The last decade has seen significant changes in all aspects of internationalization but most dramatically in the area of education and research moving across national borders. The most recent developments are education hubs. The term education hub is being used by countries who are trying to build a critical mass of local and foreign actors—including students, education institutions, companies, knowledge industries, science and technology centers—who, thorough interaction and in some cases colocation, engage in education, training, knowledge production, and innovation initiatives. It is understood that countries have different objectives, priorities, and take different approaches to developing themselves as a reputed center for higher education excellence, expertise, and economy. However, given higher education’s current preoccupation with competitiveness, global branding, and rankings, one is not sure whether a country’s plan to develop itself as an education hub is a fad, the latest branding strategy, o...

Education Hubs: A Fad, a Brand, an Innovation?

The aim of this article is to develop a framework that encapsulates the key managerial complexities of running offshore branch campuses. In the transnational higher education (TNHE) literature, several managerial ramifications and impediments have been addressed by scholars and practitioners. However, the strands of the literature are highly scattered and not addressing the issues coherently and consistently. Therefore, in the first section of this article, we review the literature and highlight this fragmentation. In the second section, we borrow and explore a paradigm from the strategic management literature, known as the dichotomy of global integration (I) versus local responsiveness (R). This paradigm leads us to construct a multidimensional framework that proposes a perceptive insight into the field by reframing, reconceptualizing, and synthesizing the managerial complexities from a strategic perspective. It also highlights the hazards of taking polarized strategic stances (global integration or local responsiveness); the analysis suggests a "both-and" approach. We argue that the framework could be used as an analytical tool for TNHE institutions to reflect on their positions and potential change strategies.

Managing Offshore Branch Campuses: An Analytical Framework for Institutional Strategies

Internationalization has been one of the most powerful and pervasive forces at work within higher education around the world during the last two decades. With remarkably few exceptions, no corner of the globe or institutional type has proven itself immune to the call to “internationalize” in some fashion. In this process, practical applications and conceptual understandings of internationalization have evolved significantly, while the overall stakes in the internationalization game have become noticeably higher. Whereas at the beginning of the 21st century, international orientations, characteristics, and programmatic offerings of a college or university may have been perceived as merely an interesting and appealing component of an institution’s profile, today internationalization is a core issue of concern to the higher education enterprise, touching directly on questions of social and curricular relevance, institutional quality and prestige, national competitiveness, and innovation potential. More recently, for better or worse, institutions also view internationalization as a source of potential revenue. The authors of this chapter have previously asserted that it is “not possible for higher education to opt out of the global environment, since its effects are unavoidable” (Altbach, Reisberg, & Rumbley, 2009, p. 7). Yet, in spite of the powerful influence of the global context, “local realities of wealth, language, academic development, and other factors all affect the extent to which institutions are motivated and able to internationalize” (Altbach et al., 2009, p. 7). This means that leaders in higher education must be prepared to track and understand the broadest global trends in higher education, as well as the internationalization of higher education more specifically, while at the same time attending effectively to the unique needs and aspirations of their particular institutions, local communities, and regional or national contexts. Thus it can be quite challenging in today’s complex and fast-moving environments, which are often characterized by scarce resources and competing priorities, to mention just two common yet critical challenges. The good news is that senior international officers and administrators who are faced with the daunting task of making sense of this complex and shifting landscape have an increasing array of information and resources from which to draw insight and ideas. Internationalization and globalization have been the subject of much analysis over the last two decades. This work has resulted in a substantial body of literature exploring many 1

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Internationalization Within the Higher Education Context

The need to effectively prepare faculty to teach in a cross-cultural environment has become imperative in the context of globalizing higher education (Deardorff, 2009; Verbik, 2007). Many higher education institutions around the world have internationalized their degrees and programs, and they have established foreign branch campuses to provide their intellectual resources in other countries (Altbach, 2010; Armstrong, 2007). In this paradigm, faculty members are contracted from the home campus or from an outside organization to teach in the foreign branch, but they receive little formal preparation to teach in this type of environment (Lewin, 2008; McBurnie & Ziguras, 2007). Faculty members are unaware of culturally competent pedagogical strategies on how to respond in culturally sensitive ways, and thus they lack the ability to successfully communicate and work with learners from other cultures (Paige & Goode, 2009). This paper focuses on preparing faculty to teach cross-culturally at international branch campuses. Using Darla Deardorff’s process model of intercultural competency, I will develop a framework that focuses on three core elements of Deardorff’s process model—attitudes, knowledge and comprehension, and skills—that will help faculty members to teach internationally. In the paper’s conclusion, I will suggest best practices and discuss the implications of intercultural competency for transnational teaching.

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Internationalization of Higher Education: Preparing Faculty to Teach Cross-Culturally.

International branch campuses (IBCs) evidence the increasing intention of some governments to use private higher education to fulfill public policy goals related to economic development and building capacity within the postsecondary sector. This study uses two exploratory case studies (Malaysia and Dubai) to investigate the relationship between the government, public policy, and IBCs. The IBCs imported by the governments investigated in this study tend to be from well-established institutions in countries that attract a large number of international students. The results from the study suggest that governments are actively recruiting institutions from other countries to aid in improving the host government's education-related reputation and signaling to the world that it is modernizing its economy and its desire to be a regional education hub. Thus, IBCs not only increase local capacity and provide a different type of education, but are intended to foster new regional interest in pursuing an educ...

Importing Private Higher Education: International Branch Campuses

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The International Branch Campus: Models and Trends

Transnational higher education is not a new phenomenon, but the pace of its global expansion is a new development. (Transnational is used here to designate higher education provided by one country in another and excludes provision where just the students travel abroad.) As foreign delivery becomes increasingly widespread, countries are facing a growing need to regulate this type of provision. Although many countries have yet to establish a clear regulatory framework for the import and export of transnational higher education, ambitions to regulate and offer quality assurance for this type of provision are an emerging international trend.

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Line Verbik

Papers

The International Branch Campus: Models and Trends

National Regulatory Approaches to Transnational Higher Education