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Production and operations management (POM) is a key factor for the competitiveness of any business and university training in POM is a critical element in the preparation of future managers. The course contents, the teaching staff and the teaching methodology used are three of the most important aspects of successful training. These aspects have been explored in an empirical study of the current status of the teaching of POM in Spanish universities, based on a survey of the total population of instructors of this discipline. This is the first study to reveal an in‐depth and comprehensive picture of this topic in a country of the European Union, and it is hoped that this will encourage analogous studies of other countries in Europe and beyond. In the present paper, we shall discuss the more relevant results in respect of the content of POM programs being taught; we illustrate the type of instruction available in Spanish universities, indicate the differences between the main academic degrees in which the discipline figures, and undertake a constructive critical analysis. The teaching staff and methodologies used are analyzed in another article in this journal.

Faced with declining government funding support and rising student loan debt, recently timely graduation in higher education has become a focal point of discussion at many institutions, particularly public universities. Timely graduation requires a student to successfully enroll in and complete a set of required and elective courses, the relationship of which is bound by the courses’ prerequisite requirements. However, due to the fact that class capacity is oftentimes limited and wrongly timed, many students find it challenging to stay on track. A well-structured degree roadmap that takes all factors into consideration and specifies the right courses to take by semester will better guide students’ course selection and thus increase their chance of earning their degrees within the four-year time window. Additionally, it will also allow administrators to do better capacity planning, and hence increase course accessibility to students. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In this research, some operational techniques such as line balancing and simulation are applied to restructure and improve degree roadmaps, and assess the resulting outcomes. Some innovative methods are proposed to improve the processes on which students proceed to degree.

The results based on historical data that contains millions of student records spanning over eight-year time window demonstrate that the improved degree roadmaps can substantially increase students’ chance of completing the degree in a four-year time window. The research findings provide university administrators with cost-effective solutions.

This research breaks a new ground in literature due to its unique approach and focus. To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this research is one of the first attempts to systematically study the impact of degree roadmap on timely graduation. This research focuses on finding solutions that are within the institution’s control, hence the proposed solutions are implementable and will provide university administrators with new tools and perspectives to enhance student success.

Two of the most important trends in higher education have been the emergence of online learning and efforts to internationalise the curriculum and student body. While most universities embraced both these trends, insufficient attention has been paid to how the two approaches might be mutually supportive. Online education offers the opportunity to bring together students living in different countries in common courses and programmes, but cross-border enrolments remain low and new models and approaches are needed to build educational offerings that bring students and faculty from different countries together in sustained educational engagement online. This paper highlights a case study of an innovative blended double degree business masters’ program between Royal Roads University (RRU) in Canada and the Management Center Innsbruck (MCI) in Austria that allows mid-career, blended learning students to build international competencies and networks while continuing to work full-time. Through this double degree program, students can complete a Master of Global Management (MGM) at RRU and an MBA at MCI in approximately 24 months. Mid-career students have traditionally had limited opportunities to participate in an international education due to work and family constraints, but the pairing of two blended programmes creates an opportunity for these students to engage in a rich cross-cultural learning community. The paper highlights the challenges of integrating online learning into internationalisation strategies and explains how double degree programmes such as the RRU-MCI collaboration provide advantages that help overcome the challenges associated with online programmes that enrol students from different countries.

Proposes to attempt to explain why this situation of marketing as a significant specialism will change within the next few years. Discusses the three main items having a bearing on university education possibilities: The Crick Report; the White Paper of May 1966; and the Council for National Academic Awards (CNAA). States a general indication of subjects taken in a business studies degree with marketing as a major specialism and recommends various universities for varying courses within this specialism. Summarises that for marketing in particular, the new system is ideally placed as long as some kind of authoritative and constructive brief can be given it by the exponents of the subject, for whose successors the degrees have been designed.

