This paper introduces a model that enables a comparison between universities based on sustainability indicators related to environmental, economic, social and educational aspects. The proposed model is based on a driving force-pressure-state-exposure-effect-action (DPSEEA) framework and is called uncertainty-based DPSEEA-Sustainability index Model (uD-SiM). The uD-SiM applies the concept of causality and develops sustainability index (SI), which is an outcome of nonlinear relationships of sustainability indicators in different stages of DPSEEA. In this paper, this fuzzy-based multi-criteria decision-making model is used to evaluate the sustainability of five Canadian universities, namely the University of British Columbia, the University of Toronto, the University of Alberta, the McGill University and the Memorial University. The final ranking results are compared with the Green report card ranking for 2010 through SI. The application of various actions and strategies that can be applied to different stages of the framework to improve sustainability in higher education institutions is also discussed.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	decision making, driving force-pressure-state-effect-exposure-action (DPSEEA); sustainability, sustainability index (SI), uncertainty, university ranking, Alberta, driving-force-pressure-state-effect-exposure-action (DPSEEA), educational aspects
Research Division:	Education
Research Group:	Education systems
Research Field:	Higher education
Objective Division:	Education and Training
Objective Group:	Other education and training
Objective Field:	Other education and training not elsewhere classified
UTAS Author:	Khan, FI (Professor Faisal Khan)
ID Code:	120796
Year Published:	2012
Deposited By:	NC Maritime Engineering and Hydrodynamics
Deposited On:	2017-08-30
Last Modified:	2017-10-24
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