MCDM for engineering education: literature review and research issues

Abstract

The Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) methodology had been widely applied and accepted in businesses, industries and manufacturing sectors. However, there is a limitation of resources available on discussing the way of MCDM may applied in engineering education decision problems within university setting. The current economic crisis as well as the changes in the way Ministry of Higher Education providing funding to higher education institution had created a major shift in emphasis. Both public and private higher education institutions are facing increasing cost and declining revenue streams. The purpose of this paper is to review the literature which focused in seven majors engineering education decision problems: resources allocation, performance measurement, budgeting, scheduling, planning, obtaining resources, and evaluation. The paper carried out review of articles in international scientific journals and well known international conferences related to MCDM applications published within 2000 and 2016 inclusive. Related articles are reviewed and analyzed for the types of decision problems that were paid most attention to, MCDM approaches adopted, and inadequacies of those approaches. Some improvements and possible future works are recommended based on those inadequacies. The reviewed result will create an interest to university management as it is presented in an effective way to academic process improvement, resources allocation and achieving greater satisfaction among students.