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This article introduces the “YouWalk-YouReclaim” mobile application as a transformative tool aimed at co-assessing and enhancing campus environments in a post-pandemic context. It seeks to address the need for inclusive, dynamic and technology-driven spaces within university settings.

The study employs a comprehensive assessment framework through a case study at Northumbria University, Newcastle. It involves over 100 students from diverse fields who utilised the application to evaluate significant areas on campus, such as Student Central, Northumberland Road and the Northumbria Library. The methodology places emphasis on direct user engagement and the use of the application’s inbuilt-image library and visual documentation features.

The application effectively evaluated the functionality, spatial dynamics and user experiences across various campus spaces. Key findings include the importance of adaptability, personalised spaces and enhanced wayfinding to meet the evolving needs of the university community. The study also noted the potential of the app to facilitate multidimensional assessments and support user-centric improvements.

The findings suggest that institutions can leverage technology like the “YouWalk-YouReclaim” app to better understand and optimise their campus spaces, fostering more responsive, user-focused and sustainable environments. The study advocates continuous technological enhancements and user-centred assessments to cultivate efficient and enriching campus experiences.

This study is novel in its integration of digital technology with user-centred approaches to assess and enhance campus environments. By enabling real-time feedback and inclusive participation, “YouWalk-YouReclaim” exemplifies an innovative approach to campus space management.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a new grey relational analysis model to measure the coupling relationship between the indicators for the water environment status assessment. Meanwhile, the model deals with the problem that the changing of indicator order may result in the changing of the degree of grey relation.

The binary index submatrix of the sample matrix is given first. Then the product of the matrix and its own transpose is used to measure the characteristics of the index and the coupling relationship between the indicators. Thirdly, the grey relational coefficient is defined based on the matrix norm, and a grey coupling relational analysis model is proposed.

The paper provides a novel grey relational analysis model based on the norm of matrix. The properties, normalization, symmetry, relational order invariance to the multiplicative, are studied. The paper also shows that the model performs very well on the water environment status assessment in the eight cities along the Yangtze River.

The model in this paper has supplemented and improved the grey relational analysis theory for panel data.

The numerous spoil grounds brought about by mega transportation infrastructure projects which can be influenced by the ecological environment. To achieve better management of spoil grounds, this paper aims to assess their comprehensive risk levels and categorize them into different categories based on ecological environmental risks.

Based on analysis of the environmental characteristics of spoil grounds, this paper first comprehensively identified the ecological environmental risk factors and developed a risk assessment index system to quantitatively describe the comprehensive risk levels. Second, this paper proposed a comprehensive model to determine the risk assessment and categorization of spoil ground group in mega projects integrating improved projection pursuit clustering (PPC) method and K-means clustering algorithm. Finally, a case study of a spoil ground group (includes 50 spoil grounds) in a mega infrastructure project in western China is presented to demonstrate and validate the proposed method.

The results show that our proposed comprehensive model can efficiently assess and categorize the spoil grounds in the group based on their comprehensive ecological environmental risk. In addition, during the process of risk assessment and categorization of spoil grounds, it is necessary to distinguish between sensitive factors and nonsensitive factors. The differences between different categories of spoil grounds can be recognized based on nonsensitive factors, and high-risk spoil grounds which need to be focused more on can be identified according to sensitive factors.

This paper develops a comprehensive model of risk assessment and categorization of a group of spoil grounds based on their ecological environmental risks, which can provide a reference for the management of spoil grounds in mega projects.

Focusing on the quality of teaching and learning, this study aims to explore the perceptions of accountancy students in two emerging UK Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) of the quality of their learning experiences and the impact of these experiences on generic skills development.

A questionnaire survey was used to collect the data. OLS regression was used to test the hypothesis regarding the impact of student learning experiences (lecturer ability, assessment and curriculum) on generic skills development.

Students value the lecturer as the most important determinant of the quality of their experience. They rated their assessment programme very positively, and the curriculum suggests that students tend to experience a deep blended approach to learning. They also felt that they acquired a wide range of soft competency skills such as those associated with research, critical thinking and time management. Multivariate findings indicate that lecturer ability and curriculum contribute significantly and positively to generic skills development.

The study provides a benchmark for international accounting and business educators in any efforts to assess the efficacy of HE delivery since the pandemic. By implication, it enables the identification of enhancements to the previous character of delivery and hence offers the means to direct improvements to the student experience. Such improvements can then be seen in the National Student Survey (NSS) scores, thereby positively contributing to the next Teaching Excellence Framework. Additionally, such tangible enhancements in NSS scores may be advantageous to HEIs, in the UK and other Western countries, in their efforts to recruit international students on whom they place great reliance for increased revenue, to their international business education programmes.

