Research and Development in Higher Education - HERDSA

Research and Development in Higher Education: Higher Education in a Globalized World Volume 37 Refereed papers from the 37th HERDSA Annual International Conference 7 - 10 July 2014 Hong Kong Baptist University Hong Kong SAR, Peoples Republic of China

Hasan, T., Ramaprasad, A. & Singai, C. (2014). Rethinking higher education research: Ontology mapping of higher education systems. In A. Kwan, E. Wong, T. Kwong, P. Lau & A. Goody (Eds.), Research and Development in Higher Education: Higher Education in a Globalized World, 37 (pp 161 – 171 ). Hong Kong, 7 – 10 July 2014.

Published 2014 by the Higher Education Research and Development Society of Australasia, Inc PO Box 27, MILPERRA NSW 2214, Australia www.herdsa.org.au ISSN 1441 001X ISBN 978-0-908557-96-7

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Rethinking higher education research: Ontology mapping of higher education systems

Tanveer Hasan Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, India [email protected] Arkalgud Ramaprasad University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, USA [email protected] Chetan Singai EDGE and National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru, India [email protected]

We propose ontology mapping as a method to study higher education systems systematically and systemically. The method can be used to synthesize extant data from multiple sources to visualize the ‘big picture’ of the state-of-the-aspiration of the system, and analyse the ‘bright’, ‘light’, and ‘blind/blank’ spots within it. Higher Education strategies can then be directed at managing these emphases. We first present an ontology of higher education system. We then explain the rationale of its construction and its application as a lens to study a higher education system. We illustrate the mapping with our study of the higher education system in Karnataka, India. We will discuss the sources of data, the collection of data, the quality of data, problems with the data, and the coding of data to derive ontology maps of the state-ofthe-aspiration of the Karnataka higher education system. We will present a resulting map to illustrate how the method can be used to analyse the emphases and managing them strategically. After highlighting the limitations of the method we will discuss how the method can be improved and applied to other higher education systems. In conclusion, we will project how the method can be used to monitor the evolution of a higher education system over time. Thus, we argue that ontology mapping can provide an excellent foundation for developing evidence- based strategies to transform higher education systems. To sustain the long-term transformation of the system both the knowledgebase and the associated mapping have to grow symbiotically. Keywords: ontology mapping; higher education system; higher education strategy

Background The success of a knowledge society or knowledge economy depends on the effectiveness of its higher education system. The society’s challenge is to develop an excellent system with a mix of institutions conducting research to add to global knowledge and those translating global knowledge into practice and policy to address the local needs. In this age of globalization, it is a daunting challenge for developed, developing, and underdeveloped societies. A world-class university system has become the sine qua non for a country’s economic growth in today’s global knowledge economy (Altbach, 2004; Salmi, Annual Conference 2014

