Accountability In Higher Education Research Articles

Advancing financial transparency and ethical governance: innovative cost management and accountability in higher education and industry

Advancing financial transparency and ethical governance in higher education and industry is imperative for fostering trust, accountability, and sustainability. This review explores innovative cost management strategies and accountability measures to achieve these goals. In both higher education and industry, financial transparency ensures stakeholders have access to accurate, timely, and comprehensible financial information. This transparency is crucial for building trust among investors, donors, regulators, and the public. Moreover, it facilitates informed decision-making and enhances organizational efficiency. One innovative approach to advancing financial transparency is the adoption of cloud-based financial management systems. These systems offer real-time data accessibility, automated reporting, and customizable dashboards, enabling institutions to track expenditures, revenue streams, and budget variances more effectively. Additionally, blockchain technology holds promise in ensuring the integrity and immutability of financial records, reducing the risk of fraud and corruption. Ethical governance goes hand in hand with financial transparency, emphasizing integrity, honesty, and accountability in organizational practices. Robust governance frameworks establish clear lines of responsibility, codes of conduct, and mechanisms for oversight. In higher education, this involves empowering governing boards with diverse expertise and ensuring academic and financial decisions align with institutional missions. To enhance ethical governance, institutions can implement whistleblower protection programs and conduct regular ethics training for employees. These initiatives promote a culture of transparency and integrity, encouraging individuals to report unethical behavior without fear of retaliation. Cost management plays a pivotal role in financial sustainability and ethical governance. Traditional cost-cutting measures often focus on reducing expenses without considering long-term implications. Innovative cost management, however, emphasizes efficiency, value creation, and sustainability. Activity-based costing is one such approach that allocates costs based on the activities that drive them, providing a more accurate understanding of resource consumption. This enables institutions to make informed decisions about resource allocation and pricing strategies. Furthermore, strategic sourcing and vendor management help optimize procurement processes, negotiate favorable contracts, and mitigate risks associated with third-party relationships. Collaborative partnerships with industry stakeholders can also facilitate knowledge sharing, resource pooling, and cost-saving opportunities. Accountability mechanisms are essential for ensuring that financial resources are used responsibly and in alignment with organizational objectives. Performance metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) provide benchmarks for evaluating financial and operational performance. These metrics should be transparent, relevant, and aligned with strategic goals. Advancing financial transparency and ethical governance requires a multifaceted approach encompassing technological innovation, robust governance frameworks, strategic cost management, and accountability measures. By embracing these principles, both higher education institutions and industries can build trust, enhance efficiency, and achieve long-term sustainability. Keywords: Financial Transparency, Ethical Governance, Cost Management, Accountability, Higher Education, Industry

Searching for Performance Accountability in Higher Education: A Case Study

Accountability is vital in ensuring universities to provide top-notch education to their stakeholders in higher education. Therefore, it is imperative to examine how universities can achieve intended performance accountability. The study analyzes the performance accountability of higher education, considering core, essential, and supporting components to meet stakeholder expectations. Based on the case study design, the data were collected through semi-structured interviews with stakeholders and secondary sources. The study sample was selected through the purposive sampling method, i.e., the University Authority, the Campus chief, three chairpersons of the subject committee, the president of the Professor Union Unit, the Coordinator of the Self-Evaluation Committee, and four faculties. After analyzing the data, it has been concluded that in order to achieve performance accountability in higher education, it is essential to manage the learning process effectively, have a strategic implementation plan, prioritize leadership, and adhere to accountability processes. These crucial elements are key to creating a successful learning environment, improving the quality of education, and ensuring accountability in the higher education sector. I claimed that the seed capital model is developed to enhance quality education by increasing higher education performance accountability. The study findings can help University officials and faculties improve education quality and policy formulation. Additionally, this study contributes to the existing literature on the institutional process and achieving accountability in all components of higher education.

