A Z-Number-Based Decision Framework: Modification and Application for Evaluating the University Cultural Construction Quality

The intrinsic needs of universities clarify the internal logic of their cultural development. As a distinct form of social culture, university culture takes shape gradually through long-term educational practice and is embedded within the profound cultural heritage of institutions. Each university cultivates its own unique cultural traditions and characteristics over the course of its historical development, forming the very foundation of its existence. In China, university culture represents the soul of higher education institutions. Evaluating the quality of university culture constitutes a multi-attribute decision making (MADM) challenge. Contemporary approaches utilize techniques like Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and entropy to address such MADM problems. In this study, Z-numbers were applied to represent uncertain information. This study developed an integrated Z-number TOPSIS (ZN-TOPSIS) framework to handle MADM within a Z-number environment. To demonstrate the proposed approach's practicality, a numerical example for the evaluation of the quality of university culture construction is presented to show the ZN-TOPSIS approach.