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2008). Recently, many countries such as India, China (Mohrman, 2005; Mok, 2005), Japan (Yonezawa, 2007), Australia (Marginson, 2006), the UK (Marginson, 2006), and countries in the European Union (Commission of the European Communities, 2006a, 2006b; van der Wende, 2000) have been examining their respective higher ed u cat io n systems with the objective of transforming them into engines of modern economic growth. (Ramaprasad, 2011) However: Only a small number of leading universities in a few countries can genuinely claim the status of “world class university”. The focus of most higher education establishments is rather on strengthening their particular fields and their appeal to a very closely targeted student clientele. This is why these establishments must often try to meet a number of contradictory demands: to respond adequately to the “massification” of higher education while ensuring the quality of the degrees and diplomas offered; to establish quality control procedures that do not infringe on the academic freedom of teachers; to diversify courses while coping with a substantial decrease in public funding; to be autonomous while remaining responsible and civic-minded; and to combine research excellence with teaching excellence. (Bindé, 2005, p. 91) The focus of higher education has to be systemic – the system has to be more than the sum of its individual institutions. To obtain this synergy, the constituent institutions have to be highly differentiated but yet tightly integrated. They may be differentiated in their emphasis on the key functions of research, teaching, and service, their geographical focus, their disciplinary specializations, or their societal development focus, yet they have to act in concert for the development of the society. They have to form a coherent, coordinated, albeit complex, network to generate knowledge, store it, propagate it, and apply it to the development of society (Bindé, 2005; Ramaprasad, Niranjana, Hasan, Singai, & Dhanaraju, 2012). We present a method for envisioning a higher education system systematically. By mapping all the institutions in the system, we can highlight their aspirations and realities, strengths and weaknesses, and similarities and differences. The method presented here is an alternative to rankings, which are being increasingly used to characterize higher education systems. While the rankings claim highlight the best institutions, they are based on narrow, selective criteria, often biased towards research productivity in the physical sciences, so they are inadequate to portray the system as a whole. Every institution cannot be in the top ten or top 100 – the ones which do not rank high may be excellent in ways not measured by the criteria and may make a significant contribution to the knowledge society. They have to be mapped and nurtured. The proposed mapping will highlight the ‘bright’, ‘light’, ‘blind/blank’ spots in the system without value judgment. A highly emphasized ‘bright’ spot may be a critical component of the system but it may also be a historical carry-over. An infrequently emphasized ‘light’ spot may be appropriately so or its potential may be unrecognized and may deserve more emphasis. An unemphasized empty spot may have been unconsciously overlooked and hence ‘blind’; or, it may be infeasible and hence consciously ‘blank’ (Ramaprasad & Syn, 2013).

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Envisioning the higher education system as a heat map of ‘bright’, ‘light’, and ‘blind/blank’ spots will help develop systematic strategies to advance a knowledge society. Research problem: Mapping a higher education system The following discussion of the research problem is based on Ramaprasad & Syn’s (2013) discussion of meta-analysis and synthesis using an ontology. The challenge of synthesizing diverse, contradictory, and heterogeneous data about a higher education system is that it is large, complex, and ill-structured. Without a clear map of the system, the researchers risk replaying the proverbial story of the five blind men each of whom imagined an elephant differently: a sighted wise man helps them map the ‘parts’ to the whole elephant. Similarly, without a map of the system, higher education researchers will continue to focus on narrow segments and not the whole. The entire system has to be made visible so that its parts can be mapped, the ‘bright’, ‘light’, and ‘blind/blank’ spots can be seen, and the whole can be made greater than the sum of the parts. An ontology can help do this (Ramaprasad & Papagari, 2009). To quote from Ramaprasad & Syn (2013): Ontology is the study of being in contrast to epistemology which is the study of knowing. Its focus is on objects, their categories, and the relationships between them. Ontologies represent the conceptualization of a domain (Gruber, 2008); they organize the terminologies and taxonomies of a domain. An ontology is an “explicit specification of a conceptualization.” (Gruber, 1995, p. 908) It is used to systematize the description of a complex system (Cimino, 2006). “Our acceptance of an ontology is… similar in principle to our acceptance of a scientific theory, say a system of physics; we adopt, at least insofar as we are reasonable, the simplest conceptual scheme into which the disordered fragments of raw experience can be fitted and arranged.” (Quine, 1961, p. 16) We recognize that ontology-based research is new in higher education. The portraits of higher education systems and their institutions, in their entirely, tend to be in wordy narratives, pithy numbers, and a combination of the two – in annual reports, histories, oral narratives, and websites. They contain research information but fail to explicate the core logics of the institutions and the systems. The ontology will help explicate these logics. In the following paper, we will present an ontology of higher education and the logic of its construction, with an illustration for one higher education system. Ontology of higher education

The following ontology is based on Ramaprasad (2011). A higher education institution can be mapped onto five dimensions represented by the six columns shown in Figure 1. They are, from left to right: (a) Aspiration – aspiration level of the institution, (b) Scope – geographical scope of the institution, (c) Function – functions of the institution, (d) Focus – foci of the institution, and (e) Outcome – desired types of development in a knowledge society. The Aspiration/Realization dimension has two sub-dimensions (columns) – the prefix article and the adjective. Together, there are eight possible aspirations/realizations. The five dimensions can be used to characterize an institution’s state-of-the-aspiration. (In the rest of the paper we will capitalize the names of dimensions and the categories within. Thus Sciences will refer to the category in the Focus dimension/ column; sciences will refer to the collection of science disciplines.)