The Importance of Learning English Literacy for Accounting in Higher Education: Benefit and Drawbacks

This qualitative research aims to explore the importance of learning English literacy skills for English as a Foreign Language (EFL) accounting students in higher education. The data were collected through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, and document analysis, and analyzed thematically. The findings indicate that developing English literacy skills offers numerous benefits for EFL accounting students, such as building literacy competence, enhancing employability, improving communication skills, facing globalization, understanding accounting terms and subjects, and identifying errors in accounting. However, the study also identified some drawbacks, time and effort including, Balancing Language Learning with Technical Accounting Skills Development and linguistic difficulties and frustration. The study suggests that educational institutions and policy makers should develop comprehensive strategies that support EFL accounting students in acquiring English literacy skills while addressing the potential challenges they may encounter. These findings have important implications for accounting education, highlighting the need to provide adequate resources and support to EFL accounting students to help them develop their English literacy skills and succeed in their academic and professional pursuits

Introduction to Energy Accounting in Higher Education: A Theoretical Discussion

This review discusses the importance of energy accounting in the curriculum of accounting study programs at universities in Indonesia. Commitment to energy conservation in industry is important to get attention because it has become a commitment from the Indonesian government. Energy conservation has the form of efficiency, savings, and energy management. In the context of higher education, energy accounting discusses energy audits, environmental accounting, green accounting, energy saving measures, as well as other energy cases such as greenwashing and others. Energy accounting learning needs to be followed up to be included in the curriculum of the accounting study program as a form of the commitment of the younger generation to energy conservation. So far, energy accounting has not been specifically discussed. Several universities teach energy accounting in the sub-chapters of social and environmental accounting, sustainability accounting, and green accounting. The next hope is that energy accounting will become a separate subject by getting the full portion of the lesson. The contribution of this review is to improve the accounting study program curriculum so that it has benefits for future accounting developments.

The interaction of hierarchical and socializing accountability and the emergence of intelligent accountability in a classroom – a critical analysis

PurposeThis study aims to investigate the impact on organizational members of team marks and peer feedback in a classroom as an organizational setting, where equals were engaged in a hierarchical form of accountability. It uses Roberts’s framework of hierarchical, socializing, and intelligent forms of accountability and discusses the viability of intelligent accountability in higher education, given the accountability structure for academics.Design/methodology/approachAutoethnography based on excerpts from the lecturer’s diary.FindingsThe blurred boundaries of hierarchical and socializing forms of accountability create both tensions and kinships for students, and these two forms of accountability constantly impact on each other. Although the accounting tools have an individualizing effect on some students, several examples of intelligent accountability are uncovered. It is concluded that academia’s audit culture, which focuses on immediate outcomes, and academics’ ever-increasing workloads make successful innovations less likely.Originality/valueThis study contributes to the accountability literature in revealing a constant dynamic between hierarchical and socializing forms of accountability through examination of a unique setting in which the boundaries between the two are completely blurred. By empirically examining how accounting individualizes and how intelligent accountability emerges, this study contributes to the limited empirical literature on the impact of accountability on individuals, and particularly to studies of classrooms as organizations, with implications for education policies.

The Current Status of Graduate Student Unions: An Employer's Perspective

Originally published by the National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education and the Professions, Proceedings, Twenty-Seventh Annual Conference, April, 1999, Collective Bargaining and Accountability in Higher Education: A Report Card, Caesar J. Naples, Editor

Perceptions of Stakeholders towards College Autonomy on Quality of Higher Education in Northern and Southern Odisha

The main aim of the study was to investigate the perception of stakeholder towards college autonomy on quality in higher education. The present study has been conducted in two autonomous (VD College, Jeypore and MPC College, Baripada and two non-autonomous (DAV College, Koraput and Women’s College, Baripada) government colleges in the southern and northern regions of Odisha, India. The perceptions of students, parents, and teachers of autonomous colleges relating to their satisfaction with different quality dimensions of higher education have been compared with the perceptions of students, parents, and teachers of non-autonomous colleges using 't’ test to assess the impact of college autonomy on quality in higher education. The impact of college autonomy on quality in higher education was explored using the causal comparative method taking non-autonomous colleges as control group. The study found that; i) college autonomy impacts positively on quality of teacher, curriculum, co-curricular activities, method of teaching, library, infrastructural facilities and examination system; ii) college autonomy impacts positively on students’ achievement; iii) college autonomy impacts positively on customer orientation, client education, quality in education, teachers’ participation, innovation and linkages. The study recommended that autonomous colleges should be sufficiently funded by central government, UGC and state government or should be provided opportunity to generate their own financial resources to carry out developmental activities for achieving total quality in higher education. It is recommended that steps should be taken to institute appropriate mechanism in every autonomous college to look into teachers’ recruitment and promotion policy; terms and conditions of services; and techniques of inspiration, motivation and involvement. Autonomous colleges should be given administrative freedom to recruit teachers and other members of non teaching staff in conformity with UGC guidelines. Autonomy, quality and accountability are interrelated. Autonomy without accountability cannot ensure quality in higher education. Proper guidelines and regulations need to be formulated to ensure both autonomy and accountability in higher education.

