An analysis of international partnership programs: The case of an historically disadvantaged institution in South Africa

International academic partnerships have the potential to enhance the participating institution’s efforts to become actors in the global educational arena. The ability of partnerships to realize their objectives is affected by the relationship that the partner members have with one another and the mutual benefit each receives from the agreement. This article examines the dynamics of an academic partnership between Transformed University an historically disadvantaged institution in the Eastern Cape Province in South Africa and three international partners from the US, Canada, and the European Economic Community. The paper illuminates a variety of factors including history, organizational culture, and globalization forces that affect the success of academic partnerships to reach their stated objectives.     

Mind the gap: Chinese diploma student views of bridges and barriers to transferring into a Canadian university

One common modality of transnational higher education partnerships is programme articulations. These agreements typically include 1?+?3 or 2?+?2 or 3?+?2 arrangements, whereby students study in their home institution first, and then transfer to complete their degree studies in a partner host institution. In this type of programme articulation agreement, the transfer of students from the home institution to the host institution is not necessarily guaranteed, with many steps and challenges in the students’ decision-making process. While there may be an expectation of articulation between countries and institutions when an agreement is signed, relationships, information and communication to support student transfer from home to host institution can be underestimated. This quantitative study examines a programme articulation arrangement between a Chinese polytechnic and a Canadian university, specifically through a student view. Findings identify barriers to articulation and also the information Chinese students identify as necessary to support their decision-making on whether to progress from a diploma (China) to a degree (Canada), and what types and frequencies of communication are expected.     

高职院校中外合作办学项目的品牌经营规划

高职院校中外合作办学是适应高职教育培养目标的一种非常有效的创新教育模式。高职院校开展中外合作办学的关键是在通过国际合作在教育竞争的环境中,打造自己的品牌,围绕定位品牌、创立品牌和品牌的经营管理进行品牌经营规划。创造高职院校中外合作办学的品牌,以学生塑品牌,以品牌招学生,使高职院校在竞争中立于不败之地。     

International Collaboration in Brazilian Higher Education

This paper examines the approach Brazil has taken to promote the internationalization of higher education over the last decade. Three key areas are identified: human resources development, institution building, and international partnerships. Our analyses of initiatives in these areas demonstrate that Brazil does not follow global trends such as the creation of world-class universities or the pursuit of “excellence initiatives” to help universities reach higher positions in global rankings. Instead, recent strategies for international collaboration in higher education follow variegated domestic goals that encompass the logics of foreign policy and the internal priorities of federal research and education agencies. The nature and limitations of these strategies are discussed.     

外语职业教育对宁波城市品牌提升的效用研究

外语职业教育是展示城市文化品位和国际影响的有效平台,能增强一个城市核心竞争力,塑造优质的城市品牌形象。基于宁波市外语职业教育发展现状,提出外语职业教育的四层次目标和具体实施路径,并将其应用于宁波城市品牌形象的营销实践,从而不断增强宁波＂国际强港、智慧城市＂的知名度和美誉度。     

Transformational Partnerships: A New Agenda for Higher Education

In this article we develop the concept of transformational partnership and illustrate how such an understanding has enriched the relationship between a particular university and a school system. Transformational partnerships are different in purpose, nature, and strategies from transactional partnerships. They are based upon genuine engagement and a focus on common goals and mutual benefits. In transactional partnerships each institution pursues its own goals with little consideration of mutual goals or shared purpose. The areas of community engagement, leadership, and transformational partnerships provided key concepts for analysing the case study showing how higher education institutions can think and work differently with other institutions, organizations, and groups to achieve mutual benefits.     

Brand Fan Pages experience and strength as antecedents to engagement and intensity of use to achieve HEIS’ brand loyalty

The growing competitive environment in which Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are immersed has caused them to be constantly focused on implementing new strategies that allow them to consolidate student loyalty. Among the strategies are those related to the use of social media, virtual brand communities and Brand Fan Pages (BFPs). This research aims to show the HEIs some new ways to increase brand loyalty through their BFP. Both qualitative techniques, 2 focus group sessions with students from public and private universities, and quantitative techniques, 200 interviews with young university students aged 18–23, were used to develop this research. Partial Least Squares (PLS) analysis was utilized to determine the relationship between variables. The main findings of the analysis indicate that it is possible for a higher education institution to increase student loyalty by generating positive experiences on their Brand Fan Page and generating greater platform use intensity.     

The Internationalisation of Higher Education: the Case of Medical Education

The most visible aspect of the internationalisation of Higher Education is foreign students and this article outlines the factors which influence patterns and trends in international student mobility. Using the case study of undergraduate medical education, insights are provided on the issues which determine a student's choice of host nation and institution. Students who opt to study overseas to gain an award (the basic qualification to practice medicine) are the focus of this study, and the views expressed by them and individuals associated with international education, shed light on country and institution specific aspects which make the experience abroad either magic or misery.     

