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Partnerships of such projects can be bilateral or multilateral, although a cer-
tain limit in the number of partners seems to favour active participation of all
of them. The content of the course is jointly developed by the partner institu-
tions and combines the areas of expertise and excellence they represent.
This process obviously goes beyond the sheer putting together of existing
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course modules, since coherence in educational design and theoretical con-
cepts should be ensured. Academic contributions can be made through
recorded lectures, lecture notes, presentations of case studies, simulations,
interviews, background articles, etc. Students study the course from their
home institution and meet with their teachers and work in a virtual and inter-
national classroom, in which they carry out collaborative work in small
teams. Through this collaboration they benefit from the international context
and learn about current developments, systems or approaches in different
countries, as their fellow students present these to them or use collected
information and data in the assignment. In the digital learning environment,
links to international learning resources (experts, libraries, databases, etc.)
are provided. Besides the content-related learning achievement, students
develop a range of skills related to communication, teamwork, to dealing with
intercultural and language-related differences, to advanced search and ana-
lysis, and to the use of ICT as such. Monitoring, tutoring and assessment
can be organised in the same context.
Obviously, such initiatives can also be found outside the European context.
At the same time, European projects are not necessarily limited to a Euro-
pean scope. Even if they focus on European themes and subjects, they may
include wider international perspectives. An interesting example of this is a
course on competition law of the European Union, which includes input from
US competition lawyers, reflecting the EU legislation and analysing the
issues and challenges in the European context and their impact on the EU-
US trade relations.
Good practice requires of course a number of conditions to be fulfilled. For
the use of ICT in internationalised curricula, these conditions include the
success factors for joint curriculum development, such as staff commitment,
solid international partnerships, high-quality educational design ensuring
coherence in the curriculum, policy support and additional funding (Van der
Wende, 1997). In addition, the following factors seem to be essential and
specific for the use of ICT:
l
The educational design should ensure consistency in the conceptual and
theoretical approach presented in the course. Besides, it should ensure
effective learning processes enabling interaction and collaboration.
l
The expertise and skills required for this can usually only be found in a
team, including subject experts, technical experts, experts on educatio-
nal design, sometimes graphical designers, etc. This multidisciplinary
teamwork may also require special mediators who facilitate the coopera-
tion between the disciplines and guarantee process coordination.
l
Reliable and matching technology among the partner institutions is a
prime condition.
l
Clear understanding between partners on costs and benefits, including
investments, fee policies, intellectual property issues, etc.
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Despite the significant opportunities that ICT offers by enabling access for (in
principle) all students to interactive and collaborative learning in an interna-
tional setting and the good practice that is demonstrated in many projects,
many challenges still need to be addressed.
First, transnational education does not necessarily mean that the curriculum
is internationalised (in content or form). There are certainly examples of
missed opportunities in the case of transnational education programmes,
which do not accommodate or address the potential benefits of an internatio-
nal student body due to weak or lacking possibilities for interaction and colla-
boration between students. Or even worse, curricula which are exported
without considering the appropriateness and the relevance of the curriculum
in terms of content and teaching and learning methods in the specific context
of the student’s country and culture. Based on what good and bad practice
have shown so far, it seems justified to state that high quality transnational
education is based on internationalised curricula.
Second, from the student perspective, ICT improves opportunities to partici-
pate in courses from different institutions in different countries. In principle,
students have a free choice to integrate courses from foreign institutions into
their curriculum, or even to compose the entire curriculum in this way, as a
sort of a virtual version of the medieval “wanderstudent”. This freedom,
however, is not systematically supported by recognition mechanisms or cre-
dit transfer and accumulation systems, which could make these virtual cours-
es account towards a degree. Consequently, it will be important to facilitate
this type of virtual mobility in the same way as physical mobility schemes
(e.g. Socrates) provide support to students in terms of recognition of courses
taken abroad. Initiatives in this direction are being developed in international
networks and consortia of institutions, but basically, and similar to the world
of physical mobility, the free mobility of students (outside institutional part-
nerships or networks) should be encouraged as well. Obviously, it is up to
the degree-granting institution to assess the quality of courses taken from
foreign institutions through ICT, and to ensure the coherence of a curriculum
to lead to a degree. Hence, instead of continuing discussions based on the
fear that virtual mobility will substitute physical mobility, it will be important to
recognise virtual mobility as a serious and modern form of academic mobility
and to enable curriculum integration by adequate credit transfer and recogni-
tion measures.
Lastly, from the teacher perspective, there are clear limitations. In order to be
effective and to reach the quality objectives of the virtual international class-
room, the interaction between students and between students and teachers
is key. However, experiences show that this implies that the size of a student
group or virtual classroom cannot be too large. In general it would not
exceed the size of a physical class in which quality teaching and interaction
can take place, i.e. between 15 and 20 students. Consequently, the idea that
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virtual courses can be up-scaled without limitation, cannot be confirmed
when a quality perspective on the interactive and international dimension is
taken. Obviously, this implies that the often-claimed cost-effectiveness of vir-
tual education is not automatic.
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