LOCALISATION VS UNIVERSALISM OF PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN CURRICULUM INTERNATIONALISATION

Transcription

1 LOCALISATION VS UNIVERSALISM OF PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE IN CURRICULUM INTERNATIONALISATION K. London 1, P. Zhang 1, J. Siva 1, T. Maqsood 1 1 School of Property, Construction and Project Management, RMIT University, Australia Kerry.London@rmit.edu.au ABSTRACT Curriculum internationalisation has become increasingly important in tertiary education. Various debates arise regarding the strategies to ensure student inclusivity; delivery mode; as well as the theoretical discourse on ethical and pedagogical dilemmas as mono cultural universities strive for student diversity. This paper discusses the challenges faced when delivering the same program to student cohorts at both an Australian and Vietnam campus. The School of Property, Construction and Project management is increasing its offshore offerings, within the Project Management discipline through the delivery of its Master of Project Management. To improve the student experience and graduate outcomes we reviewed content towards integration of localised industry based problems. The program was initially delivered onshore and little work to localise content to the Vietnamese context had been undertaken until this project. Project management theoretical principles are universal however application changes with regional variances. Course design across this discipline typically involves theoretical principles being illustrated with professional practice scenarios. Our program had evolved in RMIT Melbourne and exemplars are typically drawn from Melbourne, Victoria or across Australia. The lack of locally based industry exemplars needed addressing. The Vietnamese cultural, regulatory, procurement and professional practices needed capturing and describing to enhance student learning. We sought to achieve curriculum internationalisation through the production of a series of culturally contextualised multimedia online videos portraying industry based problems, people, organisations and projects derived from the Vietnamese project management profession. We describe challenges faced, inclusivity strategies and lessons learned and discussion on the theoretical discourse within the field. Keywords: Curriculum internationalisation, Tertiary education

2 INTRODUCTION Current globalization acceleration has driven the growth of many industry sectors but perhaps none more so in Australia than education. To meet the needs of future development, many countries, particularly developing countries, set education as one of the national top priorities for improvements and investment. The concept of internationalisation in the context of tertiary education first gained popularity in the 1980s. Since then internationalisation of the curriculum has become more and more important as a result of increasing student and staff mobility and a growing number of universities operating across national boundaries by setting up local campuses under the full authority of the original institution (Haigh, 2002; Van Damme, 2001). Globally universities are seeking ways to integrate international and multicultural dimensions into their teaching, research and service operations given the significance of the international education market (Haigh, 2002). The primary motivation is income i.e. revenue for the institution and the second motivation is the increased mobility of students after they graduate and thus the need to prepare students for a position in a global economy and thus workforce (Haigh, 2002). It has been suggested that between 1995 and 2010, Asia s demand for international university places was 800,000 (Bligh, 2001). Approximately one quarter of all tertiary students in Australia are international students and international student fees account for some 16% of total higher education revenue (GO8, 2013). In the UK, 10 per cent of all students are international (CEC-UKCOSA, 2000) whilst in New Zealand, international education generates 3.5 times as much foreign exchange as the wine industry (Pickering, 2001). Apart from efforts in innovating current education systems, many countries have extended their partnerships with international educational institutions. RMIT is one such University that has an aggressive internationalisation strategy with diverse approaches of multi partnerships and/or physical presences in the form of campuses, hubs and local offices. The original University campus is located in Australia focussed on the city of Melbourne and there are now physical presences in Vietnam and Spain. RMIT Vietnam has two campuses one in Hoh Chi Minh City and one in Han Noi. RMIT Vietnam is a very critical part of RMIT University s strategic plan and represents a long term commitment which began nearly a decade ago. Education in Vietnam and developing partnerships with other countries is an important part of the future development of the country. Vietnam, has increased its budget for education significantly over the past 25 years, growing from 7% in 1986 to nearly 20% of national budget in 2008 (The World Bank, 2011). Today, there are at least three foreign invested universities opening campuses in Vietnam and RMIT University Vietnam is the most culturally diversified institution. RMIT University Vietnam and other foreign invested institutions in Vietnam are implementing many critical projects in expanding education infrastructure, improving training quality or strengthening research capacity. This paper discusses the challenges and recommendations when delivering the same program to student cohorts at both an Australian and

