Context: In order to fulfill its tasks and goals, higher education systems need qualified and competent faculty members. The need for faculty development programs is currently obvious. Objectives: The present study aimed to determine the components of faculty development at universities of medical sciences in Iran and across the world, in which, the concepts and dimensions of development, the evolution process and the programs for faculty development of universities of medical sciences were investigated up until now, in Iran and other countries. Data Sources: To obtain the required resources, data were collected through a systematic search in Google Scholar, Medline, Web of Sciences, AIR, ERIC and Springer, ProQuest, and Elsevier databases and from published articles in the Iranian journals available at the SID and IranDoc databases. The articles were selected in accordance with the inclusion criterion of addressing the components of faculty development from different perspectives. Finally, 40 articles carried out in Iran and some other countries and published between 1966 and 2017 were found. Results: In this study, four dimensions of individual, professional, educational, and organizational development were identified. However, most studies were concerned with educational development and most of the given theories were about training faculty members via scientific workshops and seminars. Furthermore, evaluations were often conducted in the same vein, and in most studies, an organizational perspective was adopted and the focus was on organizational goals. Conclusions: Considering that the requirements and conditions of faculty members vary across different universities, disciplines and conditions, the development programs should be designed to target specific subgroups and cover a wide range of skills, not just education.

Purpose This paper aims to introduce a conceptual model for the shaping of the innovation district under the anchor approach by extracting the specifications of the fourth-generation university. Design/methodology/approach This study selected 550 resources and reduced them to 190 to achieve the most appropriate resources. This study used a meta-synthesis analysis approach using a text-mining method due to the multidisciplinary and voluminous nature of contents. Findings The results first reveal the shaping process and the components of innovation districts, which are: innovational urban infrastructures, knowledge economy and competitiveness and academic development. Second, this study also shows the specifications of a fourth-generation university to shape innovation districts. Practical implications This study also informs the policymakers and researchers internationally about the implementation requirements of a fourth-generation university and the shaping mechanisms of an innovation district. Originality/value This paper is pioneer about two concepts, first, it shows the shaping process of an innovation district, providing a large-scale insight about the components and second, this illustrates for the first time the specifications of a fourth-generation University practically as an anchor institute to shape innovation district.

To be literate, students need to able to think critically and read between the lines to find the implicit meanings and ideologies. To help Iranian English language learners learn writing as a social action and not independent of social (in)justices and (in)equalities, we included critical literacy in a writing course at the University of [for anonymity]. We intend to illuminate teacher’s narration about raising students’ awareness towards (mal)practices, (in)justices, and (in)equalities of the society in their writings.To do so, all 52 undergraduate 3rd-year-EFL learners of English Literature and Translation participated in our writing class. The teacher was also an associate professor (50 years old) with critical literacy as his main area of research. Students were required to write essays as mid-term and final exams. The teacher’s reflection on the course in general and on the EFL learners’ reflective essays highlighted that teaching writing through critical literacy helped students realize that writing is a process dependent on different social and political issues.Students’ growth in critical consciousness through their writing reminds teaching practitioners, policy-makers, and teacher educators to provide innovation in their classrooms to empower language learners with teaching methodologies contrary to what they are accustomed to during their learning.

The focus of education during K-12 and Higher Education (HE) in Iran is on theoretical empowerment of students; therefore, our students get an illusion of knowing. In fact, what happens is not learning and understanding; rather, it is verbatim transfer of available information in the textbooks into the students’ minds. It might be because the students and teachers (as the main stakeholders of the education) are the least powerful parties within the pyramid of power amongst educational practitioners and policymakers. It means their voice, feedback, needs, and ideologies have no place in the educational decisions and policies. In alignment with the mainstream of the present research; it is an innovative idea to explore the students’ living/ studying experience during K-12, and their ideals and expectations from higher education studies. To do so, we asked 60 university students to portray their experience (in a phenomenological research design) concerning living and studying through K-12 and their ideals and expectations from Higher Education. Students’ drawings are the main source of data collection and inductive analysis of data is administered to find students’ responses which are categorized under three major and six minor themes, respectively.

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