Describes the new trends in German library and information science (LIS) education and the status of the international degrees in Germany, referring to changes to the Framework Act of 1998, which enabled the institutions of higher education to award Bachelor’s degree on completion of undergraduate study courses and Master’s degree on completion of postgraduate study courses. Describes the introduction of credit point systems, the shift from a system based on the number of lecture hours to a credit system based on the number of hours of student workload. In Germany different credit point systems exist. This paper focuses on the most important model of credit point systems used by the German LIS faculties. Finally the special problems in Germany with the change from the diploma to the Bachelor and Master are mentioned.

Offerings of electronic courses and degrees are growing at a surprising rate. Some have surmised that E courses represent the future for higher education and that the traditional university may soon be a relic of the past: do E courses represent a significant improvement over traditional pedagogy for educating students? In this context, 305 questionnaires were sent by e‐mail to accounting chairpersons in the USA. A total of 94 usable responses was received. Nearly 65 per cent of the respondents indicated that E courses are simply correspondence courses presented with new technology. Those who view E courses as correspondence courses are more negative on offering E courses in university programs or offering degrees through the completion of only E courses. They are also more restrictive with E courses, favoring the proctoring of exams and requiring students to come to campus as part of the E course. Additionally, they tended to agree that “the student‐to‐student and the student‐to‐instructor interaction that are missing in E courses makes them less valuable to the student.” Instead of viewing E courses and E degrees as the “university of the future”, they see them as adjuncts to university programs just as correspondence courses have been for decades.

The study aims to examine the vertical integration of the sustainable development goals (SGDs) in Portuguese public higher education institutions, namely, at the level of undergraduate and master’s degrees, and the extent to which Portuguese higher education institutions (HEI) are preparing for the United Nations’ call to promote SDGs.

A content analysis of the designations and objectives of the 2,556 undergraduate and master’s degrees (in 33 Portuguese public higher education institutions) was done to determine whether they promote at least one SDG.

The results show that 198 courses directly address at least one SDG; on average, each higher education institution (HEI) has six courses that explicitly address at least one SDG; universities have more courses in SDG areas than in polytechnics; more master’s degrees embrace SDGs than undergraduate degrees; and most of the courses addressing SDGs are from the social sciences and humanities areas and from natural and environmental sciences.

This paper serves to raise the awareness of Portuguese HEIs of their role and responsibility in furthering SGDs.

Throughout the 1980s, UK retailers have sought competent managers of graduate calibre for their management training programmes. Most of these graduates were non‐specialists recruited from a variety of higher education establishments. In recent years, however, a number of institutions have provided specialist retail courses to meet the needs of industry. Currently five degree programmes are in operation with two others due for approval in 1990/1991. The main features of each of these undergraduate courses are reviewed.

Production/operations management (POM) is today a key element for the competitivity of companies, and the demand by Spanish companies for university graduates qualified in this area is significant. Therefore, in this discipline, the correct education and training of future business managers is an evident need to be addressed; however, little is known about the current situation of POM teaching in Spanish universities. Hence, to obtain reliable and useful data, a comprehensive empirical study of the total population of university teachers of this discipline in Spain has been undertaken. The present paper concentrates first on the analysis of the characteristics of the POM faculty in Spanish universities, then considers the teaching and assessment methods and the didactic material employed in the teaching of this discipline. In both cases, a critical analysis has been made of the various problems observed, and alternative solutions have been proposed. The analysis of the content of POM programs is the subject of another article published in this journal.

The design and launching of Master's degree programmes in management is a major task facing the polytechnics in Britain. Having existed for some six or seven years, they have achieved their initial objective of creating an appropriate range of first degree programmes, exhibiting the characteristics of career orientation, multi‐disciplinary structures, innovative learning methods and relevant assessment systems. The replacement of External London University Degree courses by Council for National Academic Award programmes has accompanied the conversion of the large colleges of technologies of the nineteen sixties into the polytechnics of the nineteen seventies. Many problems still exist in the first degree range: the provision of part‐time study versions to offset overgearing to full time students, the development of course network approaches, and the integration of sub‐degree work within total programmes of which first degrees are currently the main focus—in that connection the evolution of the Diploma in Higher Education could be a key item.