Special Needs Educator/Research Fellow, Foundation for Special Needs Education, Nigeria
The Nigerian Sign Language Project seeks to nurture the emergence of a distinctive Nigerian Sign Language out of existing signs and gestures used by deaf Nigerians. The project has brought together a team of collaborators from the UK and Nigeria. This poster will describe some of the critical issues in international research collaboration using the example of the Nigerian Sign Language Project as a case in point. Particular attention will be paid to the process of building an effective collaborative research team, and the problems and prospects of executing collaborative research in a typical African environment. The poster will focus on recommendations aimed at making collaborative research an instrument for improving educational quality, particularly in a typical African country like Nigeria.
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Research Fellow, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Director, Centre for Research in Primary and Community Care, University of Hertfordshire, UK
Kanazawa Medical University in Ichikawa Prefecture, Japan and University of Hertfordshire, UK began their research collaboration in 2005 in response to rising evidence of child neglect and abuse in Japan but minimal support for parents in the community. The aim of the collaboration is to investigate comparative cultures of parenting, parenting support and outcomes of parenting support. The intention is to continue the relationship beyond funding from the Prime Minister’s Initiative for International Education (PMI2) for another two to three years to enable findings to be disseminated across Japan and to evaluate longer term outcomes for parents and children. Work has been rewarding in many respects, chiefly in growing understanding of the culture of parenting in the two countries and the ways in which policy is developed and enacted to support parents. Equally, there have been challenges associated with both culture and language, which have been overcome in both practical and intellectual ways. Overall, the collaboration has been hugely successful, enabling academics, practitioners and policy makers to come together in relation to a topic of global importance that is rarely discussed outside of the national policy-making arena.
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Reader, Northumbria University, UK
The Global Studio is a teaching, learning and research initiative that links design students, academics and industry partners across the globe. University partners have included Hong-ik University, Korea; Auburn University, USA; Ohio State University, USA; and RMIT, Australia. Industry collaborators have included Motorola (design studios based in London and Seoul); Great Southern Wood (USA), Medical Inverness (UK); and Intel (USA). The aim is to provide students with experience in operating in cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional, cross-cultural and geographically distributed design teams in order to develop skills in intercultural communication. Projects undertaken over the past four years will be discussed to explore complexities associated with developing and sustaining international collaborative partnerships. This poster will address topics and questions such as the following: What IT resources are needed to facilitate communication and data exchange between participating international educational and business organisations without compromising the security of the partners’ IT infrastructure? What organisational challenges are associated with the delivery of the Global Studio? Who should be responsible for the overall co-ordination of projects that are distributed across a number of institutions? What skills do student and academic staff require in order to participate in an international project such as this?
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Chair in African Business, Leeds Business School, Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
Leeds Metropolitan University (LMU) and Polytechnic of Nambia (PON) have established an Education Partnerships in Africa (EPA) partnership to create capacity in PON’s Graduate School of Business to provide leading postgraduate qualifications and professional development programmes designed to meet the needs of executives, businesses and society. When equipped in this way, graduates and professionals will have the necessary skills and training to become dynamic leaders and innovative entrepreneurs. They will be better able to create employment, enable brain gain and thus enrich the country and its citizens. The partnership is not only intended to serve the needs of Namibia, but the broader SADC region as well where the shortage of skilled and educated workforce is also apparent. This 18 month partnership commenced in April 2009 with lead co-ordinator Professor Steve Carter at Leeds Business School and Dr Isaac Randa, Senior Lecturer in the Graduate Business School of Polytechnic of Namibia.
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Assistant Principal, Anniesland College, UK
Anniesland College and its partners, the Scottish Qualifications Authority and the Scottish Credit and Qualifications Framework Partnership are currently engaged in two projects funded by the Prime Minister’s Initiative for International Education (PMI2): one with Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh City Trade & Industry College (HCMC T&I) and Hong Lam International Vocational College (HLIVC)), and the other with China (Sichuan Vocational & Technical College (Sui Ning), Chongqing Vocational Institute of Technology and Beijing Global Education Centre). The projects focuses on aspects of engineering (automotive, mechanical, electrical and marine), employment in engineering, certification, Vocational ESOL and the desirability and practicability of utilising VLE modalities to develop mutual exchanges of knowledge and practice in specific aspects of engineering and employability. All partners are currently engaged in discussion and mobility. There have been two exchanges with Vietnam and a third is underway. An exchange with China is also underway. This poster will discuss the projects, challenges they face in terms of budget and the short time-scale, and progress to date.
