Academic literature on the topic 'Technical education Costs'

ABSTRACT: Costs of a college education continue to increase faster than overall inflation. The debt students in the United States incur to complete college is also escalating. The purpose of this study is to examine the cost of obtaining an undergraduate and graduate degree in accounting and expected cash flows for the first ten years in public accounting for students with and without educational loans. We analyze CPA exam pass rates for any relationships between education costs and level of technical preparation for entry into the profession. We find that cash flow analysis of different combinations of costs, financing, and career choices reveals that monetary outcomes vary widely with different combinations. We find limited systematic differences of universities' CPA exam pass rates based on cost of education. This suggests that appropriate technical preparation for an accounting career is available to students attending universities across the cost spectrum.

Technical specifications of the fashion designs should be made into written form to produce a clothing collection. Thus, the designer visualizes his/her idea using technical drawings. To fully realize his/her idea, it is important that the designer should provide the details regarding the technical specifications correctly. Because while a clothing collection is produced, it goes through many processes by different people. That the designer introduces technical specifications in detail provides accurate production of the collection.In this study, the fashion design process is gathered under fifteen headings as identification of target market, research of fashion trends, determination of concept, identification of colors, selection of fabrics, determination of auxiliary materials, description of line, preparation of concept board, illustration of clothing designs, drawing of technical designs, formation of measurement charts, description of sewing instructions, indication of measurements, preparation of patterns and computing costs. In addition to these headings, the technical specifications covering the process are also considered. Lastly, the suggestions on teaching of the technical specifications in fashion design education are presented. The aim of this study is the technical specifications in the fashion design process to be learned. Therefore, the suggestion for integration of the information that is learned during fashion design education which requires a long lasting infrastructure is presented.   In fashion design education, it is important to provide education in design and production process. In this study the aim is to develop a model about teaching technical specifications in fashion design education. The aim of this study is to develop a model for teaching technical specifications in fashion design education. Therefore it is considered that the study is important in terms of integration of design and production information with related technical specifications.Keywords: Fashion design, fashion design education, technical specifications

This article highlights the main technical and statistical aspects related to maritime accidents, including the various types of vessels that navigate rivers and oceans around the world. It seeks to understand the mechanics of different accidents, their recurrence for different causes and their financial impact. Technically, through case studies, it shows the different types of accidents that occur in different global locations. The preservation of human life as well as of the environment are determining factors in any maritime accident today. Keywords: Maritime Casualties, Class Society, International Maritime Organization, Environment, Costs, Cases

Over the past two decades, there has been an increase in the use of simulation-based education for training healthcare providers in technical and non-technical skills. Simulation education and research programs have mostly focused on the impact on clinical knowledge and improvement of technical skills rather than on cost. To study and characterize existing evidence to inform multi-stakeholder investment decisions, we performed a systematic review of the literature on costs in simulation-based education in medicine in general and in neonatal resuscitation as a particular focus. We conducted a systematic literature search of the PubMed database using two targeted queries. The first searched for cost analyses of healthcare simulation-based education more broadly, and the second was more narrowly focused on cost analyses of neonatal resuscitation training. The more general query identified 47 qualified articles. The most common specialties for education interventions were surgery (51%); obstetrics, gynecology, or pediatrics (11%); medicine, nursing, or medical school (11%); and urology (9%), accounting for over 80% of articles. The neonatal resuscitation query identified five qualified articles. The two queries identified seven large-scale training implementation studies, one in the United States and six in low-income countries. There were two articles each from Tanzania and India and one article each from Zambia and Ghana. Methods, definitions, and reported estimates varied across articles, implying interpretation, comparison, and generalization of program effects are challenging. More work is needed to understand the costs, processes, and outcomes likely to make simulation-based education programs cost-effective and scalable. To optimize return on investments in training, assessing resource requirements, associated costs, and subsequent outcomes can inform stakeholders about the potential sustainability of SBE programs. Healthcare stakeholders and decision makers will benefit from more transparent, consistent, rigorous, and explicit assessments of simulation-based education program development and implementation costs in low- and high-income countries.

Three-dimensional images have become an important tool in teaching surgical anatomy, and its didactic power is enhanced when combined with 3D surgical images and videos. This paper describes the method used by the last author (G.C.R.) since 2002 to project 3D anatomical and surgical images using a computer source. Projecting 3D images requires the superposition of 2 similar but slightly different images of the same object. The set of images, one mimicking the view of the left eye and the other mimicking the view of the right eye, constitute the stereoscopic pair and can be processed using anaglyphic or horizontal-vertical polarization of light for individual use or presentation to larger audiences. Classically, 3D projection could be obtained by using a double set of slides, projected through 2 slide projectors, each of them equipped with complementary filters, shooting over a medium that keeps light polarized (a silver screen) and having the audience wear appropriate glasses. More recently, a digital method of 3D projection has been perfected. In this method, a personal computer is used as the source of the images, which are arranged in a Microsoft PowerPoint presentation. A beam splitter device is used to connect the computer source to 2 digital, portable projectors. Filters, a silver screen, and glasses are used, similar to the classic method. Among other advantages, this method brings flexibility to 3D presentations by allowing the combination of 3D anatomical and surgical still images and videos. It eliminates the need for using film and film developing, lowering the costs of the process. In using small, powerful digital projectors, this method substitutes for the previous technology, without incurring a loss of quality, and enhances portability.

ABSTRACT: Higher education institutions contribute to society in multiple ways through the technical and professional formation of the population and disseminating new information. This diversity of objectives that interact with each other hinder both the acquisition and the allocation of resources. In other words, they affect the institutions' capacity to meet costs at a given level of financing or income. For this reason, the costs attributable to degrees bestowed by educational institutions help to provide critical financial information, especially when computing the margin between income and expenses, evidencing the efficiency in resource consumption, and significantly aiding in the decision-making process. This article presents an integral and flexible methodology for designing an Activity-Based Costing system to determine the costs of degrees bestowed by higher education institutions applying the method to a Chilean public university. The results highlight nine degrees with a surplus and one with a financial deficit, the high impact on the cost of degrees stemming from the distribution of efforts of academics in the varied activities undertaken, the effect of grants among degrees, and other results of university administration, indicating the relevance of these models for the definition of government policies. Furthermore, these results' contribution in a current global context is discussed where institutions are found to be devising readjustments to their activities that have been affected by confinement caused by the global SARS-CoV-2 virus pandemic. Keywords: Costing in educational institutions; costs of degrees; activities-based costing in education; higher education institutions; Chile

Abstract. This study assessed apiculture enterprise to determine the output elasticity of production, returns to scale, technical efficiency and profitability in Adamawa State, Nigeria. A total of four agricultural zones out of six, and 108 apiarists were selected through purposive and simple random methods, respectively. Descriptive statistics, stochastic frontier production function and budgetary technique were used in the analyses of data. Findings revealed that all (100%) the respondents were males within the age range of 21-30 years (44.44%). The majority of apiarists (87.0%) were married with household size of 1-10 persons (77.78%) and 50.0% of them had secondary school education. A larger proportion (37.0%) had between 6 and 10 years of beekeeping experience with 41.67% earning monthly income of N11000 (USD30.8) – N20000 (USD56.0) from other sources. Further, the findings revealed that labor and number of hives had reassuring influence on the industry, while age, education and experience could be used to reduce inefficiency in the industry to improve efficiency status. The apiarists also had mean technical efficiency of 89.9%, while the inefficiency estimate was only 10.1%. In terms of profitability, beekeeping in the study area was found to have had a high gross margin of N16800.00 (USD47.0) and net farm income of N15225.97 (USD42.6) for every beehive in a cropping season. The major constraints to beekeeping reported in the area included beehive crops theft, high propensity of bees’ stings, inadequacy of finance, rampant bush burning and deforestation, among others. It was concluded that beekeeping in the study area was found to be profitable and technically efficient. Improving beekeeping business in the area, among other things, would require its modernization and involvement of female participants, provision of soft credit facilities and enactment of stringent forestry laws to check unwholesome forestry practices.

