Zoekresultaten

Academic entrepreneurship in the context of education

Purpose: This study aims to extend literature on academic entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial networking by examining how academics, in their role of entrepreneurial educators, network for the creation and execution of novel teaching practices in cooperation with external actors. Design/methodology/approach: The empirical investigation is based on qualitative inquiry, using a case study approach. Specifically, eight cases originating at three universities in Germany, The Netherlands and Mexico were examined. The cases which constituted innovative teaching practices were selected following a replication logic. Each involved extensive participation of societal actors in course development or delivery and aimed to stimulate students to work on real life challenges and disseminate novel knowledge back to the world of practice. All courses were either introduced or taught by educators who possessed different levels and types of academic and industrial or entrepreneurial experience. Findings: Based on eight cases the authors found that the networking behaviour of entrepreneurial educators is crucial for the generation of proximity with external actors and for the acquisition of key resources, such as an external actor to participate in teaching practice and for the generation of legitimacy for their innovations in teaching. The entrepreneurial and industrial experience of entrepreneurial educators emerges as an affordance to network with external actors, helping them to achieve a common understanding of the opportunity and to generate trust among them. Practical implications: This study equips managers of higher education institutions with critical insights into innovating the teaching mission of the university and developing closer and stronger relationships with external actors of the university. Originality/value: This study seeks to advance the literature on academic entrepreneurship by shifting the attention away from academic entrepreneurs as merely founders of spin-offs and collaborators with business on research and development towards entrepreneurial educators who see opportunities in establishing collaborations with external actors as part of their teaching activities. Further, it introduces the “social networking perspective” to this field. Vissa (2012) and Stam (2015) introduced this perspective as a logical extension to the study of the generation of social capital to reach entrepreneurial goals.

Prevalence of responsible research practices among academics in The Netherlands [version 2; peer review: 2 approved]

Background: Traditionally, research integrity studies have focused on research misbehaviors and their explanations. Over time, attention has shifted towards preventing questionable research practices and promoting responsible ones. However, data on the prevalence of responsible research practices, especially open methods, open codes and open data and their underlying associative factors, remains scarce.Methods: We conducted a web-based anonymized questionnaire, targeting all academic researchers working at or affiliated to a university or university medical center in The Netherlands, to investigate the prevalence and potential explanatory factors of 11 responsible research practices.Results: A total of 6,813 academics completed the survey, the results of which show that prevalence of responsible practices differs substantially across disciplines and ranks, with 99 percent avoiding plagiarism in their work but less than 50 percent pre-registering a research protocol. Arts and humanities scholars as well as PhD candidates and junior researchers engaged less often in responsible research practices. Publication pressure negatively affected responsible practices, while mentoring, scientific norms subscription and funding pressure stimulated them.Conclusions: Understanding the prevalence of responsible research practices across disciplines and ranks, as well as their associated explanatory factors, can help to systematically address disciplinary- and academic rank-specific obstacles, and thereby facilitate responsible conduct of research.

Left to Their Own Devices: The Role and Skills of Academics in Partnerships for the Future

This chapter explores international partnerships as an enabler for internationalisation of home curricula, what these partnerships would look like and what the role of academics and other stakeholders would be. Student activities within an internationalised curriculum at home, such as online international collaboration, fall outside the scope of this chapter. Instead, the chapter focuses on the role of academics in building partnerships that support curriculum development through the internationalisation of learning outcomes. The chapter begins with a discussion of the state of flux that resulted from the shift towards internationalisation at home. While many universities have embraced this concept,implementation is not without challenges. Two of the main obstacles are discussed, these being the imperfect conceptualisation of internationalisation at home and the lack of skills of academic staff. A symptom of the former is confusion over terminology. A discussion on terminology has no place in this chapter but a reference is made to recent literature that discusses terminology and definitions. The latter obstacle, the lack of skills of academics,is discussed extensively, particularly with regard to the internationalising of learning outcomes. This will reveal that current professional development does not seem effective in addressing the lack of skills of academics. While academics continue their struggle with the conceptualisation of internationalising learning outcomes, the question is raised as to whether international partnerships could contribute to internationalisation of the home curriculum and if so, how. In order to find an answer, the literature on partnerships is looked at in order to understand to what extent literature is explicit about partnerships that are conducive to internationalisation at home and about the role, character, benefits and requirements of such partnerships.On the basis of the conclusion that literature is implicit on this topic, the chapter builds an argument for using international partnerships as a tool for collaboration on the internationalisation of home curricula. The characteristics of such partnerships for the future then follows. These are partnerships at programme level with academics as key actors focused on benchmarking the internationalisation of learning outcomes, combining mobility with professional development and linked to quality assurance. The benefits of such partnerships, their organisation and the role of stakeholders are subsequently discussed. Finally, the chapter argues that, without a structured approach to learning outcomes, collaboration will not be effective and international partnerships will not reach their full educational potential. Partnerships for the future, by making internationalisation of curricula a cross-border collaboration, can help to achieve the ‘internationalisation’ of internationalisation at home.

Changes in Academics' Job Profiles

Verschillen tussen pabostudenten in interesse, motivatie en denkstijlen

Voorjaar 2014 werd van de pabostudenten van de Christelijke Hogeschool Ede (CHE) een aantal studentkenmerken in kaart gebracht. Zowel tussen studenten met verschillende vooropleidingen als tussen mannen en vrouwen konden opvallende verschillen worden vastgesteld. Ook werd gezocht naar samenhangen tussen de verschillende kenmerken. Op basis van de resultaten konden twee oriëntaties worden onderscheiden: ‘experimenters’, met een grotere interesse voor wereldoriëntatie, een sterkere extrinsieke motivatie en meer ambitie voor de rol van leerkracht voor de klas en ‘academics’, met een sterkere intrinsieke motivatie, meer ambitie voor ontwikkelen en onderzoeken, en hogere resultaten voor de kennisbasistoetsen van rekenen en taal. Als het gaat om implicaties voor de opleidingsdidactiek wordt niet zo zeer 'tegemoet komen aan denkstijlen' bepleit, als wel een grotere bewustwording bij studenten van het feit dat bepaalde eindtermen een beroep doen op bepaalde manieren van denken, die kunnen afwijken van hun voorkeursmanier.

Work-life balance and remote working in the pandemic and beyond

Poor work-life balance (WLB) has been linked to negative outcomes such as increased stress, anxiety, depression, and a perceived reduction in the overall quality of life. At an institutional level, these may include lowered employee commitment and decreased productivity at work. The advent of COVID-19 has necessitated fundamental alterations to work experience and the ways in which WLB may be perceived. This phenomenological study employed qualitative, in-depth interviews to explore higher education academics’ lived experiences of remote working and how they perceived this had impacted their well-being (WB) and WLB. Using purposive samplings, respondents were drawn from HE sectors in the Netherlands, and the UK. The findings offered an understanding of how remote and hybrid teaching delivery during the pandemic affected academics’ actual experiences of WB and WLB. These findings serve to enhance policymakers’ understandings of significant occupational health and WB issues within a post-pandemic education service paradigm.