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Professor of Construction Management & IT, Teesside University, UK
Director, Centre for Construction Innovation and Research, Gyeongsang National University, Korea
In March 2008, Teesside University and Gyeongsang National University in South Korea have established a PMI2 Connect partnership focusing on solving issues of workspace in construction sites. The project involves the development of processes and tools to integrate and to visualize a 3D model, schedules, work flow, resources and health and safety rules to enable managers to identify and to solve workspace conflict and congestion. The project utilises heath and safety rules, as well as practical experience, and encapsulates these rules and knowledge into a Virtual Construction Site (VCS) to rehearse and visualise a schedule prior to construction operation. The system is made up of a database of project information, an optimisation technology for solving workspace conflict and a decision-making process. Management conditions of workspace are analysed through a questionnaire survey in construction sites, and interviews of managers are analysed to establish strategies of workspace planning. Health and safety rules are derived through these investigations and a verification module of these rules is being developed. This poster will outline the lessons learned from examining construction processes in both countries.
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Project Officer, University of Bradford, UK
The Department of Development and Economic Studies at University of Bradford has formed a partnership with Mzumbe University, Tanzania under the second round of the Education Partnerships in Africa scheme. The partnership is about sharing knowledge, ideas and best practice in the area of Enterprise, Employability and Entrepreneurship, including social enterprise. Tanzania faces a growing problem of graduate unemployment and under-employment, particularly in the current economic climate. By introducing new teaching and assessment methods, aimed at students’ soft skills (negotiation, problem solving, team work etc), University of Bradford hopes to help Mzumbe deliver a graduate workforce which is capable, adaptable, and, most of all, employable in modern day African society. University of Bradford is hoping to learn from Mzumbe’s experience of long work placements for students, and hopes to adapt some of these lessons into its curriculum in the long run. Modules take the form of jointly validated collaborative provision and will be delivered in Mzumbe, primarily by Mzumbe staff. Student will come out with an award (or credits in this case) which are valid in both institutions. This poster will outline this partnership, discuss problems it is facing, and best practice and lessons learned for other institutions.
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Director, Hosei University European Research Centre, London, UK
A hybrid educational method is being used by Hosei University European Research Centre (HERC), the Japanese university’s overseas branch office in the UK. HERC uses a unique IT method to deliver education and seminars through remote education. With the support of the IT Centre of Hosei University in Tokyo, the director of HERC delivers a real time distant class every week, connecting also with Hosei European Research Centre in Zurich. HERC uses a remote system and streaming method online; a system that can be used by most education institutions. In order to bridge the gap between the distant learning in the UK and the direct class in Tokyo, the director has been making efficient use of the ‘virtual class’ in Second Life and the Skype tool which may hold enormous potential. HERC have experienced challenges, which include world-wide cooperation to implement the synchronised class, technical issues such as the image and sound quality, and running cost. Despite these challenges, however, this poster will strongly emphasise the necessity of this hybrid educational method and explore better possibilities through discussion with delegates at Going Global 4. This poster will put forward this educational method as one of the solutions to ‘make education meet the challenge’.
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Executive Director, JES & Co, USA
Chief Scientist, Achievement Standards Network, USA
When most people think of international education, they think of college or university and rarely think of what UNESCO identifies as the various stages or levels in pre-college or pre-university: Level 0 (pre-primary education) through Level 3 (upper secondary). Yet the development of truly global citizens begins when students first encounter their national education systems. This poster will outline research and development of the Achievement Standards Network framework for the machine description of national curricula. This framework enables mapping of curricula to educational resources in support of (a) the professional development and instructional resource needs of teachers, and (b) the learning needs of students in discovering educational resources. It provides for the cross-mapping of curricula, thus achieving inter-jurisdictional and cross-cultural learning resource access. The framework also assists in cross-jurisdictional assessment of student achievement, which is not possible without such a framework. Development of the framework was initially funded by the US National Science Foundation. All US state achievement standards have been described and work is currently underway to provide a framework description of the emerging Australian National Curriculum.
