JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PLANNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Year:2009 | Volume:15 | Issue:2 (52)|Papers Count:14

Introduction: In recent years, transmitting knowledge and technology is considered as one of the primary functions of universities in developed countries whose main consequence is to provide better opportunities in making the required funds, especially from non- government sources. Universities of Technology in our country too, have more appropriate bases to develop commercialization. Hence, identifying and studying the relationship between effective performance components in research commercialization and diversification of income sources of universities are taken into consideration in this article.Materials and Methods: Assessing income function regression model of universities based on research function components was conducted in this research by means of available statistics and data.Results: Analysis of data was showed that some variables such as the number of published articles in international conferences and journals, joint contracts with industries and higher education students dissertations have meaningful relationship with earmarked revenue so the resultant outcomes are in keeping with universal studies.Conclusion: Therefore, it is necessary for universities to pay closer attention to developing joint contracts in the short run an to make more sustainable relationship with commercial network, the status and the share of faculty members' income in the long-term horizon. 

Introduction: Higher education has increasingly been in line with the progress of societies, and many countries have recently given priority to knowledge-based economy. How to improve the effectiveness of the universities to achieve the knowledge-based economy has been as a major challenge for managers and planners who have applied various policies and programs among which the changes in the mechanisms of financing and financial resources allocation are considered to be crucial, in that the mechanisms affect the performance of educational departments which are the main pillars of the universities and higher education system.Nevertheless, we empirically know little about the impacts of the changes. Thus it is important to evaluate the impact of the mechanisms on educational performance of the departments, which is the main objective of this article. Materials and Methods: Taking into account the advantages of university of Tehran as a case study, we selected 75 educational departments located in Tehran city as the units of analysis. Data on the characteristics of the educational groups for 2001-2005 period were collected through conducting a field work (questionnaire) and using the faculty members profiles. Due to the complexity of data structure and to achieve correct hypothesis testing, we apply multilevel modeling through which the heterogeneities across the groups are taken into statistical models.Results: The results of empirical analyses show that (1) educational performance among the departments has significantly been heterogonous; this heterogeneity indicates that the structure of data used is complex and dominated by a hierarchical structure which makes the application of multilevel modeling method imperative, (2) the educational performance has had a constant and considerable increase during the period, (3) each group has experienced different trend in their educational performance during the period, and (4) among the explanatory variables studied, we found that financial resources allocation mechanisms positively and significantly affect the educational performance of the departments. Conclusion: Our main findings indicate that changes in funding and financial allocation mechanisms (especially in terms of collecting tuition fees) affect educational performance of the educational groups which provide evidence on the fact that the groups do respond to the financial mechanisms and incentives, considering their current financial constraints to meet their educational goals. Therefore, policy-makers and managers can consider the financial mechanisms as an effective and indeed a complementary tool for achieving good governance and perfect steering to improve the effectiveness of the educational departments.

Introduction: Determining the strategic position of an organization within the industry is one of the fundamental stage of strategic planning. More important it is developed as one of the fundamental school of strategic planning which is called strategic positioning. Up to now, various models with different approaches to strategic positioning are deployed within various industries. Considering the above, current paper is aimed to propose a model of performance appraisal as a strategic positioning model in the context of educational system. As a case study the model implemented for strategic positioning of Management schools in Tehran.Material and Method: Balanced Score card (BSC) as one of the powerful models for strategic positioning is developed here as a model of performance appraisal in educational institutes.Results: Based on the expert s opinions, the paper concluded that some aspects of BSC may be more important than others in a given situation accordingly. In addition, results shaped that none of the surveyed schools are developed in all aspects of BSC evenly. It could be used in developing strategic plans for the surveyed schools as well as development of BSC as a model of performance assessment for educational systems and institutes. Conclusion: Given the dynamic environment, it is necessary for educational systems to focus on their managing methods, and reengineering their business processes, to survive through globalization of education and lately methods of hiring students. performance management could be very helpful in this case.

