How to achieve high customer satisfaction in Sabancı University Information Center

The Sabancı University is a young private university, which started providing education in 1999 in Istanbul. A “Search Conference” had been organized in order to find out “what kind of a university the country needed” and of its structure had been established on this understanding. At the first stage, the vision, the mission and the design of the university were completed, and the foundation of administrative infrastructure and selection of technology systems were materialized. Starting from the days of its foundation, the planning of the information services and facilities had been one of the main issues of the project. The university, which aims to become a world university, was accepted to be a member of the “European Foundation of Quality Management (EFQM)” regarding its activities in the stage of its foundation. A “Student and Staff Tendency Survey” which was implemented in 2001 indicated that the Information Centre was the strong side of the university. At the same time the Center's the statistics covering period of 1999-2007 also indicated that the targets were achieved under the strategic planning of the Center. In 2007, an user satisfaction survey in order to evaluate the conformity of the services and facilities, to identify its strong and weak areas, opportunities and threats through comparison and SWOT analysis for the future, and set up 2007-2011 five-years strategic planning and operational activity plan. The survey indicated that 95% of the participants are satisfied in general with the Center. In addition to these, the results of usage statistics between the years 1998-2009 indicated that utilizing of the services and facilities of the Information Center has increased from year to year. On the other hand, the results of the survey after the orientation programs show that the customer satisfaction is very high. We believe that the followings are the reasons of high user satisfaction. The Centre has a user and process focused pro-active management, learning organization structure, the availability of the suggestion system, continues benchmarking with the competitors and observing management and technological developments in the world. This paper presents to share our applications and plans on high user satisfaction rate, customer relation management activities and future planning

Women in higher education and academia in Iran

Abstract This article addresses women's contemporary position in academia in Iran. By systematically reviewing available academic and official databases on women's positions in academia published online or in print, the question is raised if women's current position and role in academia is the result of personal choice making or an existent systematic discriminatory social structure. To address this issue, available Iranian research and data on female recruitment in universities are analyzed. The results show that there is a general accordance on two findings in the research addressing women's position in academia. First, gender discrimination is restricting women's choices by systematically excluding them from educational, managerial and administrative positions. Second, in spite of the substantial increase in women's enrolment in tertiary education, significant development in women's position and role in scientific and educational institutions has not taken place. After discussing the data, I will try to compare two sets of sociological theoretical approaches that offer explanations for women's lower levels of participation in the academia; namely, theories of exclusion and theories of participation. I suggest that the former is more effective in analyzing women's position in Iranian academia, because of being based on recognition of the existing structural discriminations. Although women's participation in higher education is gradually growing and gender boundaries are being stretched on a daily basis, there is need for fundamental structural changes in social and educational spheres, and widespread implementation of positive discrimination

Evaluating the effectiveness of auraptene on beta amyloid-induced spatial memory impairment in rats

Introduction: Alzheimer's disease is an advanced and multifactorial neurodegenerative disease, which makes the largest group of learning and memory disorders. This disease is associated with the deposition of amyloid beta (Aβ) in the extracellular space and the formation of neurofibrillary tangles (NFTs) within the cellular body of neurons. Auraptene is a simple coumarin that performs many protective acts as a neurotrophic and acetyl cholinesterase inhibitor compound in the brain. This study was conducted to evaluate the protective effects of auraptene on the memory improvement in Aβ42-induced model of Alzheimer. Materials and Methods: In this study, 48 male Wistar rats (200-250 g) were used. Animals were divided into 6 groups, 8 animals each; Sham (non-injection cannulation), Negative control (Alzheimer induced by injection of 30 ng Aβ42 to the hippocampus), auraptene solvent as well as three therapeutic groups receiving 5, 10 and 25 mg / kg auraptene for 12 days after Aβ injection. The evaluation of spatial memory performance after Alzheimer's induction was performed by morris water maze behavioral test. Bcl-2 Bax ratio was measured by ELISA method to determine the expression of proteins involved in apoptosis. Results: Intraperitoneal administration of auraptene (5, 10 and 25 mg / kg) in therapeutic groups significantly decreased the time to reach the platform and increased the duration of the presence and distance traveled in the target quadrant compared to Alzheimer induced group. Also, ELISA results showed that expression of Bax protein in treatment groups was significantly lower than in Negative control group. While a significant increase was observed in the expression of Bcl-2 protein. Also, the ratio of Bax / Bcl-2 showed a significant decrease in the hippocampus of Auraptene treated groups. Conclusion: This study showed the memory enhancement effect of auraptene after induction of Alzheimer's disease. It seems that this effect could be through the increased expression of Bcl-2 protein and decrease in the expression of Bax protein