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Teaching Fellow, GENIE CETL, University of Leicester, UK
University of Leicester and Gondar University have established an Education Partnerships in Africa (EPA) partnership to look at student destination information and take an employability audit of students, teachers and employers to develop the BA in Tourism Management at Gondar University in Ethiopia. This poster will describe the benefits and challenges of collaboration across different contexts, and indicate how the results have informed planned and coherent curriculum design, systems to support transition and wider processes of quality assurance. The curriculum, course materials and delivery of the BA in Tourism Management are designed to prepare graduates for an information and marketing-intensive sector, and are designed to ensure that students are fully equipped to negotiate the transition from vocational course to employment in the tourism industry. Important factors include monitoring the transition of students from study to employment and beyond, as well as developing an effective dialogue between university and industry. In this respect, a collaborative employability audit of this sort is both an evaluation of the effectiveness of the process and an indication as to how it may be improved. The results will be of interest to all involved in preparing students to compete in an increasingly globalised graduate market.
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BA (Hons) Product Design Programme Leader, Middlesex University, UK
This poster will present various projects from the ‘Africa Group’ at Middlesex University. The group is diverse, encompassing the Schools of Arts and Education, Business, Engineering and Information Sciences, Health and Social Sciences and the Institute for Work Based Learning. The aim of the group is to explore commonalities of interests in Africa across the university to further enhance projects being undertaken, and to develop new joint projects. The group promotes its activities and interest in Africa among colleagues to encourage inter-disciplinary discourse and activity, focusing on what can be learned from Africa in partnership rather than what Africa can learn from us - knowledge sharing rather than knowledge transfer. The first project focuses on democratisation and political processes both at national and local levels, involving contacts at the University of Botswana, the Africa Institute of Southern Africa in South Africa and community based organisations in Kano, northern Nigeria. The second project is the ‘Jua Kali’/Informal Manufacture Sector Collaboration with Kenyatta University and NGO Terra Nuova, East Africa, addressing deforestation and domestic energy use through appropriate technology in Kenya. The third project takes a cross-cultural management perspective with NGO management in Sub-Saharan Africa. It explores the power dynamics shaping the emergence of hybrid management systems (management principles and practices that combine 'Western' and 'African' ways of managing). The fourth project is the EMILIA project, the EU’s largest-ever funded research and intervention project on lifelong learning and social inclusion. The fifth project focuses on the development of in-country training for practitioners from Diploma level to Doctorates to ensure that public health professions are enhanced.
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WUN Development Manager, University of Bristol, UK
WUN Development Manager, University of Southampton, UK
The Worldwide Universities Network (WUN) is a model of global partnership in higher education, focusing on one of the newly formed WUN Global Challenges: ‘Adapting to Climate Change’. This poster will seek to draw out the lessons learnt from WUN after nearly ten years as one of the most active global networks of research intensive universities, exploring the opportunities and challenges of working in multilateral international partnerships through an honest exploration of WUN’s exciting successes and gallant failures. The WUN Global Challenge concept embodies the notion behind the Network as a whole; international higher education partnership is not merely desirable but essential in the modern world. By bringing together intellectual strengths and resources, and facilitating research collaborations, WUN strives to address global issues from a range of national, regional and disciplinary perspectives. ‘Adapting to Climate Change’ involves a high number of diverse projects addressing related issues across the academic spectrum: from climate modelling and prediction software to historic imaging of paleo climates, from scientific questions of soil sustainability to understanding the impact on the socially vulnerable. By setting out clear examples of global partnerships in action, this poster will provide a unique perspective on the ubiquitous challenges of collaborative academic endeavour, from overcoming international funding barriers to using innovative technologies to work around the world’s time zones.
