Une campagne de recrutement de volontaires du service civique vient d’être lancée sur la toile. Près de 30 000 jeunes sont attendus d’ici à fin 2013 dans l’un des 4 500 organismes agréés pour les accueillir. Retour sur quelques points essentiels de cette démarche d’engagement volontaire ouverte aux jeunes de 16 à 25 ans.
Qu’est-ce que le service civique ? 
C’est un engagement volontaire au service de l'intérêt général, ouvert à tous les jeunes de 16 à 25 ans, sans condition de diplôme. Le service civique peut être effectué auprès d’associations, d’établissements publics ou de collectivités territoriales. En France ou à l’étranger, le volontaire sera en charge d’une mission d’au moins 24 heures par semaine et ce, sur une période de 6 à 12 mois. Cet engagement est indemnisé à hauteur de 573 euros par mois. Neuf grands domaines sont concernés : la culture et les loisirs, le développement international et l’action humanitaire, l’éducation pour tous, l’environnement, l’intervention d'urgence en cas de crise, la mémoire et la citoyenneté, la santé, la solidarité et enfin le sport. Suite de l'article...

By Martine Plompen. With the aim of encouraging the writing of case materials, EFMD has been organising its annual Case Writing Competition for many years.  
The 2012 winner in the category “MENA Business Cases”(Middle East and North Africa), sponsored by HEC Paris in Qatar is:
Chabros International Group: A World of Wood  
This case is written by Paul W. Beamish and Bassam Farah, Richard Ivey School of Business, USA and it examines how a Lebanese multinational wood company confronts a drastic drop in its largest subsidiary's sales after the global economic crisis. The case provides ample material to review motivations for internationalization, different “international” strategies, crisis management, growth strategies, market entry, entry timing, and SWOT. Read more...

Posted by Matthew Wood. MOOCs are on the Move: A Snapshot of the Rapid Growth of MOOCs
A White Paper by Dr Lindsay Ryan - January 2013
What are MOOCs
MOOCs are Massive Open Online Courses and they are rapidly changing the game for higher education, executive education and employee development generally. MOOCs offer free online courses covering a growing range of topics delivered by qualified lecturers from some of the most well-known universities in the world. In this age of lifelong learning, MOOCs are a means of providing learning and development to virtually everyone, anytime, anywhere in the world with internet access.
This paper presents a snapshot of current developments in MOOCs, noting that MOOCs have really only gathered momentum in the past year and are constantly developing and evolving almost on a weekly basis.
Background
The original concept for a MOOC came from academic research in the early 1960s with the idea that people could be linked by a series of computers to listen, discuss and learn about a particular topic. Now, continuous development in technology has become the enabler for virtually everybody in the world to have access to a broad and diverse range of education and learning topics.
MOOCs provide free online courses that enable people with an interest in a selected topic to study and learn through interaction with others also interested in the same topic. Other participants could be from the same organisation, city or region, learning together with people from other organisations, cities, regions and countries from around the world. MOOCs are the internet equivalent of distance education and there could be 1,000 or 100,000 participants in a single course. Read more...

By Matthew Wood. On 11 July 2013 the European Commission issued a communication on its new Internationalisation strategy “European Higher Education in the World”.  The communication examines how the EU, individual Member States and higher education institutions (HEIs) should work closely together with sophisticated internationalization strategies for cooperation with partners in other parts of the world, not only in terms of student mobility but also at the level of strategic academic partnerships. 
The Commission highlights that education is at the heart of the Europe 2020 Strategy to make Europe a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy to generate growth and prosperity.  Its communication aims to contribute to these objectives by encouraging Member States and individual HEIs to develop strategic partnerships to deal with the global challenges.  
The international landscape for higher education has been changing considerably in the last few years with the emergence and competition from new powerful regional higher education hubs in other parts of the world.  New technological developments such as the developments of the MOOCs (massive open online courses) are also calling for higher education institutions to rethink their international education in the face of global competition. Strategies for “internationalization at home” and digital learning are critical to provide an international dimension to study programmes for non-mobile students. Read more...

By Martine Plompen. Having the right people is essential for any organisation, when looking for growth and specifically for business development purposes, internationally experienced employees bring deeper insights and demonstrate exceptional value. This KPMG survey, covering over 600 organisations, provides insight on how global organisations administer their international human resource programmes.
Key findings of this survey include:

• The main objective of a global mobility programme for 72 % of survey participants is to support business objectives and be adaptable to changing requirements.
• Flexibility and adaptability is evidenced through the variety of assignment types offered: 81 % offer short term assignments, 96 % offer long term assignments, 47 % offer permanent transfer assignments.
• Surprisingly, only 12 % of survey participants say that cost control and assurance of an acceptable return on investment (ROI) are of importance.
• Survey participants continue to exhibit inclusionary mind-sets as it relates to the definition of a “family” within their policies for benefit purposes, to include partners, dual-career couples, children.
• 51 % of survey participants say programmes take too much time and effort to administer and most use external service providers to support the volume and complexity.
• The most common approach in assessing an assignee’s suitability for an international assignment involves having line management and/or HR conduct an informal review (56 %). Other approaches include self-assessments, third party evaluators (both 8 %), and specially trained in-house resources (5 %)
• 35 % of survey participants manage the processes on a case-by-case basis and have no formal policy is in place.
• 77% of survey participants offer language training as a standard policy, 64% offer formalised cross-cultural training.
• 30% offer internal career planning – job placement toward the end of the assignment
• Formalised mentoring throughout the assignment is offered by 9% of survey participants

The 90-page summary report “Global Assignment Policies and Practices Survey” is free downloadable from KPMG International Executive Services and further benchmarking on aspects of international assignments are available from same. Read more...

