Direct and incentive planning within a university

This paper explores appropriate roles of “direct” and “incentive” academic planning in helping universities relate advantageously to the aspect of their environments represented by the instructional and research demands of their constituencies. Adopting these roles requires a university to have flexible, uncommitted resources which are difficult to obtain from program reductions because of the impossibility of administratively valuing a university's programs. The paper presents evidence that at one university these funds can be derived alternatively from improved tuition policy and legislative funding relationships.     

Systems analysis and university planning

The paper has three objectives: (1) to illustrate how systems analysis may aid university planning; (2) to display some applications of systems analysis to a specific university planning situation; and (3) to indicate how some of the difficulties of decision-making in universities pose the need for further development of systems analysis. The CAMPUS type models were employed in a major planning problem at the University of Toronto's Faculty of Medicine. The models were used to study the cost and resource implications of alternative enrolment projections, curriculum designs, research programs, and staffing policy. Results of computer-aided analyses were provided to decision-makers and committees within the Faculty. Major stress is placed on an interaction between university decision-makers and systems analysts. A number of specific results of the analysis are displayed in the paper.     

Mathematical programming for nominating exchange students for international universities: The impact of stakeholders’ objectives and fairness constraints on allocations

We consider the problem of nominating exchange students to attend international universities where places are limited. We take into account three objectives: The sending university aims to maximize the number of nominations, the students seek nomination for a highly preferred university and, finally, the receiving universities strive for excellent incoming students. Pairwise comparison of students should guarantee the following fairness: A student with higher academic achievements should be preferred over a student with lower academic achievements. We provide mathematical programming models of the nomination problem which maximize the overall objectives and guarantee different types of pairwise fairness. Several years of real data from a major school are employed to evaluate the models’ performance including a benchmark against the heuristic that is used by the school. We show analytically and experimentally that the heuristic approach fails to guarantee some pairwise fairness. Our results reveal the following four insights: First, compared to the current approach, up to 6.6% more students can be nominated with our optimization model while ensuring all pairwise fairness perspectives. Second, on average, students are nominated with better academic achievements. Third, the problem instances can be solved to optimality within a fraction of a second even for large-size instances comprising more than 500 students and about 150 schools offering nearly 450 exchange places. This is important for its use in practice. Last, up to 17.9% more students can be nominated when considering the overall objective to maximize nominations.     

对我国高校人力资源管理的探讨

高校的人力资源是指高校所拥有的具有一定数量和一定教学科研与管理水平的教学科研人员、教辅人员和教育行政管理人员。高校在办学过程中,要充分发挥每一个教育工作者的作用。本文对高校人力资源管理的要求和我国高校人力资源管理中存在的问题进行了分析,并提出了加强高校人力资源管理的措施。     

Universities’ efficiency and the socioeconomic characteristics of their environment — Evidence from an empirical analysis

This paper investigates how the efficiency of universities is affected by the characteristics of the territory in which they operate. The theoretical framework combines two perspectives: (1) the resource dependence theory, suggesting that the location of university can determine the amount of resources available to it; (2) institutional isomorphism, according to which the characteristics of other higher education institutions located in the same area may shape the university production function and the efficiency of its operations. In order to test this framework we use data on Russian universities and a non-parametric conditional order-m efficiency estimator with two categories of contextual variables. The first group includes the social, economic and cultural characteristics of the region where the university is located, while the second deal with the characteristics of other higher education institutions located in the same region. The main contribution of this paper is that it applies efficiency models that incorporate exogenous factors associated with a geographical area in context of higher education. Our findings highlight that the managerial efficiency of universities is strongly associated with the contextual factors of the environment in which they are embedded. Important policy implication of this result is that different public policies in higher education should treat particular universities differently depending on characteristics of context in which they operate.     

A Markov Decision Process approach for balancing intelligence and interdiction operations in city-level drug trafficking enforcement

We study a resource allocation problem in which law enforcement aims to balance intelligence and interdiction decisions to fight against illegal city-level drug trafficking. We propose a Markov Decision Process framework, apply a column generation technique, and develop a heuristic to solve this problem. Our approaches provide insights into how law enforcement should prioritize its actions when there are multiple criminals of different types known to them. We prove that when only one action can be implemented, law enforcement will take action (either target or arrest) on the highest known criminal type to them. Our results demonstrate that: (i) it may be valuable to diversify the action taken on the same criminal type when more than one action can be implemented; (ii) the marginal improvement in terms of the value of the criminals interdicted per unit time by increasing available resources decreases as resource level increases; and (iii) there are losses that arise from not holistically planning the actions of all available resources across distinct operations against drug trafficking networks.     

