مطالب

The main purpose of this research is to explore various countries experiences about developing blended learning system in distance education universities. Blended learning, as a third wave in developing learning environment, has become commonplace after the resident and e-learning environments in universities. The goal of this movement is improving learning qualities, extending the boundaries of education and decreasing educational costs. In this study, a qualitative approach and a comparative method were used. The qualitative method was used to understand the social contexts of distance education universities and comparative approach was applied to compare universities in terms of observable categories. Among 17 distance mega universities in the world, four universities, including Indirah Gandhi National Open University in India, Anadulu Open University in Turkey, Open University of China ( OUC) , and Alberta Open University in Canada were selected using purposeful sampling. The data collecting tool consisted of a checklist that was prepared with emphasis on 10 categories of social and cultural features of the countries including general situation of public and higher education, distance education, policies related to blended learning, learning management system, content development and presenting method, learning activities and resources, support system, interaction systems, teaching and assessment method, and evaluation system of learning quality. The required data were also collected through note taking procedure from sites of universities and related articles and books. For data collection and analysis, George Brody's four-step method ( Description, Interpretation, Proximity, and Comparison) was used . At first, required data was gathered from articles, university web sites, and interaction with informed people through note taking. Next, data were interpreted after continuous review with regard to university social and cultural contexts. In the third stage, data was organized and categorized based on similarity and differences and then were compared. Results showed that each four universities uses British open university framework in organizational structure. Each university included blending learning in their system based on their polices. Along with self-learning textual content, the universities started providing electronic content and designing learning activates with using ICT possibilities, while the Athabasca University emphasizes on individual and group learning activities. In each four universities, using educational TV as a learning aid is common place. Support services system in each university is Commensurate with social and cultural conditions. Online synchronous and asynchronous teaching is part of teaching activities in each university, but its quality is different. Learning assessment in different in four universities, but formative and summative evaluations are emphasized in all universities. Quality assurance system in Athabasca and OUC is based on PLAR, in Anadolu University based on the Bologna scheme, and in Indirah Gandhi, based on Council of Higher Education. In this research, for developing blended learning in Payame Noor University, a framework is provided at the end.

Website is the first interaction tool between user and organization in every online business. The basic goal of every website is to provide information through its content. Nowadays, website content is considered to be a strategic issue for online businesses which will contribute to user attraction and retention. In this paper a soft decision making approach is taken towards the website content selection problem. To tackle this problem, a multi criteria decision making algorithm is proposed based on PROMETHEE outranking methodology. To overcome the shortening of this methodology facing the inherent uncertainty in decision problems, a new method is developed, where the characteristics of the alternatives are represented by intuitionistic fuzzy sets. Finally, a numerical example for content selection of Iranian universities’ website is given to illustrate application of the intuitionistic fuzzy PROMETHEE method. The outcome shows the effectiveness of intuitionistic fuzzy PROMETHEE in accommodating the imprecise information in comparison with fuzzy PROMETHEE and original PROMETHEE.

Social diversity in the neighborhood districts has been the new approach for the challenges resulting from varieties in cities. Social interpreters of this policy are to create neighborhoods where people of different ages, ethnic-racial backgrounds, income, etc. take a place in it. In this regard, many designers by using the concept of different forms of ownership such as housing schemas, different types of constructing and housing etc. have tried to promote it. Due to the less interest that came toward this issue, the knowledge of this mechanism is poor in urban ecology of Iran. The aim of this study is to assess the effects of urban design in promoting the social mixing which is determined with the research of the Abadan community areas. Relevant parameters have been studied with library studies, field visits and by the use of qualitative and quantitative analytical methods. Therefore, after reviewing the relevant concepts, we are going to test hypotheses by the exامینation of case studies, and finally, the influences of urban design criteria are presented.