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International Manager, Dundee College, UK
Dundee College will present a composite poster of five different case studies. The first case study will discuss a project funded by the British Council's Skills for Employability programme. The aim of the project is for Dundee College, Scotland and the National Hotel and Tourism Training Institute (NHTTI), Dhaka, Bangladesh to enable national educational and training systems to respond to global labour market demands and learner needs, by addressing the skills agenda of the hospitality industry. The project is currently in its second year and is focusing on familiarisation visits, sharing best practice, extending skills and experience for faculty and staff members, the joint development of training materials for a Cultural Care unit, and opportunities for students to experience work-based learning in a different social and cultural context. The second case study will discuss a project funded by the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI) involving ‘JUTE’: Joint Upskilling and Training for Employment. The partners for this project are South Dehli Ploytechnic for Women, India and Dundee College. The aim of the project is to revive and renew the historic links between Dundee and India in a creative manner, and to prepare young women for employment within SMEs or as entrepreneurs in self-employment in an international market. Currently in its first year, the project involves a design competition for students, exchange visits for prize winners, familiarisation visits, and knowledge and best practice sharing. The third case study will discuss a partnership between Sir C V Raman Industrial Training Institute, Dehli and Dundee College funded by the Prime Minister's Initiative for International Education (PMI2). The aim of the partnership is to assist with the professional upskilling of automotive staff in the institute in Dehli, to share knowledge, employability skills and curricular programmes through masterclasses and exchange visits. The partnership is in its first year, and is currently focusing on the sharing of teaching methodologies and delivery, masterclasses and e-learning for modern apprenticeships. This poster will discuss the partnership, the challenges it is currently facing, as well as current and future rewards. The fourth case study will discuss a project funded by the British Council's Skills for Employability programme. The aim of the project is to design and implement industry-led curriculum and embed shared best practice. The primary product is a Design and Make project. A Portapack solar power unit will be designed and built in both the Nepalese colleges (School of Engineering and Technology in Kathmandu, Nepal, Polytechnic Institute in Chitwan, Nowakot and Trade School in Nkot, Nepal) and Dundee College, Scotland. This will involve a sharing of research, skills and experience across the partnership, in order to produce a fit-for-purpose innovative and cost-effective unit for Nepali villages. The final case study will discuss a project funded by the UK-India Education and Research Initiative (UKIERI). The aim of the project is to develop skilled Indian technicians through a joint development and delivery programme between Dayananda Sagar College of Engineering and Dundee College, with support from Shell staff based in Bangalore. The skills that will be developed through this training programme include experimental skills, such as synthesis, chemical plant operations, analytical skills and process control, as well as employability skills, including team working, basic statistics, data handling and computer skills. The key outcome will be the design of a programme to train technicians and operators for the petrochemical or other industrial RD centres (e.g. Shell Technology Centre in Bangalore). The project is in its first year, and is currently focusing on developing academic partners with industry, the design of blended learning material, the production of job ready graduates and the introduction of health and safety modules in academic programmes.
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Director, NPUC, Pomor State University, Russia
Associate Professor, Bodø University College, Norway
There has been long-term cooperation in the field of social work education and practice between Bodø University College in Norway and Pomor State University in Russia. This poster will reflect on networking as a strategy for partnership in teaching and learning, and integrated/joint international MA programmes as tools for internationalisation and institutional building. It will discuss different levels of partnerships and cooperation within jointly developed international master programmes in comparative social work in the Arctic: at global/circumpolar level (University of the Arctic), at regional international level (Barents Euro-Arctic Region and the Norwegian government High North strategy) and at institutional level (Bodø University College and Pomor State University with cooperation based on the goals of the Bologna principle). This poster will show how joint work in this field provides opportunities to improve research and educational programmes in collaborating institutions in two countries, and influences further development of social work policies and practices at different levels. It will consider both internal and external obstacles to developing this joint programme, as well as restrictions and conditions imposed by national qualifications frameworks.