An Empirical Study on IPO Model Construction of Undergraduate Education Quality Evaluation in China from the Statistical Pattern Recognition Approach In NLP

Based on the analysis of 1,497 samples from the survey of national undergraduate educational administrators, the IPO model of undergraduate education quality evaluation from the perspective of managers can be effectively verified. The quality of higher education needs the accountability of higher education and evaluation of student learning outcomes. The empirical studies show the effects on the various dimensions of quality provisions which were not the same. The main findings are that the input of undergraduate education and teaching can not only directly and positively predict the output of undergraduate education and teaching, but also can positively predict the output of undergraduate education and teaching through the partial mediating effect of the process of undergraduate education and teaching. The research suggests that under the given material conditions, it is essential to enhance the “soft input” of undergraduate education and teaching, to strengthen the process construction of undergraduate education and teaching, to enhance the process quality control in the implementation of humanistic care, to pay attention to the development effect of teachers and students and the development effect of school-running characteristics, and to promote the connotative development of colleges and universities. The study provides a practical framework, model, and guidelines that can be used for undergraduate education institutions to evaluate and enhance the performance to effectively work in society. The quality evaluation of undergraduate education needs to focus from the quality of students' learning outcomes to the comprehensive consideration of “input-process-outcome”.

CURRENT ASPECTS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ACCOUNTING IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN BULGARIA

CURRENT ASPECTS OF TEACHING AND LEARNING ACCOUNTING IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN BULGARIA

CURRICULUM PROPOSAL ON E-ACCOUNTING AND INDUSTRY 4.0 TECHNOLOGY COURSES IN ACCOUNTING EDUCATION

Çalışmanın amacı, içinde olduğumuz e-dönüşüm sürecinde yükseköğretim düzeyinde muhasebe eğitimi verilen bölümlerde e-muhasebe ve endüstri 4.0 teknolojilerini kapsayan derslerin yeterliliğini ortaya koymaktır. Bu kapsamda Türkiye’de müfredatında muhasebe dersleri yer alan bölümlerin ders planları doküman analizi yöntemiyle incelenmiş ve e-muhasebe ile endüstri 4.0 teknolojilerini içeren dersler taranmıştır. 
 Çalışmada 13 üniversitede muhasebe ile ilişkili bölümlerin ders planlarında e-muhasebe, e-muhasebe uygulamaları, muhasebe yazılımları ve e-muhasebe, sanayi 4.0, yapay zeka, dijital dönüşüm ve yapay zeka adlı derslere seçmeli ve zorunlu olarak yer verildiği tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca 1 üniversitede tüm ön lisans programlarında, doğrudan endüstri 4.0 teknolojisi derslerini içeren seçmeli ders havuzunun oluşturulduğu görülmüştür. Çalışma ile yükseköğretimde muhasebe alanında eğitim veren bölümlerde endüstri 4.0 teknolojisi ve e-muhasebe derslerine daha fazla önem verilmesi gerektiği sonucuna ulaşılmıştır.