3 Vietnamese campus through the results of an action research project Transnational Professional Development Manual: Lessons Learned through Internationalisation of the Curriculum which was funded by the RMIT University Internal Vietnam Program Development Fund. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND Internationalisation of the curriculum is the process of designing a curriculum that meets the needs of an international student body (Callan, 2000). Institutions could be categorised in relation to their approach to internationalisation in three ways; those institutions that are simply not interested in internationalisation and consider their role is to protect traditions and culture; those institutions that are completely focussed on internationalisation and see themselves as international communities and who assume that all students are international and then thirdly, the danger zone those institutions that many fall into whereby they are dabbling in internationalisation; that is they happen to teach international students (Haigh, 2002). RMIT University strongly sees itself as an international institution and has significant investment at many levels and across many parts of the organisation around the internationalisation strategy and so would more than likely fall within the second category. However this categorisation put forward by Haigh (2002) is perhaps more on a continuum rather than separate categorisations and we would suggest that within RMIT University there are still struggles in relation to internationalisation of curriculum even with the best of intentions. According to Haigh (2002) internationalisation is a major dilemma for those universities that just happen to teach some international students. Many of these universities like to conceive themselves as being of international significance, but they define their role more in terms of the traditions of their host region. It is these hybrid institutions that present the greatest problem. Their glossy recruitment brochures may attempt to portray an image that is friendly to international students. However, their academic practices are overwhelmingly embedded in local traditions. It is this challenge that we are explicitly focussed on in our project. We define project management curriculum within a specific set of boundaries that we consider to be universal but in reality we are yet to full comprehend the project management context of the local community of professionals in Vietnam. This was our aim to set out to try to unravel some of our assumptions and to localise the program and strike a balance between social inclusion, cultural pluralism and world citizenship. Internationalisation of curriculum is a complex undertaking (Leask, 2005) and in some cases can be seen negatively as an intrusion into the local educational culture of the host country where programs are offered based on foreign conditions and needs and often in another language (Van Damme, 2001). Field (1995) has demonstrated that previous attempts at the internationalisation of curriculum in Europe have not always been very successful.

4 Table 1 Graduate qualities targets for international curricula. (Source: Leask, 1999) Graduate quality Generic indicators of graduate quality in an international qualities (motif) curriculum: 1. Open to Otherness A willingness to think globally and inclusively Able to consider issues from a variety of perspective s and worldviews 2. International Awareness of the implications of local decisions and actions for perspective international contexts and communities Awareness of international developments, decisions and actions for local communities and contexts 3. Self-aware Awareness of own cultural tradition and its perspectives in 4. Aware of international and professional contexts within his/her discipline or professional area relation to other cultures and their perspectives Appreciates the relation between his/her field of study locally and professional traditions elsewhere Appreciates and is able to apply international standards and practices 5. Respects Otherness Appreciates the importance of multicultural diversity to professional practice and citizenship Accepts and values diversity in language and culture 6. Understands Otherness Understands the basic tenets of different world-views Able to see the world as other conceive it Appreciates the complex and interacting factors that contribute to notions of culture and cultural relationship s Recognises intercultural issues relevant to professional practice METHOD The Master of Project Management Program has been offered by RMIT University for over 18 years and is considered as one of the highly successful programs. The students are able to work in project based organisations including organisations that operate in project based sectors such as construction, architecture, engineering, information technology, government and non-government and events management. The students develop research skills that enable them to research new developments as they address industry issues and problems. A capstone experience is offered through the courses Industry Project Investigation and Research Investigation (2). Both these courses require that students complete a pre-requisite course Research Design and Methods. In 2011/2012, RMIT University made a strategic decision that this program should also be delivered in Vietnam. The program started its delivery in Semester 2, 2012 in Vietnam Campus of RMIT University located in Hoh Chi Minh City. The program met the challenge of internationalising its curriculum by providing and including localised industry based problem to improve the student experience and graduate outcomes for local students. This provided the basis and rationale for this project. The following two courses were selected to develop and include content to suit the needs of local Vietnamese students; i) Research Design and Philosophy generally referred to as

