The international student dimension

We are planning to bring together material relating to the following problem-areas and areas of potential dispute which can arise when HEIs become involved in international collaborative ventures, send students abroad or receive students from overseas. We have provisionally identified the following broad topics. We should be grateful for comment and contributions from HEIs encountering difficulties in any of these areas or in areas not listed below.

An Update

1) The European Network of Ombudsmen in Higher Education (ENOHE).

The ENOHE Newsletter reports a numbers of events and changes, these include:

  • The Mexican Network of University Ombudsmen (REDDU) met in July 2008 along with delegates from Peru and Spain to discuss the "Internal Administration of Justice in Universities". Themes developed in the Workshops were: "The University Ombudsman and Legal Offices or Attorney Generals", "University Tribunals and University Ombudsmen" and "Work Modalities of REDDU Associates".
    For more information on the Mexican network: www.reddu.com.mx/reddu_lenguajes/In/Index1.html, and on the Spanish network: www.defensores.es/sede/.
  • 2009 is the 200th anniversary of the ombudsman in Europe. In 1809 in Sweden an official ombudsman was installed by the Riksdag (Parliament) to check on government activity in the interests of the citizen.
  • In April 2009 the 4th IOA annual conference, "Evolution of the Ombudsman:
    A Rich History, A Promising Future", will be held together with the Canadian network of higher education ombudsmen ACCUO and the Forum of Canadian Ombudsmen FCO in Montreal, Canada.
  • In March 2009 ENOHE will hold its (seventh) annual conference in Hamburg, Germany, "Lost in Transition? Defining the Role of Ombudsmen in the Developing Bologna World". At this Tim Birtwistle will present the work of the IDR Project to the delegates in a Session and will then Chair a Workshop.
  • The text of the results of the Spanish network's meeting in October 2007, "The University Ombudsman in a European Context", is printed in English in the ENOHE newsletter.
  • The Croatian Higher Education Law 2007 made a student ombudsman mandatory at Croatian universities.

2) European Students’ Union

The ESU has called for UNESCO to establish a worldwide ombudsperson to ensure that students’ rights are upheld. This is a part of the preparatory work being undertaken for the UNESCO World Conference on Higher Education in July 2009.

3) Campus Ombuds

When trawling the web for IDR project related matters one comes across various manifestations of dispute resolution in higher education. One such trawl resulted in the University of Michigan’s homepage for its "ombud service": see www.umich.edu/~ombuds/ . Further links show the variation in practice and terminology and hence the need for the IDR Project to continue seeking to arrive at a glossary of terms or a common vocabulary (see results from the Mills and Reeve organized workshop).

NEWS

Campus Ombuds Questionnaire

As part of the IDR Project there is a need to determine what is happening in various jurisdictions in terms of on-campus dispute resolution. The questionnaire is one of the information gathering tools being used. Please complete the questionnaire (it should only take a maximum of 15 minutes) to add your voice to this important project.

Click here to download the questionnaire - .DOC format, 36kb

Bullet Points from: Modernising Universities in Europe (Lisbon 6 November 2007). Download (DOC document, 41k)

The Observatory for Borderless Higher Education notes two recent trends in Australian higher education, of particular importance in view of Australia's leading position in transnational education. Several Australian universities have begun to withdraw from overseas teaching operations, because they are proving unprofitable and are harming the reputations of the parent universities.'Universities in the country have recently confirmed the closure of dozens of courses plagued by quality-assurance and cost issues across Asia and the Pacific, involving thousands of students and million-dollar losses'. Conversely 'several high-profile foreign universities are in the process of establishing, or planning to establish, branch campuses in Australia'.

http://www.obhe.ac.uk/cgi-bin/news/article.pl?id=657 (for subscribing institutions only)

(1) Student Mobility

  • "access" issues (is it in the public interest to encourage overseas and EU students to study in the UK if they take places needed for widening access for UK students?)
  • finance/fees (can students take grants, bursaries or loans with them when they move between the UK and overseas institutions?)
  • exchange programmes (do you make it clear to students what credit their work in the UK will carry? Is it clear to your own students what credit they can bring back from their time overseas?)
  • the implementation of the Bologna process in your institution ( what are your experiences so far? Are any disputes arising?)
  • Diploma Supplements (how well do students understand the purpose of the Diploma Supplement?)
  • have you experienced disputes arising over visas?
  • what arrangements are made for referrals/resits for students returning overseas or returning from overseas?
  • how are the assessment, mitigation, plagiarism, appeals procedures designed to ensure fairness to students from overseas and UK students studying overseas?