Hybrid model in accounting education: The experience of management simulation course

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on education, he transformation of didactics and technological methods was necessary to promote students’ self-learning and motivation, alongside teachers’ tutoring, guiding students’ academic journey. This paper aims to investigate the effect of COVID-19 on digitalization accounting in higher education and explores the students’ perception of the adapted hybrid model. The study follows a qualitative approach and rely on the final-year students of the accounting and management degree of Accounting and Business of Porto Polytechnic School. Data were collected through a questionnaire from students who experienced both distance and face-to-face education and completed the course of Management Simulation. The study highlights the digitalization of accounting teaching and the pandemic’s effect on the future of digital accounting education. In sum, the hybrid model meets the needs of this practical course and can be a model to be applied in the future.
 Keywords: Accountant; Digitalization Accounting Education; Digital Hybrid Pedagogy; Digital Education; Human Skills.
 
 

Assessment in Musical Theatre: A Tool for Transparency, Equity, and Student Learning

ABSTRACT There is an ever-growing need for transparency and accountability in higher education and in the arts. Universities and accreditors are increasingly holding their educators accountable for their students’ learning outcomes, as well as encouraging a more learner-centered model of teaching. Additionally, universities and students alike are calling for more equitable practices in the classroom, including more transparency and student ownership. This literature review explores assessment as one way to improve transparency, equity, and student learning in both higher education and in the arts. The interdisciplinary nature of musical theatre programs is unique in that they combine studies of acting, dance, and music. This poses challenges to assessment, with each discipline requiring its own assessment strategy. Additionally, they may be housed in theatre schools, music schools, or a combination of both, which all inherently come with different assessment structures in place. In order to understand how musical theatre could benefit from formalized assessment, this article examines current literature, exploring ways to implement assessment across the musical theatre disciplines.

A scoping review of the application of systematic instructional design and instructional design models by academic librarians

BackgroundAcademic libraries are providing more instruction than ever to increasingly diverse audiences. Librarians have also shown increased interest in learning theories and instructional design (ID). However, there has not yet been a systematic survey of the literature on how librarians are using ID models and systematic ID in professional practice. MethodsThe researchers conducted this scoping review of journal articles published since 1990 to look at what ID models or systematic ID are used in academic library instruction and what is role and influence of ID. Nine databases were searched to identify articles. ResultsOf the 11,221 abstracts, 58 articles described use of a systematic ID or an ID model to create an instructional product. The review found that ID models were sparsely represented in the literature and that it often appeared in a simplified or adapted form. However, it held particular promise as a tool for collaboration and reflective teaching practices. ConclusionsWhile instruction represents a major skillset in academic librarianship, the application of ID needs further representation in the scholarly literature. Further reflection on librarian use of ID can inform teaching practices committed to accountability in higher education and learner centeredness for their populations.

Tracing accountability in higher education

Drawing upon earlier studies of reforms and institutional changes in higher education, the purpose of this paper is to trace how the understanding of accountability has changed over the past twenty years and how it is understood to have impacted on higher education institutions. We do so by reviewing more than 350 papers and by asking three questions: Who answers to whom? For what are they answering? And how to assess those accountability arrangements? With these three questions as guides, our results indicate that higher education institutions have been undergoing processes of what we term accountabilization. These results contribute to the scholarship on higher education governance by conceptualizing the processes of accountabilization.

Adapt and Thrive

When I initially thought about this special issue on the evolving role of academic librarians, the idea was to demonstrate how librarians are moving forward, as though towards an ultimate goal or higher understanding. I wanted to show that librarians are getting smarter, more in tune with their patrons and more adept at reaching for that pinnacle. On reflection, more than a year after the pandemic started, I am convinced that this evolution is not toward some grandiose end of universal enlightenment—but rather it is, as Darwin would have it, a response to the environment. Librarians have weathered the pandemic in much the same ways they have weathered the growth of the Internet (and the doomsayers that it would replace libraries), seasons of austerity and accountability in higher education and other forces, external and internal.

Research on the Application of Cost Accounting in Higher Education Based on Activity-based Costing——Take a Chinese Medicine University as an example

Under the strategic layout of building world-class universities and first-class disciplines, the improvement of the quality requirements of graduates makes the input standard of higher education, namely the increase of education cost, attract wide attention. In this paper, taking the training cost of a Chinese medicine university as the implementation object, activity-based costing method is applied to the education cost accounting of the secondary college of this university, and the results are compared with the traditional cost accounting method, so as to analyze the adaptability and application value of activity-based costing method applied to the education cost of colleges and universities.

