The emergence and development of any profession or discipline is closely tied to concerns about the formal education and training of those who are to be identified as professionals and academicians. Thus great importance should be attached to the need for urban planning education, particularly doctoral education, to be evaluated periodically and not only to correct the structure and content of the program, but also to adapt to the changing demands and to propose a new education agenda to best reflect the changing and evolving nature of the field. In urban planning, there has been substantial doubt about the nature, mission, knowledge and skills among professionals, academicians and the public since the establishment of the profession almost a century ago. This has been the case all over the world and in all dynamic planning departments". Planners encounter epistemological challenge of various ways of knowing and mode of expression. Doctoral programs are the right place to take these dim issues of the field as epistemological debates and by finding plausible answers to the critical questions, clear the way for the profession, professionals, as well for the educators themselves. From time to time, researchers and academicians have assessed the state of planning education, characterizing developments, eras, and critiques and even projecting future direction. The assessment of a planning program knowing its effectiveness in teaching and research and also its shortcomings-as well as changes necessary to improve its quality should be part of the education agenda. Establishment of the doctoral programs in various disciplines reached its highest level at the University of Tehran since the last decade. The purpose was to train high quality teachers and researchers to meet the increasing needs of the universities and higher education institutions, and to eventually decrease dependency on foreign countries for this purpose. One of these new programs was Ph.D. in Urban Planning. During the last ten years since the start of this program at the University of Tehran, some 40 students have joined the program, gone through several phases of education and research and all but a few graduated. It should be pointed out that over %75 of the graduates in this period are now actively employed by the accredited higher education/research centers of the country and the rests are also involved in the relevant professional and administrative activities of the field. On this basis a general conclusion can be made that the program has, to a large extent, achieved its primary goals. However in spite of the extensive experiences gained, lessons learned, and various problems brought up by students, graduates, and instructors, no evaluation has ever been made of the program, to critically document the program's shortcomings, and propose necessary changes to improve its quality. This research intends to evaluate the performance of the Ph.D. program in Urban Planning by using appropriate methods and suggest changes needed to improve the quality of the education and research in the program.

Analyzing of higher agricultural education and finding strategies for its improvement are of great interest because of importance of higher agricultural education and its impact on all dimensions of human resource, economical and agricultural developments. Therefore, this system must be continuously evaluated, reviewed and appropriate models and approaches should be provided.This research project used a Delphi technique to investigate and analyze the views of higher agricultural education specialists in order to provide an educational approach in form of a conceptual model for Bachelor of Science degree program in agriculture. The subjects of this research were Iranian higher agricultural education specialists that were selected by nominating method. Two questionnaires were used to collect data which a panel of experts confirmed their validity. The test-retest method was used to evaluate the second questionnaire reliability that was designed by using Likert type scale. An educational approach was designed for Bachelor of Science degree in agriculture on the basis of the findings of this research. This approach assumes that the current higher agricultural education system is not compatible with the changes that occur in agriculture, environment, socio-economic situation, science and technology, and is not able to train students who work in this dynamic world of agricultural development. In this approach planning is done with emphasis on national objectives, technical and practical skills. Due attention will be to make coordination between instructor, students and physical and human facilities. This education system works in such away that graduates can be employed in areas of agricultural production, services, education and research or continuing education. The ability to become self-employed is an important strategy in educational planning. Other necessary components of this educational approach are acquiring practical experience, enhancement of creative ability in the students and increasing practical and technical knowledge in students. According to this educational approach, to be dynamic higher agricultural education system must have continues and viable linkage with other organizations. In this system students will focus on real field problems and will try to propose solutions under the supervison of these instructors. In this program, higher agricultural education system will achieve the following goals: Training the experts who can recognize current situation and agricultural department problems, can use agricultural sciences in practice, and earn good income by their effective skills.

Aim: It is important to use free educational courses to gain knowledge and different skills. Understanding the importance and necessity of the production of massive open online courses or MOOC by various universities, the purpose of this study is the survey of educational courses of the Maktab Khaneh website. Methods: This study was an applied work, which has been conducted through surveying method. A Statistical population is all the educational courses presented by the Maktab Khaneh website. Data were collected using direct observation of the Maktab Khaneh website and presented courses were examined based on universities cooperation, educational level, language, field, and presented lessons. The collected data were analyzed Excel software using descriptive (frequency and frequency percentage) statistics. Results: Results showed that the highest number of courses was associated with the Sharif University of Technology and in Electrical, physics, computer and mathematical field. Most courses were professionally presented for master level. 80 percent of courses was in Persian and 20 percent in English language. Conclusion: In spite of the fact that the Maktab Khaneh website is created for fast access to free educational courses of universities and institutions, the degree of cooperation of different universities is very low. It is suggested that policymakers and educational system planners pay attention to the production and increase of free Educational courses.