This study was aimed to analyze the factors affecting the cabbage production, the level of technical efficiency of cabbage farming, the factors affecting technical inefficiency, and the profits of cabbage farming. The location was determined purposively on the basis that it is the center of vegetable cultivation. The respondents were 67 farmers chosen using the Yamane formula sampling technique. This research used frontier software 4.1 data analysis method with Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) approach and Tobit regression. The results showed that land, labor, seeds, organic fertilizers, urea fertilizers, za fertilizers and npk fertilizers were real influential factors. Meanwhile, pesticides were insignificantly influenced. The mean technical efficiency in the research site was 0.903 for the distribution of technical efficiency, so that the cabbage production was rated as high efficiency. Age, education and credit access dummy contributed a major impact on technological inefficiency. The income from cabbage farming per planting season per hectare was Rp35,524,300 from cash costs and Rp31,051,800 from total costs.

This study's primary goal is to measure the technical efficacy of Amon paddy farms and identify the key variables that significantly influence the degree of technical inefficiency of the sample farms. Using a multistage random sampling technique, 200 Amon rice-producing farms in the Jhenaidah district were sampled for this study. The technical efficacy of Amon rice farms is estimated using the Cobb-Douglas production function method. The Cobb-Douglas production function approach's empirical findings indicate that the technical efficiency of Amon rice production is, on average, 0.95. This suggests that the studied region has a high level of technical efficiency. The factors influencing the degree of inefficiency of the Amon rice farms are also determined using an inefficiency impact model. The production of paddy was favorably connected with farm size, as indicated by the regression coefficient of farm size, which is 0.52. Additionally, it reveals that labor costs, irrigation cost, seed costs, and plowing cost are crucial elements that influence how efficiently Amon rice is produced. According to the estimated inefficiency impact model's findings, the technical inefficiency of Amon rice production is adversely correlated with farm size, age, education, training and credit availability. According to this study, actions to expand credit opportunities, education, and training are essential to lowering rice production's technical inefficiency in the study area. According to the results, it is advised that variables that positively and significantly affect production efficiency be researched and developed for best results toward sustainable agricultural and rural development in Bangladesh.

Much research has been done showing the difficulty people have with word problems. This has been shown to be true for many types of word problems and for different demographics. Questions have remained unanswered regarding the reasons for this difficulty. It has been unclear if the word problems were hard because the people had forgotten or had not yet learned how to do the math calculations involved or for some other reason. This study deals with high school students who are currently in a high school level math class. They were given an assessment involving word problems and number-only problems. The results demonstrate that these students can do the math calculations needed for the problems but that the difficulty lies in their ability to formulate the word problems into correct mathematical expressions. Among the students in math classes higher than Secondary 2, it cannot be shown that those who have passed Financial Literacy demonstrate a significantly higher ability to do word problems with p > 0.05.

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Outra
O transporte escolar rural é considerado, por muitos pesquisadores, um problema complexo, em razão dos altos custos, ineficiência na prestação dos serviços, restrições de segurança, rotas múltiplas e incertezas quanto ao número diário de passageiros, entre outros problemas. Por se tratar de um sistema que exige muitos recursos, seus custos merecem destaque. Nesse contexto, o objetivo deste trabalho é contribuir ao planejamento da etapa técnico-financeira do transporte escolar rural do Instituto Federal de Roraima, Campus Novo Paraíso (IFRR/CNP). As rotas típicas do ônibus escolar incluem a coleta dos alunos pela manhã, em diferentes trajetos municipais e intermunicipais, e no final da tarde o retorno pelo mesmo percurso deixando os alunos próximos às suas casas. As dificuldades são várias, como tempo muito longo de deslocamento dos alunos, lugares ociosos nos ônibus alocados ao transporte, custos elevados, entre outros. O método adotado no trabalho foi a pesquisa-ação, sendo qualitativa a forma de abordar o problema, a natureza da pesquisa caracteriza-se como sendo aplicada, e o quanto aos objetivos, caracteriza-se como uma pesquisa descritiva empírico-normativa. Os resultados obtidos com este estudo, mostraram-se relevantes para sua aplicação, uma vez que a sistemática proposta pelo Geipot, permitiu a identificação e simulação dos custos aplicados aos diferentes tipos de veículos, possibilitando a flexibilização na substituição do veículo contratado pelo mais vantajoso, demonstrando eficiência na obtenção dos resultados e nos gastos realizados pela administração pública. Como resultado adicional importante, verificouse que há vantagens e desvantagens no contrato vigente, cabendo ao gestor público a decisão de alterar o contrato
Rural school transport is considered by many researchers, a complex problem due to high costs, inefficiency in providing services, safety restrictions, multiple routes and uncertainties regarding the daily number of passengers, among other problems. Because it is a system that requires a lot of resources, its costs require special mention. In this context, the objective of this work is to contribute to the planning of the technical-financial stage of rural school transportation of the Federal Institute of Roraima, Campus Novo Paraiso (IFRR / CNP). Typical school bus routes include students taking in the morning, in different municipal and intermunicipal routes, and by the end of the afternoon return by the same route leaving students close to their homes. The difficulties are many, such as very long time of student displacement, idle places on buses allocated to transportation, high costs, among others. The method adopted in this work was the action research, being qualitative the way to approach the problem, the nature of the research is characterized as being applied, and the objectives, is characterized as a descriptive empirical-normative research. The results obtained with this study were relevant for its application, since the system proposed by Geipot allowed the identification and simulation of the costs applied to the different types of vehicles, allowing the flexibilization in the replacement of the vehicle contracted by the most advantageous, demonstrating efficiency in obtaining the results and in the expenditures made by the public administration. As an important additional result, it was verified that there are advantages and disadvantages in the current contract, being the public manager the decision to change the contract

Syftet med studien är att presentera ett designkoncept för publika diskussioner på nätet med målet att uppnå djupare diskussioner och minska mängden information overload. Arbetet använder metoden Concept Driven Interaction Design (CDID) som går ut på att skapa ett designkoncept utifrån flera olika teorier som appliceras genom interaktionsdesign. Ett designkoncept innehåller tre delar: ett namn, ett syfte och huvudprinciper. CDID innehåller sju steg som arbetet är utformat efter: 1.      Concept Generation – Summeras i en tabell som jämför diskussioner i forum (med flera antagande) och diskussioner med hjälp av metoden Philosophy for Children (P4C), samt annan teori. 2.      Concept Exploration – Åtta olika designaspekter identifieras utifrån jämförelsetabellen. 3.      Internal Concept Critique – Designaspekterna jämförs med två snarlika diskussionsformat. 4.      Design of Artifacts – Designkoncept version 1 skapas. 5.      External Design Critique – Intervjuer utförs för att undersöka intervjupersonerna generella erfarenheter av online diskussioner, testar antagandena från jämförelsetabellen och ge direkt feedback på första versionen av designkonceptet. 6.      Concept Revisited – Ändringar görs baserat på intervjumaterial och direkt feedback. 7.      Concept Contextualization – Designkonceptet kopplas tillbaka till litteraturen. Studien resulterar i ett designkoncept kallat CoFramer och stödjer dessa huvudprinciper som ställs i kontrast till material som identifierats genom intervjuerna: Tabell 1: CoFramers huvudprinciper och faktorer från intervjuer om diskussioner på forum. CoFramers huvudprinciper | Från intervjuer om diskussioner på forum Strukturerad början och slut | Diskussion utan tydligt slut Begränsat antal deltagare | Stor mängd deltagare Minimum antal deltagare | Många inaktiva åskådare Explicita deltagare | Lite information om deltagare Gemensamma förutsättningar | Otydlighet kring deltagares förutsättningar Begränsad informationstäthet per inlägg | Långa inlägg och/eller snabba inlägg Den röda tråden och parallella trådar | Oftast parallella trådar Aktiv samtalsledare | Outredda missförstånd Studien indikerar på att CoFramer bör resultera i mer strukturerade diskussioner och som utsätter användaren för en lägre mängd information overload och mindre grounding cost jämfört med vad som vanligtvis uppstår i publika diskussioner online.
The focus of this essay is to develop a design concept for online public discussions with deep discussions and low information overload. The method used is Concept Driven Interaction Design (CDID) which involves constructing a design concept by applying a variety of theories in tangible interaction design. A design concept has three basic parts: a name, high-level goals and outlines generic principles. CDID includes seven steps which is used in this work: 1.      Concept Generation – Formatted into a table that compare forum discussion (with several hypothesis) compared to discussions with the method Philosophy for Children (P4C) and other theories. 2.      Concept Exploration – Eight distinct design aspects are identified from the comparison table. 3.      Internal Concept Critique – The design aspects are compared to three similar discussion formats. 4.      Design of Artifacts – Design concept version 1 is created. 5.      External Design Critique – Interviews are conducted to explore their general experience of online discussions, investigate the hypothesis from the comparison table and to seek direct feedback on the first draft of the design concept. 6.      Concept Revisited – Changes are made to the design concept based on the interview material and the direct feedback. 7.      Concept Contextualization – The design concept is related to the original literature. The result of the study is a design concept named CoFramer. CoFramer’s generic principles are summarized and contrasted against factors identified from the interview material in this table: Tabell 2: CoFramer’s generic principles and interviews about online discussions. CoFramer’s generic principles | From interview material on forum discussion Organized start and ending | Discussions without clear ending Limited number of participants | Large number of participants Minimum number of participants | Large number of inactive spectators Explicit participants | Low information about participants Common conditions | Vagueness in participants conditions Limited information density per post | Long posts and/or fast posts The red thread and parallel threads | Often parallel threads Active facilitator | Unresolved misunderstandings The study indicates that CoFramer would create more structured discussions with a lower amount of information overload and less grounding cost compared what normally arise in public online discussions.