Higher Education Accountability and Affordability: Studies of Programmatic Accreditation and Student Loans

Higher Education Accountability and Affordability: Studies of Programmatic Accreditation and Student Loans

The Stratification of Freedom: An Intersectional Analysis of Activist-Scholars and Academic Freedom at U.S. Public Universities

ABSTRACT This study investigates to what extent activist-scholars in U.S. public universities are reassured by the safeguard of academic freedom when considering whether to express their politics publicly. Drawing from 31 in-depth interviews with a diverse pool of faculty from multiple institutions, this study interrogates activists-scholars’ sense of academic freedom protection as it intersects with their race and gender as well as their academic rank. This article argues that in order to ensure the effectiveness of academic freedom policies, not only is it necessary to assess the moments where academic freedom is overtly violated, academic freedom also must be assessed and reassessed constantly within its sociopolitical and economic context. The participants’ narratives reveal that academic freedom—the ostensible bedrock of the U.S. university system—is in fact a stratified freedom drawn across academic-rank lines, reflecting the racial and gender hierarchies of larger society, and that the culture of the academy encourages conformity rather than ethical risk-taking. In addition to advancing our understanding of how academic freedom operates, this study aims to inform institutional policies and practices contributing to higher education accountability efforts by elucidating ways of reinforcing the academy’s social mission.

RESPONSES OF ACCOUNTABILITY TRANFORMATION PRACTICED IN MULTIPLE LEVEL OF INSTITUTIONAL LOGICS FOR BEING AUTONOMOUS STATE UNIVERSITIES IN INDONESIA

This study investigates accountability practices of Indonesian state universities during the reform implementation for being autonomous universites called as PTN Badan Hukum. Although the reform has been implemented based on government regulation, lack of empirical study can be viewed in published articles. For that reason, this study is addresed to filling the lack of accountability research in the reform of state universities in Indonesia. The context of the reform is the adoption of autonomous universities that are more close to the concept of privatisation affected by the internationalization objective of national agenda. Interpretive research approach is adopted to develop inductively a conceptual perspective based on central phenomenon. Moreover, the cases of the study are three Indonesian state universities which implement the form of autonomous state university with pseudo named as UG, UD and UA. Straussian grounded theory approach was adopted in data analysis and collection. The central phenomenon of substantive grounded theory is labelled as multiple accountability responses in various institutional logic during transformation process of state universities that have been transformed from fully governed by Indonesia government become autonomous entities. The main finding of the study explains the presence of various institutional accountibility logics practiced in the context of internationalization process of Indonesia higher education institutions. The various institutional logics arise from personal, professional, managerial and public accountability logics. The various accountability logics display from two different environmental background that are university with less and high internationalization. Less and moderate conflict are resulted from low and high internationalization achievement respectively. The practice of accountability seem displaying more emphasize on public accountability logic in social level, managerial accountability logic in organizational level, personal and professional in individual level. The contribution of this research relates to empirical findings that enrich higher education accountability research in developing countries, employs interpretive methodology and grounded theory, and provides incremental development of institutional logics theory in explaining organizational change in a specific context.

Does the Asian catch-up model of world-class universities work? Revisiting the zero-sum game of global university rankings and government policies

This study examines international brain race for world-class universities as measured by the QS World University Rankings (QS) and the Academic Ranking of World Universities, particularly in the context of Asian nations’ institutional competition and benchmarking against American counterparts. Applying mixed methods with statistical analysis of time-series data from 59 nations and case study of four selected nations, the study examines the cross-national trends of global university rankings and the roles of government policies during the era of performance-driven accountability in higher education. Tracking the zero-sum game of global university rankings over the past decade, the study accounts for key driving factors that produced divergent trajectories among the nations: how and why the USA as established leader and Japan as early catch-up leader become losers, whereas China and Korea as fast followers become winners? Although the Asian catch-up model of world-class university development, high-stakes institutional competitions and targeted funding with STEM priorities contributed to their rapid growth of research productivity and rankings, it reveals major limitations and problems. Drawing cross-national lessons and implications, we discuss new directions of higher education policies and global university ranking measures.