Industry and Higher Education

Drexel University has maintained a leadership role in academic technology by choosing technology initiatives wisely, timing them effectively and ensuring that they have the greatest value to the community at large while being affordable. Drexel has leveraged vendor relationships to help accomplish these initiatives, and has shared its expertise and extended vendor partnerships with smaller schools by acting as an application service provider for them, enabling them to access services without owning assets.

Educational programmes should promote an ethos of lifelong learning and develop in graduates the capacity for long-term personal and professional development through self-learning and reflection. A business degree programme should seek to produce graduates who are confident, creative thinkers with the capacity to solve problems, think creatively, negotiate, make decisions and resolve conflict. The development of these capabilities should not be left to chance, but should be addressed explicitly in the programme. Whether creativity and critical thinking skills are innate or learned, there is little disagreement that experience deepens and expands these abilities. A module entitled ‘Critical Thinking’ has been introduced into a bachelor's degree in Business Studies. In this module both individual and team experiential tasks are used to develop creative thinking. These tasks are relevant to business activities in product development, marketing, and process development. Experiential exercises in decision making and conflict resolution abilities build skills necessary to face challenges from new technologies, competition or the business environment.

This paper examines the evolutionary path of the university and its impact on the quality of education it provides to people, industry and society The authors first analyse the (Kantian) paradigm of reason, the (German Idealists') paradigm of culture and the current dominant techno-bureaucratic paradigm of excellence. They then argue that the paradigm of excellence significantly contributes to the ‘knowing-doing’ gap which causes the difficulties practitioners experience when they try to turn their tertiary knowledge into action. Finally, they argue that the knowledge creation and integration model of Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) may help academics and practitioners to bridge the knowing-doing gap they encounter.

This paper examines the contribution of work-based learning (WBL) to the education of construction students. The research draws on the experiences of part-time students and students on sandwich courses in a School of the Built Environment. The sandwich courses include a year in industry as the penultimate year of a four-year programme. This WBL component constitutes a valuable link between higher education and industry and provides a mechanism for students to consolidate learning in their final year as well as preparing them to take on responsibility in industry immediately after graduation. The paper also examines the relationship between WBL and institutional learning with a view to determining what academic credit is awarded for and how it is awarded. The authors argue that WBL is an essential component of higher education, and that credit for WBL is desirable in a system that promotes credit accumulation and transfer. There is currently no rational method of awarding credit for work-based learning and this paper proposes that articulations in current frameworks for credit accumulation and transfer schemes for academic learning may provide a substantive and transparent means of attributing academic credit to WBL. They also recommend that such a framework should be developed specifically for work-based learning.

UK higher education institutions are now expected to be able to demonstrate that they are adhering to the Code of Practice for the Assurance of Academic Quality and Standards in Higher Education in Placement Learning. The responsibility for ensuring that a placement provides an adequate opportunity for its intended learning outcomes rests with the educational institution. This paper draws on the author's experience of the management and evaluation of placements in the construction sector. In recognition of the increasingly global nature of the business, a placement programme has been developed to meet the particular challenges of students operating in multidisciplinary and multicultural environments. Participation in the European Commission's Leonardo da Vinci Vocational Training Programmes and pilot projects has enabled the identification of further criteria for evaluating and disseminating experience gained in work-based learning across the frontiers of language and culture. However, the paper also identifies problems peculiar to the UK market for construction professions and higher education programmes in construction-related disciplines. A study by Northumbria University highlighted challenges for both industry and higher education arising from economic pressures on students and the positioning of construction-related courses in the higher education market. Given the global nature of the construction business, it is clear that there are significant benefits to be gained from taking a global view of relevant issues.

This paper discusses the history, prospects and impacts of university technology and research parks. The main question addressed is: what are the short-term and long-term impacts of such parks on engineering education and its mission? The first technology park, at Stanford, and other early parks are used as examples to assess some of these impacts. Most of the short-term impacts are positive: the parks provide more options for academic staff and students, enable rapid technology transfer and offer improved funding for academia. The longer-term impacts however, including the potential loss of academic independence and diversity as well as a reduction in the classroom involvement and availability of academic staff tend not to be closely Monitored. Programmes, curricula and academics' interests have been observed to shift in concert with commercial priorities. A better balance between short-term success and long-term benefits should be sought in future technology park developments.