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This paper is an exploratory study of the benefits that institutions of higher education can gain when entering into partnerships of academic franchising, an international activity which has been increasing in popularity over the past few decades. The paper looks at the current literature on academic franchising and then goes on to study, through case studies and direct observation, franchising from the perspective of four different institutions in four different countries. The paper reveals that very often there are multiple benefits to be gained which are not necessarily sought when the institutions enter such partnerships. Contrary to previous academic literature the study also reveals that there is a much greater flow of these benefits from one institution to another and thus provides a new richer model that has changed from the "parent child" model to that of a more evenly balanced model where both partners are benefiting from mutual cooperation.

This paper argues that links between academia and other economic sectors are increasing, especially through intersectoral mobility of university graduates. Murray [(2010). "The Oncomouse that Roared: Hybrid Exchange Strategies as a Source of Distinction at the Boundary of Overlapping Institutions." "American Journal of Sociology" 116 (2): 341-388] has identified literature pointing both to blending and continuing co-existence of the academic and commercial worlds. Based on a European-wide study of PhD graduates in the social sciences and humanities (SSH), this paper considers the extent to which intersectoral mobility reflects blending. It finds that intersectoral communities of practice exist mainly in applied fields of knowledge. However, in many areas of the SSH, differences in institutional norms and values inhibit intersectoral mobility, particularly in mid-career stages.

The paper reports on the experienced educator perspective regarding human-to-human connection in distance education. The research questions aimed to fill gaps in the existing research literature, to investigate the role of the educator, to discover how learning and subject content are affected by contextual factors, to find out if it enhances the sense of togetherness (immediacy and intimacy). The Informed Grounded Theory and the Community of Inquiry model provided a scaffolding framework for designing interview questions and analyzing findings. The outcome of the analysis formulated a new theory called tele-proximity, which gives an explanation of how presences could work in synchronicity. The findings may help educators gain insight into how to use Synchronous Video Communication (SVC) and lead future research to dig deeper into the field of synchronicity and the importance of audiovisual cues.

Online students use highly emotional language to describe their experiences, indicating that learners do feel a great deal online. This paper draws on Wetherell's exploration of affective practice to theorise learners' responses to the pedagogical and technological online environment. Findings of a research project that focused on two cohorts of online doctoral students are presented, including survey responses and interview data. Thematic analysis indicates that participants experienced positive and negative affects circulating around three sites of intensity: a sense of progression; community interaction and assignment feedback. However, narrative analysis of extracts from the interviews reveal a further level of complexity to the data, drawing attention to the unfinished and shifting character of these affects. The paper concludes by pointing to the implications of this research for designing the online environment in ways that will allow students to experience the full potential of online learning.

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to identify the influence of cultural differences on the design and management of two franchise programs and one joint degree program run by a Chinese university in partnership with a British university and a French university. The cross-cultural challenges and the differences in the strategies taken by the managers in both types of program to deal with such challenges are analyzed. The frameworks for such strategies are also proposed. Design/methodology/approach: A case study approach was used for the analysis. Participatory observation and interview were adopted to collect information in combination with the written reports on the programs. The interviewees included managers, faculty members, and students. Thematic analysis was conducted to find out the common themes from the coded data. Findings: For franchise programs, the British university takes a "collaborating" strategy focusing on globalization, which is combined with the "compromising" strategy of the Chinese partner university focusing on localization. Both parties keep their different styles of management and combine them into one new management mode. By contrast, in the joint degree program, the French management mode can be described as a "collaborating" strategy toward the management of the Chinese students and curriculum, while the Chinese managers are seeking to progressively "accommodate" the needs of the French students. Originality/value: Few studies in the current literature are targeted at the cultural influences on the design and management of transnational higher education (TNHE) programs as well as the proper management strategies to deal with such cultural differences. The result of this study will provide useful advice for researchers and practitioners in cross-cultural management of TNHE programs.

Field courses are essential for subjects like Earth Sciences, Geography and Ecology. In these topics, GIS is used to manage and analyse spatial data, and offers quantitative methods that are beneficial for fieldwork. This paper presents changes made to a first-year Earth Sciences field course in the French Alps, where new GIS methods were introduced. Students use GIS in preparation to explore their research area using an elevation model and satellite images, formulate hypotheses and plan the fieldwork. During the fieldwork, a pilot group managed their field-observations using GIS and made digital maps. Students praise the use of quantitative digital maps in the preparation. Students made use of the available techniques during the fieldwork, although this could be further intensified. Some students were extra motivated due to the technical nature as well as the additional analytical possibilities. The use of GIS was experienced as a steep learning curve by students, and not all staff members are confident in supervising students using GIS, which calls for a sufficient preparation and training of both students and staff. The use of GIS adds abstract analyses and quantitative assessment, which is a complementary learning style to fieldwork that mostly focuses on practical skills.

