IEAA Vista magazine - Summer 2016-17

SUMMER 2016–17

INDIA IN THE GOLDEN AGE LEADING THE WAY EMBRACING A A GOLDEN AGE...

FOR LEARNING ABROAD DATA-DRIVEN MINDSET OR A PERFECT STORM?

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VISTA

INSERT SIDE TAB TEXT PUBLISHED BY International Education Association of Australia (IEAA) PO Box 12917 A’Beckett Street Melbourne VIC 8006 + 61 3 9925 4579 admin@ieaa.org.au ieaa.org.au Vista is an open access magazine produced by IEAA twice a year. It features in-depth analysis, insights and commentary on international education in Australia and around the world.

IEAA MEMBER SUBSCRIPTION IEAA members can opt-in to a print subscription and have Vista delivered to your door. For more information, visit ieaa.org.au/vista.

WRITE FOR VISTA We welcome contributions from readers and industry experts. If you would like to contribute to a forthcoming edition, please email your ideas to Peter Muntz at peter.muntz@ieaa.org.au.

A GOLDEN AGE... OR ANOTHER PERFECT STORM?

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Phil Honeywood GLOBAL LEARNING IN THE DIGITAL AGE

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Christopher Ziguras INDIA IN THE GOLDEN AGE

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Abizer Merchant THE DATA GAME: BUILDING ANALYTICS CAPABILITY IN INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION

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Darragh Murray SUSHI, SUMO, STUDY ABROAD

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Leanne Harrison and Rohan McCarthy-Gill LEADING THE WAY FOR LEARNING ABROAD

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Davina Potts FACULTY CHAMPIONS

Articles may be reproduced with permission.

Opinions expressed by contributors do not necessarily reflect the position of IEAA.

Sonia Chan

Copyright © 2016

Marlena Mende

COVER IMAGE ferrantraite (iStock)

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

VIRTUAL REALITY: ARE WE READY?

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HIGHLIGHTS

A GOLDEN AGE... OR ANOTHER PERFECT STORM? Conditions are ripe for the ‘Golden Age’ of international education in Australia, but we can't afford to rest on our laurels, writes Phil Honeywood. Page 4

THE DATA GAME: BUILDING ANALYTICS CAPABILITY

LEADING THE WAY FOR LEARNING ABROAD

Embracing an analytic mindset in the era of big data is key to reaching Australia’s international education goals, writes Darragh Murray. Page 16

One in five domestic undergrads now take part in learning abroad.

Davina Potts unpacks the latest national data from AUIDF. Page 26

A GOLDEN A

...OR ANOTHER PERFECT S

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CEO EDITORIAL

AGE

STORM?

Conditions are ripe for the ‘Golden Age’ of international education in Australia, but we can't afford to rest on our laurels, writes Phil Honeywood.

As the year draws to a close, our sector can pause to celebrate a few milestones. Australia has experienced both a record number of inbound students and thousands of our domestic undergraduates have, courtesy of the New Colombo Plan and other initiatives, had the opportunity to study abroad.

The past 12 months have also featured growing interest and engagement from federal, state and local governments. But just when we think a ‘Golden Age’ is upon us, this past year has also heralded a number of political milestones that could disrupt the sector as we know it.

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Image: pigphoto (iStock)

Australia's new Council for International Education brings together six Federal Ministers and 11 sector representatives to implement Australia’s National Strategy for International Education 2025.

Whether it be the success of Brexit, ‘The Donald’ and the antiinternationalisation movement – or closer to home with the reincarnation of Pauline Hanson, workplace exploitation and the 457 visa debate – storm clouds could well be brewing. In all of this, Australia needs to do better in heeding the feedback of international students that suggests we may be taking them for granted.

The new Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International) at the University of Wollongong, Professor Alex Frino, was recently quoted as saying that “Australia is entering a Golden Age of international recruitment”. Certainly, the latest published international student enrolment figures highlight a period of sustained growth. It is truly extraordinary that in a few short years Australia, with a population of 24 million, could overtake the 6 | VISTA

United States (with 300 million people) in hosting more than one million full-fee paying international students.

We have been in the business of recruiting paying students for far longer than many of our competitor study destination countries. Along the way, and ably assisted by the 130,000 Australians who now work in our dynamic sector, we have earned a reputation for delivering world-class teaching and learning outcomes underpinned by a relaxed lifestyle that is accepting of diversity in its many forms.

The stars also appear to have finally aligned with the governance of our sector. Many have criticised Australia’s first-ever national strategy as a fairly lacklustre document. However, this is just an initial framework to help guide the

Image: Department of Education & Training

inaugural Council for International Education (which had its first meeting at Parliament House in November) in the strategy’s implementation.

With six Federal Ministers and 11 non-Ministerial Council members in attendance, we are now set to have workshops in February to get on with the job of implementing initiatives to enhance the quality of what we deliver to all our students.

As a member of the National Council – as well as the equivalent Ministerial Advisory Boards in NSW, Victorian and Queensland – I am greatly encouraged by the support that these governments are now providing to our sector.

Such whole-of-government engagement stands in stark contrast to the policy positions of Theresa May's Government in the UK and the incoming Trump Presidency in the USA.

Over-reliance on one or two source countries Once we get to a situation with over 80 per cent native Mandarin speakers in certain Business course classes are we in fact providing a truly internationalised experience?

Providing easy access to work-integrated learning Competitor study destination countries such as Canada and the USA have a strong culture of unpaid and special payment internship programs (our industrial relations system makes replication of this impossible). In similar measure, few of our education institutions have followed the lead of their European counterparts in implementing officially endorsed whole-of-institution employability strategies.

Safe affordable and quality purpose built student accommodation As one of the most urbanised countries in the world, Australia struggles to keep living expenses at a comparable level to our key competitor nations. Many of the top universities in the UK, USA, Canada and New Zealand are located far away from their large, high-cost cities.

CEO EDITORIAL

As we enter a new year, it is worth reflecting on potential disruptors that could combine to bring our hard won achievements unstuck.

Some of these should come as no surprise as credible student surveys such as i-graduate's International Student Barometer (ISB) and Hobsons’ International Student Survey have been flagging them as issues of concern for many years. In no particular order they include:

Many of these same institutions also provide relatively inexpensive oncampus accommodation options.

Greater integration of international and domestic students and the wider community New challenges that have arisen over the past year include community confusion around 457 temporary skilled labour visas and the appalling work place exploitation of some international students. Although there are no quick policy fixes when it comes to integration and community engagement, some best practice examples may be worth promoting much more extensively.

Each of the above have been identified by IEAA as key student service delivery challenges that we are giving priority to. In the year ahead we will be building on the work we have already done with the publication of our three Employability Guides and videos (ieaa.org.au/employability). We will also assist in ensuring better coordination of the student voice with accommodation provision.

Importantly, we will publish and communicate the research that we have commissioned Rob Lawrence to undertake on community attitudes and engagement strategies for international education in Australia.

When combined with the outputs of the various working groups of the new Council for International Education (and initiatives of other levels of government), then 2017 may well be the year in which the “Golden Age” becomes a reality.

Phil Honeywood is CEO of IEAA.

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GLOBAL LEARNING IN THE DIGITAL AGE The digital revolution and internationalisation have gone hand in hand when it comes to education, writes Christopher Ziguras.

But technology has not been as disruptive (so far) as many had feared.

