Higher education across the world is witnessing exciting changes. Calls for restructuring of legal and regulatory environment of higher education, meeting demand-supply imbalances, entry barriers, meeting aspirations of the student market and needs of the recruitment market, measures for expansion and resource mobilization, improving governance and transparency, creating infrastructure for benchmarking and quality rating, building capabilities to meet competition from global players, identifying and prohibiting unfair practices, and doing something for the society in general are some of the key aspects of today’s dynamic environment.

Social responsibility is a theme broadly discussed and required from organizations nowadays. Currently, the practices of social responsibility are seen as fundamental to the life of organizations. Researches and debates on corporate social responsibility are becoming more common in the business and academic environment, non-governmental organizations and also in the midst of civil society. Therefore, the institutions of higher education need not only to teach them to their students, but help them put into practice some actions of that character. It is a good practice of extension, also. This issue presents the readers with some aspects of ethics in higher education. It also looks at some of the approaches that can be taken to address some of the concerns highlighted.

In the article, “Top 10 Higher Education Institutions from Brazil and World and Their Social Responsibility: An Exploratory Research”, Ana Carolina Mendonça Pilatti de Paula, Regina Negri Pagani, Maria Salete Waltrick and Pablo Garcia, state that the integration of markets, new forms of production, the deterioration in the condition of existence of the humanity has attracted a new element that seeks to harmonize business with the needs and desires of the humanity: social responsibility. A way to get the students and the whole community involved in those practices is to advertise the programs and projects of this nature on their home page. By doing it, universities will be fostering their programs on social responsibility, and providing better opportunities for their students to participate, thus enabling them to improve the stakeholders quality of life and the whole surrounding community. The objective of the article is to identify the actions of social responsibility of the top 10 institutions of higher education in the world and the top 10 in Brazil. The results of their exploratory study show that the top 10 universities in the world are very active and dynamic concerning projects on social responsibility. The universities namely, Harvard University, University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, Yale University, Imperial College London, Princeton University, California Institute of Technology, University of Chicago, University College London, Massachusetts Institute of Technology prominently detail the activities on their webpage.

Learning gets enhanced when shared. It has been noted that in the emerging society, knowledge plays a vital role and is a primary resource as compared to other factors of production. Knowledge sharing can create comprehensive wealth for the nation in the form of better education, health, better civic sense and infrastructure and further improve the overall quality of life. Knowledge management is a new field, and experiments are just beginning in higher education. It is believed that those institutions, who adopt knowledge sharing practices, can easily achieve their objectives and enhance their image in the market. The article, “Knowledge Management: A Success Key for Higher Education”, by Kerav Pandya and Krishna Gor discuss the importance of knowledge management in the context of higher education. The study revolves around two objectives: (1) To correlate educational development and knowledge management; and (2) To identify the factors that affect knowledge sharing in higher education.

In the article, “Building Competencies in Business Graduates Through Alternative Pedagogies: With Special Reference to Undergraduates”, R Nalini points out that India is predominantly dependent on the traditional pedagogic tool of lecture method to impart education. Though case study method and project-based learning are used in top B-schools in imparting management education at the PG level and of late in the PG classes of Commerce Education, it is the lecture method which is still relied upon at the UG level which is of less use when it comes to building workplace competencies. She discuss the scope for using alternative pedagogies in general and at the UG level in particular. The methodologies explored in the article include case study method; authentic learning approach; problem-based learning; industry-based learning; team teaching; interdisciplinary approach; group seminars; and group and individual project-works.

Another tool namely, Online Discussion Forum (ODF) is being increasingly used as a supporting pedagogical tool in higher education. The article, “Facilitating Learning Through Online Discussion Forum: An Inquiry Using SEM”, by M S Balaji and Diganta C propose and test a conceptual model which relates the influence of seven factors on interaction and perceived learning. The seven factors indentified are internet efficacy, personality, facilitating discourse, reflective thinking, personalization, assessment and feedback, and community. The results of structural equation modeling support the proposition that interaction significantly impacts perceived learning in ODF. Except for Internet efficacy and personalization, the other five factors significantly influenced interaction.

The case study, “Apollo Group: The US Education Providers’ Growth Strategies”, helps in understanding the new service development and growth of an online education company.

- - Y Malini Reddy
Consulting Editor