A new integrated MCDM approach for lecturers’ research productivity evaluation

Abstract

Evaluating research productivity of lecturer is a vital process of universities for teaching improvement and administrative decision making. Lecturers’ research productivity evaluation is a difficult and sensitive problem which has many objective and subjective criteria, complexity and imprecision. Therefore, the evaluation of lecturers’ research productivity can be viewed as a multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) problem in vague environment. This study develops an integrated MCDM approach for evaluating the lecturers’ research productivity. In the proposed approach, a fuzzy analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is applied to determine the weights of criteria. A Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method using interval neutrosophic sets is further adopted for showing the preference order of the lecturers’ research productivity in an educational organization. Finally, the proposed approach is applied to solve the lecturers’ research productivity evaluation problem in the case of University of Economics and Business, Vietnam National University, Hanoi (UEB-VNU).