This study addresses the research gap surrounding the link between teaching and learning approaches in accounting and the development of generic skills. Furthermore, acknowledging that the COVID-19 pandemic with its imposed structural change in the HE teaching and learning environment ushered in a new model of curriculum delivery, this study reflects on the pre-COVID-19 scenario and gathers student perceptions of their teaching and learning experiences before the changes necessitated by lockdowns. It therefore brings the opportunity to anchor future research exploring the post-COVID-19 environment and secure comparative analyses.

The construction business is widely recognised for its inherent complexity and dynamic nature, which stems from the nature of the job involved. The industry is often regarded as one of the most challenging industries globally in terms of implementing environmental, health and safety (EHS) practices. However, in the absence of EHS, the construction industry cannot be considered sustainable. Therefore, this study aims to identify the trends, knowledge gaps and implications of EHS research to enhance construction activities and knowledge.

The study adopted a science mapping approach involving bibliometric and scientometric analysis of 407 construction EHS publications from the Scopus database with the VOSviewer software. The study is based on journal articles from the Scopus database without restriction to any time range.

The main focus of construction EHS research identified in the study includes sustainability-related studies, risk-related, environmental issues, EHS management, integrated management systems studies, health and safety related and EHS in the construction process. Some emerging areas also identified include productivity, design, culture, social sustainability and machine learning. The most influential and productive publication sources, countries/regions and EHS publications with the highest impact were also determined.

Documents published in the Scopus database were considered for analysis because of the wider coverage of the database. Journal articles written in English language represent the inclusion criteria, whereas other documents were excluded from the analysis. The study also limited the search to articles with the engineering subject area.

The research findings will enlighten stakeholders and practitioners on the focal knowledge areas in the EHS research domain, which are vital for enhancing EHS in the industry.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this review-based study is the first attempt to internationally conduct a science mapping on extant literature in the EHS research domain through bibliometric and scientometric assessments.

Academic integrity is vital to the success and sustainability of the academic project and particularly critical in the training of ethical and informed health professionals. Yet studies have found that cheating in online exams was commonplace during the COVID-19 pandemic. With the increased use of online and blended learning post-COVID-19, an understanding of student cheating dynamics is essential for developing effective strategies to combat academic dishonesty in the rapidly changing educational landscape.

This study explored academic integrity and reasons for dishonesty from the perspective of health sciences students at a South African University of Technology (UOT) via the Fraud Diamond. To gain an in-depth understanding of the topic, a qualitative method was employed, and data were collected via focus group discussions with nine student class representatives. These data were analysed thematically using the Clarke and Braun approach.

Cheating during online assessment was common and innovative, with students manipulating others and exploiting friendships to facilitate dishonest practices. Student motivations for dishonesty included a lack of consequences and pressure due to a lack of time management, engagement and preparation.

This study underscores the need for institutions to adopt an adaptable, multi-faceted approach that addresses student cheating opportunity, motivation and normalisation of dishonest practices whilst strengthening academic integrity policies and enforcement thereof.

The findings contribute valuable insights into the ongoing academic integrity crisis in higher education in the South African context.

Mega construction projects (MCPs), which play an important role in the economy, society and environment of a country, have developed rapidly in recent years. However, due to frequent social conflicts caused by the negative social impact of MCPs, social risk control has become a major challenge. Exploring the relationship between social risk factors and social risk from the perspective of risk evolution and identifying key factors contribute to social risk control; but few studies have paid enough attention to this. Therefore, this study aims to systematically analyze the impact of social risk factors on social risk based on a social risk evolution path.

This study proposed a social risk evolution path for MCPs explaining how social risk occurs and develops with the impact of social risk factors. To further analyze the impact quantitatively, a social risk analysis model combining structural equation model (SEM) with Bayesian network (BN) was developed. SEM was used to verify the relationship in the social risk evolution path. BN was applied to identify key social risk factors and predict the probabilities of social risk, quantitatively. The feasibility of the proposed model was verified by the case of water conservancy projects.

The results show that negative impact on residents’ living standards, public opinion advantage and emergency management ability were key social risk factors through sensitivity analysis. Then, scenario analysis simulated the risk probability results with the impact of different states of these key factors to obtain management strategies.

