Inter-Generational Learning Dynamics in Universities

The purpose of this paper is to present some results of our research in the field of inter-generational learning and knowledge sharing in universities. This topic is important because a university is by its own nature a nested knowledge organization, due to a continuous flow of students and the bottom-up regeneration of the faculty staff. Knowledge creation and knowledge loss are intertwined processes, and both of them are strongly influenced by the age scale. A university is a multilayered knowledge organization, where the inner most layers are represented by older professors who concentrate the fundamental structures of knowledge, and the outer layers are represented by students in their different learning cycles. In this paper we are interested in assessing the choices done by the academic staff, in the context of the determinant criterions and trade-offs in inter-generational learning. This had been done in the framework of Analytic Hierarchic Processes (AHP). We thought that this is a proper tool since it mainly belongs to the field of decision-making with the possibility to determine vectors of priorities for the individuals participating in the decisions under study.