Transnational Education and e-Learning during a Pandemic: Challenges, Opportunities, and Future

Higher education institutions are globally facing unprecedented disruptive trends, which have rapidly changed the landscape of global higher education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While transnational education (TNE) is increasingly becoming popular as a provision for internationally recognised education at the doorstep of students, the temporary shift from traditional classroom teaching and learning (T&L) to remote online T&L caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has been challenging for all stakeholders to provide the similar student experience as previously. Regarding TNE programmes, the emergency replacement of traditional classrooms with virtual ones has also raised significant challenges of both equity and pedagogy. However, given the current crisis in higher education, TNE can be a cornerstone in rebuilding the post-COVID-19 international education system. This chapter explores the challenges faced by the TNE programmes based on a systematic literature review and information gathered informally from various stakeholders and discusses the opportunities and future impacts in teaching, learning, and student support as the post-COVID-19 educational landscape emerges. It also provides an insight into how a sustainable transnational learning community can be developed for the quality and sustainability of international higher education in this new decade.

New Spatial Imaginaries for International Curriculum Projects: Creative Diagrams, Mapping Experiments, and Critical Cartography

This article explores the complex relational landscape of international partnerships where local and transnational education objectives are entangled. We present a methodological practice for experimenting with diagrams and maps. Our emphasis on spatial rendering of local/global relationality is intended to invite discussion about the postcolonial context of international education work and the geopolitics of transnational curriculum. We pursue a diagrammatic and archipelagic form of creative abstraction, which we present as a posthuman cartographic practice. To illustrate this practice, we focus on a specific international curriculum development project funded by the World Universities Network.

Remote Learning in Transnational Education: Relationship between Virtual Learning Engagement and Student Academic Performance in BSc Pharmaceutical Biotechnology

The 21st century has seen dramatic changes to education delivery which have widened the scope of transnational education and remote learning via various virtual learning environments (VLEs). Efficient remote teaching activities require students to be engaged with taught materials and academic staff, and for educators to be able to track and improve student engagement. This article describes the generation of a predictive mathematical model for students’ exam performance using VLE engagement indicators and coursework marks together to enable the creation of a model with a correlation coefficient of 0.724. This article examines the relationship of each of these variables with final exam marks, as well as the addition of personal related variable X on the generated model’s accuracy. The generated models show that each variable had a different impact on the prediction of the final exam mark. The results’ analysis suggests that coursework marks and total VLE page views were the major attributes, while personal factors were also found to greatly impact model accuracy. Considering the case of outliers, who were students with low VLE engagement achieving high exam marks, it is proposed that personal factors, such as behavioural factors and study style, also have a significant effect on student academic attainment. The generated model can be used by students to improve self-efficacy by adjusting their study style and by educators to provide early interventions to support disengaged students. This model can be replicated in different remote learning settings and transnational education, and the findings might be insightful for courses with remote learning strategies to investigate the key educational, personal and engagement parameters for students’ overall success.