(2) Integration and dealing with cultural differences

  • the student/university relationship ( how do you ensure that overseas students understand their relationship to their UK institution and the basis of the contract for the course they are pursuing? Do you compare the contractual relationship they had or have with their home HEI? How do you ensure that you do not breach the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations?)
  • how do you ensure that overseas students understand cultural differences and differences of expectation between their home countries and the UK, and particularly the fact that paying for the course does not guarantee that they will obtain the award they are seeking.
  • are the academic processes and expectations spelt out clearly to students (incoming and outgoing) in terms of academic performance (plagiarism, collaboration, cheating etc)

(3) Collaborations

  • joint courses (are you involved in any joint courses with overseas institutions? Are any problems arising for students?)
  • joint awards (how clear is it to students what award or awards they will receive and from which institution or institutions
  • The ERASMUS Mundus programme began in 2004, as a five-year experiment. Not all participating institutions can contribute to a double or joint degree. Are you making the position clear to students?
  • What types of inter-institutional collaborative venture involving course-provision is your HEI involved with?
  • The Times Higher Education Supplement, September 7, 2007, reports that the Employment Appeal Tribunal has found that the Malaysia campus is not an integral part of Nottingham University and therefore a UK Employment Tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear an unfair dismissal case by a lecturer on that campus. The EAT held that the overseas campus was a franchise operation conducted by a separate entity. In this case Nottingham holds a minority share in the campus, which is a joint venture with two Malaysian firms. Nottingham's publicity material's 'one school' claim is challenged by this judgment and this may have implications for students.

(4) Research and Teaching

  • doctoral programmes, types of research degrees and higher degrees
  • Intellectual Property issues and academic freedom (what provision do you make to ensure that overseas students understand how far they are free to publish and that they are clear about the intellectual property rules of the UK HEI? Do you explain to overseas research students any restrictions imposed by commercial funders of research projects within which they hold postdoctoral studentships before they begin their courses?).
  • Are your research students sometimes also employees of the HEI? Do any of them come from countries where that is the normal pattern? ERA, the European Research Area was launched by theEuropean Commission in January 2000, with the aim of creating a single labour market for researchers (European charter for researchers and Code of Conduct for their recruitment)

(5) Types of dispute arising

"All the students on my course except me were Chinese." How do you ensure that UK students are not disadvantaged when a high proportion of students on their course are from overseas?

"My university did not tell me that I was doing a commercially-run course in Dubai, not a real university course, and the qualification it offered would not count towards my degree or be recognized by any European university."

"I did not know that the Government in the country I went to had to approve transnational courses there and now I find it had not approved mine. My friend was even worse off. He went to India and although a Foreign Education Providers Bill is apparently on its way, the legality of transnational provision in India seems very unclear."

"We did the course on your overseas campus but it was quite different from the course students were doing on your UK campus and the people who taught us were not as highly qualified. How can our degree have the same value?"

On Risk Management, see: http://www.ukcosa.org.uk/pages/liability.htm

Some useful links:

Global Survey Report on the Internationalisation of Higher Education: New Directions, New Challenges. www.unesco.org/iau/internationalization

The World-Class University and Ranking: Aiming beyond Status, ed. Jan Sadlak and Liu Nian Cai (CEPES, Buchariest, 2007). www.cepes.ro/publications/recent/htm

EUA European Universities Association www.eua.be

EAIE European Association for International Education, with a series of Professional Sections and Special Interest Groups www.eaie.org

EAIR www.eair.nl

ERASMUS Student Network www.esn.org

European Student Union www.esib.org

University of South Australia, Student Ombud Office www.unisa.edu.au/ombud

Ombuds and Deans of Students in Higher Education Australasia Association
www.unisa.edu.au/ombud/Omdosheaa/default.asp

The following links will take you to Cambridge's current thinking in this area:

Report of the working party on international student recruitment, selection and support
www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2005-06/weekly/6037/3.html

Report of the working party on international academic relationships
www.admin.cam.ac.uk/reporter/2005-06/weekly/6037/2.html