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Figure 1: Ontology of higher education

Aspiration

The Aspiration of an institution defines the reputation it seeks. We have used a simple four- level categorization of Aspiration – Premier, Leading, Advanced, and Basic. In each category an institution may be the only one or one among many as connoted by the article preceding the adjective. The categories are subjective; there are no specific benchmarks to distinguish the three. In India, for example, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) are considered to be Premier institutes; the National Institutes of Technology (NITs) are Leading institutes; and there are a large number of other accredited degree granting institutions without distinctive reputations which may be Advanced or Basic. An institution which is Premier globally will also be Premier Regionally and Nationally. On the other hand an institution which is Premier Nationally may be Leading Regionally or Globally. Thus in specifying the aspiration it is be necessary to do so with reference to the scope. While the IITs and IIMs are premier institutes nationally, they may be leading institutes regionally and globally. Scope

The Scope of an institution defines its geographical reach – how far its reputation extends, where its students will be placed, where its students will be recruited, where its services will be provided, where its faculty will be recruited, where their research will be presented and published, etc. An institution’s Scope can be the World, a Region of the world (Asia, Europe, Americas, Africa, etc.), Country, State, or District(s) in the state. While geographical boundaries are getting blurred creating a global space for higher education, they have not disappeared and are unlikely to do so in the near future. They continue to play a role in the strategy of an institution despite globalization. Function

The Functions of an institution are represented by the three classic categories of Research, Teaching, and Service. All higher education institutions emphasize the three functions but in different measure. Today Research tends to receive the greatest attention in the context of rankings and ratings. In some instances, especially in professional schools, Teaching may get equal attention. While in the past, the Service role of a university has been relegated to third place, the recognition of its role in economic and social development is increasing the attention given to this aspect of a university’s role. An important factor determining the attention given to each of these functions is their role in revenue generation, especially in these resource constrained


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times. In the sciences, for example, research can generate significant revenues through grants and contracts; in the professions such as business, teaching can generate revenues through the large demand for their programs; and in some professions such as medicine, clinical service to patients can generate revenues. Thus, a complex set of considerations determine the emphasis placed on the three functions in a higher education institution. Focus

The Focus of a higher education institution may be the Sciences, Professions, Vocations, Fine Arts, or Humanities/Social Sciences. Many comprehensive institutions focus on all of them; the specialized institutions, focus on one of them or a subcategory within. The five categories differ in many ways – their emphasis on research, teaching, and service; their sources of revenue; their expenditures; their research productivity benchmarks; their sources of reputation; and, so on. Thus, the ‘business model’, if one may use that term, can vary significantly across the four categories. There can also be similar significant variations within each category. A vision of a comprehensive institution has to accommodate these differences – one vision will not fit all its foci. On the other hand, a specialized institute can have a single vision corresponding to its focus. Outcome

The Outcomes of a higher education institution may be Scientific, Technical, Economic, Social and Cultural development in different measures (Ramaprasad & Sridhar, 2011). They represent the five primary types of development for the emergence of a knowledge society. An institution focusing on research in sciences may, for example, seek not only scientific development through discoveries, but also social development through the application of those discoveries. From the perspective of the society, the different types of developments have to be balanced to be sustained. Overemphasis on technical development to the exclusion of cultural development may be as dysfunctional as the obverse. There are 3000 (2*4*5*3*5*5) possible aspirations of a higher education institution encapsulated in the ontology. These descriptions can be derived by concatenating a naturalEnglish sentence left to right, choosing a word from each column and interleaving the word/phrase adjacent to the columns. Consider two such concatenations: (a) The Premier institution in the World in Research in Sciences for Scientific development in a knowledge economy, or (b) A Basic institution in the City in Education in Arts for Cultural development in a knowledge economy. The characteristics of the two institutions would be very different but both would be very relevant to a knowledge-based economy. An institution may be described using many combinations from the ontology – not just one. For example, a comprehensive university may incorporate both the above descriptions. Thus the simple ontology provides a sufficiently fine-grained structured natural language framework for characterizing an institution’s profile. An effective higher education system cannot have only premier institutions or only basic ones; it will have a balanced mix of the two and a selection from the other 2998 possibilities. Using the ontology, we can paint a portrait of a higher education system. An excellent system may have a few institutions which are ‘The Premier institution in the World in Research’; a large number which are ‘A Basic institution in the State/City in Education’; and many whose aspirations, scope, and functions are in between these two Annual Conference 2014

