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

Introduction
A.
Background
The virtual shift in higher education
Higher education has been undergoing major changes in the past years.
Often characterised as an “ivory tower” aloof from the ways of the world, it
has been thrown into fierce competition in some parts of this world. Educa-
tion is more and more viewed as a “product”, rather than a “public good”. Uni-
versities are being transformed into the “higher education industry”. The
paradigm shift towards the commercial and entrepreneurial is also characte-
rised by the emergence of non-traditional providers. Academia, so long
amongst themselves in the task of the production and dissemination of
knowledge, is being challenged by the corporate sector.
It is fair to admit that this competitive environment is newer to some coun-
tries than others. In the US, for example, probably only the extent of competi-
tion is really a novel phenomenon. What is – relatively – new everywhere,
however, is the fact that higher education goes “transnational”, i.e. that uni-
versities and other providers enter the “markets” of foreign countries. In a
globalised world, higher education is also becoming a globally tradable good
(or service). The phenomenon is driven by a strong demand for higher edu-
cation in countries which cannot provide adequate levels of supply, and by
the commercial motive to want to sell courses and qualifications world-wide.
“Transnational education” comes in many forms. One manifestation is the
“off-shore” operation, i.e. a branch campus of a university in a foreign coun-
try. But the dominant mode appears to be already, or at any rate to become,
“virtual education”, delivered via the Internet.
In the eyes of many, “virtual” or online learning is an educational revolution.
The fact that learning comes to the learner, and not the other way around, is
being perceived as a quantum leap. Learning becomes (or is anyway said to
become) independent of place and time. Educational opportunities suddenly
abound, choice becomes almost borderless. For many, online learning there-
fore became the superior form of higher education. The university as we
knew it all along was suddenly stigmatised as the “old” university, a pitiably
outdated “brick-and-mortar” institution, which was in no way able to compete
with the “new university”, the “click university”. In obvious parallel to the “old”
and “new economy”, the prediction was – and often still is – that the “old uni-
versity” was doomed to disappear.
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Internationalisation
In the same period, “internationalisation” became a major trait of higher edu-
cation, at least in such regions and countries as Europe, North America and
Australia. In its self-perception, higher education had always been “interna-
tional”. But reality mostly lagged behind this bold assertion. The mobility of
students and faculty was, until recently, a quantitatively very marginal pheno-
menon. Internationalised curricula are a still more recent trait, as are aspira-
tions for an “institutionalisation” of internationalisation, in other words, the
attempt to internationalise every aspect of a higher education institution’s
operations. These two latter forms of internationalisation really became a
noteworthy feature of universities only in the last years of the past millennium.
“Internationalisation” is the key business of the Academic Cooperation Asso-
ciation (ACA) and its member organisations. These members, 20 in Europe
and five on other continents, act as “international agencies” on behalf of their
respective governments, and provide programmes and funding for the mobili-
ty of students and faculty, for the internationalisation of the curriculum, and
related matters. It is obvious that a change in the leading paradigm of inter-
nationalisation, away from “physical” modes of internationalisation, and
towards “virtual” forms, would not leave their work untouched. Together with
its Norwegian member organisation, the Centre for International University
Cooperation (SIU), ACA therefore decided to explore the implications of the
“virtual revolution”, in order to assess its likely impact on the present forms of
internationalisation, and on its own work.
The Fjaerland conference
The result of this decision was an international seminar, held in Fjær-
land/Norway, on 11 and 12 June, 2001. This seminar convened some 50
experts on the subject, predominantly from Europe, but also from North
America, Australia and Asia. The present publication consists of a selection
of papers presented there.
The guiding questions, which ACA was seeking to find answers to, were put
to the speakers ahead of the seminar, and thus influenced the presentations.
They were:
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will “virtual education” in the medium-to-long run replace face-to-face
teaching and learning in higher education? Will the “brick-and-mortar”
university disappear or anyway cease to be the dominant type of higher
education institution in this process?
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will “virtual education” become the new paradigm of internationalisation?
Will it succeed and replace the traditional modes of international coope-
ration and internationalisation, such as the mobility of students and facul-
ty, international curricula, etc?
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what will be the impact of the “virtual onslaught” on the work of interna-
tionalisation agencies, such as the members of ACA? Do they need to
substitute their traditional programmes by virtual cooperation schemes,
or at any rate supplement them by such offers?
Of course, the way these questions were formulated intentionally overstated
the case. The organisers did not expect any simple “yes-no” answers, but
hoped that differentiated responses would help them gain orientation in a
field in which they themselves were in the role of learners. The rest of this
introduction highlights the main findings of the seminar, seen from the point
of view of the editor.