Cross-border online education as curriculum mobility: patterns, trends and regulatory challenges

Transcription

1 Cross-border online education as curriculum mobility: patterns, trends and regulatory challenges Christopher Ziguras Facilitating good regulatory practices for trade and investment in higher education services in the APEC region, Regional Policy Symposium Kuala Lumpur, 20 & 21 August 2013

2 Transnational education has primarily been locallysupported distance education Australian transnational education was pioneered largely by universities that had governmentfunded Distance Education Centers between 1988 and Although often based on distance education courseware, transnational partnerships and branch campuses have tried to develop conventional campus environments Exports of education services are most commonly thought of as students coming to Australia to study but they can also include correspondence courses for overseas students, the electronic transmission of lectures and courses overseas, and Australians travelling overseas personally to provide various forms of education. Industry Commission (1991) Export of Education Services See: Clayton, Debbie, and Christopher Ziguras "Transnational Education: Delivering Quality Australian Programs Offshore." In Making a Difference: Australian International Education, edited by Dorothy Davis and Bruce Mackintosh, Sydney: UNSW Press. 2

3 We have been here before There were expectations in the late 1990s of the immanent rise of global online universities UK Australia research projects on New Media and Borderless Education Led to the establishment of the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education in 2001 Notwithstanding the rapid growth of online delivery among the traditional and new providers of higher education, there is as yet little evidence of successful, established virtual institutions, either as Internet-based educational providers or as hollow organisations which broker the programs of other educational operations. The Business of Borderless Education, 2000, p.xiii 3

4 When is transnational education distance education? A range of terms are used to describe students who do not have attend a campus: distance, flexible or distributed learning do not require the student to attend particular classes or events at particular times and particular locations (UK Higher Education Statistics Agency) distance education do not attend the institution, but study off-campus (International Education Association of Australia) 4

5 Transnational students Australia, sem UK, 2009/ ,261 30,694 3,495 Branch Campus Partner Campus Distance/Online Data source: Australian Universities International Directors Forum, International Data Collection Project: Semester ; Higher Education Statistics Agency, Students in Higher Education Institutions 2009/ Overseas campus of reporting HEI Distance, flexible or distributed learning Other arrangement including collaborative provision Students studying for an award of a UK HEI 5

6 Top ten UK institutions for transnational distance, flexible or distributed learning, 2009/10 The University of The Portsmouth University of Greenwich Heriot-Watt University Others However, 70% of University of London students are studying with a local partner institution is this the same for the other providers? The University of Reading University of London The University of Strathclyde The University of Manchester The University of Liverpool The University of Leicester Total 115,010 The Open University 6

7 Australian transnational vocational education and training students Public, classroom-based delivery, 2011 Public, other delivery, 2011 Private, 2009 Total 66,968 Data source: Department of Industry, Innovation, Science, Research and Tertiary Education (2012) Delivery of VET Offshore by Public Providers, 2011; National Quality Council and NCVER (2010) Data Collection on VET Offshore by Public and Private Providers

8 The coming ubiquity of online learning Students in the most advanced universities have come to expect much of their interaction with the institution to be available online: Program information and enquiry handling for prospective students Application and enrolment Selection of classes and timetabling Learning management systems for each course/unit Communication with teachers Recorded lectures Digitised weekly readings Access to large repositories of further resources Submission and return of assignments Access to final grades and transcripts 8

9 What the campus was Students listening to a lecture in the Francis Ormond Building, Working Men s College (now RMIT) c

10 What the campus is becoming 10

11 The economics of online degree programs Curriculum materials are a fixed cost, whereas as personalised engagement with students is a variable cost MOOCs operate at large scale with little personalised engagement with students The cost of online programs is mostly dependent upon the cost of staff providing personalised engagement with students Tuition fees for online programs with Australian universities are significantly higher than fees in comparable transnational programs 11

12 Online Degree Consortia Universitas 21 Abandoned its global online program plans in the late 1990s Global University Alliance NextEd alliance with ten universities founded in 2000 then abandoned Open Universities Australia Established in 1993 as Open Learning Australia Offers dozens of programs from 21 Australian universities and colleges Has not been promoted outside Australia and has few international students Fees are the same or slightly lower than for on-campus study 2U From September 2013 will offer seven online masters degrees from a consortium of US universities Fees and class sizes similar to on-campus study, mainly aimed at US students 12

13 Global Online Universities University of London International Programmes Founded in 1858, over 54,000 students, many prominent alumni Online degrees with or without a local partner institution University of Southern Queensland 75% of its students study online, both local and international GlobalNxtUniversity Malaysian online university owned by the Manipal Global Education Services group, 13

14 The good news for transnational education 1. There probably will be some growth in fully-online program delivery across borders, particularly niche postgraduate programs for working professionals, often combined with intensive residential activities 2. Low-budget fully online programs may emerge, but established universities online fees will remain more expensive than transnational options 3. The ubiquity of online learning is making it easier to connect a distributed network of campuses (yours or your partner s) 4. Transnational programs in developing countries have a huge advantage over their local competitors due to their access to advanced online learning environments based on the home campus 5. BUT, network restrictions (both technical and political) can hamper inter-campus connectivity 14

15 Regulation more questions than answers In countries where degree providers need to be authorised in order to advertise, is there any restriction on online promotions? Are student loans portable to online study? Are distance/online degrees recognized by national authorities and education providers in the same way as on-campus study? 15