployment is one of the most complex problems in the present time. Despite the authorities’ concern for creating jobs, Iran always has suffered from a large number of unemployed and job-seeking graduates. Graduates who specialized in high costs and spent many years for their specialization. Universities can provide the basis for this by identifying and using environmental, economic, and cultural factors that facilitate entrepreneurship. This study was conducted with the aim of examining the interactive role of cultural factors and entrepreneurship education on the students′ entrepreneurial intention. The method used in this study was a descriptive correlational type and the population included all the students at the faculties of Electrical and Computer Engineering at Tabriz University from which 211 students were selected using stratified random sampling. The cultural factors and entrepreneurship intention questionnaires were used to gather data. The correlation and hierarchical regression were used to analyze the data. The results showed a significant positive correlation between cultural factors (responsibility and capability belief) and intention (p <. 05). Findings indicated a significant positive correlation between capability belief and intention. However, there was no significant correlation between cultural factor (responsibility) and entrepreneurship education (p <. 05). On the other hand, there was a significant correlation between the two variables of entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship intention (p =. 001, r =. 76). In addition, the result showed that the cultural factors and entrepreneurship education did not play any integrative role in the prediction of the students’ entrepreneurship intention (p <. 05).

The purpose of present study was to investigate revenue diversification among Iranian public universities in order to improve the stability and flexibility of financial resources. A quantitative practical correlational research design was utilized for this study. The spatial scope of research was one and two level comprehensive public and industrial public universities during 2013-2018. Data were gathered using official reports from Plan and Budget Organization, Iran Central Bank and Institute for Research and Planning for Higher Education. Data were analyzed by Eviews software and fixed effect model. Results indicated that income diversity index had a significant inverse relationship with changes of per capita income. On the other hand, tuition criterion model has a significant and direct relationship with university income per capita. In addition, results illustrated that Iran`s higher education align with world higher education has faced economic instability and public budget has not met the financial requirements of the universities. There is a serious weakness in revenue diversification and high level of dependency on tuition income among public universities. This is all in the conditions that increase government spending and future instability have caused the government to direct university to make money from other sources.

Electronic health literacy is as an interdisciplinary science. It is important to train highly qualified and experienced professionals in higher education in order to maintain and improve the quality of life. The aim of this research was to present a conceptual model based on the living experiences of e-health literacy professionals to promote e-health literacy among medical sciences students. The research was carried out in a qualitative approach and a phenomenological method. Participants were 15 Iranian and international faculty members who were selected through purposeful and snowball sampling. A semi-structured and in-depth interviews were used to collect data. Data were analyzed using Colaizzi's analysis method. The research results showed the four main themes including “ meta-literacy, individual factors, socio-technical factors and professionalism in digital electronic space” , and twenty-one sub themes. The results indicated that the emphasis on empowering students in the categories found would lead to the promotion of electronic health literacy among medical students. At the end of the article, implementation prerequisite were recommended.

Due to the importance of decentralization and the development of university based curriculum, most decisions regarding the design, implementation, evaluation, modification, and review of curricula are made by universities. Since delegation of Implementation Circular Curriculum Revision to universities has changed a large part of the curricula, and since any changes may be difficult, the present case study aimed to identify the challenges of implementing revision of curricula. Using purposeful sampling, semi-structured interviews with 10 administrators at various departments of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad were conducted. Based on the findings, the challenges of changing and implementing the curriculum are divided into two general categories of revision of curriculum, and the implementation processes. The challenges of revision process included limited authority of academic departments, inability to predict the possibility of making moderate and minor changes in the curriculum, performing support studies, unclear expectations and lack of curriculum literacy among faculty members. The challenges of implementation process included resistance to change, lack of sufficient motivation to participate in implementation, how to present lessons, shortage of space, time and educational facilities, shortage of human resources, , lack of monitoring mechanism for good implementation, and lack of support for change and implementation.