Met die implementering van die Wet op Tegniese Kolleges, 1981 (Wet 104 van 1981) het 'n nuwe tydvak vir hierdie inrigtings begin. Indien die kort tydperk waarin tegniese kolleges in hulle huidige vorm bestaan in ag geneem word, kan aanvaar word dat daar nog verskeie probleme op hierdie terrein le. In hierdie werk is daar gepoog om enkele relevante probleme aan te spreek. Met die toekomstige rol van tegniese kolleges in die RSA in gedagte is veral drie belangrike knelpunte ondersoek, naamlik: * die werkterrein van tegniese kolleges; * bestuurstrukture vir tegniese kolleges binne dieAfrikaanse onderwysstelsel; en * die outonomie van kollegerade. Ten einde hierdie probleme te kon deurskou, is die huidige posisie van naskoolse beroepsonderwys aan tegniese kolleges, en die bestuurstrukture van hierdie kolleges binne die Suid­ Afrikaanse onderwysstelsel, nagegaan. Uit die literatuurondersoek, wat ook die situasie van soortgelyke onderwysinrigtings in 'n paar oorsese lande insluit, het dit geblyk dat sekere aanpassings aan die bestaande stelsel gemaak sal moet word ten einde tegniese kolleges in staat te stel om hulle toekomstige rol in die RSA te kan vervul. Om die menings van kundiges op die gebied van tegniese kolleges en naskoolse beroepsonderwys oor genoemde knelpunte te bekom, is 'n kwalitatiewe studie uitgevoer. Tydens ongestruktureerde onderhoude met tien informante is beskrywende data ingewin. Om 'n meer volledige siening oor die aspekte te verkry is resente uitsprake in toesprake, referate en skrywes bygewerk. Nadat alle data geanaliseer en bespreek is, is tot die gevolgtrekking gekom dat die wyse waarop tegniese kolleges huidiglik funksioneer aangepas sal moet word sodat hierdie inrigtings hulle toekomstige rol in die RSA sal kan vervul. Die vernaamste aanpas­sings wat aanbeveel word is: * die werkterrein van tegniese kolleges moet so wees dat hulle onderrigprogramme inpas by die van technikons; * die ideale bestuurstruktuur sal wees as alle tegniese kolleges onder 'n sentrale onderwysdepartement ressorteer; * die outonomie van kollegerade moet uitgebrei word; maar * ten einde dit te kan doen sal kolleges gerasionaliseer moet word.
The implementation of the Technical Colleges Act, 1981 (Act 104 of 1981) introduced a new era for these institutions. If the short period of time in which technical colleges have been in existence in their present form is considered, it can be accepted that many problems still exist in this field. The researcher has endeavoured to address certain relevant problems. With the future role of technical colleges in the RSA in mind, three important aspects came under close scrutiny, namely: * the fields of study of technical colleges; * management structures for technical colleges in the South African education system; and * the autonomy of college councils. In order to deal with these matters, the present position of post-school vocational education at technical colleges and the management structures of these colleges in the South African education system were examined. The study of literature, which included the study of educational systems of similar institutions in several overseas countries, revealed that certain adjustments would have to be made to the existing system in order to enable technical colleges to fulfil their future role in the RSA. A qualitative study was conducted in order to acquire the opinions of knowledgeable persons in the field of technical colleges and post-school vocational education on the above-mentioned aspects. During unstructured interviews with ten informants descriptive data was elicited. In order to obtain a more comprehensive view of these aspects, recent statements in speeches, papers and articles were also taken into consideration. After all the data was analysed and discussed, the conclusion was reached that the way in which technical colleges are functioning at present will have to be modified to enable these institutions to fulfil their future role in the RSA. The most important modifications which are recommended are: * the fields of study of technical colleges should be such that their instructional programmes fit in with those of the technikons; * the ideal management structure would be for all technical colleges to fall under a central education department; * the autonomy of college councils should be extended; but * in order for this to take place, colleges will have rationalised.
Educational Management and Leadership
D. Ed. (Onderwysbestuur)

Work personalization within cognitive capitalism (Alessandrini 2013) demands universities to certify competences that can promote new forms of employability (Boffo, Federighi, Torlone 2015), connected to global network innovation (Steiner et al. 2013). Personal entrepreneurship becomes the heuristic promoter of career changes (Federighi, Torlone 2013). This enables individuals to ask new questions, to provide innovative solutions, and to create endeavours that can extend the current limits of knowledge, or define new ones (Costa 2014). Methodology: The research analysed variables and, by doing so, strengthened entrepreneurial competence (Morselli, Costa 2015; Costa, Strano 2016) from an enabling perspective, involving more than one hundred people going through a career change (Sen 2000). Based on a mixed method (Ponce, Pagán-Maldonado 2015) the research was developed over four phases: 1) Self-assessment (Pittaway, Edwards 2012) of entrepreneurial attitudes; 2) Recognition (Federighi 2014) of emerging competences from global innovation networks; 3) Reflective thinking (Mortari 2003) and switching in terms of awareness (Mezirow 2003); 4) Capability (Sen 2006) of opportunities and resources for the instigation of entrepreneurial action (Costa Strano 2016). Results: The data observed show that during career changes the development of competences is positively linked to age, education, and experience, above all when combined with enabling processes. As for entrepreneurship, training contexts in the service industry prove strategic, even if still too focused solely on the technical-informative dimension. Furthermore, the results show that entrepreneurial training (Pittaway, Edwards 2012) becomes competence that can promote action starting from resources/opportunities in various career changes (Costa 2014)

AbstractLife cycle assessment (LCA) is a standardised and comprehensive approach for evaluation of environmental impacts within the material and energy flows associated with various human activities and through the life cycle stages. Besides environmental impact evaluation, with LCA, costs, social impacts, impacts on workers, organisations and others can also be assessed. This paper focuses on development of educational framework for evaluation of occupational safety based on LCA. The goal is to develop a new study subject “LCA in the field of safety at work” for the occupational safety engineering master study programme at the Faculty of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad. New study subject is based on LCA approaches that evaluate the occupational safety and impact on workers. Based on the previous research of LCA in the field of occupational safety, the goal, outcome, content and realisation are defined for the new study subject.

The long history and short past of online distance education is posited as a precursor to the monumental changes revolutionizing global educational activity. The author argues for the use of Mobile Pedagogy as an idiom for the inclusive nature of the platforms, processes, teaching methodologies, and infrastructures (technical and instructional) that comprise this new approach in the world of learning. As such, this chapter discusses the critical element of finances by looking at contemporary learning theory and a specific E-learning system model termed CADRE (Content, Access, Distribution, Revenue, and Evaluation). To help delineate connections between elements in this emerging ecosystem the important component of cost is used as exemplar. As the cost of Higher Education rises, answers to questions long been taken for granted have come to the forefront of the concern for parents and students: Is College worth the cost? Are expensive elite schools a guarantee to entry into the world of work? Are the opportunity costs for a four year (or more) degree program worth the investment? These questions are examined in the context of an ROI (Return on Investment) conjecture that assumes benefits must outweigh costs in order to be worthwhile. In the era of Open Courseware, free courses, MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), and teaching and learning anytime, anywhere by anybody the issues of cost, quality, sustainability and evaluation are addressed within the context of an educational-business (Ed-Biz) framework. Various strategies relating to the kinds of monetization that could support these directions are offered.