5 Research Methods course in this paper ii) Evaluating and Managing Project Risks generally referred to as Risk Management course in this paper. The Research Methods course introduces students to various areas of potential research in the discipline of project management and this forms the basis for the students to select and carry out research in subsequent two courses. It is crucial that the Research Methods course enables the students to respond to the local industry challenges when designing their research problems. The Risk Management course was originally designed to cater for the needs of project management professionals working in Australia. The Risk Management process taught in the course is a generic process and can be applied to wide range of projects situated in various regional and national contexts however, a true understanding is only possible by relating this process to exemplar projects situated in a certain national context. It was therefore immensely important that Risk Management course delivered in Vietnam included projects from local Vietnam industry so local students can easily relate to those projects and hence can understand the process of Risk Management. There were three videos made which were approximately 8-10 minutes in length including: 2 videos for the Research Methods course; i) Title: Introducing Research; ii) Title: Research problems in everyday project management practice and 1 video for the Risk Management course i) Title: Risk Management. We filmed on location at the Vietnam campus. We also filmed on location at the practitioners premises. The videos provide information about the challenges practitioners in project management in Vietnam face thus presenting case study material for research projects courses and Risk Management course. The material presented provides thought provoking triggers for the students to identify problems or challenges within their own organisations that could be transformed into research projects that would be imagined, created and drafted in the as Research Methods course initially and then implemented in the research thesis dissertation courses Project Investigation 1 and 2. There is also opportunity to reuse the videos again in the Project Investigation 1 and 2 courses even though the videos are intended primarily for the Research Methods course. The students will be able to continue to re-examine and interrogate and debate issues arising from the explanations about local practice and context. Specific content material about Risk Management was also provided by the practitioners unique to the local industry and these are in some cases similar to the generic project management problems described for the research course video. DISCUSSION Within the pedagogical framework of internationalisation of curriculum this project sought to develop courseware comprising three videos approximately 8-10 minutes in length with appropriate customisation and localisation for the Vietnam offering to enable the program to be relevant to the local student cohort. The project also contributed to continuing professional development of staff in developing materials for blended

6 delivery. The videos were completed and have been incorporated into the relevant courses delivered in semester Project management theoretical principles are universal, however, application changes with regional variances. Course design across this discipline typically involves theoretical principles being illustrated with professional practice scenarios. Our program had evolved in RMIT Melbourne and exemplars are typically drawn from Australia whereby the lack of locally based industry exemplars needed addressing. The aim with the videos was to increase local content and the key strategy for achieving this was to identify and engage local practitioners to be interviewed. Three interviews with Vietnam local project managers were conducted. The impact of this is twofold the immediate localisation of content and the engagement with practitioners into the delivery of the courses. By explaining the purpose of the videos we are also at the same time engaging the local practitioners in our program and developing relationships with industry for future interaction. The production of the videos with the local practitioners allowed us to explain and describe our program and the courses. It also allowed us to gain valuable insights into the challenges of the industry, particularly in Vietnam. OUTCOMES AND RECOMMENDATIONS We compiled some practical lessons learned for academics who are intending on developing high quality video material. Our students are professionals and are generally middle managers, experienced project managers or at times senior executives who have high standards and expectations. Therefore the presentation of professional high quality materials to support the course is critical for our purposes in this particular instance rather than home-grown grass roots style videos. Project management as a discipline is typically characterised by professionals who are articulate, evaluative, well presented, creative yet focussed on detail. Their standards in all facets of their professional lives are typically oriented to client/customer satisfaction and so are particular about presentation of themselves, their material and their story they are as a discipline typically focussed on persuasion, negotiation and action. This Manual provides succinct practical lessons learned as well as examples of documents that we developed during the project. These documents were useful to our team and should be of assistance to anyone designing and producing high quality video materials. Some key pedagogical lessons learned are also included, however, our future papers will present a more comprehensive discussion on the pedagogical lessons learned and the development of a conceptual framework grounded in our reflective action research project. The pedagogical lessons learned in this project were mapped to Leask s (1999) Graduate qualities targets for international curricula to validate those recommendations and also to provide more detail in some cases (refer to Figure 1).

