...
So for delivering any type of TNE or mobility, technology is critical. At the most basic level, good connectivity with low latency, consistent performance and minimal packet loss is essential. By the very nature of where education is being delivered, in many cases this is in areas where connectivity may be poor. And that’s what we have been trying to initially achieve at Jisc. Mobile students and staff want access to good connectivity and their applications – seamlessly across borders - wherever they may be in the world, whether that’s access to the VLE or Netflix. So a student will want to make sure eduroam, one of the essential ingredients for survival, will work when you walk through the doors of a campus, whether in the UK or in Dubai. We need not only to develop a suite of TNE support services, including for example VC and lecture capture, security, performance monitoring, shared data services, E2E performance monitoring, identity management, but looking to the future, exploring how areas such as developing digital skills and capabilities and the use learning analytics can be advantageous for internationally mobile students and staff.
One of the critical factors in supporting ‘mobility’ is the student experience. Students are now paying substantially for their education and rightly are demanding quality of provision. In TNE partnerships, this equates to a parity of experience – so a student studying in a Mauritian branch campus will expect at least an equivalent experience to those studying in the home UK campus on the same course. This means not only access to the VLE in the home country, but also access to the content for the course such as library materials and e-learning resources. This again is where technology is essential, as well as being able to address issues such as international licensing.
...
Additionally, the following questions were included on each table to prompt discussion:
Home institution NREN (Sending) | Host NREN (Receiving) | NREN developing TNE support | Education institution (university, college, etc) |
|---|---|---|---|
- Who are your customers – universities, colleges, schools? Is this profile changing? - Types of TNE (Campuses, partnerships, online) require different support. Just connectivity? What other support? - Is your work led by customer demand? How are you prioritising the countries you are working with? What are the emerging markets in your view? - What information is required before entering new markets? - Do you have specific resources internally to support this work? How difficult is it to make a business case internally? How resource intensive are these activities? - What services do/could you provide? What are your customers asking for? - What business models do/could they use? Do you charge your customers/members for such support services? - How do you operate in other countries? Through strategic alliances and agreements with partners? Do these have service level agreements? - How do you obtain in-country knowledge? Do you have contacts at local ISPs and NRENs? How do you assess the quality of connectivity in that country? - Are there challenges with local NREN connecting policies? What could we do about them? - What arrangements are there for ‘reverse TNE’? i.e. when institutions from overseas want to connect in your country? Are the arrangements reciprocal? - Are your customers collaborative or competitive (i.e. do they offer peer to peer advice?) | Issues may include: - Who are your customers? Overseas/sending institutions or domestic institutions with overseas activities - What services do/could you provide? - What business models do/could they use? - How do you take a proactive approach to link up with sending NRENs? What arrangements are there for ‘reverse TNE’? i.e. you’re your institutions overseas want to connect in a predominantly sending country? Are the arrangements reciprocal?
| Issues may include: - Understanding of structure and function of an ‘Established’ NREN. What is your desired end state? How do they find out more about other NRENs? - Understand which stakeholders (governments departments) need to engage? What is their commitment to support TNE? - Where do you find out information on your countries international education/TNE activities? Does the data exist? - Do you have specific resources internally to develop/support this work? How difficult is it to make a business case internally? What type of support would be helpful from NRENs with established TNE support (letter of support etc.) | Issues may include: - What does an equitable student experience look like? What information do you collect on student experience? - What do you need to think about in terms of connectivity between campuses to ensure TNE students can access same resources? - What sorts of applications need to be supported e.g. lecture capture, VLE, off campus support? What about for the future? E.g. Customised learning experiences? Remote assessment and identity/recognition? - Who operates the local campus infrastructure? - What about staff delivering TNE? What are their issues? - How do services commonly offered to domestic students respond when delivered/managed overseas? - Will TNE students have same access to learning and library resources as domestic students? - How do systems integrate and talk to each other? - How and when are you engaged in the planning and delivery of TNE in your institution? - What are the common issues - Data protection? Licensing? Connecting back to administrative systems? - Do you have quality assurance processes? Do these include technology? How can you/have you supported peer organisations in your own country? |
Group discussions feedback
| Group 1 | Group 2 | Group 3 | Group 4 |
|---|---|---|---|
Licensing for online/digital/e-resources - institution in one country have a license, but does that mean that it can be used by students at other campuses? Interoperability issues e.g. IPv6 and other technological mismatches between home and receiving campus. Access and identity issues. International relations - national NRENs are sovereign and regional networks provide connectivity - what engagement is there locally that could support the local environment; being a responsible local partner as well as national | People working in NRENs do not know the establishments (or people) in other countries - need to get the right information from NRENs; the sending NRENs should provide critical and accurate information (something that SIG-TNE could facilitate) For small establishments the administrative overhead can be huge, collaboration can save time and money Political/tech barriers in different countries - i.e. government restrictions in China (e.g. IPv6 and firewall). In-country knowledge is key Identity management and authorisation issues. To be authorised the user in some cases needs to be physically in the country. eduGAIN needs to be explored. Language/culture/working practice differences across both countries/institutions Sharing best practice on TNE
| Knowing who is out there –we know there is an increasing demand, but which institutions we need to serve? Who has the demand for a remote campus? (e.g. Georgia) Political barriers in different countries - institutes from abroad might not be allowed to settle in a country (e.g. Hungary) Connection policies differ, some countries do not allow connecting institutions that are not financed by the government, overseas institutions are classed as ‘private’ e.g. Spain Networks built for research purposes and not educational institutions (e.g. Africa) Language/culture/working practice differences across both countries/institutions | Licensing for online/digital/e-resources - institution in one country have a license, but does that mean that it can be used by students at other campuses? Needs negotiation, expertise, time, effort. Political/tech barriers in different countries - i.e. government restrictions in China (e.g. IPv6, Google and firewall). In-country knowledge is key Institutions might not have the right peering policies and use commercial connections (which may be less stable) Communications - time zone differences, language barriers - additional time is needed for international work Sending hardware equipment across to different countries can be expensive and incur delays e.g. customs Defining relationships between the home and overseas campus/partnership is essential, for example accountabilities, roles and responsibilities, and any hierarchies in the relationship. It is advised that leadership at the home campus and branch campus is at the same level for decision making |
Wrap up and next steps
The group discussions identified some synergies, and the main issues identified were:
- Overseas licensing
- In country data/MIObtaining national data and information on TNE activities
- Internal communications and relationships, culture, language, resources
- Interoperability
- Connection policies Resourcesand (collective) use of commercial suppliers
- Logistics for transporting hardware abroad
- Quality of international connectivity and high costs in some countries
...
This has been a starting point to tease out the important issues, and reassuringly there is nothing that has raised concerns outside the known challenges. The next discussion as the SIG-TNE will prioritise the activities, whilst being realistic about what we can achieve
It is helpful to identify some of the things that are currently being worked on through GÉANT and Jisc:
- Developing interactive global connectivity map for TNE, bringing together information such as regulatory frameworks and policies, country specific information
- Jisc TNE toolkit for education institutions
- Case studies
- Developing online registration form (collecting info from home institutions)
- Support for overseas licensing
...