This article presents the major findings of an international study that attempted to investigate the labour market outcomes of qualifications frameworks in six countries--Belize, France, Ireland, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, and Tunisia, as well as the regional framework in the Caribbean. It finds limited evidence of success, but fairly strong support for the frameworks. The continued popularity of qualifications frameworks as a reform mechanism seems to be symptomatic of the ways in which transitions from education to work are in flux in many countries, coupled with the fragmented and complex systems of vocational provision in some of the countries. Even where such systems are not overly complex they have weak and possibly weakening relationships with work. Insufficient differentiation of different types of frameworks by policy makers obscures these factors, leading to misleading ideas about what frameworks can do in general. Extending existing typologies for the analysis of qualifications frameworks the paper argues that the French framework, where labour markets were the most regulated and collective bargaining had the widest reach, had the clearest relationships between qualifications and work. However, the qualifications framework did not seem to be the cause, but rather the effect of such relationships.

Many studies have stressed students' lack of understanding of experiments in laboratories. Some researchers suggest that if students design all or parts of entire experiment, as part of an inquiry-based approach, it would overcome certain difficulties. It requires that a procedure be written for experimental design. The aim of this paper is to describe the characteristics of a procedure in science laboratories, in an educational context. As a starting point, this paper proposes a model in the form of a hierarchical task diagram that gives the general structure of any procedure. This model allows both the analysis of existing procedures and the design of a new inquiry-based approach. The obtained characteristics are further organized into criteria that can help both teachers and students assess a procedure during and after its writing. These results are obtained through two different sets of data. First, the characteristics of procedures are established by analysing laboratory manuals. This allows the organization and type of information in procedures to be defined. This analysis reveals that students are seldom asked to write a full procedure, but sometimes have to specify tasks within a procedure. Secondly, iterative interviews are undertaken with teachers. This leads to the list of criteria to evaluate the procedure. (Contains 7 tables and 2 figures.)

This paper seeks to examine students' values in "relationship to their studies." After defining the concept within this rubric, we attempt to define the values at work from the perspectives of (1) the motivation for pursuing post-secondary studies; (2) the pace of studies; (3) the time devoted to study; (4) the time spent in the institutions; and (5) student culture. The study focuses on students enrolled in the medicine and sociology programs. Our paper draws primarily from the results of an online survey and interviews of a sampling of the target student population, with the analysis in both cases developed in light of the distinction between "instrumental" values and "expressive" values. The analysis presented here is based on theories recently developed in France and Quebec regarding values, students and student attitudes toward their program of study. (Contains 6 notes, 2 tables, and 2 figures.)

In qualitative research on Americans in study abroad contexts, female gender often emerges as problematic, with young women portrayed as hapless victims of sexual harassment. The assumption underlying interpretation of these studies appears to maintain that female students are victimized because they find themselves in places where inherently superior American discourses of gender equity do not prevail. Meanwhile, however, scrutiny of participants' stories reveals deeper mysteries, to do with gender trouble from home that students bring to their experiences abroad. This paper adopts a narrative approach to interview and journal data from a previous study in which American students, both male and female, recount their experiences in France. Their accounts are linked to the sociocultural history and popular ideology of Franco-American relations and to images of study abroad in the American media. Students' stories draw upon and contest an amalgam of images related to social class, gender, and national identity, which are embedded in perennial American representations of French language learning as social class transcendence. In the early decades of the twenty-first century, this phenomenon has morphed into a contemporary postfeminist self-help literature for would-be Frenchwomen, which celebrates anachronistic images of women as accomplished homemakers and objects of sexual desire who nevertheless control their destinies through artful styling of self and navigation of the global marketplace. "Frenchness," with or without corresponding language ability, symbolizes membership in the mobilized, global elite. Thus, while a second language offers potentially new resources for the performance of gendered identity, this study shows how the relationship between such resources and learners' desires is mediated by previous participation in specific discourses of gender and social class, which may or may not prioritize language learning "per se."

This paper examines the sociopragmatic character of intercultural communication between English Language Assistants (ELAs) and their "mentors" in French primary and secondary schools. With reference to Levinson's notion of "activity type", it argues that judgements by mentors as to what constitutes "allowable contributions" on the part of ELAs are determined by the extent to which mentors themselves have internalised French State regulations. The degree of internalisation can thus serve as a means of distinguishing between "the political" and "the cultural". Awareness of this distinction and an insight into its social significance exemplifies what Spencer-Oatey describes more generally as a "sociopragmatic interactional principle" or SIP. According to Spencer-Oatey, "SIPs" are key elements in the successful management of "rapport" in intercultural situations. By applying a methodology derived from Sinclair and Coulthard's analysis of oral discourse to recordings of ELA-mentor interactions, we identify specific sequences of moves that illustrate the relationship between political and cultural factors, SIPs and sociopragmatic misunderstandings in Anglo-French intercultural communication. (Contains 1 note.)

Universities globally are showing increased interest in the potential of social media as a marketing recruitment tool. This paper explores how and why potential postgraduate business students looking to study internationally use social media in their educational decision-making process. Due to a lack of existing research, this study adopted an exploratory approach, gathering data through in-depth interviews with 12 postgraduate international students at an Australian university. The findings indicate that besides Facebook and YouTube, students are using blogs in their study search. The two most common reasons for social media usage are finding out about student life and reading reviews from former students. In the decision-making process, social media is mostly used in the information search and evaluation stages. Students' use of social media also varies across source countries. Our findings are a good information source for education marketers who need to engage more actively with social media.

