Sustainable Development in Higher Education …
535
publishing guidelines may consider to be acceptable. Under these circumstances,
it might be argued that journals and publications have some influence in shaping
scientific production and thinking.
6 Conclusions
The work presented in this article examines how an accounting for sustainable
analysis could be applied to the publication output appearing in the IJSHE. The
process investigated the frequency of terms appearing in these publications and their
significance to the implementation of sustainability in the operational management,
research and teaching activities in HEIs. Accounting for sustainability in the higher
education sector in this way offers a readily understandable performance metric and
potential influencer on local communities and wider society in general. The investigation was achieved through a data mining methods based on previous research
reported by Ceci et al. (2012) which were used to create and classify Web-based
data.
A basic analysis of the of the publication data shows that United States, Australia,
United Kingdom and Canada stand out as significant contributors to sustainability.
This could imply that these countries and their researchers are more interested in
the issue of sustainability in HEIs and/or that authors from these countries have
better access to publishing and funding for their research. Conversely, this analysis
also shows global regions that perhaps should be encouraged to be more engaged in
achieving sustainability in their own HEIs.
A more advanced analysis produced a list of the top 100 most used terms appearing
the IJSHE publications and is presented in the Appendix in order of their frequency
of use ranking. The most frequently used terms “environmental education”, “environmental management” and “environmental sustainability” indicate that authors
prioritize their focus on the environmental aspect of sustainability in their research
and curricula within HEIs.
A further analysis investigated clusters of terms in order to examine potential relationships between highly ranked terms and secondary ones with a lower ranking. This
analysis offers an additional tool to identify possible contributions and shortcomings
of the current analysis on sustainability and allows a greater understanding of how
authors and scientists interact and share their studies with the academic environment.
Such analysis must be put into context considering the triple bottom-line of
sustainability: environmental, social and economic spheres. While author’s perceptions might be influenced by the 2030 Agenda, it is important that SDGs are regarded
in a holistic approach. In this sense, it would be beneficial for the IJSHE and other
publications to incentivize content that allows the social and economic dimensions of
sustainability to gain more space in the academia. This movement is equally built by
authors, editors and researches, and is part of a broader effort of the scientific community and the world to better understand the concept of sustainable development in all
levels.
535
publishing guidelines may consider to be acceptable. Under these circumstances,
it might be argued that journals and publications have some influence in shaping
scientific production and thinking.
6 Conclusions
The work presented in this article examines how an accounting for sustainable
analysis could be applied to the publication output appearing in the IJSHE. The
process investigated the frequency of terms appearing in these publications and their
significance to the implementation of sustainability in the operational management,
research and teaching activities in HEIs. Accounting for sustainability in the higher
education sector in this way offers a readily understandable performance metric and
potential influencer on local communities and wider society in general. The investigation was achieved through a data mining methods based on previous research
reported by Ceci et al. (2012) which were used to create and classify Web-based
data.
A basic analysis of the of the publication data shows that United States, Australia,
United Kingdom and Canada stand out as significant contributors to sustainability.
This could imply that these countries and their researchers are more interested in
the issue of sustainability in HEIs and/or that authors from these countries have
better access to publishing and funding for their research. Conversely, this analysis
also shows global regions that perhaps should be encouraged to be more engaged in
achieving sustainability in their own HEIs.
A more advanced analysis produced a list of the top 100 most used terms appearing
the IJSHE publications and is presented in the Appendix in order of their frequency
of use ranking. The most frequently used terms “environmental education”, “environmental management” and “environmental sustainability” indicate that authors
prioritize their focus on the environmental aspect of sustainability in their research
and curricula within HEIs.
A further analysis investigated clusters of terms in order to examine potential relationships between highly ranked terms and secondary ones with a lower ranking. This
analysis offers an additional tool to identify possible contributions and shortcomings
of the current analysis on sustainability and allows a greater understanding of how
authors and scientists interact and share their studies with the academic environment.
Such analysis must be put into context considering the triple bottom-line of
sustainability: environmental, social and economic spheres. While author’s perceptions might be influenced by the 2030 Agenda, it is important that SDGs are regarded
in a holistic approach. In this sense, it would be beneficial for the IJSHE and other
publications to incentivize content that allows the social and economic dimensions of
sustainability to gain more space in the academia. This movement is equally built by
authors, editors and researches, and is part of a broader effort of the scientific community and the world to better understand the concept of sustainable development in all
levels.