By Matthew Wood. The EAIR Forum 2013 Rotterdam Forum Programme Committee and the EAIR Executive Board is delighted to hereby inform all colleagues and friends of EAIR and everyone that is interested in EAIR, that the official registration for the 35th Annual EAIR Forum “The Impact of Higher Education: Addressing the Challenges of the 21st Century” is open.
The 2013 EAIR Rotterdam Forum will take place from Wednesday 28 August till Saturday 31 August 2013 at the Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
Please note: The early bird registration deadline is closing on 1 July 2013 so make sure your Forum registration is done in time! For the 2013 EAIR Rotterdam Forum registration form, please go to: EAIR Registration.
For more information regarding the Forum registration, please go to the Conference website. Information about the preliminary timetable, hotels, travel, academic events, social events, tracks and keynote speakers can be found on the 2013 EAIR Rotterdam Forum website.
The Erasmus University is centrally located near the river in one of the most vibrant cities of the Netherlands. Being the main port of Europe, Rotterdam is a multicultural experience with outstanding museums and restaurants and well known for its modern architecture. The Erasmus University itself has a world wide reputation in the areas of economics, business administration and health, strengthened by law, social sciences, history and arts, and philosophy. Students from all over the world follow Dutch and English language bachelor’s programmes as the basis for leading international master’s specialisations at the interface of economics, health and society.
Please visit http://www.eair.nl/forum/rotterdam regularly for the updated news about the 2013 EAIR Rotterdam Forum.

On 10 July 2013, the Parliament of Flanders (Belgium) amended legislation allowing the government of Flanders wide competences to regulate the recognition of foreign degrees. The government can now draw up regulations to declare either the level of a foreign degree equivalent to the Flemish degrees (Associate, Bachelor, Master and Doctoral Degree) or to fully recognise the foreign degree. The Original Amendment as adopted by the Parliament of the Flemish Community (in Dutch).
Level equivalency
Level equivalency refers to for example the fact that a foreign Bachelor degree is equivalent to a Flemish Bachelor degree, thus without referring to the subject or discipline. The preconditions for level equivalency are:

• A quality assurance system in line with the Standards and Guidelines for Quality Assurance in the European Higher Education Area. This quality assurance system needs to demonstrate in a verifiable way that the learning outcomes are achieved; and
• A higher education degree structure in line with that of the European Higher Education Area and integrated in a (sub)national qualifications framework. 
  This qualifications framework needs to be (1) in line with the Framework for Qualifications of the European Higher Education Area adopted at the Bergen meeting of ministers responsible for higher education in May 2005 and (2) is required to have been internationally reviewed as compatible.

The list of these self-certified qualifications frameworks is published on the former Bologna Secretariat website and on the ENIC-NARIC website. Read more...

In recent years, both the award of joint degrees and the recognition of these degrees have caused considerable discussions and difficulties. The Guidelines for Good Practice for Awarding Joint Degrees published earlier this year and the newly published Framework for Fair Recognition of Joint Degrees aims to provide more consistency and substantiation in awarding and recognising joint degrees.
The main problem addressed by the Framework for Fair Recognition of Joint Degrees was the finding that national information centres on recognition (ENIC-NARICs) dealt very differently with joint degrees and other degrees awarded for joint programmes. The same problem was found even more clearly among credential evaluators at higher education institutions.
In order to facilitate the fair and flexible recognition of joint degrees, the European Consortium for Accreditation (ECA) and ENIC-NARICs have established a long-term cooperation. One of the results of this cooperation has been the publication of Guidelines for Good Practice for Awarding Joint Degrees. That publication is aimed at higher education institutions and their joint programmes. The other side of the same coin is the Framework for Fair Recognition of Joint Degrees. This publication is aimed at credential evaluators, those who will need to recognise the joint degree or give advice on it.
About the publication
The elements that play a role when evaluating a degree (such as the status of the institutions, the awarding of the degree, the quality, etc.) are of course the same for both regular and joint degrees. The context of these elements is however quite different. This makes the recognition of joint degrees not always as straightforward as the recognition of regular degrees. The Framework for Fair Recognition of Joint Degrees presents a substantiation of the elements that might influence how credential evaluators look at an awarded joint degree. All these issues are then dealt with separately through examples. Each issue or example presents a conclusion for recognising the joint degree discussed. Download the Framework for Fair Recognition of Joint Degrees.

The 25th Annual Conference of the European Association for International Education (EAIE) will take place from 10–13 September 2013 at the bridge between continents, in Istanbul.
The 25th Annual Conference of the European Association for International Education (EAIE) will take place from 10–13 September 2013 at the bridge between continents, in Istanbul. This year's theme is 'Weaving the future of global partnerships'. Join more than 4500 higher education professionals from over 80 countries to celebrate this milestone event, expand your professional circle and explore the new developments in international higher education. The event will feature more than 240 inspiring activities and will have as keynote speakers one of Turkey’s most acclaimed female writers,Elif Shafak, and global futurist, Jack Uldrich. Register by 21 August and be part of Europe’s largest international education conference!

The JOQAR Dissemination Conference "Quality Assurance and Recognition of Joint Programmes: The Art and the Passion" took place in Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid on 20-21 June 2013. The JOQAR project is co-funded by the European Commission and is the acronym of: Joint programmes - Quality Assurance and Recognition of degrees awarded.
Today, quality assurance and recognition of joint programmes is still a major challenge. The conference provided higher education institutions, recognition authorities, quality assurance and accreditation agencies, and policy makers with the latest update on the solutions developed by the European Consortium for Accreditation (ECA) in the framework of the JOQAR project. Read more...