838
M. Muslim et al.
2.3 Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Sustainability Assessment
Methodology (SAM)
The Sustainability Assessment Methodology (SAM) is a computerised tool to measure sustainability/sustainable development which has been developed by the Centre
for Global Sustainability Studies (CGSS) of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in
2011 (Suzyrman et al. 2014). Initially, SAM was intended to monitor the sustainability content of courses, research projects and administrative documentation used by
the university. SAM uses a ‘criteria and standards’ based approach for this purpose.
The criteria involve a broad grouping of 12 items based on WEHAB Framework
in addition of Sustainability Education and several cross sectoral areas as shown in
Fig. 1. The standards are defined by 24 sets of descriptive indicators. SAM has since
been computerized with an input (any form of written documentation such as course
synopsis, project report, policy documentation) process (considers the 12 criteria and
checks them against a detailed set of words and bi-words derived from the 24 set of
indicators) and output (display in different forms, see Fig. 1). The validity of this
approach is attested by its dependence on the major outcome documents published by
the United Nations (UN) such as the Stockholm Declaration, the Brundtland Report,
Agenda 21, the Earth Charter, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, The Future
We Want and other revelent national report (Suzyrman et al. 2014). All of those UN
publication is for MDG agenda and align with WEHAB Framework. As the result,
CGSS has been able to publish the methodology in international journals, books and
had also won two national awards on a competitive basis.
There are three steps in SAM: Screening, Identification, and Classification. In
screening, the subject will be assessed for three types of pillars; Economy, People
and Environment. Then, in identification process, the subject will analysed using
indicators in SAM and at the last step subject can be classified into sustainability
categories; Low Sustainability, Medium Sustainability or High Sustainability (Koshy
et al. 2013; Suzyrman et al. 2014).
3 Methodology and Data
3.1 SAM Processing Approach
SAM is a computer based methodology application that follows a three-stage “Input,
Process, Output” approach in computer science term or known as Screening, Identification, and Classification in SAM language. The input uses Portable Document
(PDF) Format report and then the Input will be analysed in the Processing step. In
the final Output step, the results are displayed automatically in a variety of forms
such as pie chart, histogram, word clouds, sustainability percentage, bar chart, traffic
light plots, and spider chart. For the purpose of this assessment, the histogram and
table were chosen to display result. Figure 2 is the SAM processing steps.
M. Muslim et al.
2.3 Universiti Sains Malaysia’s Sustainability Assessment
Methodology (SAM)
The Sustainability Assessment Methodology (SAM) is a computerised tool to measure sustainability/sustainable development which has been developed by the Centre
for Global Sustainability Studies (CGSS) of Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM) in
2011 (Suzyrman et al. 2014). Initially, SAM was intended to monitor the sustainability content of courses, research projects and administrative documentation used by
the university. SAM uses a ‘criteria and standards’ based approach for this purpose.
The criteria involve a broad grouping of 12 items based on WEHAB Framework
in addition of Sustainability Education and several cross sectoral areas as shown in
Fig. 1. The standards are defined by 24 sets of descriptive indicators. SAM has since
been computerized with an input (any form of written documentation such as course
synopsis, project report, policy documentation) process (considers the 12 criteria and
checks them against a detailed set of words and bi-words derived from the 24 set of
indicators) and output (display in different forms, see Fig. 1). The validity of this
approach is attested by its dependence on the major outcome documents published by
the United Nations (UN) such as the Stockholm Declaration, the Brundtland Report,
Agenda 21, the Earth Charter, the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, The Future
We Want and other revelent national report (Suzyrman et al. 2014). All of those UN
publication is for MDG agenda and align with WEHAB Framework. As the result,
CGSS has been able to publish the methodology in international journals, books and
had also won two national awards on a competitive basis.
There are three steps in SAM: Screening, Identification, and Classification. In
screening, the subject will be assessed for three types of pillars; Economy, People
and Environment. Then, in identification process, the subject will analysed using
indicators in SAM and at the last step subject can be classified into sustainability
categories; Low Sustainability, Medium Sustainability or High Sustainability (Koshy
et al. 2013; Suzyrman et al. 2014).
3 Methodology and Data
3.1 SAM Processing Approach
SAM is a computer based methodology application that follows a three-stage “Input,
Process, Output” approach in computer science term or known as Screening, Identification, and Classification in SAM language. The input uses Portable Document
(PDF) Format report and then the Input will be analysed in the Processing step. In
the final Output step, the results are displayed automatically in a variety of forms
such as pie chart, histogram, word clouds, sustainability percentage, bar chart, traffic
light plots, and spider chart. For the purpose of this assessment, the histogram and
table were chosen to display result. Figure 2 is the SAM processing steps.