Lemmens The Virtual Challenge to International Cooperation in Higher Education Bernd Wächter (ed.) Aca papers on International Cooperation in Education The V irtual Challenge to International Cooperation in Higher Education

Transnational/Offshore/Online
New modes of delivery – at offshore campuses, whether teaching done by
Australian faculty or by local staff, through distance education sometimes sup-
ported by online delivery, and by exclusive online provision – have grown
strongly in Australia over the past decade but particularly in the last four or
five years. As a result, Australia today has more than 45,000 international stu-
dents enrolled in its universities who study in another country, particularly in
Malaysia, Singapore and China. This development has, I believe, been largely
a response to the market. The following factors have beeen decisive in this:
l
Home country governments and students looking for in-country options
following the economic crisis – and in some cases for political reasons;
l
New private institutions looking for articulation programmes in which stu-
dents did part of their degree at home;
l
Students wanting accelerated programmes which allowed them to re-
main in jobs in-country;
l
Non-English-speaking students (particularly in China) were a big market
which did not have easy access to Australia (visa barriers);
l
Australian institutions were familiar with the Asian markets and with
potential partner institutions.
IDP’s study of Australian institutions’ offshore delivery developed a model
which predicted that there would be a growth in online delivery (removing the
necessity for face-to-face teaching provided by Australian faculty).
Online activities and research
Most Australian institutions now offer courses online for either domestic or
international students. There is an increased number of courses delivered
exclusively online to international students well in excess of 100, with the
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University of Southern Queensland, for example, offering 37. There are also
university consortia (often of international composition) which have de-
veloped to focus on online delivery. Examples are Universitas 21 and Thom-
son Learning or the Global Alliance Network.