The growing trend of internationalization in higher education underscores the importance of cross-national studies, particularly in the area of curricula, to facilitate learning and understanding among nations. This study examined undergraduate and graduate course syllabi from around the world to compare and contrast their components and subcomponents related to instructional design and technology. The aim was to identify major components and subcomponents and investigate their similarities and differences across continents. Additionally, the study explored the theories, principles, and concepts reflected in the syllabi and compared and contrasted them across the continents. The research analyzed 147 syllabi from 99 schools in 37 countries worldwide. The study identified eight major components that were present in the syllabi from all six continents, which include basic information, course information, course assessment, course resources, learning results, course schedule, course policies, and course expectations. The theories, principles, and concepts reflected in the syllabi included self-regulated learning, learner-centered pedagogy, universal design for learning, backward design, Bloom's taxonomy, and course objectives. However, the study also found significant differences in the specific components and subcomponents across continents. Therefore, when designing and creating a syllabus, it is essential to consider factors such as student readiness, instructor expertise, cultural practices, available resources, and educational policies, etc. / Doctor of Philosophy / This research looked at multiple course outlines related to technology-assisted teaching from universities worldwide to understand (1) what types of information were included and (2) why those types of information were important to the organization of the course outlines. It also described how universities across the world were different or similar in the contents included in their course outlines and in the ideas that supported the creation of their course outlines. In total, 147 course outlines were collected from 99 different schools in 37 countries. The researcher started by reviewing what other experts studied about course outlines and how they should be structured. After collecting these outlines from six different sources, the researcher organized the information from the outlines by grouping similar parts together. So, it became easier to find out how different parts of the outlines were similar or different from each other. The study found eight common parts in the course outlines collected worldwide. These parts included the following basic information about each course: details about what the course covers, how student assignments will be graded, the learning materials that students will use for the course, what students will be able to do after taking the course, the class activities, the rules, and what's expected from students. The study also discovered six common ideas that supported the creation of course outlines. These ideas deal with how students should take responsibility for their own learning, how teaching should center on the students, making sure that all students have equal access to the learning materials, planning lessons by starting with the end goal followed by assessment methods, describing different levels of thinking and learning, and setting clear goals for the course. In the end, this study found that the course outlines from the universities worldwide contained different types of information, despite sharing some key features. The outlines in different places frequently contained some information that is suitable and unique to the learning environments of specific regions. The same goes for the ideas and concepts regarding teaching and technology in these course outlines. The results of this research are important for a few reasons. First, the results provide new teachers with a broad perspective on how universities around the world structure their course outlines. Second, this study helps fill in a gap in our understanding of how course outlines are organized in different countries. It shows how they are similar or different. Third, it looks at whether these course outlines match up with the ideas and principles of teaching and technology. Fourth, the evidence from this research can be useful for people who make decisions about policies on teaching and learning. Lastly, it adds more knowledge to what we already know about making course outlines.

Studien bidrar till en fördjupad förståelse rörande delkomponenterna inom dimensionerna samt varför hantering av intellektuellt kapital är av vikt inom tjänstesektorn. Genom den presenterade teorisyntesen går det att påvisa att en hantering av intellektuellt kapital i stort bidrar till synergieffekter inom delkomponenterna som i sig bidrar till framgång inom företaget. Vi vill även lyfta fram det teoretiska bidrag som presenterats där vi anser att ett större fokus bör läggas på att lyfta fram vikten hos dimensionen strukturellt kapital och dess delkomponenter för en användning som styrningsverktyg i kontext med resterande dimensioner. / The study contributes to a deeper understanding of the subcomponents within the dimensions including why management of intellectual capital is important in the service sector. Through the presented theory synthesis, it is demonstrated that management of intellectual capital contributes largely to synergy effects within the subcomponents, which in itself contributes to success within the company. We also want to highlight the theoretical contribution presented in which we feel that a greater focus should be placed on highlighting the importance of the dimensions within structural capital and its subcomponents for the use as a management tool in context with the remaining dimensions.

Il est de plus en plus reconnu que les connexions du cerveau jouent un rôle important sur la fonction cérébrale, en particulier les fonctions cognitives supérieures comme le langage. Cependant l’imperfection des techniques traitant les connexions macroscopiques humaines a empêché l’avancement de nos connaissances sur l'anatomie des faisceaux. Nous nous appuyons ainsi aujourd’hui essentiellement sur la littérature du XIXème siècle. Les définitions des trajets et des connexions anatomiques de nombreux faisceaux sont constamment débattues. En utilisant l'imagerie de diffusion, nous réévaluons les anatomies des faisceaux clés dans une grande cohorte saine. Nous utilisons une nouvelle approche de segmentation des faisceaux qui vise à reproduire la méthode introduite par les dissectionistes. Celle-ci définit un tract comme l’ensemble des fibres passant par une même tige, minimisant ainsi l’a priori sur leurs terminaisons. Nous nous concentrons sur les faisceaux d'association des capsules externe et extrême, notamment les faisceaux occipito-frontal inférieur (FOFI) et unciné (FU) impliqués dans le circuit du langage ventral. Nous passons en revue la littérature sur ces tracts, fournissons des descriptions détaillées de leurs connectivités anatomiques et donnons un nouvel éclairage sur leur asymétrie et organisation interne. Dans une première étude, nous confirmons que les deux faisceaux ont de plus vastes projections dans le cortex qu'on ne le pensait, et nous présentons de nouveaux résultats concernant les branches asymétriques des faisceaux. Dans une deuxième étude, nous étudions en profondeur le FU et ses sous composantes. Nous résolvons un débat d’un siècle en exhibant clairement sa frontière avec le FOFI et nous identifions pour chaque sous composante des caractéristiques anatomiques distinctives y compris des asymétries. Ces résultats apportent un éclairage nouveau sur le FOFI et le FU qui sera crucial pour démêler leurs rôles multifonctionnels. / The importance of the brain’s connections for cerebral function is increasingly emphasized especially for higher cognitive functions like language. But the imperfection of the techniques used to address the human macroscopic connections has prevented the advancement of our knowledge on the anatomy of fibre pathways. Thus we rely heavily on XIXth century literature. Controversy surrounding the anatomical course and connections of many fibre pathways persists. Using diffusion imaging, we reevaluate the anatomies of key pathways in a large healthy cohort. We use a novel tract segmentation approach that aims to reproduce the method introduced by dissectionists – defining a tract as all fibers passing through a stem, thus minimizing a priori on their terminations. We focus on the association pathways of the external and extreme capsules, namely the inferior fronto-occipital (IFOF) and uncinate fasciculi (UF), implicated in the ventral language circuitry. We review the literature on these tracts, provide detailed descriptions of their connectional anatomies and present new insights regarding their asymmetry and internal organization. In a first study, we confirm that both tracts have more extensive projections within the cortex than previously thought and present new results regarding asymmetrical tract branches. In a second study we further investigate the UF including its subcomponents. We resolve a century old debate by clarifying its elusive boundary with the IFOF and reveal the distinctive anatomical features including asymmetry patterns of each subcomponent. These results shed new light on the IFOF and UF and will be crucial for disentangling their multifunctional roles.