International student flows for university education and the bilateral market integration of Australia

Study at a foreign university can be an important way of developing international human capital. We investigate factors affecting international student flows for higher education and their consequences for bilateral market integration in Australia. Estimation results demonstrate that income, cost competitiveness, migration network effects and other education pathways increase the demand for tertiary education. Our results show that university study, inter alia, is an important determinant of bilateral trade between Australia and the student’s home country.     

留学生教育与高校国际化进程

留学生教育是高校国际化进程的必然产物。近几年来,我国留学生教育发展迅速,但也存在一些问题和不足。发展留学生教育,必须扩大国际知名度,提高教学质量,扩大留学生生源,建立高素质的留学生师资队伍和管理人员队伍。同时,重视留学生教育发展战略、国际留学生市场、国际人才培养、国际教育资源开发的研究,鼓励地方政府、企业资助留学生教育的发展,设立奖学金,吸引外国留学生来学习。     

Foreign Universities in China: a case study

The international dimension of higher education has expanded rapidly in recent decades and private provision is becoming increasingly widespread in response to the diverse pressures of globalisation, rapid expansion in demand and increased pressures on public finances. As higher education has become marketised, opportunities for international providers have increased dramatically. Foreign providers may opt for delivery locally or remotely and via a variety of different legal and organisational arrangements. The focus of this article is on foreign provision of HE with specific reference to China and the UK. In the period post-Mao, the policy environment for higher education in China has changed dramatically, culminating in 2003 in the decision to allow foreign universities to formally establish partnerships with Chinese universities for the delivery of higher education. The development and operation of the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China, is discussed in order to provide more detailed insights into the nature and challenges of delivering foreign HE provision in a Chinese context.     

试论高校品牌核心竞争力的培育

如今,已进入国际竞争时代,品牌作为一种新的国际语言进入了全世界的千家万户。随着我国教育市场化进程的加快,高校被历史无情地推进了一场没有国界和终结的战争———品牌竞争。中国高等教育面临着空前激烈的国际市场的竞争。中国高校要想在竞争中占有一席之地,必须强化品牌意识,实施品牌战略。而品牌战略的核心就是品牌核心竞争力的培育。品牌核心竞争力的强弱直接决定了高校在市场中的地位。本文从师资建设、学科建设、学生质量管理、校园文化建设等四个方面来具体阐明如何培育高校品牌核心竞争力。     

University–school partnerships: student teachers’ evaluations across nine partnerships in Israel

This article presents and discusses the findings of a study which focused on student teachers’ evaluation of their practice teaching in the context of a university–school partnership model integrated for the first time into the academic programme of a university teacher education department in Israel. A questionnaire was developed to examine the contribution of the major curricular components of the partnership for student teachers’ experience of learning to teach, as evaluated by the student teachers themselves. The questionnaire was delivered to 119 student teachers placed in 9 selected school–university partnerships. The findings of the study underscore the added value of supporting different kinds of mentoring frameworks within university–school partnerships. The international significance of the study is discussed with a focus on implications for emergent tensions, dilemmas and connections between local and global forms of university–school partnerships.     

Contextual influences: building brand community in large and small colleges

This research extends recent efforts that have introduced and empirically tested a conceptual model of brand community in the context of higher education. This emerging literature has indicated that brand community provides a framework that can inform and guide marketing investments in ways that lead to affinity and stronger loyalty to the brand and institution. This paper presents the results of a national survey that examines the potential impact that institutional size may have on the relationships of an alumni brand community. This paper also explores the implications of the size of the educational institution on relevant and desired marketing outcomes that include the willingness to recommend the university to friends and family and a desire to purchase licensed apparel.     

Social media and students’ behavioral intentions to enroll in postgraduate studies in Kenya: a moderated mediation model of brand personality and attitude

ABSTRACT

Using cross-sectional data from 504 students from four Kenyan universities, this study evaluates the indirect effect of brand personality on the relationship between social media and students’ behavioral intentions to enroll in postgraduate studies. Additionally, the study examines the moderating effect of attitude on the relationship between social media and brand personality, social media and students’ behavioral intentions, brand personality and students’ behavioral intentions. Finally, it investigates the moderating effect of attitude on the indirect process of brand personality on the relationship between social media and students’ behavioral intentions. The study is guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior, Technology Acceptance Model and Self Congruity Theory. Process Macro is used to analyze data. Results indicate that social media significantly predicts students’ behavioral intentions and this relationship is partially mediated by brand personality. Besides, attitude moderates the relationship between social media and students’ behavioral intentions and also the relationship between brand personality and students’ behavioral intentions. Finally, attitude has a conditional effect on the indirect relationship between social media and student’s behavioral intentions via brand personality and this effect is much stronger with a higher level of attitude. These findings contribute new knowledge to literature and theory.     