Introduction: One of the most important services implemented by higher education systems is the university outreach. The main objective of this descriptive- survey research is to analyze strategies for successful implementation of university outreach services as perceived by faculty members of Iranian agricultural colleges.Materials and Methods: The statistical population of the study consisted of the faculty members of Iranian agricultural colleges (N=1799), out of whom 140 people included in statistical sample. Sample selection was done in two stages: at first, applying stratified random sampling technique, 10 colleges were selected from the total of 30 colleges, and then using proportional stratified random sampling technique, 140 faculty members were selected from these colleges. The Instrument of study was a questionnaire. To measure the reliability of the questionnaire, Cranach Alpha coefficients were calculated.Results: Results of exploratory factor analysis revealed that four factors explained about 64.29 percent of variations in the strategies for successful implementation of university outreach services including: educational, communicational, research, and creating opportunities factors.Conclusion: This study showed that low level of attention is paid to university outreach services in Iranian agricultural higher education system.Therefore, results revealed by this study can improve successful implementation of university outreach services.

Introduction: Higher education effects national economic growth and development in three perspective: 1-human capital formation 2-consumption 3-postive externality effect.Materials and Methods: Around the world there are many researches in developing countries about these effects on development and growth. This paper investigates the effects of higher education curricula and academic disciplines on the labor force and thus on economic growth and growth of value added of economic sectors (industrial, agricultural and service) in Iran over the 1978-2007 periods. In order to survey above material we used an economic growth model, and estimated it with econometric methods.Results: Results reveal that higher education overall provided a positive and significant effect on Iran's economic development and that engineering and agricultural science played the most prominent role in this process. Conclusion: In order to get higher economic growth, allocation of resource to higher education specially engineering group is important.

Introduction: The humanities majors are widespread in state universities across the country. Among the 500,000 participants of university entrance exam in the humanities, only 12,000, i.e. 2.4 percent of them are accepted in state universities. This figure is much less than the number of the students accepted in Math and Science groups and these students are highly talented. Some of these students continue to study in post graduate courses while some others start working in their field of study immediately or after sometime.Materials and Methods: Now these questions can be introduced: What is the employment status of the humanities graduates? How long should they search for a job? Are they satisfied with their job? Is their career related to the major they had graduated in? How is the situation for the postgraduate students? This study was a tracer study(survey), using descriptive as well as inferential statistical methods. By accomplishing a research project with the cooperation of many universities, taking samples, and following up the employment of their former students, the answers to the above questions were obtained. Results: It was observed that 76 to 79 percent of the humanities graduates are employed and among this number, 69 to 71 percent of them believe that their career is related to their field of study. Moreover, 68 to 75 percent of them are satisfied with their job. It was also observed that working conditions and employment status are better for the post-graduated ones. These results are different for different majors. Conclusion: In conclusion, public university graduates in humanities have better conditions considering employment status, being interested in their career, and working in the field of their study. However, this situation is not the same for all majors.

Introduction: This paper has been prepared based on some part of the information gained from the survey of the sociological study of the role of confidence on the overseas students' tendency to return to Iran which has been conducted in Germany.Materials and Methods: The group under study was 9210 Iranian students who are studying in different courses at 32 cities of Germany. Based on the rules to determine the sample numbers, 384 students were selected through clustered sampling with potential efficiency of 5% (d=0.05) and confidence coefficient of 95%.Results: The results illustrate the survey presuppositions and the efficiency of the analyzed model: Length of residence overseas has a meaningful but negative relationship with social confidence.Furthering the educational status, the level of social confidence increases. Increasing the frequent trips to Iran, social confidence is increasingly increased.Level of social confidence varies based on students' discontent. The level of social confidence is variable based on social-economic status quo (SES) of the subjects.Despite of meaningful relationship between social confidence and age groups, no meaningful relationship was achieved between gender and social confidence.Conclusion: Considering the efficiency of the analyzed model through using multiple regression application and track analysis, the related results show that variables such as length of residence overseas, educational status, frequency of trip to Iran, dissatisfaction, and economic-social status quo based on Beta value are the most determining factors on students' social confidence.