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Lecturer in Software Engineering, Software Systems Research Centre, Bournemouth University, UK
There is a tripartite partnership between Bournemouth University (BU), Jomo Kenyatta University of Agriculture and Technology (JKUAT) in Kenya and an industrial partner in Kenya established through Education Partnerships in Africa (EPA). The aim of the partnership is to review the software engineering curriculum of JKUAT with input from Kenyan industry whilst focussing on enhancing graduate employability. The project began with a review of the content of the software engineering degrees at BU and JKUAT with consideration of the emphasis given to input from industry when designing curricular, and the role of placements in software engineering degrees. In the past, computing departments have tended to focus on producing graduates who are technically competent. Today, many departments are responding to the increasing complexity and expansion of businesses by introducing aspects of problem domain analysis, business process modelling and real-world problem considerations (as placements) to their software engineering programmes in order to prepare students for the real world. This poster will present the comparative study of the degree programmes, as well as the perceptions of staff and students in both universities and the contribution made by the industrial partner. This study serves as an indication of the way in which programmes of study across continents can be unified to focus on core global values, such as matching education programmes to the reality of solving real business problems within a global setting.
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PMI2 Project Manager, University of Salford, UK
Head of School, University of Salford, UK
University of Salford (UoS) is engaged in a number of PMI2 Connect partnerships with various Chinese Higher Education Institutions. Part of UoS’ internationalisation strategy includes partnership building in China. UoS began engaging with three universities in the first year, extending to seven universities in the second. The partnerships are now in their second year. In June 2009, UoS held an internal China symposium to raise awareness of current and intended activity across UoS in relation to China, explore the potential for collaboration to help achieve the aims of each School and Faculty, consider how enhanced cross-University working can contribute to the University’s internationalisation strategy in relation to China, and consider how best to maximise University-wide participation in PMI2. A four day workshop took place in October in Beijing and Hangzhou, China, involving representatives from the British Council, UoS, the seven project partners and other partners of UoS. The Workshop involved shared views on the context of themes related to PMI2, specifically focusing on joint module development. Knowledge sharing and discussion now takes place online in the PMI2Partnership wikispaces page. An individual and joint paper from UoS’ internal and external partners will contribute to an international conference and special issue of the Journal of Chinese Entrepreneurship in 2010. This poster will outline UoS’ PMI2 partnerships and current and upcoming activity.
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Partnerships Manager, Open University Worldwide Ltd, UK
Open University and Hoa Sen University are engaged in a PMI2 partnership in the UK and Vietnam. The project plan has evolved following numerous relationship and regulatory challenges into a proposed scheme for Open University course content to be used within Hoa Sen postgraduate courses, with additional support from the Open University in the development stage. Hoa Sen University is now interested in using course content from several Open University course materials that form part of the MSc Information Systems/Technology Management. The aims of the partnership are to encourage the development of collaborative programme delivery, to build a partnership and demonstrate the value of the Open University as a partner in delivery, to upgrade the qualifications of local IT professionals, to help meet the demand for Higher Education in Vietnam, and to establish a mutually beneficial and sustainable partnership. Hoa Sen University hopes to launch its first postgraduate course in October 2010 with 40 students. This poster will discuss the aims and benefits of the partnership and challenges faced.
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Project Manager, PhD, Savonia University of Applied Sciences, Finland
This poster will outline an international project within the framework of the Lifelong Learning Programme and the Erasmus Curriculum Development sub-programme, initiated to improve the patient education skills of health care professionals. The project involves six partner organisations from four different countries: Estonia, Finland, Ireland and Lithuania. The project’s main product will be an online study module on patient education for health care professionals. The project team will develop a new study module including innovative and more effective patient education and counselling methods. Work takes place in the Moodle on-line environment and the ACP-videoconferencing system is also used. This poster will discuss the experiences of the project group half way through this two year project and what it means to bring together a team of experts from different countries to work mainly online.
