Leaders at nonprofit academic institutions are following the global business trend of embracing sustainability initiatives for positive social change; however, there has been slow growth in sustainability reporting among academic institutions. The purpose of this study was to explore the strategies and processes necessary for leaders and managers to integrate sustainability reporting into the reporting cycle for a nonprofit higher education institution. I conducted a single case study of a nonprofit academic institution that utilized sustainability reporting. The study sample consisted of 4 leaders and managers at a nonprofit academic institution located in the state of Michigan that published sustainability reports. The conceptual framework used for the study was corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainability, and triple bottom line (TBL). The data collection process included interviews with leaders and managers involved in the sustainability reporting process and document reviews of the sustainability report and annual reports. I used a data-driven coding approach for data analysis. The codes were linked to create categories, and the categories led to the development of themes. The results revealed 5 themes regarding the sustainability reporting process, including the steps of the sustainability reporting process and the collaborative process in sustainability reporting. The implications for positive social change included the potential for greater transparency for students, faculty, staff, administration and community partners, and greater effectiveness of the implementation of environmental, economic, and social initiatives for higher education institutions and the community.

Magister Artium - MA / This study is an investigation into the biliteracy skills (in Arabic and English) employed by Libyan students at the University of the Western Cape to gain their academic success. Nowadays, international students form a significant number in every academic institution. The study attempts to show that there are literacy factors beyond basic editing of written tasks by biliterate students studying outside their country of origin that need to be acknowledged as contributing to their success in completing such tasks. Qualitative research methods - a questionnaire and interviews – were used in order to understand what strategies the participants rely on to first understand, then write their assignments, how they apply their biliteracy skills, and what biliterate resources they draw on in their writing in order to produce a successful assignment. Hornberger’s (1989) Biliteracy Model was adopted as a framework to map students’ responses. This study may serve as a response to the question posed by Hornberger and Link (2012:243): “How should educators engage with students’ linguistic and literacy diversity in order to facilitate successful school experiences and greater academic achievement for students from often minoritized backgrounds?” This study might also be one of a series of research studies exploring, as Creese and Blackledge (2010:113) recommend, “what ‘teachable’ pedagogic resources are available in flexible, concurrent approaches to learning and teaching languages bilingually”. The findings of the research show that the Libyan students in this study used particular strategies whenever they faced academic barriers, and to compensate for their limited competence in English and the academic discourse in the foreign context of UWC. The most significant of these strategies were the use of the first language as a bridge to the second, oral discussions preceding written assignments, drawing on prior knowledge, and moving from reading to writing. Moreover, the findings revealed some of the factors behind the students’ growing confidence in their writing and consequently, succeeding in writing their assignments. These were lecturers’ feedback, oral discussions with a writing coach or friends, and drawing on contextualized content.

<p>There are voices in the research field suggesting that universities should become learning organisations in order to be more competitive and efficient. However, the proposal is mainly based on theoretical and normative discussions rather than on empirical research. Therefore, this study has explored and reviewed in what way a university organisation has organised its inner life and illuminate in what way its local organisation matches the characteristics of a constructed theoretical model of a learning organisation. The study has furthermore explored in what way the organisational characteristics interact with one another in order to find out whether they support or hinder organisational learning.</p>

There are voices in the research field suggesting that universities should become learning organisations in order to be more competitive and efficient. However, the proposal is mainly based on theoretical and normative discussions rather than on empirical research. Therefore, this study has explored and reviewed in what way a university organisation has organised its inner life and illuminate in what way its local organisation matches the characteristics of a constructed theoretical model of a learning organisation. The study has furthermore explored in what way the organisational characteristics interact with one another in order to find out whether they support or hinder organisational learning.

The teaching model in Open Distance Learning is moving towards fully integrated information and communication technology applications, therefore, academic lecturers need to have a strong comfort level with the use of technology tools. The academic lecturers are qualified and experienced subject matter experts but this does not translate to having the necessary technical competencies to do online teaching. They consequently could experience feelings of incompetency to facilitate courseware on a technology platform. The study identified the factors that influence the user experience when using a Learning Management System (LMS) in an academic institution. The research design comprises a convergent, parallel design mixed-method case study. A literature review was conducted to abstract the factors that influence the user experience into a conceptual framework. An expert review was conducted to validate the conceptual framework and then a questionnaire-driven survey was performed. The quantitative analysis of the survey results revealed that eight of the nine factors proposed in the conceptual framework do have an influence on the perceived user experience of the academic when using the LMS. The qualitative analysis revealed that all nine of the identified factors do have an influence on the perceived user experience of the academic when using the LMS. The contribution of this study is to present a conceptual framework of the factors that influence the user experience of the academic when using an LMS to improve our understanding of the experience of the academic and the practical challenges involved for academics that have to facilitate learning in an online environment The findings should be of interest to developers of LMSs and to institutions in support and training of academics that have to use the LMS. / School of Computing / M. Sc. (Computing)