Technology is transforming education as we know it. For international educators, the new tools allow us to much more easily provide engaging global learning experiences for all our students.

Let’s consider first the fate of online cross-border education before turning to the ways that campusbased providers are successfully tapping the potential for online tools to support the development of global competence.

Whatever happened to the idea of the global online degree?

The idea of the global online education provider has been with us now for 30 years, but still hasn't managed to take off. As far back as 1987, the Commonwealth Heads of Government proposed to create a University of the Commonwealth for Cooperation in Distance Learning, so that ‘any learner anywhere in the 8 | VISTA

Commonwealth shall be able to study any distance teaching program available from any bona fide college or university in the Commonwealth’. That proved to be a bit of a stretch, and instead the Commonwealth of Learning was established with a mandate to assist national distance education initiatives, which it has continued to do for over 25 years.

A decade later, during the ‘dot. com’ bubble in the late 1990s, it seemed to many that the creation of the global online megauniversity was imminent. Surely the ability to deliver university programs fully online would soon lead to a single global distance education market, in which geographical access limitations would be overcome? Transnational education did boom, in large part due to the technological developments that allowed programs to be taught more easily in various locations.

Image: martin-dm (iStock)

But offshore programs have largely been delivered through a local physical presence in the form of a partner institution or a branch campus. The new private international education conglomerates have also found it necessary to establish a local branch in each country, rather than delivering globally online.

For example, the Laureate group –which operates globally and has extensive online capability – established Torrens University in Australia.

The take-up of cross-border online programs has so far been hampered by a range of impediments. Of course the main factor is that most students desire at least some face-to-face contact with their teachers and peers. But those students who do study online still overwhelmingly enrol with providers from their own country.

And they do so for three main reasons. First, local online providers tend to be better known and more highly trusted. Most Australians know of Open Universities Australia, but few would have heard of Penn State World Campus. Naturally, they would be more wary about undertaking one of its degrees, even though it is ranked number one in www.thebestschools.org’s list of best online colleges.

Second, local online programs are designed in response to meet the preferences of local students (e.g. start and end dates, language of instruction, learning styles) and trends in the local labour market.

Third, local online programs are treated more favourably by governments, especially in relation to funding and recognition of qualifications. Australian students can access FEE-HELP loans to undertake an online master degree offered by a local institution, but if they enrol in

the same program offered by a foreign institution they are on their own. Many governments in Asia do not recognise foreign online qualifications, even though local online programs are becoming increasingly common.

Small is beautiful While global online programs may not have taken off, short courses have proven much more popular – as we saw in recent years with the rise of massive open online courses (MOOCs), beginning with Stanford’s much publicised offering in 2011.

The number of students who have signed up for at least one MOOC has grown to over 35 million by the end of 2015. The number of courses has grown steadily to over 4,000.

From the outset, MOOCs have been attractive to students around the world, resulting in far more internationalised online classes than the campus-based equivalent.

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Our students are immersed in globalised online environments in which they routinely engage with ideas, debates and people from far and wide. But this doesn’t mean they are exposed to a wide range of views or engage with cultural difference.

More MOOCs are now being created in languages other than English, which will further the spread of the model. More popular still are educational apps that can be used anywhere anytime. One of the most successful is Duolingo, a free platform that offers gamified courses for learners of dozens of languages. I am one of the app’s 120 million users, brushing up my Greek and Italian on my phone on the train.

The most successful global online learning products so far have been those that complement classroom teaching, especially in fields where the curriculum is relatively consistent across borders. Duolingo is being used by growing numbers of language teachers, because it is cheaper and much more fun than a traditional workbook.

Mathletics is one of the most successful Australian products of this sort, used globally by nearly five million students in around 18,000 schools. It allows children to do their maths homework in an online environment alongside learners from across the globe who they can compete with in a variety of maths games.

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Global learning resources Organisations with a mission to promote global learning (in all its guises) are increasingly producing resources to help teachers, including structured lesson plans, worksheets, videos and other media. Most resources for school teachers (especially those funded by governments) are designed with the official local curriculum in mind, including guidance on integrating the activities into the mandated curriculum framework.

In Australia, the Asia Education Foundation has produced a wide range of excellent curriculum resources focused on culture, history, business and geography.

In the United States hundreds of virtual field trips have been developed by museums, libraries and commercial providers, particularly in the social sciences (geography, history) and physical sciences (biology, geology). These vary enormously in technological and educational sophistication: from a simple PDF teachers guide accompanied by streamed video and a set of PowerPoint slides, to live events that resemble reality TV series, such as Polarhusky, and immersive 3D learning environments such as Google Expeditions.

In tertiary education, teachers increasingly play a curatorial role, selecting, framing and adapting materials from among the thousands and thousands of items of content online around the world to suit their particular group of learners. Compared with the school level there is very little in the way of packaged online resources for use by educators in higher education. Some publishers are producing interactive media to support e-books and text-based databases but these are still in their infancy in most fields.

Some of the most effective work being done currently involves using technology for collaboration between teachers and students across borders. This year’s IEAA Best Practice Award winner was Asia Education Foundation’s Building Relationships through Intercultural Dialogue and Growing Engagement (BRIDGE) School Partnerships Project. Over the past eight years, it has developed over 286 partnerships between schools in Australia and China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, South Korea and Vietnam involving over 800 teachers and online collaboration between thousands of students.

Just as Google has entered the virtual field trip space, Skype has developed tools to make it easy for educators to use its products in the classroom. The most innovative of these is Mystery Skype, billed as “the global guessing game that gets kids learning about geography, culture, and the similarities and differences of how children live all over the world”.

For higher education, Macquarie University’s Professional and Community Engagement (PACE) program is a cooperative model of teaching and learning in which overseas partners collaborate with university faculty to set the agenda, plan lessons, develop teaching techniques, and share their views.

The intention is for students to engage more authentically with global problems by encountering first-hand the views and concerns of people around the world in their classrooms, wherever they learn.

GLOBAL LEARNING

Working with partners online

Macquarie has now developed the Classroom of Many Cultures website to help other educators to “co-create curriculum resources for work-integrated learning with international partners and students that reflect in their constitution the values of collaboration, intercultural sharing and respect for other people’s ways of knowing”.

Similar collaborative initiatives include Ryerson University’s Global Campus Network and the State University of New York’s Center for Collaborative Online Interactive Learning (COIL).

Global competence online Our students are immersed in globalised online environments in which they routinely engage with media, ideas, debates and people from far and wide. But this doesn’t mean they are exposed to a wide range of views or engage with cultural difference. As we have seen with the Brexit and Trump experiences, the splintering of mass media into online niches has allowed us to retreat into online communities that are in some ways ever more insulated from difference and debate. How often have we heard someone say that they’ve never even seen a pro-Trump social media post?

Our challenge as educators is to expand our students’ online engagement so that they are better prepared for a life of professional and social encounters with the world beyond their comfort zones.

Professor Christopher Ziguras is President of IEAA and Deputy Dean, International in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies at RMIT University.

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INDIA IN THE GOLDEN AGE Australia may stand to benefit significantly in India from the predicted ‘golden age’ in international recruitment.

But that all depends on how world events shape up in the next 12 months, writes Abizer Merchant.

Geo-political events in the US and the UK suggest that Australia could see its share of international students grow rapidly in the coming years. A recent article in the Australian reported that Australia may be entering its ‘golden age’ in international recruitment. The low dollar has been identified as a contributing factor. Add to this post-study work rights, relatively low unemployment and some of the most livable cities in the world… and Australia seems well placed to bask in the afterglow.