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Head Education IT Unit, United Nations Relief, Jordan
In order to build the capacity of Palestinian refugee’s youth, women and civil servants in the field of ICT, UNRWA, in partnership with Cisco Systems, has established the first generation of Cisco Networking Academies (CNA) in UNRWA. It was established in December 2001 in Jordan, Syria, Gaza, West Bank and Lebanon. This partnership is part of the Least Developed Countries (LDC) Initiative - a joint initiative by Cisco Systems, UNDP, USAID, UNV and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) to bridge the digital divide in the world’s LDCs. Since the first day, UNRWA has managed to incorporate CNA courses in the study plans of ICT specialisations offered at UNRWA vocational training centres. This pioneer step was taken to offset the cost of implementation and ensure the sustainability of the project. The upgrade of UNRWA Wadi Seer Training Center to Regional Academy status in December 2001 was a key milestone in the sustainability of the UNRWA Cisco programme. Due to the programme’s success and to strengthen the existing Networking Academies in the areas of sustainability, workforce development and gender, UNRWA expanded the partnership in 2008 by introducing new curricula (IT essential, Wireless LAN and Security). Cisco has provided in-kind contribution for programme and training support, curriculum updates and equipment. In 2009, UNRWA Cisco CNA received the Cisco Against all odds award. This poster will discuss the programme and reasons for the award.
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University Lecturer, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
There is a dearth of locally produced assessment and intervention tools which are culturally and linguistically appropriate in speech therapy clinics in Malaysia; nothing has been done on Malay and Chinese syntactic assessment tools. This poster will describe a bilateral sharing of ideas, involving information sharing across continents and disciplines in clinical linguistics, speech language therapy, psychology, institutions, and public and private domains in speech language therapy. The aim of this project has been the development of a prototype of Malay and Chinese syntactic assessment tools. A website has been developed to disseminate information about the project. Participating clinicians can download and upload survey forms. The website also provides access to focus groups on the products being developed. Training workshops have been conducted and anticipated outputs are in the form of a syntactic test kit complete with procedures on language elicitation and profiling, a grammatical description of Malay and Chinese languages, and various publications disseminating findings. This poster will discuss this sharing of ideas and results of the project.
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Course Director - MSc Veterinary Education, Royal Veterinary College, UK
Through funding from the Prime Minister’s Initiative for International Education (PMI2), a collaborative training programme was established to enhance the quality of milk production in Sri Lanka. Royal Veterinary College, UK worked on the project with the faculty of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science, Sri Lanka (FVMAS) from 2008-09 June. Two training courses were developed, one for veterinarians and one for farmers. The course for veterinarians was developed as a three day workshop and was conducted in November 2008 in two provinces in Sri Lanka. A total of 60 government veterinarians attended. The course had two objectives: firstly, for veterinarians’ to identify how milk is contaminated throughout the production chain from the farm to the milk processing centre, and secondly, to enable veterinarians to identify other stakeholders who require training in the milk production chain. The training course is now being run by FVMAS and has also been incorporated in the MVSc in Veterinary Public Health offered by FVMAS. The training for farmers has been developed as videos in Sinhalese and Tamil, and the videos are being used by farmer training programmes. This poster will discuss the project, as well as challenges faced, findings and recommendations to milk processing plants.
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Director of English Language Centre, Northumbria University, UK
This project aims to address the training gap in trade unions in Sierra Leone for employability skills by developing an accredited training programme that delivers English language knowledge and skills for union representatives in an African trade union context. The training programme is designed and delivered jointly by local trade union officials and staff from Fourah Bay College, University of Sierra Leone to ensure that the programme meets local employability needs. The matching of English literacy and skills is central to supporting employment in the occupations and sectors that must grow to underpin the development of Sierra Leone. The modular programme directly addresses English language employability skills, adds value to existing union activity and supports sustainable development beyond the project through embedding accredited training in the University. The Sierra Leone Labour Congress is a significant project partner with unique access to its own staff and its membership, with excellent experience of delivering training. Enhancing language skills through this process will have a direct impact on employability both through engagement with policy development as well as more straightforward skills enhancement. The training programme can also provide a stepping stone onto more formal undergraduate and post graduate programmes.
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