Volume 22, Issue 1 (2021) Focus on Higher Education
July 1, 2021
Dear Readers,
It gives us great pleasure to bring to you the third issue of the Mountain Plains Journal of Business and Technology (MPJBT). The journal would not have seen the light of day if not for the strong support and sponsorship of both UNK’s College of Business and Technology, and UNK’s Library.
This third issue of MPJBT is headlined by an essay written by Dr. Charles Bicak, Senior Vice-Chancellor of Academic Affairs and Student life at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. We, as editors, invited him to share the story of his professional journey to become the vice-chancellor and asked him to share the advice he would give faculty who might find themselves inadvertently pushed into administration beyond their comfort zone. The conversational style he employs certainly hits home the point that courage, more than aspiration, leads to better professional growth. One does not know the entirety of their skill set unless they are willing to step up and step outside their comfort zone. The ten themes he discusses, and his concluding remarks, are most insightful. There are several relevant lessons in this essay for those who have been pushed into or sought out administrative roles in academia.
This issue places emphasis on matters faced in Higher Education. The first article, by Farnworth and her colleagues, is an empirical pedagogical piece that explores the impact of peer reviews on student writing skills, finding that peer reviews can improve the quality of student’s writing. The second, by Hollman and his colleagues, shares some ideas and strategies on how to combat academic cheating by students given the ubiquitous technological tools available to students. This is followed by a discussion of the funding of higher education in the United States by Van den Berg.
Our next issue is slated for publication in December 2021. It will focus on Cyber-related topics such as Cyber Operations, Cyber Security, Cyber Fraud, Cyber Threats, Digital Forensics, Ransomware, Cyber Conflict, etc. as they impact on SMEs, non-profits, institutions of higher learning, government agencies and other organizations. We seek scholarly papers, conceptual or empirical, as well as case studies related to Cyber-related topics. You will see the related Call for Papers in this issue.
MPJBT is an open-access journal, and all articles are downloadable. We have archived all previous publications from Volume 1 to Volume 16 in the journal under its former title – the Mountain Plains Journal of Business and Economics - and we are still working on archiving volumes 17 through 20. You will find this issue’s publications and all the archived materials at https://openspaces.unk.edu/mpjbt/
Dr. Sri Seshadri, Ph.D.
EDITOR
Dr. Larry Carstenson, J.D.
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Prelude
Invited Essay
What Makes for a Career in Higher Education?
Charles Bicak
Empirical Research
The Effect of Peer and Lab Reviews on Business Student Writing
Xanthe Farnworth, Eugene Seeley, Laura Ricaldi, Xiaoli Ortega, and Ron Miller
Determinants of the Changing Funding Burden of Higher Education
Matthew van den Berg
Key Factors Influencing Students' Post-Triability Intention to Adopt E-Textbooks in a Medium-Size University
Halbana Tarmizi, Hamdan Alabsi, and Mahmoud Al-Odeh
Better Together: The Effect of Learning Communities on Business Student Retention and Performance
Lynn Murray, Alexander Binder, Gail Yarick, and Mary K. Wachter
Conceptual Work
Lying, Cheating, & Stealing: Strategies for Mitigating Technology-Driven Academic Dishonesty in Collegiate Schools of Business
Travis Hollman, Noel F. Palmer, Daniel Chaffin, and Kyle Luthans
Call for Papers
Editorial Board
- Editor
- Sri Seshadri, University of Nebraska at Kearney
- Associate Editor
- Larry Carstenson, University of Nebraska at Kearney
- Publishing Editor
- Laurinda Weisse, University of Nebraska at Kearney
Board Members
- Tim Jares, Dean of the College of Business and Technology, Professor of Finance, University of Nebraska at Kearney
- Vani Kotcherlakota, Emeritus Professor, Economics, University of Nebraska at Kearney
- Kay Hodge, Emeritus Professor, Business Ethics, University of Nebraska at Kearney
- Nacasius Ujah, Asst. Professor, Finance, South Dakota State University
- Alan Hamlin, Professor, Management, Southern Utah University
- Robert Houghton, Asst. Professor, Business Informatics, Idaho State University
- Stoyu Ivanov, Professor, Finance, San Jose State University
- Cover design courtesy of Todd Jensen.