For prospective students from India – and those from most other countries – there have been increasingly unwelcome messages emanating from the US since the start of the election. During Donald Trump's campaign, he stated “I will end forever the use of H1-B as a cheap labour programme”. Indian IT giants such as Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro are among the most frequent users of the H1-B visa (a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ graduate workers in specialty occupations such as STEM, finance, accounting, architecture and medicine).

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An estimated 86,000 new H1-B workers were sent to the US by these three companies between 2005 and 2014. But the selection of Senator Jeff Sessions as the new US Attorney General – a hardliner on immigration and a fierce critic of H-1B visas – does not bode well for future visa applicants.

However, student demand from India to the US is driven by referral from an affluent Indian-American community, scholarships offered

by US institutions, the alumni and their success stories and the pursuit of the ‘American Dream’. So far, these demand drivers have remained unaffected.

Recent reports in the Indian media have been about the appointment of Nicki Haley (who is of Indian origin) as Ambassador to the United Nations and Governor Bobby Jindal who is among the shortlisted candidates for Trump’s Cabinet. While Trump’s election on its own may not affect student demand for the US, there will certainly be a negative impact if the H1-B visa program is ended or scaled down.

INDIA IN FOCUS Image: Instants (iStock)

TABLE 1: Number of student visas granted outside Australia for Indian citizens (DIBP) FINANCIAL YEAR ALL SECTORS HIGHER ED (573)

2009–10

2010–11

2011–12

2012–13

2013–14

2014–15

2015–16

12,521

3,394

5,519

9,392

21,476

20,291

22,088

5,053

2,341

3,994

7,724

19,985

18,641

19,044

Following UK Prime Minister Theresa May’s recent visit to India, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Sheffield, Sir Keith Burnett, wrote: "Indians who studied in the UK say we don’t act as if we are good friends any more. They say we want their money and business but are not willing to teach their children, even if they pay full whack. They hear that our universities are allowed to teach and take the money only if Indian students are rich enough not to need a job, or can graduate to a job that pays over the odds in some parts of the UK. The Indians I have met say this is not really friendly at all."

The UK clamped down on poststudy work rights for non-EU students in 2012. This has resulted in number of Indian students in the UK falling from 39,090 in 2011 to 18,230 in 2015 (HESA).

An analysis of offshore student visa grants from India to Australia over the past seven years (Table 1) shows a spike in commencements in 2013–14 which coincides with the UK ending work rights in 2012.

For the first time in 2014, Australia’s market share of Indian students (14 per cent) exceeded that of the UK (10 per cent); the US continues to dominate with 52 per cent (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2016; Global Flow of Tertiary-Level Students 2014).

However, there is little growth in the number of Indian students coming to Australia since 2014. Of greater concern is the fall in Indian student numbers for the higher education sector (subclass 573) from 19,985 in 2013–14 to 19,044 in the financial year 2015–2016.

The Indian student numbers for Australia following the 2014 spike bring to the fore some key questions. Following the decision to end work rights in 2012, has the Indian market for the UK bottomed out in 2015–16? Can further damage be expected as a result of Brexit? India’s long-standing relationship with the UK, coupled with the prestige attached to some of its elite institutions, will continue to attract Indian students.

The past few years have certainly seen a greater presence of competing foreign study destinations in India – particularly New Zealand, Germany and Canada – all of whom have enjoyed significant increase in market share from 2014.

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As incomes rise in India, there is growing demand for high quality education. A visit to the elite international or private schools in India will find that most Year 11 and 12 students aspire for higher scores in Scholastic Aptitude Tests (SATs) and TOEFL exams to be able to study in their choice of a US institution. In most cases, it is their parents or school counsellors who are either alumni of US universities or have themselves aspired to gain a US degree.

Australian providers are not a preferred choice for these students yet and at best are a third choice.

While Trump’s election on its own may not affect student demand for the US, there will certainly be a negative impact if the H1-B visa program is ended or scaled down.

There are also a growing number of high quality private higher education institutions coming up across India that offer an alternative to studying overseas. Is Australia’s inability to make major inroads into this premium segment affecting enrolments in its higher education sector?

US education providers are actively working with agents in India and developing a recruitment channel they had traditionally shunned – a channel that Australia has been very reliant on so far. The Simplified Student Visa Framework (SSVF) is now in place and digital marketing provides an unprecedented access to communicate directly with prospective students. Is it time for Australia to invest in building direct recruitment channels in India to be more self-reliant and have greater control?

IEAA EXCELLENCE AWARDS 2016 Find out the secrets behind the success of this year’s IEAA Excellence Award winners

ieaa.org.au/awards 14 | VISTA

Indian employers are relatively more familiar with US and UK education systems and are more willing to employ graduates from these countries. Have we effectively leveraged off our alumni and the onshore Indian community? Have we done enough to partner with employers locally and in India to create opportunities for our graduates?

Depending on how world events shape up in the next 12 months, Australia may stand to benefit significantly in India from the predicted ‘golden age’ in international recruitment. If that happens, are we ready for it?

Do we have the infrastructure to support a larger intake of students and ensure a good learning and living experience for them?

INDIA IN FOCUS

Fears about racism and safety in Australia continue to linger among Indian students following incidents in 2009. A conversation with most Indian parents or the Indian media usually includes a query on this topic. Has the Australian education sector done enough to address these concerns and tackle them head on?

As Phil Honeywood rightly points out, 2017 should be the year of “recalibration”. The first question we need to ask ourselves is ‘How can we do things better?’

Abizer Merchant is the Director, South Asia for Macquarie University and is based in Mumbai, India.

Giving back is what we do We recognise that our success as a company is dependent on the people and communities that we service.

We are a company that cares for our members, staff and partners as people. For us, giving back is a joy.

We have cultivated compassion within our team by encouraging involvement in initiatives such as: • The St. Vincent de Paul’s CEO Sleepout • AGA Angels program to support local family and friends in need • Ambassadors Abroad allowing employees to volunteer overseas to help disadvantaged communities • And much more!

Our charity partners include: • Spinal Injuries Australia • World Wellness Group • The PA Research Foundation

Generated more than $30,000 in disbursements for our charity partners

If you’re interested in working with us or finding out more on our community engagement, please contact: Andrea Wallace P: +61 7 3648 7064 National Business Development Manager – Education M: +61 421 097 405 International Health AWallace@allianz-assistance.com.au

Clocked up more than 100 hours of volunteer time

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THE DATA GAME

Building Analytics Capability in International Education

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A tale of prediction and teenage pregnancy In 2012, journalist Charles Duhigg came across a fascinating story concerning the power of prediction and teenage pregnancy. Writing for the New York Times, Duhigg told how an irate man confronted the manager of a Target department store in the United States, demanding to know why the retailer kept sending his teenage daughter coupons for baby clothes and lotions.

“Are you trying to encourage my daughter to get pregnant?!” the angry father complained, presenting the unfortunate manager with bundles of babyrelated paraphernalia. The manager had little idea how this had occurred and promised to follow up. However, investigations were cut short when the father rang back days later to apologise.

His teenage daughter was indeed pregnant and somehow Target knew before her family did.

