JOURNAL OF RESEARCH AND PLANNING IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Year:2007 | Volume:13 | Issue:3 (45)|Papers Count:6

The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the technical efficiency of knowledge firms as a knowledge producer. First, the knowledge production process is modeled using a stochastic frontier of knowledge production. Then, the model is tested using knowledge firm data in Iran. The empirical results indicate that production process in knowledge firm includes two main stages: research and knowledge conversion. In research stage, the knowledge firm uses knowledge worker, knowledge capital and scientific equipments to produce new explicit knowledge. In conversion stage, it uses new explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge to produce knowledge products. In these stages, firm characteristics such as size, ownership, research collaboration with other organizations have influence an efficiency of knowledge firms.

Leadership practices, beliefs and values of presidents play a great role in leading the universities, and academic organizations in general. Even though, organizational structures and usages of management technologies for improvement of leadership and management is considered vital, but studying leadership and management mechanisms without recognizing the nature of daily activities of university presidents will not help its improvement that much. The purpose of this research is to investigate the nature of presidential leadership in public universities affiliated with Ministry of Science, Research and Technology through their daily activities and opinions. In this study, the issue was investigated by using a characteristics and daily activities questionnaire and analysis of open ended questions. The research was based on data gathering from 35 university presidents. The survey method, content analysis, including data reduction and coding, were used to obtain a deeper understanding of the data collected throughout this investigation. Data analysis clearly showed that the nature of universities has made them bureaucrats for doing routing daily activities. At the end, some recommendations are given for improvement of leadership and management in higher education institutions in Iran.

This research is designed to introduce some indices which indicate the dynamics of university quality for the purpose of the using them in university budgeting. This research includes three main stages: First, we examine different methods of university budgeting comparatively. Then, on the basis of "Total Quality Management", we select and describe a few of quality indices contributing to ordinary budgeting methods and formulate a method entitled "Quality based budgeting indices of university system". Finally, we collect the data related to quality indices of some selected universities and test the model. In order to standardize factors, criteria and quality indices of the university system, we design two types of questionnaires: a) the questionnaire for standardizing and determining the weight of the factors and criteria by which we collect the viewpoints of 74 educational managers of the universities and higher education institutes. b) The questionnaire for standardizing and determining the weight of the quality indices of university system. This is completed by 296 university evaluation experts. After some revisions, the final model is introduced. This article offers the research findings with the emphasis on the introducing of the indices of dynamics of university quality.

International experiences indicate that there is no general model for quality assurance. However, quality assurance practices have some common components in most countries. Based on the review of literature, these are eight elements which are common in most quality assurance practices. These elements are: agency, involvement, reference of quality indicators, assessment methods, focus, purpose (function), reporting and follow up activities. The aim of this research is to develop a quality assurance model based on these eight elements as, perceived by faculty members in agriculture department. The results show that ministry of Science, Research, and Technology should initiate a national agency of quality assurance and the NGOs should determine standards and involve in external assessment process. In addition, every university should establish its own bureau for quality assurance with units in its faculties. In the proposed quality assurance model, voluntary-evaluation, participatory and soft procedures rather than compulsory-penalizing, judgmental, centralized and hard ones are rewarding towards promoting the quality culture in higher education in Iran.

The study aims to determine medical students' approaches to learning and to assess whether these are related to the educational preferences of individual learners. Students perceive and process information in a very different way. The use of a specific approach depends on the needs of the environment and the learner's own objectives.Some students look for the overall meaning of the material and intend to understand the learning material (deep approach). Other students focus upon the details of the information and emphasis upon memorizing individual details (surface approach). Still other students plan, use strategies to monitor and control their learning and have alertness to assessment demands (achieving approach).A maximum likelihood factor analysis of 135 medical students (82 females, 53males) mean age 19.57 drown from Shahid Beheshti Medical School produced 3 factor solution (surface, achieving, and deep approach) with Eigen Values greater than one. The results indicate that the variables underlying each factor were internally consistent 0.80. Two experiments factor analysis and correlation report that deep approach is associated with a preference for instruction which encourages and challenges understanding. On the other hand, the surface approach is linked with a preference for instruction, which transmits information. The discussion focuses on interventions that may encourage the use of deep approach to learning.

Entrepreneurship and innovation are essential elements for the success of knowledge based economy development. In its commercialization phase, new technology based product, faces difficulties and uncertainties, because either the product or the market is unknown and undefined. During the past decades, incubators are appeared as tools to help strengthening small business performance, support young entrepreneurs and innovators, a response to the problem of unemployment and relation between government, university, and industry. On the other hand, key performance indicators are quantifiable measurements that reflect the critical success factors of organizations and identify future strategies and ways to measure progress toward those goals.This article has been prepared as an attempt to introduce the reader to the role of key performance indicators in the performance measurement and success of incubators and compare and analyze the key performance indicators of five Iranian technology incubators. It consists of three parts: The first part is designed to give the reader an analytical and historical insight into science and technology parks and incubators of five Iranian technology incubators. The second part of the article studies the process of identifying the adequate key performance indicators for performance measurement of Iranian technology incubators. In the final part, the main body of the article, the key performance indicators of five important technology incubators are compared and analyzed and recommendations are proposed to incubators' managers for better performance.