This chapter conceptualizes a process for cryptocurrency to diversify traditional methods of higher education funding in the United States. Cryptocurrency funding augments traditional revenue streams and shifts the discussion of education costs from expenses to a more robust conversation about innovative avenues to wealth generation as a potential solution to fund the mission of American higher education. This chapter acknowledges the central concerns of higher education funding as it explores these arguments as legacy discourses rooted in career preparation, accessibility and affordability, and arguments about the need for a broad-based education vs. more technical skills training. Further, an alternative model to current higher education funding models is presented, and if deployed, this asset class could help to serve education needs by funding research, students, and the academy through an illustrated conceptual framework for funding.

In recent years, the UK railway industry has struggled with the effects of poor integration of data across ICT systems, particularly when that data is being used across organizational boundaries. Technical progress is being made by the industry towards enabling data sharing, but an open issue remains around how the costs of gathering and maintaining pooled information can be fairly attributed across the stakeholders who draw on that shared resource. This issue is particularly significant in areas such as Remote Condition Monitoring, where the ability to analyse the network at a whole-systems level is being blocked by the business cases around the purchase of systems as silos. Blockchains are an emerging technology that have the potential to revolutionize the management of transactions in a number of industrial sectors. This chapter will address the outstanding issues around the fair attribution of costs and benefits of data sharing in the rail industry by proposing blockchains as a forth enabler of the rail data revolution, alongside ESB, ontology, and open data.

This chapter seeks to elaborate on two points. First, the authors would like to focus on the inverted (flipped) classroom, by providing a detailed understanding of it, as well as, current practices. Second, the authors want to propose that instructors become end-user developers, in other words, becoming content creators and designers of their technology usage in the inverted classroom. For instance, several issues arise when using this teaching approach, such as resources, costs, time constraints, and the process of learning new technology. The authors believe that allowing instructors to harness technical ability is beneficial and critical to their success in implementing the inverted classroom.

This chapter conceptualizes a process for cryptocurrency to diversify traditional methods of higher education funding in the United States. Cryptocurrency funding augments traditional revenue streams and shifts the discussion of education costs from expenses to a more robust conversation about innovative avenues to wealth generation as a potential solution to fund the mission of American higher education. This chapter acknowledges the central concerns of higher education funding as it explores these arguments as legacy discourses rooted in career preparation, accessibility and affordability, and arguments about the need for a broad-based education vs. more technical skills training. Further, an alternative model to current higher education funding models is presented, and if deployed, this asset class could help to serve education needs by funding research, students, and the academy through an illustrated conceptual framework for funding.

Interest in cloud-based cyberinfrastructure among higher-education institutions is growing rapidly, driven by needs to realize cost savings and access enhanced computing resources. Through a nonprofit entity, we have created a platform that provides hosting and software support services enabling researchers to responsibly build on cloud technologies. However, there are technical, logistic, and administrative challenges if this platform is to support all types of research. Software-enhanced research is distinctly different from industry applications, typically characterized by needs for lower reduced availability, greater flexibility, and fewer resources for upkeep costs. We describe a swarm environment specifically designed for research in academic settings and our experience developing an operating model for sustainable cyberinfrastructure. We also present three case studies illustrating the types of applications supported by the cyberinfrastructure and explore techniques that address specific application needs. Our findings demonstrate safer, faster, cheaper cloud services by recognizing the intrinsic properties of academic research environments.

Using a game theory model to analyze whether a content developer should pursue publishing with an open-source or proprietary publisher, this work describes a strategy for those content developers working in higher education in terms of an articulated strategy for publishing. This research also suggests the high costs of publishing for content developers and proposes ways for open-source publishers to attract and maintain talent for open-source publishing in socio-technical spaces. This chapter offers fresh insights on the uses of game theory to model stakeholder motivations and payoffs, and from there articulate basic strategies; in line with game theory, this model also suggests directions and hypotheses for future research in open-source academic publishing.

The article presents the results of research on analog methods of risk assessment. One of the variants of these methods has been developed as a tool for practical forecasting of the optimal level of material costs to ensure a given product quality. The theoretical basis for solving this problem was the provisions of the risk management theory of technical systems. The analog method of solving the set optimization problem presented in this paper confirms the principle possibility of predicting the level of acceptable risk of material costs for organizational and technical perfection of production, taking into account consumer requirements for its quality indicators.

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the efficiency of public higher education investment in Vietnam’s economic growth through data reports from the Ministry of Education and Training, Ministry of Finance, the General Statistics Office, and the primary investigation of the authors. The paper focuses on an in-depth analysis of the costs of investing in higher education, such as state budget spending on higher education, the impact of budget expenditure on growth, individual investment (household) investment in public higher education, social costs for higher education public study, and average social cost for one learner. From the above analysis, the authors will present employment status and the impact of the problem on both economic growth and the average income of workers by technical expertise. Besides, the authors will compare the situation of investment in higher education and the economic growth rate of Vietnam to some countries in Southeast Asia. From there, the authors will determine the limitations of this impact process. Based on that, the authors will propose some solutions to improve the efficiency of investment in public higher education for Vietnam’s economic growth.

The Virtual Reality (VR) is a computer system, which can save time, cut costs and help to improve the learning process in engineering laboratory education by interactive 3D simulation environments. This paper gives an overview on the VR applications in undergraduate engineering laboratory education and presents a VR system tool ‘Virtual CIM Laboratory’ (VCIMLAB), developed for laboratory training on Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM) systems. The proposed VR system is a cost-effective and safe approach of teaching the operations of automated manufacturing systems, which deal primarily with the expensive and complex high technology industrial automation equipments. The VCIMLAB allows students to self-experience on these systems without the need to work on actual equipments in the laboratory.

This paper addresses the importance of integrating Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) software and applications in the mechanical engineering curriculum. Computer aided engineering tools described include Computer-Aided Design, Computer-Aided Manufacturing, and Computer-Aided Analysis tools such as finite element (FE) modeling and analysis. The integration of CAE software tools in the curriculum is important for three primary reasons: it helps students understand fundamental engineering principles by providing an interactive and visual representation of concepts, it provides students an opportunity to explore their creative ideas and designs while keeping prototyping costs to a minimum, and it teaches students the valuable skill of more efficiently designing, manufacturing and analyzing their products with current technology making them more marketable for their future engineering careers. While CAE has been used in the classroom for decades, the mechanical engineering program at the University of North Florida is making an aggressive effort in preparing the future engineering workforce through computer-aided project-centered education. The CAE component of this effort includes using CAE software when teaching stress, strain, dynamics, kinematics, vibrations, finite element modeling and analysis, design and design for manufacturing, manufacturing and technical communication concepts. This paper describes CAE projects undertaken in several of the mechanical engineering courses at UNF in an effort to share creative teaching techniques for others to emulate.

Decision making is an important feature of design. Although engineering design refers to the design of products and technical systems, design activities occur in many other professions, including education. As education moves from teaching to learning, engineering faculty are becoming course designers who make many decisions when designing a course. Although many course design processes have been described, previous work has not considered course design as an interrelated set of decisions. To plan a course, a designer must make decisions. The course designer must select following elements: the purposes of the course, the content, its sequence, the instructional resources, and the instructional processes. These decisions occur at different “levels”: some determine “small” parts of the course (such as the media for one activity), and some determine “large” parts of the course (such as the sequence of topics). This paper, an initial step towards decision-based instructional design, describes the decisions that need to be made to design a typical academic course, the different ways in which these decisions are logically related to each other, and the objectives relevant to these decisions. These descriptions, which focus on the logical relationship between the decisions, do not form a complete course design process. Designing better courses requires selecting better alternatives for the many decisions that must be made. The objectives used to guide these decisions are thus a critical part of course design. These objectives include meeting a specific need in a satisfactory way, using an established rule or heuristic, maximizing effectiveness, optimizing a metric that is correlated with effectiveness, reducing the costs and resources required to develop and offer the course, and maximizing cost-effectiveness. This paper presents a simple model that describes the relationships between the course design, the instructor’s actions, the students’ actions, the initial and recurring costs of a course, the course effectiveness, and the utility (value) of the course. Based on this model, one could formulate a comprehensive instructional design problem: select the course design that maximizes the expected utility (value). Although there may be other factors that should be included in this model and we may currently be far away from formulating and solving this comprehensive instructional design problem, it can serve as a goal to motivate future research. This paper presents a new perspective for understanding course design, and elaborating this view can increase our understanding of engineering education and help those who are designing engineering courses. Describing these steps as decisions is an important step towards helping instructors make better decisions, which can yield more effective course designs and enhance student learning. This paper adds to our knowledge of engineering education by identifying the types of decisions involved and the objectives that can be used to make those decisions.