How could Target possibly know this? Well, the answer is through the precise use of data and analytics. Target had been heavily investing in analytics capability – a speciality that places data at the centre of knowledge discovery and communication. Through the use of predictive models, the store could precisely identify potentially pregnant customers based on historical shopping patterns.

While this anecdote is both fascinating and creepy, it reminds us how modern industries are leveraging vast amounts of data to pursue strategic business objectives.

Whether it be targeting customers who are expecting, or using data to evaluate the potential of international student markets, skilled use of data is quickly becoming a resource on which businesses and organisations compete.

The data revolution Using data to solve problems isn’t a recent development. What we now call data science has been widely used in the fields of science and engineering since the 1970s, typically for risk management and workplace health and safety.

The field gathered further steam during the 1990s when banking and finance increasingly used data monitoring for combating fraud and credit card theft.

The recent convergence of massive computational power, inexpensive data storage and the development of modern data mining and machine learning technologies has led to the mainstreaming of data as a valuable everyday business resource. It all culminates in the emergence of ‘big data’ as the latest buzzword across the land.

This data and analytics revolution is now seen as critical to the ongoing development of the modern global economy. In their excellent work Competing on Analytics, researchers Davenport and Harris argue that data is now the key resource organisations must use to discover the distinctive capabilities that keep them competitive.

As shown in Figure 1 (p.18), Davenport and Harris conceptualised a scale of organisational analytics capability, ranging from basic standard reporting to advanced predictive models that permit data-driven forecasting and risk management optimisation. If your organisation is still monitoring key metrics using simple standard reports, you may already be lagging behind.

How then does the analytics revolution intersect with the Australian international education sector? Given the growing number of internationally mobile students – as well as increasing interest from modern economies with advanced education systems in teaching these students – the idea of competing on analytics and data is highly relevant. Knowing more about potential international students before competitors do makes sense if Australia wants to continue to attract the highest quality international students.

Education providers who can compete best in terms of data and analytics will reap the future benefits. Australia’s international education sector is fortunate to have one comparative advantage: we have a large amount of good quality student data that other markets seemingly do not.

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DATA ANALYTICS

Embracing an analytic mindset and capitalising on the technologies in the era of big data are key to reaching Australia’s strategic international education goals, writes Darragh Murray.

Australia’s comparative data advantage Australia has world class data on its international students. Government agencies such as the Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) regularly publish detailed and timely statistics on student visa application and grant rates that permit analysis of future demand. Similarly, the Department of Education and Training (DET) provides valuable information on international student enrolments and commencements that can be sliced and diced by numerous metrics across all sectors within international education.

Online data portals such as the uCube allow detailed local competitor analysis and benchmarking. Australia’s Market Information Package (MIP) is a global leader in international student data visualisation, providing an integrated business intelligence platform (see Figure 2) that allows institutions and business the ability to analyse the Australian international student market without large scale IT infrastructure investment.

These examples don’t even take into account the countless other sources of private organisational information on Australia’s international student cohort that can be integrated into these robust public sources.

Such up-to-date and integrated sources of data are not exactly evident in other competing markets for international students.

For example, the United States relies on Open Doors published by the Institute of International Education, whereas the Higher Education Statistic Agency (HESA) in the United Kingdom provides some wide-ranging details on the entire student population. While these services are undoubtedly handy, they don’t seem to have the specialist, integrated or flexible platforms for data analysis that the Australian sector enjoys. They can also suffer from lack of timely updates or data that is difficult to extract and analyse.

It’s not unreasonable to claim that Australia is a market leader in international student data. The question is, how can we use these datasets to further Australia’s international education sector?

Figure 1. The evolution of organisational analytic capability Model optimisation: How do we minimise future risk?

Predictive modelling: What will happen next?

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

Forecasting: What will occur based on trend?

Statistical analysis: Why did this happen?

Alerters: Where are the risks?

Drill-downs: Investigate the detail Ad-hoc reports: How much and how many?

Standard reporting: what happened?

DEGREE OF INTELLIGENCE Adapted from Davenport, T., & Harris, J. (2007), Competing on analytics: The new science of winning, Boston, Massachusetts, Harvard Business School Press (p.8)

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DATA ANALYTICS

Figure 2. Austrade’s Orbis

Austrade's Market Information Package (MIP), and its data visualisation tool Orbis, is an incredible resource for visualising current and future trends in international education.

Building analytics capability: the data-driven mindset Good business decisions are supported by robust data and comprehensive analysis. As Davenport and Harris assert, organisations that are successful in certain markets where competitors flail are nearly certainly winning by driving their strategic business decisions using analytics and data.

Given Australia’s enviable international student data resources, a change of mindset and some creativity may be all that’s needed to start making large competitive gains.

Let’s examine a few examples.

Assume you’re trying to decide whether to enter an international student market.

The ‘gut-feel’ response may be to justify decisions based on what you've read in the media, the recommendation of a trusted colleague or on the basis of what your organisation has done before.

The analytical, data-driven mindset demands much more. A good place to start would be to test for key influential variables in a relevant dataset.

Can you identify factors in other mature markets that have historically influenced growth based on data alone? Are variables like gross domestic product or scholarship availability influential and relevant in this case? Finding the answers to such questions in the available data can assist in both firming up confidence in a recommendation as well as result in better strategic planning.

Furthermore, data familiarisation is paramount in building analytics capability. Data mining and visualisation tools such as IBM SPS, Tableau or TIBCO Spotfire, can be helpful aids in understanding the natural relationships underpinning datasets. Clustering, a technique by which to organise data into distinct groups based on their natural attributes, can be very useful in uncovering insight.

This advanced level of analytics capabilities means moving into the territory of predictive models.

This involves examining historical patterns in datasets to help make informed forecasts about the future.

Predictive modelling leverages machine learning techniques such as classification, neural networks and logistical regression.

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Use of these techniques could afford international education organisations the ability to calculate international application outcome probabilities, or even whether a current student will pass or fail their first year. Predictive modelling has incredible value and countless uses in the context of Australia’s international education sector.

The take away message here is that pressing business problems should be tackled by moving from the intuitive to the analytic. Embracing an analytic mindset and capitalising on the technologies in the age of big data could be the key for furthering Australia’s strategic international education goals.

Signal and noise Australia has set out a bold, three pillar agenda in its ‘National Strategy for International Education 2025’. Many of the goals set out in the strategy, particularly in pillar three ‘Competing Globally’, can be furthered simply by improving our collective analytical capability and embracing data-driven decision making mindset. Competitive modernday organisations invest in advanced analytical capability, using technologies and methods such as data mining, clustering and predictive models to better understand and tackle key strategic problems.

The Australian international education sector is not immune to these developments and there will come a time where we will need to rely on our comparative data advantage to keep ahead of competing international education hubs. We have the raw materials, it’s just a case of building on these to advance the industry's collective analytics capability and stay ahead of the competition.

Darragh Murray is a Senior Business Intelligence Analyst at the University of Queensland.

GIVE IT YOUR BEST DATASET Enhancing organisational analytics and building data knowledge isn’t simply a case of grabbing a dataset and hoping for the best. Here are three titbits of advice about how someone in an analytics position can help their organisation do more with data.

FOCUS ON PROCESS AND THE END OBJECTIVE Doing data correctly requires time, precision and purpose. Colleagues may not be as aware of how complicated organising and manipulating data may be and aren’t forthcoming with all of their business requirements when requesting the data they need to make decisions. The more regimented you are with gathering requirements ahead of any analytics-based project, the better it will be for you and your organisation. If you’re asked to do data analysis without a solid strategic reason, you’re simply wasting your time.