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extremes. The institutions together focus extensively on the gamut of disciplines from the sciences to humanities, and seek outcomes from scientific to cultural development in a knowledge economy. The portrait may vary depending upon the country, the culture, and the context. The ontology for mapping a higher education system offers a number of distinctive advantages. It provides a way to describe an institution, and the system, using a set of structured natural language sentences, each of which is semantically valid and makes intuitive sense. Thus, while the encoding of an institution’s vision statement using the statements concatenated from the ontological framework may not be identical to the original, one can compare the two semantically and establish their equivalence. The large number of possible concatenations encapsulated in a very parsimonious ontology provides the flexibility necessary to encode a wide range of institutions in the higher education system. Thus it allows one to map the parts (institutions) and the whole (the higher education system) systemically and systematically. As a consequence the system can be studied at different levels of granularity – one can study it at the institutional level, an aggregation of institutions by different criteria, an aggregation of all institutions, etc. Method Karnataka (a state in South India) has a long and rich tradition of higher education. The erstwhile Mysore University is among the oldest in India. In the past few decades there has been an explosion of new universities and university-like institutions accompanied by a reorganization of the universities themselves. The challenge for a successful transformation into a knowledge society will be to weave the wide variety of universities and universitylike institutions into an excellent higher education system which can compete with the best systems in the world in a global economy. This study focuses on the population of 65 institutions of higher education in Karnataka (Table 1); it includes both traditional universities and other institutions of higher education. One of the primary reasons to include institutions that do not figure in the traditional list of universities and educational institutions was to make the list inclusive – to include all institutions which contribute to the state’s knowledge ecology. Our understanding of the role of higher education institutions in the knowledge ecology would be incomplete without these institutions. The university-like institutions (non-university institutions, for example, research institutions, with degree granting authority) which have been included in our list play an important role in the formation of a sustainable knowledge base for the ecology. As will become evident later all these institutes have aspirations to contribute towards the knowledge ecology and are doing so, as evident by their research (publications, patents, etc.), education (courses, programs, etc.), and service (professional, extension, etc.). Many of them have a different profile – contributing to the variation in and hence the robustness of the knowledge ecology. Last, these institutions highlight the geographical and social expectations and their strategic importance in the knowledge ecology of Karnataka. In the following we will discuss the method mapping the aspirations of these institutions based on publicly available data. We will present the results as visuals highlighting the ‘bright’, ‘light’, and ‘blind/blank’ spots in Karnataka’s higher education system. In the conclusion we will discuss how the method can be generalized to map the state-of-theaspiration of higher education systems and the value of such mapping.


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Data Collection

The aspiration of each institution was inferred from their vision statements, mission statements, objectives, Vice Chancellor’s speeches and similar documents available on the website of the institutions. These were downloaded during the period May-June 2012. Of the 65 institutions 47 have explicit vision/mission statements. For 17 of the remaining 18, the other data were sufficiently rich to infer the vision/mission; for the remaining one institution the only data available was the description of the institution. The full text of the above mentioned documents were downloaded and shared among the team members. The language of the documents is English in all except one institution; the lone exception was in Kannada. Table 1: Higher education institutions in Karnataka (2012) 1 2 3 4