7 CONCLUSIONS This paper described the challenges faced, inclusivity strategies and lessons learned in the delivery of the same program to student cohorts at both an Australian and Vietnamese campus. A brief discussion on the theoretical discourse within the field of internationalisation of the curriculum was also provided. We presented some practical lessons learned for academics who are intending on developing high quality video material as well as pedagogical lessons learned. These documents were useful to our team and should be of assistance to anyone designing and producing high quality video materials. We set out to explicitly explore how academic practices deeply embedded in the host university s local traditions can be adapted to suit international environments. In the beginning of the project we had little understanding of the project management context of the local community of professionals in Vietnam. This project is only a first step in our internationalisation of curriculum strategy and there is still more reflection, negotiation, imagining, reviewing and actioning to be undertaken by the academic team. We shall be considering student evaluation and also preparing further academic peer-reviewed papers and this will take our team s thinking to a deeper level of engagement with the topic of internationalisation of curriculum.

8 Lessons Learned Manual Generic indicators of graduate quality in an international curriculum: A graduate from an international curriculum should display the following attributes as a professional and a citizen A willingness to think globally and inclusively Able to consider issues from a variety of perspectives and worldviews Awareness of the implications of local decisions and actions for international contexts and communities Awareness of international developments, decisions and actions for local communities and contexts Awareness of own cultural tradition and its perspectives in relation to other cultures and their perspectives Appreciates the relation between his/her field of study locally and professional traditions elsewhere Appreciates and is able to apply international standards and practices Appreciates the importance of multicultural diversity to professional practice and Guiding principles for practice of curriculum internationalisation Use inclusive language. Keep communication clear and unambiguous, and avoid acronyms or specific country jargon or language that may not be culturally appropriate or easily understood across different cultural contexts. Ensure that students understand the concept of universality of research and thus the knowledge base that underpins the discipline Identify ways to facilitate continued discussion and reflection, asking students to identify key points of interest, and reflect on how each scenario relates to their own aspirations and professional practice Be attentive to the local context of the discipline as well as the universal themes and knowledge and skills base and listen to the issues practitioners present if creating materials for delivery in specific localities. Consider and be open to the fact that disciplines are constantly evolving and making their own unique interpretations of the discipline in various countries. For example, the availability of good quality project managers who were able to coherently synthesise their point of view during the interview/recording supports our original contention that project management as a discipline exists in Vietnam and the Master of Project Management has potential for growth in Vietnam in the future Ensure that students are presented with international research to underpin the course and source readings from diverse international journals. Ensure that content presented by practitioners is specific and targeted to the theory and principles that underpin your course but is flexible enough to allow for international professional practices in different countries to be examined Ensure that videos are contextualised and situated in relation to local and international contexts and include content that has an international flavour and is also grounded in local context Establish clearly the theoretical principles and hence the universal principles of the courses that you wish to present and ensure that video content makes explicit the links to course content Apply for international accreditation of your program; understand and explain to students national and international accreditation benefits and differences/similarities and relevance to them in terms of international standards Ensure material refers to program accreditation and provide links to professional bodies Ensure that students are equipped to source, critique and interpret contextual regional differences in research presented Ensure that questions to practitioners are open-ended to elicit rich responses from practitioners to support students engagement and learning and also to enable further discussions in class on how professions might differ