我国多校区管理模式的探讨

多校区高校在我国兴起于20世纪90年代高等学校的大规模合并、扩招后,形成历史虽短,发展速度却很快,多校区高校管理已成为我国但前的热点和难点问题,应该重视和加强这方面的探索和实践。本文通过对高校多校区管理职能的分析,以及多校区形成过程中遇到的困难,并通过分析国外高校多校区管理模式,探讨我国高校多校区的管理模式。     

Multilevel IRT models for the analysis of satisfaction for distance learning during the Covid-19 pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic played a relevant role in the diffusion of distance learning alternatives to “traditional” learning based on classroom activities, to allow university students to continue attending lessons during the most severe phases of the pandemic. In such a context, investigating the students' perspective on distance learning provides useful information to stakeholders to improve effective educational strategies, which could be useful also after the end of the emergency to favor the digital transformation in the higher educational setting.Here we focus on the satisfaction in distance learning for Italian university students. We rely on data comprising students enrolled in various Italian universities, which were inquired about several aspects related to learning distance.We explicitly take into account the hierarchical nature of data (i.e., students nested in universities) and the latent nature of the variable of interest (i.e., students' learning satisfaction) through a multilevel Item Response Theory model with students' and universities' covariates.As the main results of our study, we find out that distance learning satisfaction of students: (i) depends on the University where they study; (ii) is affected by some students' socio-demographic characteristics, among which psychological factors related to Covid-19; (iii) is affected by some observable university characteristics.     

The costs and benefits of a satellite-based system for natural resource management

This paper presents the results of a two-year study commissioned by the Department of Interior to examine the costs and benefits of a remote data acquisition system for natural resource management. Because earlier experience with a number of experimental programs had been so favorable, it was felt that a full analysis should be undertaken. Subsequently, five areas were selected for detailed investigation: agriculture, land use, forestry, water resources, and rangeland. In each instance, the modeling was performed within the framework of a case study. Net benefits were derived from two sources: (1) cost savings at the data acquisition level; and (2) increased economic efficiencies at the operational level. Calculations were done parametrically to account for technological diffusion, uncertainties in implementation, and various assumptions concerning discount rates and cloud cover impacts. The results have shown that a two-satellite system will more than likely pay for itself over the program's planned ten year life.     

Assessing academic department efficiency at a public university

The assessment of public universities has gained importance because of the demands from such state government bodies as the executive and the legislature. Public universities are increasingly being asked to account for how efficiently they have used diminishing state financial resources. Administrators thus have the responsibility of ensuring that the university's financial, human, and physical resources are allocated to academic departments in a manner that enhances the institution's efficiency. In this paper, data envelopment analysis (DEA) is proposed for evaluating the efficiency of academic departments at a public university. DEA provides a single measure of efficiency for each academic unit. It also identifies the causes behind the inefficiencies exhibited by poor performing units, as well as the changes that these units need to make in order to improve their efficiencies. Its usefulness as a planning tool is also discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Time Management in the Cost Evaluation of Limited Resource Programs

Planning, implementing and evaluating an intervention program all hinge around time. A program’s actions are planned according to a forecast of the time required to achieve certain objectives, and the program’s implementation among a group of users is conditioned by its real time application. Similarly, program evaluation needs to take into consideration the time resource when analysing objectively the extent to which a program’s targets have been reached, and when conducting a cost analysis of the program. In limited resource programs, any disparity between the scheduled time and the real time available can have serious consequences, and even undermine a program’s efficacy. Time management, above all where resources are limited, is therefore the linchpin in the planning, implementation and evaluation of an intervention program. In this study we analyse the utility of PERT and CPM as basic tools for the efficient time management of limited resource programs.     

Inter-threshold resource planning for public higher educational systems

Efforts to design comprehensive systems of long-range resource planning for public colleges and universities in the United States are frustrated in the sense that most states follow a social demand approach to educational planning. Literally thousands of decision makers—including students, parents, formal administrators and faculty members-affect the overall behavior of the system. Nevertheless, more and more states are creating centralized higher educational coordinating agencies to conduct long-range planning and to recommend policies for the future development of the higher educational system. This paper describes research which has attempted to link together three decision thresholds in the resource planning process. These are (a) academic departments or colleges which are combined into (b) a total college or university, which is one part of (c) a state system of higher education containing several colleges and universities.     

企业人力资源规划对就业的影响分析

企业人力资源规划是企业人力资源管理的核心职能,企业通过人力资源规划调整其内部人力资源的供求平衡,从而直接影响到企业的具体用人行为。当前就业问题仍然是我国非常突出的经济和社会问题,加之金融危机的影响,就业问题更加严峻。企业是实现就业的主体,是影响社会就业的一个很重要的因素,同时企业的人力资源规划行为具有政策导向性,企业应当承担相应的社会责任,从而根据就业政策采取合适的人力资源规划措施以缓解社会就业的压力。     

A goal programming model for the siting of multilevel EMS systems.

