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Showing posts with label IT education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IT education. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 18, 2011

An Entrepreneurial Development Framework for Institutions of Higher Education


Problem statement
The research question under discussion is formulated as What minimum requirements should be set in an entrepreneurial and innovation framework in order to support entrepreneurial and innovation knowledge creation at institutions of higher education?This article attempts to develop a framework to encourage entrepreneurial thinking within a higher education environment, taking into account consideration policy and infrastructural requirements, knowledge creation fundamentals and institutional arrangements.
Policy intervention
Policy initiatives within higher education institutions are essential to establish guidance for entrepreneurs, funding agencies, industry, labour in general and for students and institutions of higher education in particular.Government policies.The higher education institution policies:The higher education institution must provide a working atmosphere in which entrepreneurship can thrive. Technology licensing offices (TLOs) must be established at the higher education institutions. An investment in patent rights by the higher education institutions will ensure future capital investments into the institution. Policies, procedures and network contacts to capture venture capital must be established.Research and Development policies in entrepreneurship must be refined and focused. Currently, the focus of entrepreneurial research at Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa falls within the three niche areas of business clustering, business development and management of innovation. Parties contributing to such a knowledge node might include industrial partners, specialists from industry, relevant government agencies, foreign investors, community forums, labour unions, academic specialists, research foundations, funding agencies, students and potential entrepreneurs. An information network connecting entrepreneurs to venture capitalists should be established within this knowledge node.Gregorio and Shane (2003:212) also emphasize the need for the higher education institution to demonstrate intellectual eminence. To ensure an intellectual eminence of their outputs, higher education institutions should select students carefully.The higher education institution should also encourage the development of incubators, either close to the institution or close to the involved industry. Information networks connecting entrepreneurs to venture capitalists should be established within the higher education institution.
Strategy to develop an entrepreneurial innovative culture
When training entrepreneurs two realms of knowledge should be recognized, "tacit" and "explicit". The engineer is a man of action developing mental skills but seldom having the opportunity to develop manual skills. Lin, et al. (2004:4) recognize the need for formal and informal funding relationships within the business environment. Lin, et al. (2004:6) thus regard social capital as "entrepreneurial social infrastructure". External triggers that encourage entrepreneurship arise from developments in the external environment. Ireland, et al. (2006:12). Markman and Baron (2003:288) regard self-efficacy as an important success factor in developing entrepreneurs. Policy initiatives from within the higher education institution should establish the knowledge node which should include academic specialists, research foundations, relevant government officials, industrial partners, specialists from industry, foreign investors, community forums, labour unions, funding agencies, students and potential entrepreneurs. Information networks connecting entrepreneurs to venture capitalists should be established within this knowledge node. Intellectual Property policies should be developed by the business development niche area to ensure that possible TLO start-ups within the higher education institution are protected and that patenting, marketing or other up-front costs are paid by the higher education institution or associated enterprises. The higher education institution could liaise with the Innovation Hub established in conjunction with the CSIR. A teaching strategy should be developed to foster tacit knowledge development. Group work, problem solving, idea generation, innovating, designing and face to face communication should be extensively used.
Source by ezinearticles.com

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Open Source Software in Higher Education


The higher education sector is quite unlike other industries. Most commercial proprietary application vendors develop their applications focused on a wider domain spread across industries. The success of community developed open source software is quite well established. Through the course of its formative years, the open source community based approach in education has developed several alternative models.
Community Source Model
The adoption of open source in higher education seems to suggest otherwise. FLOSS (Free/Libre and Open Source Software) communities are thriving well in learning environments too.In a community source project, multiple institutions come together to partner in the project. The initial focus of community source projects is on collaboration between institutions. Most community based open source projects slowly migrate to open source in the later stages.Kuali Financials was borne due to the lack of open source solutions Enterprise applications in the higher education sector are comprised of a mix of some proprietary application vendors and some key open source community initiatives.
Economic Models of Open Source
The community approach has proved sustainable as in the case of the Sakai project. Rob Abel notes how open source is a "great fit for higher education". The study, based on an analysis of open source projects in education, opines that the community-based approach is an interesting model that also helps reduce the inherent risks in adopting an open source approach.Applications like the Sakai and Kuali have proved beyond doubt that open source applications offer great configurability.
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