This study creatively proposes a social risk evolution path describing the dynamic interaction of the social risk and first applies the hybrid SEM–BN method in the social risk analysis for MCPs to explore effective risk control strategies. This study can facilitate the understanding of social risk from the perspective of risk evolution and provide decision-making support for the government coping with social risk in the implementation of MCPs.

The study aims to identify and evaluate relevant criteria in the proposal and support of public administration policies for preventive maintenance comprised in a conservation approach to built heritage and aligned with local sustainable development of the historic center of the city of Sobral, in Brazil.

A novel multicriteria decision model adopting the Bayesian best-worst method is presented and its application and results are described. Though a systematic procedure, criteria were selected in order to protect the tangible and intangible values of cultural heritage, as well as its sustainable development. Then experts evaluate these criteria through an elicitation instrument.

The results show that for the decision problem over preventive maintenance, social contribution and historical record of built heritage are more important than its structural vulnerability, while architecture is less relevant. Due to the low restrictions, the subcriterion related to this property has the least influence. The weights can assist in the characterization of measures and policies for the protection of the built cultural heritage.

The use of a novel decision-making method in cultural heritage is an important initiative, given the frequent use of simple and inefficient methods. The identified and weighted criteria are important data to characterize the scenario and the topic. The results contribute to protection and development of the built heritage, encouraging the implementation of preventive conservation in the historic center, conferring to the public administration valuable information to support and propose initiatives.

This paper aims to develop a performance measurement (PM) system for fourth-party reverse logistics (RL). In this regard, it proposes simultaneous utilization of a procedural approach and hybrid use of existing performance frameworks.

The paper first describes fundamentals of RL and PM approaches in literature to build a basis for further discussion. It then carries out a systematic review of the literature on PM in RL to highlight current trends and approaches in this regard. At last, it develops a PM system for fourth-party RL by exploring relevant performance frameworks and by defining a procedure in detail.

The paper identifies the ongoing interest in development PM in RL, and the gap and the need for the development of comprehensive PM system for fourth-party RL. It also identifies the best approach is to use existing performance frameworks in literature and a procedural approach together as they complement each other rather than contradicting.

The paper fills a gap in literature by developing a comprehensive PM framework for the fourth-party RL. The presented procedure is well suited to be used as part of strategic management process in any fourth-party RL organization. It forces users a top-down approach, from strategies to measures, so that a strong linkage is established in the process. When used together with the proposed PM framework, it guarantees a comprehensive and balanced PM system.

The paper identifies the need for the development of a PM framework as well as a measurement system for the fourth-party RL in the literature. In this regard, it develops a PM framework first, and then a procedure on how to implement it. As a result, users can effectively use them as a part of strategic management process of their organizations.

The fourth-party RL is growing and very promising mode of RL for well-being of society, by offering a strong path to sustainable development in the midst of diminishing resources in the world. The existence of a well measurement system is crucial for the healthy operations and development of fourth-party RL organizations. The paper is offering a strong PM model in this regard.

The paper fulfills an identified need to study how to develop a PM system for fourth-party RL.

The purpose of this study is to assess how higher education anchor institutions (HEIs) voluntarily report their non-economic impacts. Its goals are to quantify the ease of public access to this information; strengthen the conceptual foundation for HEI impact reporting; and provide guidance for making HEI voluntary disclosures more accessible, comparable and systematic.

Using an exploratory mixed methods design and purposeful sampling, this study analyzed voluntary public disclosures of 41 anchor institution universities in the USA to assess how they communicate their public value creation to stakeholders. Data sources included impact reports, donor reports, annual reports and sustainability reports. The study also analyzed the accessibility of this information by timing how long it took to locate.

The sampled US anchor institutions communicate their non-economic impact to stakeholders in myriad ways using a variety of formats. Time required to find the reports ranged from 37 to 50 min, with an average of 42.30 min. Disparate reporting formats inhibit comparability.

Only 41 anchor institutions were examined. The small sample may not be representative of the broader landscape of higher education institutions.

Findings offer guidance for improving voluntary nonfinancial disclosures to increase public confidence in higher education institutions while advancing community and global resilience. To strengthen voluntary disclosure practices, the study recommends using a standardized reporting format, framing HEI impact through socio-ecological resilience indicators, integrating reports and obtaining some form of assurance. These changes would enhance the credibility and comparability of the disclosures.

This research provides some of the first empirical insight into how US higher education anchor institutions report their value creation to the public. Its application of socio-ecological systems theory outlines an actionable conceptual foundation for HEI reporting by linking organizational, community and global resilience.