This paper looks at eight comparative case-studies on academic entrepreneurs in life sciences conducted in Europe in 2008. The interviewees were selected from the KEINS database that lists all academic inventors from Italy, France, Sweden and the Netherlands who have one or more patent applications registered at the European Patent Office, 1978-2004. The case-studies show that institutions largely influence the way in which scientists are coping with the normative uncertainty typical of science and technology systemic boundaries in the life sciences today. By exploring new local solutions, the entrepreneurial achievements of scientists are also establishing new institutional practices. Our empirical analysis helps to reconsider traditional dichotomies in the sociological, economic and institutional literature, such as publications versus patents and academia versus industry, and to illustrate the creative role of academic entrepreneurs.

This paper suggests that as university missions have adapted to accommodate major developments associated with, for instance, mass higher education and internationalisation agendas, university workforces have diversified. They now, for instance, incorporate practitioners in areas such as health and social care, and professional staff who support activities as diverse as widening participation, e-learning, and business partnership. This in turn has implications for higher education governance and management structures and processes. Consideration is given to variables likely to affect institutional responses to such changes, and some suggestions are made as to possible ways forward in addressing the interests of an expanding range of professional groupings and stakeholders, as well as those of institutions as a whole. These are likely to involve the development of more flexible organisational frameworks in relation to, for instance, reward and incentive mechanisms and career pathways. (Contains 1 figure and 1 table.)

This paper explores how language teachers learn to teach with a synchronous multimodal setup ("Skype"), and it focuses on their use of the webcam during the pedagogical interaction. First, we analyze the ways that French graduate students learning to teach online use the multimodal resources available in a desktop videoconferencing (DVC) environment to monitor pedagogical interactions with intermediate level learners of French in a North-American university. Then, we examine communicational and pedagogical aspects of this process which involves orchestrating different modalities and deploying various regulations for "semio-pedagogical" purposes. We define semio-pedagogical skills as the capacity to mediate a pedagogical interaction by combining or dissociating modalities (written, oral, and/or video) that are adapted to objectives and to the cognitive requisites of the task. We posit that these skills have to become part of the professional repertoire of future teachers, as they will increasingly be required to exploit the multimodal potentialities of online communication in their teaching. The study draws on screen capture recordings of teacher trainee-student interactions and is completed by semi-directive interviews with teacher trainees (n = 5). It aims (1) to identify the importance of webcamming in the share of the pedagogical range available to teachers and (2) analyze the non verbal dimension of pedagogical communication via DVC. The outcome of this study is the identification of five degrees of utilization of the webcam medium: there a certain gradation in the way webcamming is used (with a more or less significant use of image) when compared to other modalities. The different uses that are identified vary according to the perceived usefulness of webcamming to monitor teaching and to the teacher trainees' capacity to manage different workspaces.

This article presents seven reports on the interviews about reception and use of international indicators among respondents from Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and United Kingdom. The first report is based on interviews with 5 respondents occupied with different aspects of the macro level of the Flemish educational system. It focuses on the content of the interviews and is structured upon seven headlines referring to the BEQUAD interview schedule. The second report is based on six interviews with respondents placed at different levels of the Danish educational system. This report is written on the basis of the interviews and the structure of the report is built upon seven headlines referring to the guideline of interview headings including a summary and a conclusion. The third is based on six interviews conducted during the months of May and June, 2002, with a union representative with the SNES (secondary education teachers) (A), the Director of School Education (B), a Counsellor at the "Cour des Comptes" and Chairman of the Higher Council for School Assessment (C), a counsellor and Director of Programming and Development (D), a Senator (E) and a Deputy Director of Higher Education (F). Most of the interviewees expressed their views on the best-known publications by the OECD and French education system. All interviews give emphasis on the use of indicators to serve specific ends. The fourth is based on interviews with 6 people engaged in key positions in the Italian Educational system. The fifth is based on interviews with six people occupying different key positions in the Dutch educational system. The report summarises the content of the interviews and is based on the seven headings of the BEQUAD interview schedule. Next is a report based on interviews with 6 people occupying key positions in the Spanish educational scene. The interviews aimed at getting relevant information about their perceptions on the possible influences of international indicators to decision-making processes and public information. The last report is based on interviews with three groups of respondents in the UK. The report summarises the content of the interviews and the Department of Education and Skills (DFES) written response and is structured using the seven section headings of the BEQUAD interview schedule. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Interviews with Australian university students returning from study in France indicate that problems in accessing crucial information are common experiences and frequently lead to students reproducing stereotypes of French administrative inefficiency. Argues that the issue is not one of information per se, but of cultural differences in the dissemination of information. (Author/VWL)

France's new Under-Secretary for Linguistic and Educational Cooperation within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs outlines his plans for the role the agency is to play. Issues discussed include French language instruction, cooperation with developed and developing nations, the role of French, cooperation at all educational levels, and agency management. (MSE)