« March 2007 | Main | May 2007 »
Hometown Baghdad is an on-line documentary series that follows Iraqi students through their daily lives. It is a co-produced by Chat the Planet and Iraqi film makers in Baghdad. The aim of this on-line documentary is to showcase the true stories of students who live in a war-torn city.
Continuing the conversation about world university ranking systems. Here are a few ranking systems with a global perspective:
In 2003, Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU), began ranking world universities, Top 500 World Universities, annually based on quantitative data in four areas:
1. Quality of Education (Alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals)
2. Quality of Faculty (Staff of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals; Highly cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories)
3. Research Output
4. Size of Institution
The UK Times Higher Education Supplement came up with a list of Top 200 Universities in November 2004 and have continued these rankings annually. 40% of the measure is a peer review, where approximately 3,700 faculty members from around the world are surveyed.
Newsweek International just recently joined in the global rankings game in 2006. The Top 100 Global Universities uses similar measures as the SJTU and Times ranking systems.
What do you think about global rankings of universities? Are they an accurate measure of what universities offer and who uses these rankings?
Trip to the Portugal Embassy in Helsinki, Finland!
By: Leasa Weimer
Part of the Erasmus Mundus experience includes the mobility logistics of moving to three different European countries. As we finish up our semester in Tampere, Finland we must start planning for our fall semester in Aveiro, Portugal. First thing first, we must apply for a Portugal visa! Every country seems to have a different process for applying for a visa and we are becoming experts on filling out all of the paperwork. The Portugal visa application proved to be a long process; as we all had to get criminal records from all of the countries where we have lived (which is not always easy to do when you don't physically reside in those countries any longer), a medical certificate, and the most challenging was providing inbound and outbound flights to/from Portugal. Many of us have not confirmed our summer plans, so purchasing a flight to arrive in Portugal for an October 1 semester start seems very far away. Then, booking a flight out of Portugal proved even more challenging, as many of us don't know what we will be doing in July. Needless to say, we have filled out all of the forms and collected all of the information and submitted them on April 10. You can see highlights of our trip to the Portugal Embassy in Helsinki below...
Ranking Universities around the globe is popular and becoming a common practice for some countries. The Institute for Higher Education Research published a new paper, "College and University Ranking Systems: Global Perspectives and American Challenges." The report recommends greater cooperation among world-wide researchers and publishers of the rankings. In addition, it calls for more research to study how the rankings affect the "quality improvement of higher education."
The report is a compilation of three papers. Alvin P. Sanoff, former managing editor of the U.S. News rankings from 1992 to 1998, wrote a paper on the history of U.S. News rankings. The Chronicle of Higher Education sums up his paper as, "He says the rankings began as a marketing device for the magazine, but captured the public's attention in a way unforeseen by the editors, primarily because of the increasing cost of higher education and the desire by students and parents to differentiate between colleges." The second paper written by Alex Usher and Massimo Savino, both researchers at the Institute, looks at the ranking systems in other countries and the latest trend; international rankings. Finally, Marguerite Clarke, international education consultant and adjunct lecturer in education at Flinders University in Australia, argues that the rankings have further stratified access to higher education institutions.
The Erasmus programme which enables many European Union undergraduate students to study in a different country for a semester is turning 20 years old this year. See the previous entry, "Notes from the 20th Celebration of the Erasmus Programme." The International Erasmus Student Network will go on a road trip around Europe in the "Erasmus Van" as a way to further promote the programme and celebrate 20 years of student exchange. The Van officially departed from Prague on March 26, 2007 and will travel through more than 20 European countries, stopping at University campuses and promoting day-long events. Click here to see if the Erasmus Van will be visiting a city near you!
Erasmus Mundus is not only about learning in the classroom, but also about diving into the local culture (or the local cold-water swimming hole.) Before old man winter hibernates for another spring and summer, it's time to reflect on the Finnish winter that we have all experienced. In addition to our studies, we have found time to ski, ice skate, sledge, cold-water swim and snow-shoe. You could say that we have fully experienced a typical Finnish winter, even though this winter was short and rather mild.
Jie Zhang, HEEM student from China shares her winter experiences,
"My favorite winter activity is skiing. Because in that day I fell down 10 times within 90 minutes. According to my Chinese culture, "10" is the luckiest number. I feel happy that finally I could have this related to luckiness anyway since I came to Europe! The most challenging winter sport for me is ice-skating. Because only ice-skating itself is tough enough for an old beginner like me. Besides in this warm winter, the surface of the ice has begun to melt into water, so I was forced to try and try again another man-sized sport----"winter swimming " at the same time whenever I fell down. Compared with activities in China, the Finnish winter sports remind me more about the impotance of having some kind insurance before starting them."
As the ice hockey rinks tranform into football fields, cold-water swimming holes and ice rinks turn into free flowing lakes, and the ski hills ripen into fields of wildflowers, the winter comes to a close and so do our winter adventures.
All around the globe, governments are seeking ways to supplement the increasing cost of higher education. In Israel, the Shochat Committee, established in October, is responsible for reforming higher education by specifically looking at tuition policy, in addition to merit-based pay for lecturers and "brain drain" of researchers. The committee will release recommendations in late April.