Mechanical designs in industry typically do not include adequate specification of allowable part geometry variation. Poorly applied Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing (GD&T), ambiguous plus/minus location or orientation controls, and sometimes no variation specifications (only a 3D CAD body) are commonly all that is done. Since improper specifications cause confusion, and since functional requirements are likely either more precise, or less precise, than the manufacturing process will deliver, excessive costs of dealing with geometry variation result. Specifications which unambiguously capture the functional needs of critical part features, combined with properly gathered and consistently reported measurement data would provide a competitive advantage for any company producing a precise mechanical product. The need to capture functional requirements, and also the improved part designs that result when thinking includes the cost & quality issues clarified by GD&T makes this subject an important element of design focused mechanical engineering education. Especially when tolerance analysis and measurement process quality considerations are included, there is sufficient academic rigor to justify additional coursework. The critical seed needed to remedy industry’s knowledge gap regarding dimensional specifications and associated data is to include two academic quarters of GD&T and Dimensional Management design electives as part of every mechanical engineering curriculum.

Product dissection activities are widely practiced in engineering education as a means of increasing student learning and understanding of core engineering concepts. While recent efforts in this area of research have sought to develop and utilize virtual dissection tools in order to reduce and mitigate the costs of physical dissection activities, little data exists on how virtual dissection impacts student learning and understanding. This lack of data makes it difficult to draw conclusions on the utility of virtual dissection tools for enhancing engineering instruction. In this paper we present the results of a controlled experiment conducted with first-year engineering students developed to examine the impact of virtual dissection on engineering student learning and self-efficacy. Our results revealed that student learning appeared to be unaffected through the use of virtual dissection environments. However, electro-mechanical self-efficacy gains were smaller for students who performed virtual dissection compared to students who performed physical dissection. These results add to our knowledge of the impact that virtual dissection tools can have on student learning and understanding and enable us to develop recommendations and guidelines for improving the effectiveness of these tools in engineering education.

As sustainable building design practices become more prevalent in today’s construction market, designers are looking to alternative materials for novel design strategies. This paper presents a case study comparing the sustainability performance of cross laminated timber (CLT) and reinforced concrete. A comparative sustainability assessment of cross laminated timber and concrete, considering economic, environmental, and social aspects was performed. Environmental impact is measured in terms of CO2 equivalent, economic impact is measured with total sector cost (including sector interdependencies), and qualitative metrics were considered for social impact. In order to conduct an accurate performance comparison, a functional unit of building facade volume was chosen for each product. For this paper, several end-of-life strategies were modeled for CLT and concrete facades. To understand environmental, economic, and social impact, three different scenarios were analyzed to compare performance of both CLT and concrete, including cradle to gate product manufacturing, manufacturing with landfill end-of-life, and manufacturing with recycling end-of-life. Environmental LCA was modeled using GaBi 5.0 Education Edition, which includes its own database for elements including materials, processes, and transportation. To compare the economic impact, Carnegie Mellon’s EIO-LCA online tool is used. Finally, social life cycle impact was considered by identifying process attributes of both products that affect the social domain. Based on this analysis, the use of CLT has a significantly lower environmental impact than concrete, however there are additional costs.

In 2012 a new ISO Technical Report (TR) 12296) was published, this TR was endorsed by CEN in July 2013. A working group of specialists have been working on this document for a period of more then 3 years. The working group was formed under the responsibility of Technical Committee ISO/TC 159, Ergonomics, Subcommittee SC3, Anthropometry and Biomechanics, representing 23 participating and 12 observing countries. Previous ISO standards and TR’s have had too little attention for the specific problems of patient handling in health care. ISO 11228 parts 1-2-3 address ergonomics and manual handling in general. ISO 11228 part 1 considers in an Annex in short the aspects of manual handling of living persons. The new TR is therefore intended to be a tool for assisting with the application of this series in the context of the healthcare sector. Its main goals are to improve caregivers' working conditions by decreasing biomechanical overload risk, thus limiting work-related illness and injury, as well as the consequent costs and absenteeism, and to account for patients' care quality, safety, dignity and privacy as regards their needs, including specific personal care and hygiene. The work was mainly done in a close cooperation with a scientific group called EPPHE (European Panel on Patient Handling Ergonomics). Members of this group have been working on the TR and have also been available to support ideas, provide materials and additional resources to assist in the development of the TR. EPPHE was formed in 2004 from a collaboration of Experts from the IEA Technical Committees on Healthcare Ergonomics and Musculoskeletal Disorders. (Hignett 2014). The final consensus document includes 6 Annexes with additional information and tools regarding:Risk Assessment and Risk EvaluationOrganizational aspects of patient handling interventionsAids and EquipmentBuildings and EnvironmentStaff education and trainingThe evaluation of intervention effectiveness

The paper aimed to study the readiness of the existing e-learning environment for the organisation of English-language learning among Ukrainian and international students on the example of a technical university in Ukraine. The need for English-language training was explored by interviewing students with keen interest, level of English proficiency, motivation, preferred forms of learning, and a willingness to incur additional costs for such learning. About two-thirds of those surveyed showed interest in English-language education. About one-third of the students surveyed have the necessary level of preparation and are also prepared for additional financial expenses. About one- third of the students may also join English-language studies if they fulfil specific prerequisites. Expected employment progress is the primary motivation for joining the English-language program. The readiness of the existing learning environment was tested by analysing the organisation of access to English- language teaching materials, assessing the demand for different electronic resources, as well as the ability to take into account the learning styles of potential Ukrainian and international students in the educational process.

Higher education related to water is a critical component of capacity development necessary to support countries’ progress towards Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) overall, and towards the SDG6 water and sanitation goal in particular. Although the precise number is unknown, there are at least 28,000 higher education institutions in the world. The actual number is likely higher and constantly changing. Water education programmes are very diverse and complex and can include components of engineering, biology, chemistry, physics, hydrology, hydrogeology, ecology, geography, earth sciences, public health, sociology, law, and political sciences, to mention a few areas. In addition, various levels of qualifications are offered, ranging from certificate, diploma, baccalaureate, to the master’s and doctorate (or equivalent) levels. The percentage of universities offering programmes in ‘water’ ranges from 40% in the USA and Europe to 1% in subSaharan Africa. There are no specific data sets available for the extent or quality of teaching ‘water’ in universities. Consequently, insights on this have to be drawn or inferred from data sources on overall research and teaching excellence such as Scopus, the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities, the Times Higher Education, the Ranking Web of Universities, the Our World in Data website and the UN Statistics Division data. Using a combination of measures of research excellence in water resources and related topics, and overall rankings of university teaching excellence, universities with representation in both categories were identified. Very few universities are represented in both categories. Countries that have at least three universities in the list of the top 50 include USA, Australia, China, UK, Netherlands and Canada. There are universities that have excellent reputations for both teaching excellence and for excellent and diverse research activities in water-related topics. They are mainly in the USA, Europe, Australia and China. Other universities scored well on research in water resources but did not in teaching excellence. The approach proposed in this report has potential to guide the development of comprehensive programmes in water. No specific comparative data on the quality of teaching in water-related topics has been identified. This report further shows the variety of pathways which most water education programmes are associated with or built in – through science, technology and engineering post-secondary and professional education systems. The multitude of possible institutions and pathways to acquire a qualification in water means that a better ‘roadmap’ is needed to chart the programmes. A global database with details on programme curricula, qualifications offered, duration, prerequisites, cost, transfer opportunities and other programme parameters would be ideal for this purpose, showing country-level, regional and global search capabilities. Cooperation between institutions in preparing or presenting water programmes is currently rather limited. Regional consortia of institutions may facilitate cooperation. A similar process could be used for technical and vocational education and training, although a more local approach would be better since conditions, regulations and technologies vary between relatively small areas. Finally, this report examines various factors affecting the future availability of water professionals. This includes the availability of suitable education and training programmes, choices that students make to pursue different areas of study, employment prospects, increasing gender equity, costs of education, and students’ and graduates’ mobility, especially between developing and developed countries. This report aims to inform and open a conversation with educators and administrators in higher education especially those engaged in water education or preparing to enter that field. It will also benefit students intending to enter the water resources field, professionals seeking an overview of educational activities for continuing education on water and government officials and politicians responsible for educational activities