Facility siting models known as location covering techniques have proven to be useful particularly for emergency medical services (EMS) planning, given the importance of ambulances responding to demand within some maximum time constraint. These models represent a set of methods which focus the health planner's attention on the access of people to health care, since they attempt to “cover” people in need of service within some specified time standard.This research develops a technique for the locational planning of sophisticated EMS systems, characterized by multiple levels of emergency health services. Specifically, a two-tiered system with “basic life support” and “advanced life support” capabilities is modeled as a goal program.By applying location covering techniques within a goal programming framework, this study develops a method for the siting of multilevel EMS systems so that (1) each service level maximizes coverage of its own demand population, and (2) “back-up” coordination between levels is assured. The usefulness of this goal program as a health planning tool is evidenced in the model's explicit articulation of EMS policy objectives and its ability to link system levels in terms of “goal-directed behavior”. The working of this multilevel covering model is demonstrated by reference to EMS planning scenarios and related numerical examples.     

A cost-effectiveness approach to planning and control for the nonprofit organization—a university example

An initial cost-effectiveness model which simultaneously considers interrelationships among outputs, resources and subjective values held by decision makers is developed for use in the resource allocation process within a university setting. Based upon the reactions of selected decision makers at the University of Illinois, an expanded model of a resource allocation system is developed as a means for integrating academic and financial planning within a college. The expanded model illustrates how the cost-effectiveness concept may be tailored to the needs of decision makers in other non-profit organizations.     

基于VMware的数字化校园服务器虚拟化平台

随着高校数字化建设的飞速发展,多种教学、管理的应用也使得数据化校园成为高校信息化的一大难题。要支持如此庞大的应用就需要庞大数量的服务器来支持,大规模硬件平台给高校各种活动提供强大支持的同时,也带来了资源利用率不足、资源调配不灵活和管理难度大等困扰。在简述服务器虚拟化技术和虚拟化软件的基础上,探讨了如何将其应用到数字化校园的建设中。     

加强人力资源管理提高学校管理效率

高校人力资源的管理工作是学校管理的一项重要组成,如何提高学校对人力资源的管理和规划,提高学校的竞争水平,是摆在高校面前的一个难题。本文对人力资源的概念及其在高校管理工作的地位作了阐述分析,并论述了其存在的问题及原因,并针对这些问题提出了如何加强高校人力资源管理,提高学习管理效率的建议措施,期待转变高校人力资源的管理方式并进行创新,与国家实施人才强国战略同步,建设一支高素质的人才队伍,为我国的教育事业增砖添瓦。     

Impact of prototyping resource environments and timing of awareness of constraints on idea generation in product design

Research and development laboratories in universities and firms around the world try to maximize innovation with a limited set of resources. However, questions remain about the influence of resource constraints on idea generation in early-stage product design. Multiple embedded case studies were conducted with engineering students and faculty at two university campuses in Mexico. Students developed sketches for products that would satisfy an open-ended design problem in a constrained-resource setting, where the variables were the timing of when information about these constraints was revealed, and the regular prototyping environment of the student. The evidence suggests that the timing of awareness of constraints can have an impact on design outcomes, but that this effect varies depending on the designer's regular prototyping resource environment.     

The location of public services considering the mode of travel

By reason of their generally longer travel times, transit users are not so well-served by many public facilities as are automobile drivers. This paper investigates the implications of this fact for the location of a specific type of service, public child day care. A location-allocation model is employed to determine the most accessible locations for a set of centres in Edmonton, Canada, for users of both modes. Transit is found to be capable of providing only 51% of the accessibility of the automobile, at 2.4 times the average travel time. The argument is advanced that in order to reduce the inequality of service to a minimum, public facilities should be located with the accessibilities of transit users in mind. The optimal systems are compared with Edmonton's present system which is found to be spatially inefficient and quite discriminatory in its inefficiency against transit users. This is attributed to the city's piecemeal planning policy and an inadequate understanding of the notion of accessibility. The paper concludes by recommending improvements which would improve our simple diagnostic model to the level of a useful planning device.     

Two-level national-regional planning and mathematical programming decomposition applied to spatial price equilibrium models2

This paper is concerned with computation strategies related with the quantitative analysis of only a sector of a global economy (e.g. agriculture or energy). Under a ceteris paribus condition on the environment of the sector, and within the hypothetical context of the neoclassical economic theory, it is well known a type of partial equilibrium model that can be cast mathematically into an optimization framework. We attempt here to a typical specification which considers spatially separated markets, that has been called spatial price equilibrium model and that has contained within it many classical transportation problems (one for each commodity). The model is specially suitable for mathematical programming decomposition, resulting regional sybsystems whose coupling variables are the transportation flows. We explore here this structure, discussing two decomposition algorithms with economic interpretations that suggest decentralized procedures for planning. The first—of the price coordination type—is a variant of the Dantzig-Wolfe's principle which is expected to have a low number of cycles of information flow between the master level and the sub-problems (at each cycle it is calculated a series of regional production-consumption responses to alternative prices generated by transhipment problems at the central planning level). The second algorithm specializes the Geoffrion's projection/feasible directions technique, so interpreting the problem solution within the context of a net-output target coordination.