Alternative Law Forum Alliance University Bangalore University Sri Krishnadevaraya University (Bellary University) 5 BLDE University 6 Centre for Research in Social Sciences and Education 7 Central Food Technological Research Institute 8 Centre for Internet and Society 9 Central Institute of Indian Languages 10 Centre for the Study of Culture and Society 11 Central University of Karnataka, Gulbarga 12 Christ University 13 Davanagere University 14 Defence Research and Development Organisation 15 Gulbarga University 16 International Centre for Theoretical Sciences 17 Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore 18 Indian Institute of Science 19 Institute for Social and Economic Change 20 International Institute of Information Technology 21 Jagadguru Sri Shivarathreeswara University (JSSU) 22 Jain University 23 Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research 24 K.L.E Academy of Higher Education and Research 25 Kannada University 26 Karnataka State Open University 27 Karnataka State Women University 28 Karnataka State Law University 29 Karnataka State Music University 30 Karnataka University 31 Kuvempu University 32 Karnataka Veterinary, Animal and Fisheries Sciences University 33 Mangalore University


34 Manipal Academy of Higher Education 35 National Centre for Biological Sciences 36 National Bureau of Agriculturally Important Insects 37 Nature Conservation Foundation 38 National Dairy Research Institute 39 National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences 40 National Institute of Technology 41 National Law School of India University 42 NIAS, Bangalore 43 NITTE University 44 Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences 45 Raman Research Institute 46 Rani Chennamma University 47 Sanskrit University of Karnataka 48 Sri Devaraj Urs Academy of Higher Education and Research 49 Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology 50 Sri Siddhartha Academy of Higher Education 51 Tumkur University 52 University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore 53 University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad 54 University of Agricultural Sciences, Raichur 55 University of Mysore 56 University of Horticultural Sciences, Bagalkot 57 Visvesvaraya Technological University 58 Vivekananda Yoga Anusandhana Samsthana 59 Azim Premji University (WIPRO University) 60 Yenepoya University 61 Center for Wildlife Studies 62 Institute of Ayuvrveda and Integrative Medicine 63 All India Institute of Speech and Hearing 64 Indian Institute of Human Settlement 65 Central Sericultural Research and Training Institute

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None the vision/mission statements and many of the related documents have a date stamp. Since they were posted on the universities’ official websites, we assumed that they were the most current statement of the aspiration. We note that the present analysis is cross-sectional as of May-June 2012. However, changes to the institutions’ aspirations can be incorporated continuously into the knowledgebase to provide an updated map as well as a longitudinal perspective. Data Coding

The statements of aspirations vary considerably in format, length, content, and detail. The objective of coding was to construct a synthetic vision/mission statement for each institution using the structured language of the ontological framework. Following are two examples: University A • Original: “University A’s vision is to be a world-class University that nurtures talent and catalytically transforms the lives of millions through excellence in teaching, research, service and community development. To uphold a commitment to shaping lives through scholarly teaching and learning, and that which contributes to an equitable and holistic transformation of society at large.” • Synthetic: A leading institution in the world in education, service and research in sciences, professions, humanities, and fine arts for scientific, technical, economic, social and cultural development in a knowledge society. University B • Original: “To create a generation of human resources to successfully meet the global challenges.”

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• Synthetic: An advanced institute in the state/province in education, research, and service in humanities, sciences, and fine arts for social development in a knowledge society.

Synthetic Vision/Mission statement A leading institution in the world in education, service and research in sciences, professions, humanities, and arts for scientific, technical, economic, social and cultural development in a 5 knowledge society. An advanced institute in the state/province in education, research, and service in humanities, sciences, and arts for social development in a knowledge society.

Figure 2: Sample coding of the state-of-the-aspiration

The synthetic statements, because of their common underlying structure, permit us to systematically compare, contrast, analyze, and integrate the states-of-the-aspiration of the 65 institutions.