A great deal of policy attention is paid to the role that education plays in driving employment outcomes. Most of this attention has focused on post-primary education— particularly Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET). This paper sets out the less-discussed role that foundational skills, typically built through basic primary education, play in driving employability; how foundational skills affect TVET provision; and what implications this body of evidence has for education policy. We acknowledge the need to consider how education systems build skills which will contribute to countries’ economic aspirations. However, we suggest that the dominant discourse which focuses specifically on TVET and how it can be linked to employer demands is unlikely to be successful for several reasons. Firstly, we show that foundational skills are themselves associated with economic gains for individuals and societies. This, together with the evidence showing extremely low levels of foundational skills in many countries, suggests that focusing on improving foundational skills may be a more cost-effective approach to driving employability than has been previously acknowledged. Furthermore, we show that TVET (and other later forms of education) may struggle to add value where foundational skills are not in place. Focusing large amounts of energy and resources on reforming TVET may not achieve hoped-for impacts if TVET entrants don’t have the necessary foundations to learn. We discuss the popular policy prescription of linking TVET provision to employer needs. As well as noting our concern that this focus fails to acknowledge the binding constraint of low foundational skills, we also set out why employer demand for skills may not be a good indication of actual future skills needs. We therefore suggest a more nuanced discussion on skills for employability which acknowledges economic development goals; the skills that will be needed to achieve them; and, crucially, a country’s starting point. We end the paper by highlighting the fact that unemployment and underemployment are generally caused by a lack of jobs, not a lack of skills. We therefore urge policymakers to be realistic about the extent to which any education policy—whether focusing on foundations, technical, and vocation skills or any other type of skills—can affect employment outcomes. Considering the evidence presented in this paper, we suggest that policymakers in many low- and lower-middle income countries may want to consider a stronger focus on foundational skills. The major reason for focusing on foundational skills is that a quality education is a fundamental right for all children which will allow them to experience lifelong learning. This paper sets out that foundational skills will also be the first step towards achieving a more employable workforce—but also that policymakers should consider the full range of policies that need to be in place to deliver productive employment and economic growth.

Access to books is key to learning to read and sustaining a love of reading. Yet many low- and middle-income countries struggle to provide their students with reading materials of sufficient quality and quantity. Since 2008, RTI International has provided technical assistance in early reading assessment and instruction to ministries of education in dozens of low- and middle-income countries. The central objective of many of these programs has been to improve learning outcomes—in particular, reading—for students in the early grades of primary school. Under these programs, RTI has partnered with ministry staff to produce and distribute evidence-based instructional materials at a regional or national scale, in quantities that increase the likelihood that children will have ample opportunities to practice reading skills, and at a cost that can be sustained in the long term by the education system. In this paper, we seek to capture the practices RTI has developed and refined over the last decade, particularly in response to the challenges inherent in contexts with high linguistic diversity and low operational capacity for producing and distributing instructional materials. These practices constitute our approach to developing and producing instructional materials for early grade literacy. We also touch upon effective planning for printing and distribution procurement, but we do not consider the printing and distribution processes in depth in this paper. We expect this volume will be useful for donors, policymakers, and practitioners interested in improving access to cost-effective, high-quality teaching and learning materials for the early grades.

An analysis of the experience of professional training bachelors of electromechanics in Ukraine and abroad made it possible to determine that one of the leading trends in its modernization is the synergistic integration of various engineering branches (mechanical, electrical, electronic engineering and automation) in mechatronics for the purpose of design, manufacture, operation and maintenance electromechanical equipment. Teaching mechatronics provides for the meaningful integration of various disciplines of professional and practical training bachelors of electromechanics based on the concept of modeling and technological integration of various organizational forms and teaching methods based on the concept of mobility. Within this approach, the leading learning tools of bachelors of electromechanics are mobile Internet devices (MID) – a multimedia mobile devices that provide wireless access to information and communication Internet services for collecting, organizing, storing, processing, transmitting, presenting all kinds of messages and data. The authors reveals the main possibilities of using MID in learning to ensure equal access to education, personalized learning, instant feedback and evaluating learning outcomes, mobile learning, productive use of time spent in classrooms, creating mobile learning communities, support situated learning, development of continuous seamless learning, ensuring the gap between formal and informal learning, minimize educational disruption in conflict and disaster areas, assist learners with disabilities, improve the quality of the communication and the management of institution, and maximize the cost-efficiency. Bachelor of electromechanics competency in modeling of technical objects is a personal and vocational ability, which includes a system of knowledge, skills, experience in learning and research activities on modeling mechatronic systems and a positive value attitude towards it; bachelor of electromechanics should be ready and able to use methods and software/hardware modeling tools for processes analyzes, systems synthesis, evaluating their reliability and effectiveness for solving practical problems in professional field. The competency structure of the bachelor of electromechanics in the modeling of technical objects is reflected in three groups of competencies: general scientific, general professional and specialized professional. The implementation of the technique of using MID in learning bachelors of electromechanics in modeling of technical objects is the appropriate methodic of using, the component of which is partial methods for using MID in the formation of the general scientific component of the bachelor of electromechanics competency in modeling of technical objects, are disclosed by example academic disciplines “Higher mathematics”, “Computers and programming”, “Engineering mechanics”, “Electrical machines”. The leading tools of formation of the general scientific component of bachelor in electromechanics competency in modeling of technical objects are augmented reality mobile tools (to visualize the objects’ structure and modeling results), mobile computer mathematical systems (universal tools used at all stages of modeling learning), cloud based spreadsheets (as modeling tools) and text editors (to make the program description of model), mobile computer-aided design systems (to create and view the physical properties of models of technical objects) and mobile communication tools (to organize a joint activity in modeling).

The Planned Parenthood Association of Ghana (PPAG) is one of the most active nongovernmental organizations delivering reproductive health (RH) services in Ghana, focusing particularly on youth issues and services. USAID suggested to the Population Council’s Africa OR/TA Project II staff that PPAG might benefit from technical assistance. A large and well-funded IPPF program to promote sexual health among youth of the Volta Region offered a good opportunity to begin OR work. Earlier, the program was envisioned as a demonstration educational program of five years duration. Further discussions suggested that this program was unlikely to be duplicated anywhere, because of its high cost and because the design of the evaluation did not include a comparison area. As a result, even if the surveys documented change in the program it would be unclear how much change resulted from program activities and how much resulted from other, nonprogram factors. It was PPAG’s assessment that IPPF would appreciate an OR approach more than a demonstration approach to sexual health issues for youth. Therefore, as detailed in this report, Africa OR/TA Project II and PPAG developed a project to strengthen PPAG’s research capacity.

The Sustainable Development Goal 6 targets are all dependent on capacity development as outlined in SDG 6a “Expand international cooperation and capacity-building support to developing countries in water- and sanitation related activities and programmes “. Massive Open On-line Courses (MOOCs) and distance learning in general have a significant role to play in this expansion. This report examines the role that MOOCs and similar courses could play in capacity development in the water sector. The appearance of MOOCs in 2010/11 led within 4 years to a huge increase in this type of course and in student enrollment. Some problems with student dropout rates, over-estimating the transformational and disruptive nature of MOOCs and uncertain business models remain, but less “massive” MOOCs with more engaged students are overcoming these problems. There are many existing distance learning courses and programmes in the water sector designed to train and/ or educate professionals, operators, graduate and undergraduate students and, to a lesser extent, members of communities dealing with water issues. There are few existing true MOOCs in the water sector. MOOCs could supply significant numbers of qualified practitioners for the water sector. A suite of programmes on water-related topics would allow anyone to try the courses and determine whether they were appropriate and useful. If they were, the students could officially enroll in the course or programme to gain a meaningful qualification or simply to upgrade their qualifications. To make MOOCs more relevant to education and training in the water sector an analysis of the requirements in the sector and the potential demand for such courses is required. Cooperation between institutions preparing MOOCs would be desirable given the substantial time and funding required to produce excellent quality courses. One attractive model for cooperation would be to produce modules on all aspects of water and sanitation dealing with technical, scientific, social, legal and management topics. These should be produced by recognized experts in each field and should be “stand-alone” or complete in themselves. If all modules were made freely available, users or mentors could assemble different MOOCs by linking relevant modules. Then extracts, simplified or less technical versions of the modules could then be used to produce presentations to encourage public participation and for other training purposes. Adaptive learning, where course materials are more tailored to individual students based on their test results and reactions to the material, can be an integral part of MOOCs. MOOCs efficiently provide access to quality courses at low or no cost to students around the world, they enable students to try courses at their convenience, they can be tailored to both professional and technical aspects, and they are very suitable to provide adaptive learning courses. Cooperation between institutions would provide many course modules for the water sector that collectively could provide excellent programmes to address the challenges of capacity development for SDG 6 and other issues within the water sector.