SOME CORE SKILLS CAN GO A LONG WAY Basic statistical skills are very helpful for understanding the shape of data. Learn how to compile a five-number statistical summary, know how different measures of averages such as median and mean work and come to grips with the concept of outliers. These are all key skills to being able to understand your data. It takes time to turn data into meaningful insight and requires good skills in data manipulation. Being able to organise information using relational databases or even good spreadsheet skills can take you a long way in the data game.

COMMUNICATION IS KEY Even if you’re the greatest statistician or data scientist known to humankind, it’s worth peanuts if you cannot communicate insight correctly. Being able to write about data succinctly and with purpose – alongside the skilful use of meaningful data visualisation – will do a lot more for increasing executive support and increasing organisation analytics capability. Often, when it comes to communicating data, less is more.

DATA SOURCES ■■ www.education.gov.au/higher-education-statistics ■■ www.education.gov.au/ucube-higher-education-data-cube ■■ www.austrade.gov.au/Australian/Education/Services/ Market-Information-Package ■■ www.border.gov.au/about/reports-publications/ research-statistics/statistics/study-in-australia

20 | VISTA

SUSHI SUMO STUDY ABROAD

Leanne Harrison and Rohan McCarthy-Gill take a look at the rising impact of short-term learning abroad programs for first year students.

A learning abroad revolution has occurred in Australian universities.

Over the last 11 years, participation has increased fivefold. In 2015, 38,144 students at 36 Australian universities participated in semester or year-long exchanges, faculty-led study tours, internships, research-led activities, summer/winter programs and volunteering/community engagement – up from just 7,282 participants in 20051.

While the statistics demonstrate the increased popularity of international study, another story is developing around the types of learning abroad programs on offer. The tradition of the semester or year-long exchange has shifted. More and more students are undertaking short-term programs over the summer and winter break, as well as internships and community engagement programs. Some universities are also considering the student lifecycle when developing new programs, tailoring offerings to students at different stages of their degree.

SUMMER 2016–17 | 21 Image: martin-dm (iStock)

Most undergraduate participants are currently heading overseas in their second or third year of study. This is due to a range of factors. Australian universities have traditionally excluded first year undergraduate students from participating in exchange programs, preferring to support the transition to university study in the home campus environment. Many international partner institutions require applicants to have completed a minimum of one year of university-level study. OSHELP – a key government funding loan scheme to support domestic undergraduate participation in learning abroad – also currently requires applicants to have completed a year of study. This means this form of financial support is not available until the second year of a student's degree.

Summer in Tokyo Inspired by the success of peer institutions in the United States, the Australian National University (ANU) explored a new approach to learning abroad in 2014. Twelve first year undergraduate students were sent to Waseda University in Japan for ‘Summer in Tokyo’ – a fourweek, multidisciplinary program during the Australian winter break.

The project was supported by funding secured in Tranche 1 of the New Colombo Plan (NCP). It was the first time that ANU – or any other university in Australia – had designed a specific (and funded) first year learning abroad program.

For ANU, it was also the first university-level, short-term learning abroad opportunity – as well as the first non-language, multidisciplinary training program – to be offered in Asia.

22 | VISTA

A specific aim of the project was to explore what type of impact a short-term overseas study experience would have on students who had only completed one semester of study before heading overseas.

The original cohort was made up of five female and seven male students from a range of disciplinary backgrounds: arts, Asian studies, commerce, economics, international relations, law, music, philosophy, politics, science and software engineering.

After demonstrating early success, ANU secured an additional two years of NCP funding, with nine participants in 2015 and 12 in 2016.

ANU recently conducted a study of the 2014 cohort to evaluate both the academic and personal impact on participants, two years on from their experience.

The study analysed participants’ academic results pre and postexperience, the discipline focus of post-experience study and repeat learning abroad participation rates. Participants were also asked to complete a short survey. The results of the survey were distilled to gauge satisfaction with the program, self-assessment of social abilities, impact on self-confidence and self-reliance, as well as the impact on post-experience studies.

Academic impact As of October 2016, the Summer in Tokyo 2014 participants have now completed four semesters of study since returning from Japan. An analysis of pre and post-experience activity highlights that 83 per cent of the cohort have undertaken Asiarelated coursework on return to ANU, compared to 50 per cent undertaking Asia-related coursework pre-experience.

CHART 1: ADDITIONAL LEARNING ABROAD EXPERIENCES Additional Learning Abroad Experiences (2014 cohort) (POST-EXPERIENCE)*

Four of these additional learning abroad experiences included semester or year-long study.

Although there is very little comparative data on students undertaking multiple study abroad experiences during their degree, one study of Australian students found that 24 per cent of participants had studied abroad more than once2.

Fifty nine per cent of the 2014 cohort has an improved grade average post-experience, with an average improvement in grades of 4.3 per cent (see Chart 2). Three of

the original 2014 participants have also since won prestigious NCP

scholarships.

The limitations of this data should be acknowledged. The sample size is small, the institutional characteristics mean that students were academically strong when admitted to the university and there is little comparable research.

However, some of these trends have continued through an initial analysis of later cohorts. Although the 2015 participants have only completed two semesters of study post-experience, 33 per cent have already undertaken additional programs, all of them semesterlength in duration. Fifty six per cent have undertaken Asia-related study on return to ANU, compared to 44 per cent pre-experience.

Similar to 2014, 56 per cent of the 2015 cohort have an improved grade average, with an average

improvement of 4.6 per cent.

25%

42%

LEARNING ABROAD

Seventy five per cent of the cohort has undertaken additional overseas study experiences, with 42 per cent undertaking more than one additional experience (see Chart 1).

17%

17% More than 1 additional experience

One additional semester experience

One additional short experience

No additional experience

One additional short experience

One additional semester experience

More than one additional experience

12 No additional experiences

Grade Average Post-Experience (2014 cohort) CHART 2: GRADE AVERAGE POST-EXPERIENCE*

8%

17%

33%

42%

0–5% improvement

> 5% improvement

> 5% decline

0–5% decline

* Based on the cohort in 2014.

SUMMER 2016–17 | 23

13

The first cohort of the Summer in Tokyo learning abroad program with Professor Marnie Hughes Warrington, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic) and Dr Erik Lithander, Pro Vice-Chancellor (International and Outreach), in August 2014.

Personal impact and student reflections When asked to reflect on their experience, all 12 of the 2014 participants considered the project to have had a ‘hugely positive’ or ‘positive’ impact on their self-confidence/self-reliance.

Seventy-five per cent of the cohort attributed the experience as having a ‘hugely positive’ or ‘positive’ impact on their social abilities on return to Australia. In addition to this, 92 per cent of participants felt the experience had a ‘hugely positive’ or ‘positive’ impact on their studies when they returned to ANU. 24 | VISTA

The 2014 participants attribute the Summer in Tokyo experience as having helped them to study more independently, provided them with direction for their studies, opened them up to the world and helped them to realise that ‘there’s more to it than Australia’.

Many of the original students have undertaken a range of extra curricular and leadership activities post experience, including Mish Khan, Asian Studies/Law student and ANU Student Association representative for the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific in 2017.

“Being able to participate in Summer in Tokyo has been transformative for my growth as a student. Coming from a low SES background, I did not anticipate that I would have the chance to study abroad while at university.