9 citizenship Accepts and values diversity in language and culture Understands the basic tenets of different world-views Able to see the world as other conceive it Appreciates the complex and interacting factors that contribute to notions of culture and cultural relationship s Recognises intercultural issues relevant to professional practice Level Program Course across countries Ensure diverse voices are heard. For example, as the lecturer you may wish to have your words as a voice over rather than filming you all the time and in these situations the visuals should be engaging for the student, relevant to the topic and of local material - this diminishes your strong presence as a central figure and increases the focus on the practitioners and thus the local figures and their stories in a visual manner. Use tactics for students to reflect upon cross country comparisons of disciplinary professional practices either in the material being developed or in the classroom Build in experiential learning so that students can reflect on inter-cultural differences and similarities alongside the core disciplinary knowledge base Consider ethical issues in international contexts and how different norms influence behaviours; identify opportunities to discuss and debate moral relativism vs moral universalism within the context of the professions practices where relevant Guiding principles to support the process of curriculum internationalisation Develop a team-based approach that will include viewpoints from diverse cultural backgrounds and include discipline specific staff as well as learning and teaching specialists Consider how knowledge may be constructed in different countries and how this may influence how students learn and engage in inquiry Modularise your material and segment into smaller learning packages so that you can target specific knowledge, skills and attitudes and be focussed on how inter cultural issues may be important Develop a schedule of questions for the practitioners and brief them on these prior to the interview. Also brief practitioners to ensure they have a broad understanding of the purpose of the program and particular course learning outcomes Provide useful links for students to access further information related to the topic Find out the possible options to store the videos. For this project, there are various options available to us to store and disseminate the videos currently, including: a) RMIT YouTube channel - Public (branding guidelines apply) - specifically for RMIT marketing purposes, videos are approved and uploaded through Marketing. And b) itunesu - Public (branding guidelines apply)- more of an educational delivery platform, videos are approved and uploaded through Marketing. It is worthwhile thinking about the multiple uses of the multimedia. For example we are now exploring the option of using the videos as a potential resource material for an MOOC and/or resource material for PhD students wishing to study here and their development of their research proposal for their application. At times it is not possible for materials to have multiple uses, however, with clever original design and forethought it is a possibility. Our videos are uploaded to the Learning Repository in the Lecture Series. Figure 1 Learning and Teaching Lessons Learned

10 REFERENCES Blight, D. (2001). International education and Australia s potential demand and supply, Open Doors on the Web, viewed: 01 Aug Callan, H. (2000). Higher Education Internationalization Strategies of Marginal Significance or All-Pervasive, Higher Education in Europe (UNESCO), Vol. 25(1), pp CEC UKCOSA (2000). Student Mobility on the Map: tertiary education interchange in the Commonwealth on the threshold of the 21st century (London, UKOSA: Council for International Education and Council for Education in the Commonwealth, Joint Working Group Report). Field, J. (1995). Thinking European: is UK higher education out of step?, in Schuller, T. (ed.), The Changing University Buckingham: SRHE-OUP, pp Group of Eight Australia (GO8) (2013). -international-education-for-australia, viewed: 01 Aug Leask, B. (1999). Internationalisation of the Curriculum: Key challenges and strategies, "The State of the Art in Internationalising the Curriculum - International Perspectives" Seminar in association with 'International Education: the Professional Edge" 1999 Australian International Education Conference: IDP Education Australia, Fremantle. Leask, B. (2005). 'Internationalisation Of The Curriculum And Intercultural Engagement A Variety Of Perspectives And Possibilities', Refereed paper presented at the Australian International Education Conference (AIEC), Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre, October 11-14, 2005, Queensland, Australia Haigh, M.J. (2002). Internationalisation of the Curriculum: Designing inclusive education for a small world, Journal of Geography in Higher Education, Vol. 26(1), pp Pickering, J. (2001). International education in New Zealand: the drivers and the driven, International Education Electronic Journal, Vol. 5(3) /uc/educ/crie/ieej home.html, viewed: 01 Aug The World Bank (2011). Vietnam High Quality Education for all by 2020, Human Development Department, East Asia Pacific region Van Damme, D. (2001). Quality issues in the internationalisation of higher education, Higher Education, Vol. 41, pp