Indexing Profile of English-Language Journals of the University of Tehran Based on Indexing Criteria of International Citation Databases

Objective: This study aims to determine the feasibility and possibility of indexing English-language journals published by the University of Tehran in international citation indexes (e.g. Web of Science and Scopus). It would also help to find out the reasons why the majority of these journals are not yet indexed in international citation indexes. This study also provides some strategies to increase the international visibility and accessibility of these journals. Materials and Methods: This descriptive survey examined English-language journals published by Scientific Journals Database of Tehran University, available at https://journals.ut.ac.ir. We have used a combination of qualitative and quantitative measures such as journal citation analysis and a checklist. Citation analysis data was collected from Scopus and Google Scholar, and the checklist was designed upon indexing criteria of Web of Science Core Collection Journal Selection Process and Scopus Content Advisory Board. Results: Findings indicate that the total number of citations per journal was low and therefore only 15 percent of these journals were indexed in international databases and there were only two journals comply with all of the minimum acceptance criteria. Some reasons why they are not yet indexed by international citation databases are the irregularity in publishing, lack of description of the peer-review process and lack of publication ethics and malpractice statement. However, the strong points of these journals are proper publication archive, accessibility, and readability of the content to international readerships. Conclusion: This study helps publishers, editors and decision-makers to improve the quality of international journals and give them the rank and the position of being welcomed by a wider scholar community and accepted by international citation databases

Study on Scientific outputs of Scholars in the Field of Digital Libraries Using Altmetrics Indicators

The current study aims to calculate the relationship between Altmetric scores obtained from the observation and dissemination of digital library resources in the Dimensions database and the number of citations received in the Scopus database. Also, in another part of the research, the predictive power of the number of Scopus citations by Altmetric scores is examined. The present research is applied in terms of purpose and survey-descriptive in terms of type, which is done by the scientometric method and with an Altmetric approach. The statistical population of the study includes all articles in the field of digital libraries (24183 records) that are indexed in the Scopus citation database during 1960-2020. Dimensions database has been used to evaluate the Altmetric scores obtained from these articles on social networks. Due to the limited access to the required data in the Scopus database, 2000 highly cited articles in the field of digital libraries in this Scopus database were studied through the Dimensions database. The data collection tools are Scopus Citation Database and Dimensions Database. The required data is collected through the Scopus database. In this study, the studied indicators from the Dimensions database appear as the independent variable of the research. The dependent variables in this study are the number of citations to articles in the Scopus database. Correlation tests and multiple regression between the studied indices are used to examine the relationships between variables and perform statistical tests. The software used is Excel and SPSS version 23. The present study results show that the social networks Patent, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Twitter have the highest correlation with the number of citations in the Dimensions database. The social networks Blog, Google User, and Q&A do not significantly relate to the number of citations received in Dimensions. Patent social networks, Wikipedia, and Twitter have the highest correlation with the number of Scopus citations. In this case, the social networks of Blog, Google User, Pulse Source and Q&A do not significantly correlate with the number of citations received. Among the citation databases studied, Mendeley has the highest correlation between the numbers of citations. Other results indicate that the publication and viewing of documents on social networks cannot predict the number of citations in the Dimensions and Scopus databases.https://dorl.net/dor/20.1001.1.20088302.2022.20.4.10.

Towards Consistency and Transparency in Academic Integrity

This book is an outcome of the 4th International Conference «Plagiarism across Europe and Beyond» organized by Canakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Mendel University in Brno, and the European Network for Academic Integrity. The conference is co-funded by the Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships Programme of the European Union. It aims to be a forum for sharing best practices and experiences by addressing issues of academic integrity from a wide-scope global perspective. With regards to the crucial role of ethics and honesty in academic work, universities are in need of more effective policies against infringements of academic standards. The papers in this book therefore aim to contribute to the standardization of consistent and transparent approaches to issues of academic integrity from several perspectives