Israeli students are already anticipating tuition increases and have coordinated a nation-wide strike this week. The strike, composed of more than 250,000 students, is also coordinated with the lecturers association. Before this strike, there have been various negotiations between student leaders and the Shochat Committee on tuition issues, as four student leaders serve on the committee.
Roberta is a second year student in the HEEM Master’s Program from Brazil, Santos – São Paulo estate. Before entering the HEEM master's programme, she was a Portuguese language teacher and a program coordinator in a small for-profit university, Faculdade do Guarujá. She is currently working on her thesis in Aveiro, Portugal and writing about the role of for-profit organizations in the Brazilian higher education system. Roberta was recently accepted into the PhD program at the Finnish Graduate School of Higher Education Administration, Management and Economics at the Department of Management Studies in the University of Tampere. Below is a short interview with Roberta.
What is your thesis topic & why did you choose it?
"My thesis topic is related to diversity and market mechanisms in Brazilian HE. My interest is because of the size of the system, the role of for-profit institutions that is 40% of it and the fact that Brazil is a so-called developing nation. It seemed important to me to develop an analysis that could be useful to other nations, as HE development in Brazil could be a relevant example to realities of other developing countries."
At what point in the HEEM programme did you know you wanted to pursue a PhD?
"I already got to this program with the idea of pursuing a PhD afterwards. I have a MB back home, but in a different area – Discourse Analysis – and I thought that the opportunity to take a European MB could help me to get into a PhD program, and actually that was the case. "
What type of research do you hope to focus on in your PhD?
"I will develop a comparative analysis of HE systems in Latin America, especially involving the Mercosur countries. There is a movement there about systems integration, which is far from the Bologna process but is influenced by it. I will concentrate the analysis on the development of the private sector and its outcomes."
What advice would you give to fellow students who are considering the pursuit of a PhD?
"First, to be prepared for a long period of a lonely job, as a PhD program depends mostly on individual work. Motivation must come from inside as there will be no group to support you as in Erasmus Program. Second, to be “in love” with the theme a researcher wants to develop because it will be a long-term relationship with one main idea, so to say."
What are your future aspirations? "I would like to go back to Brazil if my country can offer me the possibility to use this knowledge that I am working hard to develop. There is still a long way to go and I still have to work with my opportunities back home. The idea of going on to a PhD was not planned to happen in Europe, but it happened like that. There is a kind of natural flow of opportunities and sometimes they do not happen exactly where we wanted them to happen. But I am sure that I want to make my knowledge useful and that it can help people, which I think is a good start."
This entry is a continuation of the series: "Internationalization of Higher Education: Where are Mobile Students Studying?" The Atlas of Student Mobility reports that the U.K. ranks second in the total number of international students studying in the country, with a total number of 344,335 in 2005. In April of 2006, as an extension to the "Initiative for International Education" in 1999, Tony Blair announced key strategies to attract 100,000 more international students (student from outside the EU) within the next five years.
The 4 key strategies are:
1.) Marketing and Communications efforts to position U.K. as a leader in offering international education opportunities,
2.) Ensuring a quality student experience from visa processes to orientation to studying,
3.) Strategic overseas partnerships and alliances,
4.) Expanding into new markets.
Mr. Blair wrote a commentary in The Guardian on April 16, 2006 that while Britain "is a world leader in the recruitment of international students, second only to the United States," the nation cannot afford to be "complacent. ... Australia and New Zealand, for example, have grown particularly strongly, and countries such as China, Malaysia, and Singapore, which traditionally send many students to our shores, now have burgeoning higher-education sectors of their own."
Top 10 Sending Places of Origin
Source: Atlas of Student Mobility
1. China 15.4%
2. United States 6.2%
3. Greece 5.8%
4. India 4.9%
5. Ireland 4.8%
6. France 4.6%
7. Germany 4.6%
8. Malaysia 3.3%
9. Hong Kong 3.2%
10. Spain 2.5%
This is part of a continuing series on "Internationalizing Higher Education: Where are Mobile Students Studying?"
According to the Atlas of Student Mobility, in 2006, there were 564,766 international students studying in the U.S. It is a fact that the U.S. has the highest number of international students studying in their higher education system. However, in 2003/04 the U.S. saw its first decline in the number of international students since 1971. According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, it is believed that the decline was due to increased difficulty in obtaining student visa's, more competitive recruitment by other international, english programs, and the increased quality of higher education in student's home countries. In February, a proposal calling for an urgent revision of foreign visa policies was signed by the Alliance for International Educational and Cultural Exchange, the Coalition for Employment Through Exports, the Heritage Foundation, Nafsa: Association of International Educators, and the National Foreign Trade Council.
The top 10 sending places of origin:
source: Open Doors, 2005-06
1. India 13.5%
2. China 11.1%
3. Korea, Rep. of 10.4%
4. Japan 6.9%
5. Canada 5.0%
6. Taiwan 4.9%
7. Mexico 2.5%
8. Turkey 2.1%
9. Germany 1.6%
10. Thailand 1.6%