Being able to access New Colombo Plan funding for the trip was a crucial factor behind my decision to apply for the program," Ms Khan said of her experience.

“If the program was a typical six-month exchange, I wouldn't have applied due to the financial difficulties associated with funding a longer stay overseas, and due

Following the success of the Summer in Tokyo program, ANU has developed and delivered additional dedicated first year, short-term learning abroad opportunities in Canada, France, Korea and Singapore. These opportunities, branded as the ANU PRIMO First Year Learning Abroad Program, have mobilised 100 students in 2015 and 2016, with funding support from the NCP, the Endeavour Mobility Program and ANU travel grants.

Summer in Tokyo demonstrated that first year learning abroad offers huge potential to engage students to succeed academically, interculturally and socially. It also provides an opportunity to build on their global citizenship.

However, first year learning abroad in Australia is still in its infancy.

Allaying academic misconceptions about the value and importance of learning abroad – and particularly early in students’ degrees – is a key challenge. Equally important is future-proofing funding for mobilising this critical cohort.

to concerns about having to surrender my accommodation, job and general life security. I also would not have known enough about the region to confidently commit to a longer study abroad.”

“Studying in Asia grew my interest in the region from a mere curiosity to a passion. I have pushed myself to participate in two more short programs in Singapore and Myanmar and pursued Southeast Asian Studies at ANU. I feel very literate about the politics, economics and culture of our neighbouring Asia-Pacific region and I am confident that my future career will utilise this expertise.”

Engaging overseas partner networks is also a major step for Australian institutions. In developing its PRIMO offerings, ANU worked with several very supportive partners who either offered, or were able to easily reconfigure, their summer and winter programs to a first year cohort.

For example, Queen’s University in Canada was host to a PRIMO political science program in 2016 and runs its own successful first year, year-long study abroad program for its students in a dedicated site in the United Kingdom. Queen’s provided invaluable advice and support to ANU in the broader roll-out.

Over just a few years ANU has re-oriented itself to recognise the benefits of first year, short term learning abroad – primarily as a mechanism for encouraging repeat as well as longer term overseas study experiences. The university has already committed to the ongoing delivery of first year learning abroad opportunities with both external and institutional-level funding support.

Now that an initial analysis of the first two Summer in Tokyo cohorts has demonstrated positive academic and personal impact, the university will expand its analysis to incorporate all PRIMO participants as part of further longitudinal studies around first year, short term learning abroad.

Leanne Harrison is Manager, Strategic Engagement at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, The Australian National University. She is also a Deputy Convener of IEAA’s Student Mobility Special Interest Group.

Rohan McCarthy-Gill is Manager, International Mobility at Western Sydney University.

1

Learning Abroad (2015), Australian Universities International Directors’ Forum; Olsen (2008), International Mobility of Australian University Students: 2005, Journal of Studies in International Education.

2

Potts (2015), Understanding the early career benefits of learning abroad programs, Journal of Studies in International Education.

The authors would like to acknowledge Dr Davina Potts as one of the original architects of Summer in Tokyo and the ANU PRIMO First Year Learning Abroad Program.

SUMMER 2016–17 | 25

LEARNING ABROAD

Forging the way for first year programs

LEADING THE WAY

FOR LEARNING ABROAD

26 | VISTA Image: Onfokus (iStock)

LEARNING ABROAD One in five domestic undergraduates now take part in learning abroad, reports Davina Potts. The emerging priority for Australian universities now is to consider who is taking part.

The latest data from the Australian Universities International Directors' Forum (AUIDF) indicates that learning abroad participation in Australia has grown by almost 20 per cent from 2014 to 2015. Counting students at all levels of study, this represents approximately 13.7 per cent of the graduating cohort in 20151 – up from 11.4 per cent in 2014.

For Australian domestic undergraduate students, the uptake of learning abroad has been even stronger.

In 2015, 19.3 per cent of domestic undergraduates participated in an international study experience.

This compares with 15.1 per cent of US domestic undergraduate participants in the 2014–15 academic year, as reported by the Institute of International Education's Open Doors 20162.

1 Calculated as a proportion of the total graduating cohort at all levels in 2015 (78,215).

2 Using the metric for bachelor degree students in the US, which is most comparable to the Australian metric.

SUMMER 2016–17 | 27

1 in 5 DOMESTIC UNDERGRAD STUDENTS STUDIED ABROAD IN 2015

Growth for undergraduate participation from 2014 to 2015 was almost 32 per cent, a remarkable achievement for the sector. The number of Australian domestic undergraduate students undertaking learning abroad programs in 2015 was 24,715, compared with 18,736 in 2014.

TOP 10 INDO-PACIFIC DESTINATIONS FOR DOMESTIC UNDERGRAD STUDENTS* COUNTRY

TOTAL

% OF TOTAL

1. CHINA

2,162

19.38%

2. INDONESIA

1,234

11.06%

3. JAPAN

1,074

9.63%

4. INDIA

1,032

9.25%

5. CAMBODIA

728

6.53%

6. SINGAPORE

659

5.91%

7. MALAYSIA

645

5.78%

8. VIETNAM

628

5.63%

9. HONG KONG 504 4.52% While further analysis of the data is needed, 10. THAILAND 499 4.47% growth in study * This table represents the number of undergraduates throughout the Asian studying in the Indo-Pacific, not any other student cohorts. region for domestic undergraduate students China continues to be the leading accounts for a large proportion of Asian destination for Australian the overall increase. Study in the students. Study in Indonesia grew Asian region grew by 32 per cent substantially between 2014 and from 2014 to 2015 (from 8,437 to 2015, overtaking Japan as the 11,157), accounting for 2,920 of second-most popular Asian study the additional 5,979 students who destination. India and Cambodia studied abroad. were ranked 4th and 5th.

This appears to indicate that the Australian Government’s policy direction under the New Colombo Plan is having a positive impact on domestic undergraduate students.

Study experiences in the Asian region now represent around 45 per cent of the study experiences of Australian undergraduate students, up from around 33 per cent in 20143.

3 32 reporting universities compared with 36 in 2015.

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Reported funding for learning abroad (grants to students) from the Australian Government grew by around $5.7 million to almost $15.8 million in 2015. At the same time, institutional funding increased by around $3 million to $23.4 million.

STUDENT PARTICIPATION GREW BY ALMOST 20% FROM 2014 TO 2015

LEARNING ABROAD

10,000

20,906

15,058

15,000

18,340

20,000

24,763

25,000

29,487

30,000

31,846

35,000

38,144

40,000

5,000 0

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

(Olsen, 2014; AUIDF, 2015)

Equity, access and Indigenous participation As participation in learning abroad grows, the emerging priority for Australian universities is to consider who is participating, compared with overall enrolment profiles.

One example from the data is Indigenous participation.

In 2015, universities were asked to report on Indigenous student participation in learning abroad.

A total of 223 Indigenous students participated in an international study experience across all levels, accounting for just 0.6 per cent of all participants. The majority (191) were undergraduates, which means 0.8 per cent of domestic undergraduates in learning abroad were Indigenous.

Although the numbers are small, we need to take into account the size of the Indigenous student population. In 2015, 1,364 Indigenous students completed a bachelor or undergraduate honours degree4. This means that the undergraduate Indigenous participation rate is around 14 per cent. Forty per cent of Indigenous undergraduates who undertook learning abroad (77) went to Asia, while 28 per cent (54) studied in the US and almost 20 per cent (38) studied in Europe. Indonesia (19) was the most popular destination in Asia, followed by Thailand (9), Japan (6) and Cambodia (6).