Greater engagement in and responsibility for learning: what happens when students cross the threshold of student–faculty partnership

The importance of student engagement in higher education is increasingly recognised. As a result, questions have arisen regarding how best to inspire and support students in taking greater interest in and more active responsibility for their learning. Student–faculty partnerships that position students as consultants in explorations of pedagogical practice inspire and support engagement and responsibility that carry over from those partnerships into students' classroom participation. However, such partnership constitutes for many students a ‘threshold concept’. Because partnering with faculty in analyses and revisions of teaching and learning both requires and inspires students to redefine their roles, responsibilities and sense of themselves, student–faculty partnership proves troublesome, transformative, discursive, irreversible and integrative. In a case study of one partnership programme at a liberal arts institution in the Northeastern USA, we discuss how crossing the threshold constituted by student–faculty partnership in pedagogical exploration fosters in students greater engagement in, and responsibility for, learning. Implications for higher education include the potential of reconceptualising our classrooms as more democratic spaces and the work of teaching and learning as more of a shared responsibility.     

Global Partnerships: Positioning Technical Communication Programs in the Context of Globalization

Globalization is radically transforming technical communication (TC) both in the workplace and in higher education. This article examines these changes and the ways in which TC programs position themselves amid globalization, in particular the ways in which they use emerging global partnerships to prepare students for global work and citizenship. For this purpose, the authors report on a Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication-supported exploratory study of current partnership initiatives in TC programs. The study indicated a high level of activity, planning, and interest in global partnerships and revealed a range of creative and innovative partnerships that systematically integrate new opportunities for experiential learning, collaborative international research, and civic engagement in a global context into programs and their curricula. Partnerships also emphasize cultural sensitivity, equal partner contribution, and mutual benefit, thus offering alternatives to emerging global trade visions of higher education. The article also identifies key challenges that partnerships face, suggesting implications for programs and the field as a whole to facilitate successful partnerships.     

Global Partnerships: Positioning Technical Communication Programs in the Context of Globalization

Globalization is radically transforming technical communication (TC) both in the workplace and in higher education. This article examines these changes and the ways in which TC programs position themselves amid globalization, in particular the ways in which they use emerging global partnerships to prepare students for global work and citizenship. For this purpose, the authors report on a Council for Programs in Technical and Scientific Communication-supported exploratory study of current partnership initiatives in TC programs. The study indicated a high level of activity, planning, and interest in global partnerships and revealed a range of creative and innovative partnerships that systematically integrate new opportunities for experiential learning, collaborative international research, and civic engagement in a global context into programs and their curricula. Partnerships also emphasize cultural sensitivity, equal partner contribution, and mutual benefit, thus offering alternatives to emerging global trade visions of higher education. The article also identifies key challenges that partnerships face, suggesting implications for programs and the field as a whole to facilitate successful partnerships.     

Enabling international student families: new empiricisms and posthumanist entanglements in higher education

ABSTRACT

This paper presents research on movements involved in the lives of international university students and their accompanying family members. Located in the framing of new empiricisms and new materialisms, a posthumanist approach is offered as a way to move beyond the limitations of a focus on the educational mobilities of individualised self-contained student subjects. The research this paper draws on engages a diffractive visual methodology involving interview encounters with women who each moved from Iran to Australia together with their partner and children. A materialist feminist approach enables the consideration of how a variety of entangled movements and animated affects shape the lives of international student families. The utility of this approach becomes the inspiration for thinking through the concept of ‘intra-active becoming in movement’. This brings a refreshed set of practices for designing higher education experiences for international students that resists the divisiveness of binary oppositions in Western thought.     

Evidence and benefits of postgraduate international students-staff members partnership in extra-curricular activities: a Malaysian perspective

ABSTRACT

The student engagement concept has been revolutionised so that students play an active role alongside staff members in determining their student learning experiences. Although the development of student–staff partnerships enhances student engagement and experience, empirical research on partnerships in Malaysia is scant. This paper contributes to the growing scholarly literature on such partnerships – in particular, exploring postgraduate international students and staff members’ partnership dimensions in extra-curricular activities at a research university in Malaysia. This qualitative study interviewed 33 postgraduate international students, 10 academic staff and 12 professional staff members. Based on the findings, the student–staff partnership model is well integrated into the extra-curricular activities: international students are invited to co-design and implement adjustment programmes for newly arrived international students. This paper also explores the multi-layered benefits of partnerships for postgraduate international students and for staff members. The implications of such partnerships for the university, international students and staff members are discussed.