Orientation: Rewards are integral to keeping employees happy, efficient and engaged in their work. Thus, the engagement of academic staff within higher education institutions has become a top priority for organisational productivity and competitiveness. Research purpose: This study investigated the impact of total rewards on work engagement among the academic staff at a South African higher education institution. Motivation for the study: Engagement of academic staff is vital as higher education institutions are influential in the country’s development. Literature, however, has shown that most studies on total rewards and work engagement focus on sectors such as financial institutions, the mining industry and others. However, few reports have been on total rewards and work engagement in higher education. Research design, approach and method: This study employed a cross-sectional survey design, following a quantitative approach. From a population of 100 academic staff, 74 respondents responded to a self-administered questionnaire. Main findings: The results show a positive relationship between two dimensions of total rewards (work-home integration and quality work environment) and work engagement. However, no relationship was found between base pay, benefits, performance and career management, and work engagement. From the five dimensions of total rewards, a quality work environment was the only significant predictor of work engagement. Contribution: The study provides theoretical contributions through new literature and possible recommendations. The study may guide management in developing a rewards strategy that can promote staff work engagement.

Gamification is an active methodology of great value that, in a quality educational environment, provides students with the necessary motivation to participate in their teaching-learning process. An emerging active methodology, which is based on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and requires an educational space that guarantees greater flexibility in the pedagogical dynamics in favor of academic achievement. This increase in interest in active methodologies, and specifically in gamification, has raised doubts about whether current educational spaces are prepared to host a renewal in methodology or if, on the contrary, they could undermine the attitude of change. For this reason, this research seeks to analyze whether current educational spaces are facilitating elements for the incorporation of gamification in the classroom. The methodological cut of the research is quantitative, specifically in two phases. On the one hand, a descriptive analysis of the results is carried out, obtaining information on the trend of each item. On the other hand, an inferential analysis is carried out around different variables to verify their possible influence on the evaluations of the participants. The results obtained, in the sample made up of 210 teachers distributed in the different centers and who carry out their educational activity from 3rd to 6th grade of primary school, indicate that teachers believe it is relevant to take into account the educational space when incorporating active methodologies in class.

Low integrity is a challenge for any organization. However, most organizations emphasize integrity without explaining what is required of an individual with high integrity. Exhibiting high integrity is necessary for academics; yet, the level of academic integrity remains unclear. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to examine the integrity level of academicians in a Malaysian public university. This paper shares the findings on the level of integrity of academics based on a questionnaire completed by 213 academicians. Data were collected by survey questionnaire and was analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistics. An overall mean score of 9.45 from a possible 10.0 indicated a high level of integrity among academics. The self-evaluation results by academics also demonstrated that they have attained integrity at a high level for their generic task, teaching and learning, research and publications and service for community with a mean score between 9.36 and 9.49. The value with the highest mean score was for “service to community”, whereas the lowest was for “research and publication”. These findings show that the university has successfully instilled values of integrity among academicians. Nevertheless, the university must continue to enhance academic integrity by exploring religiosity. Using Google Scholar, a literature search identified an Islam-based academic integrity model to explain the quantitative findings. Finally, a mixed method approach and involving all universities in Malaysia are recommended to further the findings of this study.

The issue of academic achievement among Chinese university students is emerging due to difficulties in finding employment. This study investigates the structural relationships between social support, goal orientation, and academic achievement with the aim of enhancing students’ academic performance and facilitating sustained employability. Data were collected from 202 college students in South China, revealing that students’ levels of social support, goal orientation, and academic achievement were all moderate. Lower-grade students, in comparison to higher-grade students, exhibited lower levels of social support, goal orientation, and academic achievement. Additionally, students from lower economic backgrounds tended to lack social support. Among the factors of social support, goal orientation, and academic achievement, there were positive correlations among these three variables. Social support significantly and positively influenced goal orientation and academic achievement. Specifically, the sub-factors of social support, school support, and teacher support had differential effects, with school support enhancing academic achievement and teacher support boosting goal orientation. Goal orientation also significantly and positively impacted students’ academic achievement, with the sub-factor of mastery goals having a stronger influence. Goal orientation partially mediated the relationship between social support and academic achievement. This study discusses limitations and provides insights for future research.

Sustainable hybrid education is an educational approach that combines multiple kinds of instruction. Online education and traditional face-to-face education will be implemented in tandem to propel the educational process towards contemporary approaches, with the aim of achieving high-quality outcomes and staying abreast of scientific and technical advancements. The objective of this study is to determine the correlation between hybrid education, which is a sustainable model, and the academic performance of graduate students in select Egyptian universities, based on international quality criteria. The study employed a descriptive analytical methodology, and data was collected using a meticulously designed computerized questionnaire, whose validity and reliability were verified using proper statistical techniques. The study sample comprised 2235 postgraduate students enrolled in Egyptian universities, specifically Cairo, Helwan, and Ain Shams. The study’s findings determined that the extent of hybrid education and the efficacy of the procedure. The sample members possess a high level of education, and hybrid education has a significant positive influence on the quality of the educational process. Hybrid education mostly impacts the academic components, and there are variations among universities in implementing hybrid education, with Ain Shams University being particularly favorable towards it. The study proposed enhancing the university’s human resources for students, faculty, and staff, as well as assuring the availability of diverse gadgets and resources utilized in the hybrid education setting.

Recognizing the discipline category of the abstract text is of great significance for automatic text recommendation and knowledge mining. Therefore, this study obtained the abstract text of social science and natural science in the Web of Science 2010-2020, and used the machine learning model SVM and deep learning model TextCNN and SCI-BERT models constructed a discipline classification model. It was found that the SCI-BERT model had the best performance. The precision, recall, and F1 were 86.54%, 86.89%, and 86.71%, respectively, and the F1 is 6.61% and 4.05% higher than SVM and TextCNN. The construction of this model can effectively identify the discipline categories of abstracts, and provide effective support for automatic indexing of subjects.