4 Note that this statistic includes all universities, not just the 36 reporting universities.

Faculty-led study programs were the most popular type of study program, representing 59 per cent (112) of participants. Internships and exchange programs each attracted around 17 per cent of students (32/33). This highlights the importance of faculty-led study tours in encouraging Indigenous student participation learning abroad.

In 2015, 1,364 Indigenous students completed a bachelor or undergraduate honours degree. This means that the undergraduate Indigenous participation rate is around 14 per cent.

Although the data may still be a little tentative for many institutions, and may not include some noncredit activities, this is a good starting point for a highly evidence-driven community of practice. Knowing how we are tracking will help us to develop new strategies to support Indigenous student participation.

The next step is to improve our data reporting on other access and equity groups to support the move from learning abroad as an elite activity to an inclusive global learning experience.

Dr Davina Potts is Associate Director, Global Mobility at the University of Melbourne. She is an IEAA Board member and Research Committee Convener.

Data is courtesy of AUIDF. SUMMER 2016–17 | 29

Student outcomes of learning abroad are now well documented, writes Sonia Chan. But where is the research on positive outcomes for academics who lead international mobility experiences?

Internationalising the curriculum and embedding learning abroad have long been discussed. There is also mounting research on the student outcomes of learning abroad. The next call to action is to look more critically at our own perceptions of learning abroad, particularly for academics at the faculty level. Is there enough evidence of positive outcomes for academics involved in international mobility experiences (i.e. job satisfaction, career outcomes, personal benefits or research development outcomes)?

30 | VISTA Image: Aslan Alphan (iStock)

ACADEMICS

FACULTY CHAMPIONS ACADEMIC REWARD AND RECOGNITION IN LEARNING ABROAD These questions become increasingly important when implementing curriculum internationalisation strategies that have a top-down approach. How can we diversify our portfolio of learning abroad programs, and increase our outbound student numbers, without the support of faculty staff? More broadly, how can we better recognise our faculty ’champions’ and motivate individual academics to take on responsibility for running these programs?

Identifying passionate ‘study tour’ leaders Swinburne University of Technology recently completed a small pilot study to better understand how international study experiences can enhance and add value to an academic’s career. The study involved in-depth interviews with 10 Swinburne academics who were identified as passionate study tour leaders, who taught all creditbearing units and took students overseas on various international community engagement projects.

The aim of the research was to inform best practice for supporting faculty in these endeavours and to explore how international offices can better engage and advocate for their needs.

The research involved academics from the higher education and vocational education sectors from a range of disciplines including arts, business, building and construction, information technology, design, engineering and environmental science. They had led programs to Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Nepal, Timor Leste and Vietnam.

The reality for many academics is that learning abroad programs are often perceived within the wider faculty as little more than a junket or an overseas holiday with students.

The academics were asked to explore various aspects of their international study programs.

How were they taught? What were the barriers and challenges of organisation and delivery?

What kind of support did they receive from the institution? What amount of time and workload was involved? What are the motivating factors to get involved in learning abroad programs? Academics were asked if they felt rewarded and recognised for their role in running these programs that are so critical to their institution’s internationalisation strategies.

SUMMER 2016–17 | 31

Swinburne academic Jonathan Wallace (right) was awarded a Vice-Chancellor’s Award in 2013 for developing initiatives that opened opportunities for VET students to participate in international experiences and contribute to overseas communities.

The value of the teaching experience The reality for many academics is that these mobility programs are often perceived within the wider faculty as little more than a junket or an overseas holiday with students. Fifty per cent of respondents mentioned this perception from academic colleagues in the faculty. There is little recognition for stepping out of their comfort zone, taking on extra workload and countless hours of program preparation.

These perceptions largely negate the teaching experience and the validity of these programs.

For cultural change to occur at the faculty level, learning abroad needs to be seen by the academic community as a legitimate and highly valued teaching activity – one that should be taken more seriously and promoted as teaching best practice.

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The overwhelming response from interviewees was that this type of work “absolutely” improved job satisfaction. One stated that “this work makes me a better teacher”.

Another claimed that “personally, this is the best two weeks of my year.” One faculty member added, “it has enhanced my life.”

These statements demonstrate the powerful nature of the teaching experience and their engagement in their role as educators. However, international mobility experiences need to be duly acknowledged to help motivate academics and enhance job satisfaction.

Student versus academic CVs The increasing focus on student employability as a key outcome of learning abroad highlights an inherent contradiction when it comes to academic recognition.

As one academic noted, “At the faculty level, they see it as a distraction, not as learning... on your CV it looks like you are having fun with your students.”

Institutions are rightly focused on improving pre-departure and returning home sessions so students are better equipped to articulate the employability skills they have gained. These skills include leadership, resilience, adaptability, cultural literacy and an enhanced global outlook.

Academics are also expected to embody these same sought after skills, but the general view among faculty seems to be that international mobility teaching experiences add little value to their resume or broader teaching careers.

The number of hours of preparatory work required to develop a successful outbound mobility program is significant. Forty per cent of respondents estimated between 100 to 150 hours and months of lead time is required to organise projects with host contacts, confirm schedules and logistics – not to mention the time needed to market the program, recruit and prepare students.

The average duration of international programs is around two to two-and-a-half weeks, or a minimum of 336 hours. Most academics cited a workload allocation that would be equivalent to a semester-based unit (36 paid hours equivalent to 12 weeks of three-hour teaching periods). Some academics received compensation for additional hours set aside for pre-departure sessions. However, the additional unpaid hours on top of normal workloads – for which there is often little or no compensation – needs to be addressed.

Giving validity How can we better validate academics through a proper system of reward and recognition?

In the absence of financial compensation, genuine acknowledgement is critical. There may be opportunities to promote these mobility champions through formal initiatives such as ViceChancellor’s Awards or government international education awards.

Organisations like QS also recognise staff mobility experiences through its annual IMPACT Awards.

It is important to seek opportunities to showcase programs as teaching best practice, but the audience needs to be at the appropriate level. They should reach not only senior executives or faculty management, but those who are responsible for academic professional development; those who are interested in curriculum design and delivery models, and who are focused on teaching best practice and pedagogy.

In addition, monitoring any published research on the outcomes of the international mobility experiences also adds to the credibility and validity of teaching these programs. Now is the time to build the awareness of the teaching outcomes in learning abroad, similar to the body of research that provides an evidence base for student outcomes.

ACADEMICS

Counting the hours

For cultural change to occur at the faculty level, learning abroad needs to be seen by the academic community as a legitimate and highly valued teaching activity – one that should be taken more seriously and promoted as teaching best practice.

Professional staff working in international offices and learning abroad offices often leave the teaching delivery and learning outcomes completely to the responsibility of the academics.

While we may frame learning abroad models within program development, professional staff do not necessarily stretch their thinking to understand the pedagogical principles required to develop students into global citizens.

Understanding curriculum design and the discipline of pedagogy is useful – and sometimes necessary – if we are to bridge the language of academics. By developing more international mobility experiences, we are enabling programs where contextualised, immersive and transformative learning can take place. This, in turn, can facilitate much more meaningful teaching practice. If we ‘champion the champions’ at the faculty level, and validate the teaching of international outbound mobility experiences, we all stand to benefit.

