In this paper, we conduct a bibliometric analysis of the global research related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the United Nations sustainability agenda. Our analysis builds upon the Elsevier Scopus-indexed scientific outputs since all those are classified for SDG relationships at indexing. We follow the recently published research protocol and use the Elsevier Scopus engine and the SciVal bibliometric reporting and benchmarking tool to analyze the productivity and impact of the global SDG-related research in the 2017–2022 period. We report on the most influential authors and publication outlets for SDG-related research, focusing on the collaboration patterns and their relationship to research productivity and impact. We also use keyword analysis and science mapping to describe the intellectual structure of the SDG research and its implications, which could be interpreted in terms of the “bandwagon effect”.

This study investigates the indirect mechanisms relevant to converting young adults' prosocial attitudes and individual responsibility into their prosocial behavior. Our results are based on a sample of 530 young adults studying at three public regional business schools in South East Europe. They show a significant favorable influence on young adults' civic and political involvement, mediating the relationship between individual responsibility attitudes and prosocial behavior. However, this would not have been expected based on previous research. Another indirect path between the same variables is modeled using a hypothesized moderated mediation effect. The institutional influence of higher education proves to be a significant mediator of the proposed relationship, moderated by the amount of educational content in the fields of ethics, social and environmental responsibility. At mid-and-high levels of exposure to relevant educational content, this indirect path significantly influences the developing young adults' pro-environmental behaviors. The study results are discussed from the viewpoint of peripheral regions with a history of dysfunctional social capital mechanisms.

This paper aims to provide brief insight into the economic and sustainability challenges that higher education institutions are facing today globally. It provides a theoretical overview of key trends and challenges of higher education, relevant for the development of a sustainable and resilient European economy and society. We support our theoretical proposition by a bibliometric analysis of previous studies dealing with the 21st-century business skills and the sustainability outlook to be produced by the higher education sector. Our main findings are related to a significant rise of researchers’ interest in the topic, along with the multi-disciplinary approach being emphasized, as the academic community seeks how to contribute to the pressing issues of ensuring the integration of sustainability with employers’ requirements, related to new skill profiles, relevant for the European transformation toward a more resilient, digital, green economy and society. We evaluate the proposed course of research and provide recommendations to researchers and other higher education stakeholders interested in promoting this educational sector’s sustainability and relevance in the 21st century.

This paper explores the contribution of custom-trained Large Language Models (LLMs) to developing Open Education Resources (OERs) in higher education. Our empirical analysis is based on the case of a custom LLM specialized for teaching business management in higher education. This custom LLM has been conceptualized as a virtual teaching companion, aimed to serve as an OER, and trained using the authors’ licensed educational materials. It has been designed without coding or specialized machine learning tools using the commercially available ChatGPT Plus tool and a third-party Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbot delivery service. This new breed of AI tools has the potential for wide implementation, as they can be designed by faculty using only conventional LLM prompting techniques in plain English. This paper focuses on the opportunities for custom-trained LLMs to create Open Educational Resources (OERs) and democratize academic teaching and learning. Our approach to AI chatbot evaluation is based on a mixed-mode approach, combining a qualitative analysis of expert opinions with a subsequent (quantitative) student survey. We have collected and analyzed responses from four subject experts and 204 business students at the Faculty of Economics, Business and Tourism Split (Croatia) and Faculty of Economics Mostar (Bosnia and Herzegovina). We used thematic analysis in the qualitative segment of our research. In the quantitative segment of empirical research, we used statistical methods and the SPSS 25 software package to analyze student responses to the modified BUS-15 questionnaire. Research results show that students positively evaluate the business management learning chatbot and consider it useful and responsive. However, interviewed experts raised concerns about the adequacy of chatbot answers to complex queries. They suggested that the custom-trained LLM lags behind the generic LLMs (such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and others). These findings suggest that custom LLMs might be useful tools for developing OERs in higher education. However, their training data, conversational capabilities, technical execution, and response speed must be monitored and improved. Since this research presents a novelty in the extant literature on AI in education, it requires further research on custom GPTs in education, including their use in multiple academic disciplines and contexts.