Increasing global competition and the benefits of international collaboration have affected the way UK universities think about their aspirations and how to maintain their international competitiveness. A strategic shift has taken place – from a largely exclusive focus on international student recruitment and towards a longer term and more partnership-based conceptualisation of internationalisation.
Already in 2023, the British Council through its international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities, has defined the variant types of Transnational Education (TNE) presently in use (Appendix A). The full document provides a broad range of support for the internationalization of UK higher education as well as guidance for both UK universities and their international partner in a TNE partnership. This guidance takes the form of Expectations and Practices, Expectations for Quality, Core Practice, Guiding Principles, and Practical Advice. Jane Addams Institute has adopted this guidance completely for its UK university partnership arrangements as well as the Expectations and Practice for Partnerships: Guiding Principles (Appendix B) for TNE partnerships from the UKs Quality Assurance Agency (QAA).
Jane Addams Institute of Higher Education has innovated a model that has the potential to provide significant new and ongoing revenue streams to its UK university partners, growth to the UK TNE sector, and provide access to UK university postgraduate degrees to largely underserved international students. Jane Addams Institute is most closely aligned with the ‘Flexible and Distributed Learning’ variant of TNEs defined by the British Council. This variant is used to include both distance learning and e-learning which are the focus of Jane Addams in their UK TNE partnerships.
Jane Addams is collaborating with its partner UK universities to take the next steps in TNE. This involves upgrading postgraduate courses brought online during the pandemic. This is done by incorporating active learning pedagogies, engaging instructional strategies, and targeted technologies to the already rich academic content. Jane Addams can use this expertise to help build new online and distance learning postgraduate degree courses with their UK university partners. Online and distance learning takes place in partnership with resident UK universities who offer additional postgraduate degree courses to international students who have already applied and with limited space were not offered a place.
Jane Addams Institute is combining its innovative strategic plan with the strengths of the long-standing traditions of UK academic and research excellence. Distance learning tools and technologies along with a participating university’s course management system allows Jane Addams and their university partners to offer access to distance and online delivery of courses towards fully online postgraduate degrees. The course management systems provide the platforms for online courses as well as tools for curriculum development, teaching and learning, communication, assessment, analytics and both instructor and student support.
Online distance learning has several distinct advantages over both resident instruction and conventional distance education including lower initial and ongoing operating costs. Course management technologies also allow administrators to govern and evaluate the academic activities of both students and the partnership. It offers instructors, instructional designers, and academic staff access to building, assessing, and modifying course materials from wherever they reside geographically.