Sonia Chan is Associate Director, Strategic International Development at Swinburne University of Technology.

SUMMER 2016–17 | 33

INSERT SIDE TAB TEXT Image: mikkelwilliam (iStock)

Emerging technologies have the potential to disrupt international marketing and recruitment as we know it, writes Marlena Mende. But are we ready to make the most out of new technologies?

34 | VISTA

With the changing needs and expectations of digital technology and mobile-savvy students around the world, education providers need to rapidly adapt and utilise more sophisticated experiences when targeting prospective international students.

This generation is widely considered as ‘digitally native’, meaning that the use of smartphones, social media and the internet is deeply embedded in their lives and behaviour. They engage with content on their smartphones 24/7 and expect more and more sophisticated, informative and customised experiences.

ARE WE READY?

Offering relevant digital content is increasingly important for education providers trying to reach their target audiences. As reported in Higher Education Marketing, the results of a recent Clegg survey found that 4 out of 5 respondents visit college websites via their mobile phone. Institutions need to be where their prospects are – and communicate with them via the same channels – to reach them most effectively.

Virtual reality (VR) is one of these new and innovative technologies that is shaping up to be a fantastic addition to the international recruiter’s toolkit. It allows institutions to completely immerse their stakeholders in their environment and offers an authentic, compelling way to showcase their campus and facilities.

It can convey additional sensory elements that traditional marketing and recruitment collateral cannot: a virtual atmosphere.

According to Kevin Kelly from Wired magazine, people "remember VR experiences not as a memory of something they saw but as something that happened to them". As reported in WebProNews, Jeremy Bailenson from Stanford University affirms that “VR causes more behavior change, causes more engagement, causes more influence than other types of traditional media”.

So what is virtual reality?

360° videos via digital channels – either accessible via smartphone or Google Cardboard – offer highly immersive environments and engaging experiences to customers.

Digi-Capital has reported that the virtual/augmented reality market is forecast to grow from 1 billion to 150 billion by 2020. It is already used extensively across the tourism, entertainment, real estate and construction sectors; in the US, it is already present in the education sector. Thirty-six per cent of prospects seek virtual tours – and 30 per cent call it a ‘must have’ – to help them compare universities.

“Virtual reality is a technology that empowers viewers to experience an event or location as if they are actually there," according to YouVisit.

SUMMER 2016–17 | 35

INSERT SIDE TAB TEXT

VIRTUAL REALITY

Benefits for the education sector A sophisticated, informative and mobile-accessible virtual tour helps universities to differentiate themselves from their competitors and demonstrates that they are on the cutting edge of technology. According to CampusBird – a tech compnay specialising in campus maps and virtual tours – augmented reality is fast becoming the new way for institutions to interact with students for portfolios as diverse as advancement, admissions, student services and marketing and recruitment.

Due to the emotions virtual reality can evoke, it can also be an effective fundraising tool. For example, UNICEF successfully used a virtual reality experience to increase donations by immersing viewers in a Syrian refugee camp.

This led to 1 in 6 people donating, double the average rate.

VR is not only a great way to engage students and parents, but also a fantastic tool to train international agent representatives and provide them with a tool to differentiate a particular institution. It also makes it possible to showcase research facilities to industry partners located interstate and overseas.

For advancement and development teams, virtual reality can be used to reconnect and engage with alumni. It offers a prime opportunity for powerful content creation and dissemination via storytelling, creating empathy and giving key messages more impact.

36 | VISTA

Due to the emotions virtual reality can evoke, it can also be an effective fundraising tool. For example, UNICEF successfully used a virtual reality experience to increase donations by immersing viewers in a Syrian refugee camp.

This led to 1 in 6 people donating – double the average rate.

Virtual reality provides a much more tangible experience than any video, website or course brochure can replicate. It allows students to discover the university by ‘walking’ around campus, ‘sitting’ in a classroom and ‘exploring’ the facilities such as libraries, labs and accommodation by watching over current students’ shoulders.

With 360° videos now integrated into key social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, new opportunities are opening up for universities to better engage and capture their prospects via digital channels.

This integration means it is now possible for prospects to watch videos on their mobile phones and move their device for a full, spherical 360° view. When provided with a Google Cardboard headset, the virtual reality experience is complete.

What does it take to deliver a successful virtual reality project?

Based on the learnings from a recent project at Monash (www.monash.edu/virtual-reality), VR requires strong communication and collaboration across various teams – such as faculty, central marketing, advancement and recruitment. Potential pitfalls should be identified and addressed early into the project. These may include hidden costs (such as customs tax, platform fees), permits and consent forms and accessibility of channels in overseas markets.

VIRTUAL REALITY

A virtual reality project needs a strong business plan supported by senior leadership, an excellent supplier for pre-production, production and post-production stages and a detailed shooting plan on the day of filming. It also needs to be supported by an integrated marketing campaign and tracking tactics to measure return on investment (ROI).

While tracking ROI for such a new technology may prove challenging, there are a number of metrics available. Qualitative and quantitative tracking such as web analytics, VR views, Electronic Direct Mail (EDMs) open rates, Google Cardboard orders and social media engagement will quickly establish benchmarks for the sector.

Two other inspiring virtual reality projects – one by Savannah College of Art and Design in the US and another from the University of Tasmania – clearly show the value of having an integrated marketing and recruitment strategy. These include dedicated and integrated websites, branded Google Cardboard and clear ways of targeting multiple stakeholders (e.g. students, agents and parents).

Other VR projects currently in market and worth noting are 360° expereinces offered by Swinburne and the University of Melbourne.

While virtual reality is a powerful tool in itself, it should be a means to achieving a desired outcome – not the sole purpose. Rather than replacing traditional recruitment activity, it should complement it.

Ideally, marketers and recruiters should embed virtual reality as part of an integrated, multi-channel strategy.

With continuously evolving technologies, the sector can’t afford to be complacent. Mixed reality – which doesn’t take you out of this world, but ‘adds elements to our real world’ – is forecast to be even more powerful.

Imagine your course guide coming to life in prospects’ hands, with course advisers jumping out into their living room, student orchestras starting to play, or graduation speeches being delivered right in front of them.

You could transport all of these elements from your institution straight into their living room.

Are we ready? I think we are.

Marlena Mende is Marketing Manager (Medicine Nursing and Health Sciences) at Monash University.

SUMMER 2016–17 | 37

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IEAA NATIONAL FORUMS 2017 IEAA is pleased to announce the dates of our national forums for 2017. Led by each of our Special Interest Groups (SIGs), these events have quickly cemented themselves as a 'must attend' for international education professionals across Australia.

Keep an eye out for further updates in 2017.

EVENT

DATE

LOCATION

Sponsored Students

4–5 April

Canberra

Admissions and Compliance

9 May

Sydney

Pathways

10 May

Sydney

Marketing and Recruitment

25–26 May

Melbourne

Transnational Education

26–27 June

Melbourne

Internationalisation of the Curriculum

3 July

Brisbane

Student Mobility

9–10 August

Brisbane

Registration opens 1 February 2017

ieaa.org.au 38 | VISTA

Contact us IEAA Secretariat PO Box 12917 A’Beckett Street Melbourne VIC 8006 Australia +613 9925 4579 admin@ieaa.org.au

ieaa.org.au/vista