Adaptive Social Protection (ASP) as discussed in this report is an approach to enhance the well-being of communities at risk. As an integrated approach, ASP builds on the interface of Disaster Risk Management (DRM), Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) and Social Protection (SP) to address interconnected risks by building resilience, thereby overcoming the shortcomings of traditionally sectoral approaches. The design of meaningful ASP measures needs to be informed by specific information on risk, risk drivers and impacts on communities at risk. In contrast, a limited understanding of risk and its drivers can potentially lead to maladaptation practices. Therefore, multidimensional risk assessments are vital for the successful implementation of ASP. Although many sectoral tools to assess risks exist, available integrated risk assessment methods across sectors are still inadequate in the context of ASP, presenting an important research and implementation gap. ASP is now gaining international momentum, making the timely development of a comprehensive risk analytics tool even more important, including in Indonesia, where nationwide implementation of ASP is currently under way. OBJECTIVE: To address this gap, this study explores the feasibility of a climate and disaster risk analytics tool for ASP (CADRAT-ASP), combining sectoral risk assessment in the context of ASP with a more comprehensive risk analytics approach. Risk analytics improve the understanding of risks by locating and quantifying the potential impacts of disasters. For example, the Economics of Climate Adaptation (ECA) framework quantifies probable current and expected future impacts of extreme events and determines the monetary cost and benefits of specific risk management and adaptation measures. Using the ECA framework, this report examines the viability and practicality of applying a quantitative risk analytics approach for non-financial and non-tangible assets that were identified as central to ASP. This quantitative approach helps to identify cost-effective interventions to support risk-informed decision making for ASP. Therefore, we used Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, as a case study, to identify potential entry points and examples for the further development and application of such an approach. METHODS & RESULTS: The report presents an analysis of central risks and related impacts on communities in the context of ASP. In addition, central social protection dimensions (SPD) necessary for the successful implementation of ASP and respective data needs from a theoretical perspective are identified. The application of the quantitative ECA framework is tested for tropical storms in the context of ASP, providing an operational perspective on technical feasibility. Finally, recommendations on further research for the potential application of a suitable ASP risk analytics tool in Indonesia are proposed. Results show that the ECA framework and its quantitative modelling platform CLIMADA successfully quantified the impact of tropical storms on four SPDs. These SPDs (income, access to health, access to education and mobility) were selected based on the results from the Hazard, Exposure and Vulnerability Assessment (HEVA) conducted to support the development of an ASP roadmap for the Republic of Indonesia (UNU-EHS 2022, forthcoming). The SPDs were modelled using remote sensing, gridded data and available global indices. The results illustrate the value of the outcome to inform decision making and a better allocation of resources to deliver ASP to the case study area. RECOMMENDATIONS: This report highlights strong potential for the application of the ECA framework in the ASP context. The impact of extreme weather events on four social protection dimensions, ranging from access to health care and income to education and mobility, were successfully quantified. In addition, further developments of CADRAT-ASP can be envisaged to improve modelling results and uptake of this tool in ASP implementation. Recommendations are provided for four central themes: mainstreaming the CADRAT approach into ASP, data and information needs for the application of CADRAT-ASP, methodological advancements of the ECA framework to support ASP and use of CADRAT-ASP for improved resilience-building. Specific recommendations are given, including the integration of additional hazards, such as flood, drought or heatwaves, for a more comprehensive outlook on potential risks. This would provide a broader overview and allow for multi-hazard risk planning. In addition, high-resolution local data and stakeholder involvement can increase both ownership and the relevance of SPDs. Further recommendations include the development of a database and the inclusion of climate and socioeconomic scenarios in analyses.