The final synthetic vision/mission statement for each institution is based on consensus coding among the four team members. The consensus was reached through a three-step


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process: 1. The 65 institutions were split approximately equally between two team members who constructed a draft synthetic statement individually. 2. The draft statement was reviewed by one of the other two team members not involved in the initial coding and edited, again individually. 3. The revised draft statements were reviewed by all four team members in the case of 35 institutions, and three team members for the remaining 30 institutions to arrive at a consensus. The consensus was the product of face-to-face discussions and iterative development. The participants went back and forth between the draft synthetic statements, the data, and occasionally the website to assure that the statements fully encapsulated the stated aspiration of the institution. Through these iterations we sought to assure the reliability of the coding. The team also sought to capture the priority of the Function, Focus, and Outcome in the ontological framework based on the order of presentation of these items and their emphasis in the sources of data mentioned earlier. For example, some institutions were coded as ranking Teaching first, Research second, and Service third; others as Scientific Development first, Social Development next, and the other types of development not at all. Thus, the aspiration of each institution is coded as a row of data in a spreadsheet as shown in Figure 2 for University A and University B. Results We present the ‘big picture’ of the state-of-aspiration of Karnataka’s higher education system as an ontological map in Figure 3. We will describe it first and then discuss the results. This illustrates the potential of the method. Space limitation prevents us from presenting more detailed results which are available in the report (Ramaprasad et al., 2012).

Figure 3: Ontological map of the state-of-the-aspiration of Karnataka’s higher education system

The highest frequency item(s) is each column has been highlighted in red, the second highest in orange, the third highest in yellow, and the fourth highest in green in order to enhance the visualization of the state-of-the-aspiration. In the ontological map, the numbers in parentheses indicate the number of institutions (out of 65) with the particular element in their synthetic vision/mission statements. Thus, for example, 30 institutions envision the Country as their scope, 22 the State, 13 the World, and none the Region or District(s). Similarly, 43 focus on the Sciences, 38 on the Professions, 26 on


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Humanities/Social Sciences, 18 on Fine Arts, and 1 on Vocations. Since most institutions emphasize multiple functions, focus, and outcomes the total frequency counts in those columns exceeds 65. Thus, reading across the ontological map it can be seen that the dominant aspiration is to be ‘A leading institution in the country in research/education in sciences for social development in a knowledge society.’ Similarly, there is virtually no emphasis on being or becoming ‘The basic institution in the district(s) in vocations.’ The state-of-the-aspiration of the higher education system in Karnataka is rich but not ideal. In the above we have painted a portrait of the system as an ontological map. We observe that: 1. The aspiration of the higher education system is modest and varied, but not ideally balanced; 2. Its scope is rich and diverse, but not well distributed; 3. Its functions are appropriate in the aggregate and reasonably well distributed; 4. Its focus is varied but non-uniform and needs to be reassessed; and 5. Its outcomes are appropriate but their emphases skewed and need to be realigned to foster the development of a knowledge society. Conclusion Comprehensively assessing the state of a higher education system by mapping has been a low priority in higher education research – ranking systems based on selective criteria have gained prominence. The importance of mapping has not been explored, and hence its potential contribution to the overall planning of these systems has been limited. This failure has led to rhetorical lament about the state of affairs of the systems which in turn has led to well- meaning but evidence-deficient measures that do not encapsulate a vision of the system. To obtain insights about a higher education institution, qualitative and quantitative data have to be synthesized into a big picture. The mapping cannot be of its activities alone: its aspirations must also be mapped. By juxtaposing the aspirations of higher education institutions within a system, one can describe how they are differentiated and integrated, and how together they can contribute to a knowledge society. Such a map would lead to proactive strategic course correction, goals alignment, and planning based on the profiles of the institutions. Ontological mapping offers us a method and the evidence that has been lacking in the usually anecdotal and idealistic development plans for higher education. The method has an added advantage: it intuitively suggests patterns of redirection for the institutions and the system as a whole. The semantics of the ontology may limit its ability to capture all the nuances and complexities. However, it has sufficient granularity (with 3000 possible combinations) for a finer-grained map than is available today. The framework may be refined further, if necessary. Thus, ontological mapping contributes to the research on rethinking higher education by providing a method for (re)visualizing it. References Altbach, P. G. (2004). The costs and benefits of world-class universities. Academe, 90(1), 20-23. Bindé, J. (2005). Towards knowledge societies: UNESCO world report Retrieved from http://unesdoc.unesco. org/images/0014/001418/141843e.pdf Cimino, J. J. (2006). In defense of the Desiderata. Journal of Biomedical Informatics, 39(3), 299-306.


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