1.1 Macroeconomic summary Economic recovery has consistently outperformed the technical staff’s expectations following a steep decline in activity in the second quarter of 2020. At the same time, total and core inflation rates have fallen and remain at low levels, suggesting that a significant element of the reactivation of Colombia’s economy has been related to recovery in potential GDP. This would support the technical staff’s diagnosis of weak aggregate demand and ample excess capacity. The most recently available data on 2020 growth suggests a contraction in economic activity of 6.8%, lower than estimates from January’s Monetary Policy Report (-7.2%). High-frequency indicators suggest that economic performance was significantly more dynamic than expected in January, despite mobility restrictions and quarantine measures. This has also come amid declines in total and core inflation, the latter of which was below January projections if controlling for certain relative price changes. This suggests that the unexpected strength of recent growth contains elements of demand, and that excess capacity, while significant, could be lower than previously estimated. Nevertheless, uncertainty over the measurement of excess capacity continues to be unusually high and marked both by variations in the way different economic sectors and spending components have been affected by the pandemic, and by uneven price behavior. The size of excess capacity, and in particular the evolution of the pandemic in forthcoming quarters, constitute substantial risks to the macroeconomic forecast presented in this report. Despite the unexpected strength of the recovery, the technical staff continues to project ample excess capacity that is expected to remain on the forecast horizon, alongside core inflation that will likely remain below the target. Domestic demand remains below 2019 levels amid unusually significant uncertainty over the size of excess capacity in the economy. High national unemployment (14.6% for February 2021) reflects a loose labor market, while observed total and core inflation continue to be below 2%. Inflationary pressures from the exchange rate are expected to continue to be low, with relatively little pass-through on inflation. This would be compatible with a negative output gap. Excess productive capacity and the expectation of core inflation below the 3% target on the forecast horizon provide a basis for an expansive monetary policy posture. The technical staff’s assessment of certain shocks and their expected effects on the economy, as well as the presence of several sources of uncertainty and related assumptions about their potential macroeconomic impacts, remain a feature of this report. The coronavirus pandemic, in particular, continues to affect the public health environment, and the reopening of Colombia’s economy remains incomplete. The technical staff’s assessment is that the COVID-19 shock has affected both aggregate demand and supply, but that the impact on demand has been deeper and more persistent. Given this persistence, the central forecast accounts for a gradual tightening of the output gap in the absence of new waves of contagion, and as vaccination campaigns progress. The central forecast continues to include an expected increase of total and core inflation rates in the second quarter of 2021, alongside the lapse of the temporary price relief measures put in place in 2020. Additional COVID-19 outbreaks (of uncertain duration and intensity) represent a significant risk factor that could affect these projections. Additionally, the forecast continues to include an upward trend in sovereign risk premiums, reflected by higher levels of public debt that in the wake of the pandemic are likely to persist on the forecast horizon, even in the context of a fiscal adjustment. At the same time, the projection accounts for the shortterm effects on private domestic demand from a fiscal adjustment along the lines of the one currently being proposed by the national government. This would be compatible with a gradual recovery of private domestic demand in 2022. The size and characteristics of the fiscal adjustment that is ultimately implemented, as well as the corresponding market response, represent another source of forecast uncertainty. Newly available information offers evidence of the potential for significant changes to the macroeconomic scenario, though without altering the general diagnosis described above. The most recent data on inflation, growth, fiscal policy, and international financial conditions suggests a more dynamic economy than previously expected. However, a third wave of the pandemic has delayed the re-opening of Colombia’s economy and brought with it a deceleration in economic activity. Detailed descriptions of these considerations and subsequent changes to the macroeconomic forecast are presented below. The expected annual decline in GDP (-0.3%) in the first quarter of 2021 appears to have been less pronounced than projected in January (-4.8%). Partial closures in January to address a second wave of COVID-19 appear to have had a less significant negative impact on the economy than previously estimated. This is reflected in figures related to mobility, energy demand, industry and retail sales, foreign trade, commercial transactions from selected banks, and the national statistics agency’s (DANE) economic tracking indicator (ISE). Output is now expected to have declined annually in the first quarter by 0.3%. Private consumption likely continued to recover, registering levels somewhat above those from the previous year, while public consumption likely increased significantly. While a recovery in investment in both housing and in other buildings and structures is expected, overall investment levels in this case likely continued to be low, and gross fixed capital formation is expected to continue to show significant annual declines. Imports likely recovered to again outpace exports, though both are expected to register significant annual declines. Economic activity that outpaced projections, an increase in oil prices and other export products, and an expected increase in public spending this year account for the upward revision to the 2021 growth forecast (from 4.6% with a range between 2% and 6% in January, to 6.0% with a range between 3% and 7% in April). As a result, the output gap is expected to be smaller and to tighten more rapidly than projected in the previous report, though it is still expected to remain in negative territory on the forecast horizon. Wide forecast intervals reflect the fact that the future evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic remains a significant source of uncertainty on these projections. The delay in the recovery of economic activity as a result of the resurgence of COVID-19 in the first quarter appears to have been less significant than projected in the January report. The central forecast scenario expects this improved performance to continue in 2021 alongside increased consumer and business confidence. Low real interest rates and an active credit supply would also support this dynamic, and the overall conditions would be expected to spur a recovery in consumption and investment. Increased growth in public spending and public works based on the national government’s spending plan (Plan Financiero del Gobierno) are other factors to consider. Additionally, an expected recovery in global demand and higher projected prices for oil and coffee would further contribute to improved external revenues and would favor investment, in particular in the oil sector. Given the above, the technical staff’s 2021 growth forecast has been revised upward from 4.6% in January (range from 2% to 6%) to 6.0% in April (range from 3% to 7%). These projections account for the potential for the third wave of COVID-19 to have a larger and more persistent effect on the economy than the previous wave, while also supposing that there will not be any additional significant waves of the pandemic and that mobility restrictions will be relaxed as a result. Economic growth in 2022 is expected to be 3%, with a range between 1% and 5%. This figure would be lower than projected in the January report (3.6% with a range between 2% and 6%), due to a higher base of comparison given the upward revision to expected GDP in 2021. This forecast also takes into account the likely effects on private demand of a fiscal adjustment of the size currently being proposed by the national government, and which would come into effect in 2022. Excess in productive capacity is now expected to be lower than estimated in January but continues to be significant and affected by high levels of uncertainty, as reflected in the wide forecast intervals. The possibility of new waves of the virus (of uncertain intensity and duration) represents a significant downward risk to projected GDP growth, and is signaled by the lower limits of the ranges provided in this report. Inflation (1.51%) and inflation excluding food and regulated items (0.94%) declined in March compared to December, continuing below the 3% target. The decline in inflation in this period was below projections, explained in large part by unanticipated increases in the costs of certain foods (3.92%) and regulated items (1.52%). An increase in international food and shipping prices, increased foreign demand for beef, and specific upward pressures on perishable food supplies appear to explain a lower-than-expected deceleration in the consumer price index (CPI) for foods. An unexpected increase in regulated items prices came amid unanticipated increases in international fuel prices, on some utilities rates, and for regulated education prices. The decline in annual inflation excluding food and regulated items between December and March was in line with projections from January, though this included downward pressure from a significant reduction in telecommunications rates due to the imminent entry of a new operator. When controlling for the effects of this relative price change, inflation excluding food and regulated items exceeds levels forecast in the previous report. Within this indicator of core inflation, the CPI for goods (1.05%) accelerated due to a reversion of the effects of the VAT-free day in November, which was largely accounted for in February, and possibly by the transmission of a recent depreciation of the peso on domestic prices for certain items (electric and household appliances). For their part, services prices decelerated and showed the lowest rate of annual growth (0.89%) among the large consumer baskets in the CPI. Within the services basket, the annual change in rental prices continued to decline, while those services that continue to experience the most significant restrictions on returning to normal operations (tourism, cinemas, nightlife, etc.) continued to register significant price declines. As previously mentioned, telephone rates also fell significantly due to increased competition in the market. Total inflation is expected to continue to be affected by ample excesses in productive capacity for the remainder of 2021 and 2022, though less so than projected in January. As a result, convergence to the inflation target is now expected to be somewhat faster than estimated in the previous report, assuming the absence of significant additional outbreaks of COVID-19. The technical staff’s year-end inflation projections for 2021 and 2022 have increased, suggesting figures around 3% due largely to variation in food and regulated items prices. The projection for inflation excluding food and regulated items also increased, but remains below 3%. Price relief measures on indirect taxes implemented in 2020 are expected to lapse in the second quarter of 2021, generating a one-off effect on prices and temporarily affecting inflation excluding food and regulated items. However, indexation to low levels of past inflation, weak demand, and ample excess productive capacity are expected to keep core inflation below the target, near 2.3% at the end of 2021 (previously 2.1%). The reversion in 2021 of the effects of some price relief measures on utility rates from 2020 should lead to an increase in the CPI for regulated items in the second half of this year. Annual price changes are now expected to be higher than estimated in the January report due to an increased expected path for fuel prices and unanticipated increases in regulated education prices. The projection for the CPI for foods has increased compared to the previous report, taking into account certain factors that were not anticipated in January (a less favorable agricultural cycle, increased pressure from international prices, and transport costs). Given the above, year-end annual inflation for 2021 and 2022 is now expected to be 3% and 2.8%, respectively, which would be above projections from January (2.3% and 2,7%). For its part, expected inflation based on analyst surveys suggests year-end inflation in 2021 and 2022 of 2.8% and 3.1%, respectively. There remains significant uncertainty surrounding the inflation forecasts included in this report due to several factors: 1) the evolution of the pandemic; 2) the difficulty in evaluating the size and persistence of excess productive capacity; 3) the timing and manner in which price relief measures will lapse; and 4) the future behavior of food prices. Projected 2021 growth in foreign demand (4.4% to 5.2%) and the supposed average oil price (USD 53 to USD 61 per Brent benchmark barrel) were both revised upward. An increase in long-term international interest rates has been reflected in a depreciation of the peso and could result in relatively tighter external financial conditions for emerging market economies, including Colombia. Average growth among Colombia’s trade partners was greater than expected in the fourth quarter of 2020. This, together with a sizable fiscal stimulus approved in the United States and the onset of a massive global vaccination campaign, largely explains the projected increase in foreign demand growth in 2021. The resilience of the goods market in the face of global crisis and an expected normalization in international trade are additional factors. These considerations and the expected continuation of a gradual reduction of mobility restrictions abroad suggest that Colombia’s trade partners could grow on average by 5.2% in 2021 and around 3.4% in 2022. The improved prospects for global economic growth have led to an increase in current and expected oil prices. Production interruptions due to a heavy winter, reduced inventories, and increased supply restrictions instituted by producing countries have also contributed to the increase. Meanwhile, market forecasts and recent Federal Reserve pronouncements suggest that the benchmark interest rate in the U.S. will remain stable for the next two years. Nevertheless, a significant increase in public spending in the country has fostered expectations for greater growth and inflation, as well as increased uncertainty over the moment in which a normalization of monetary policy might begin. This has been reflected in an increase in long-term interest rates. In this context, emerging market economies in the region, including Colombia, have registered increases in sovereign risk premiums and long-term domestic interest rates, and a depreciation of local currencies against the dollar. Recent outbreaks of COVID-19 in several of these economies; limits on vaccine supply and the slow pace of immunization campaigns in some countries; a significant increase in public debt; and tensions between the United States and China, among other factors, all add to a high level of uncertainty surrounding interest rate spreads, external financing conditions, and the future performance of risk premiums. The impact that this environment could have on the exchange rate and on domestic financing conditions represent risks to the macroeconomic and monetary policy forecasts. Domestic financial conditions continue to favor recovery in economic activity. The transmission of reductions to the policy interest rate on credit rates has been significant. The banking portfolio continues to recover amid circumstances that have affected both the supply and demand for loans, and in which some credit risks have materialized. Preferential and ordinary commercial interest rates have fallen to a similar degree as the benchmark interest rate. As is generally the case, this transmission has come at a slower pace for consumer credit rates, and has been further delayed in the case of mortgage rates. Commercial credit levels stabilized above pre-pandemic levels in March, following an increase resulting from significant liquidity requirements for businesses in the second quarter of 2020. The consumer credit portfolio continued to recover and has now surpassed February 2020 levels, though overall growth in the portfolio remains low. At the same time, portfolio projections and default indicators have increased, and credit establishment earnings have come down. Despite this, credit disbursements continue to recover and solvency indicators remain well above regulatory minimums. 1.2 Monetary policy decision In its meetings in March and April the BDBR left the benchmark interest rate unchanged at 1.75%.