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Over 130 experts on university rankings and representatives and academic community from 32 countries met in Warsaw 16-17 May 2013 at the IREG Forum on University Rankings – Methodologies under scrutiny. The conference was organized by the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence and the Perspektywy Education Foundation in cooperation with the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Opening the Forum Jan Sadlak, President of IREG Observatory pointed out to the usefulness of university ranking as information, assessment and transparency tool. In the keynote speech Michal Kleiber, President of the Polish Academy of Sciences stressed the importance of good data and quality information both for rankings and for the higher education. Forum’s sessions were chaired by: Andrea Bonaccorsi (Italy), Waldemar Siwinski (Poland), Nian Cai Liu (China), Klaus Huefner (Germany) and Alex Usher (Canada).
The underlining philosophy of the Forum in Warsaw was that rankings can be only as good as the methodologies behind them are. Consequently both presentations and discussions focused on various aspects of methodologies used in making of rankings. The timing for discussion on this feature of ranking was perfectly chosen considering a number of important new initiatives emerging in the ranking field like U-Multirank in Europe (presented by Gero Federkeil) or Folha's University Ranking in Brasil (presented by Sabine Righetti). Another specific feature of the IREG Forum was special session with panelists representing institutions from several countries with different higher education systems. The panelists Sergey Tunik (Saint Petersburg University), Stanislaw Kistryn (Jagiellonian University), Lars Uhlin (Lund University), Mukash Burkitbayev (Al-Farabi University), Mircea Dumitru (University of Bucaresti) and Ladislav Nagy (University Babes-Bolyai) commented rankings as they are seen from the university’s perspective. The organizers introduced this session to give voice to those who are subject of rankings but rarely have a chance say what they think about the rankings, how they asses rankings’ positive and negative sides.
An active role in the Forum program played a group representing Polish universities, including Marcin Palys, Rector of University of the Warsaw and Wladyslaw Wieczorek, Vice Rector of the Warsaw University of Technology. The two Warsaw universities also hosted the Conference Dinner. The Frederic Chopin Institute was Forum's partner. Elsevier BV publishing house was the sponsor of the IREG Forum. Over the past three years IREG Observatory has worked on the idea of ranking audit and at the Forum the first ranking audit results were announced. Two rankings, national and international, Perspektywy University Ranking (Poland) and the QS World University Rankings were granted the right to use the quality certificate “IREG Approved”. Jan Sadlak, IREG President and Klaus Huefner, IREG Audit Coordinator handed the certificates to Ben Sowter of the QS Inteligence Unit and Waldemar Siwinski, President of the Perspektywy Education Foundation.
IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence is an association of ranking organizations, universities and other organizations, interested in the improvement of the quality of rankings and quality of higher education in general. IREG Observatory was established in 2009. The number of its members have grown from nine to 34 since then and new applications are pending. The IREG Observatory and QS Intelligence Unit invite to the IREG-7 Conference Employability and Academic Rankings – Reflections and Impacts, to be held in London, 14-15 May 2014. Additional information: k.bilanow@ireg-observatory.org.

Ernst & Young in collaboration with experts from the Institute for Emerging Market Studies (IEMS) at the Moscow School of Management SKOLKOVO have issued new research on Africa’s economic growth.
This research report analyses the main factors driving Africa’s success such as government initiatives to reduce inflation, budget deficits and debt levels.  Interestingly, Africa’s population will be 20% of the world population in 2050 with a median age of 20 and moreover a genuine middle class is emerging.   Another powerful indicator is that the economic presence of the BRICs is expected to be 50% of African trade by 2030 and it is no secret that Africa has great reserves of natural resources. Nigeria, Angola, South Africa, Ghana, Tanzania, Zambia and Republic of Congo are in the global top 20 of oil, gold or copper producers. Read more...

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.
MOOCs create the opportunity for vast numbers of people across the world to access learning through quality courses, content and lecturers that most would never have access to. For many people, further and higher education can seem overwhelming or beyond them. MOOCs open a world of opportunity for people in remote areas and developing countries as well as people with aspirations to achieve more with their lives. MOOCs are changing the traditional nature of education mainly being for the affluent and elite to being free and accessible to virtually everybody.
The growth of MOOCs is phenomenal. During the three months from mid-October to mid-January, including the quiet period for learning and development over Christmas-New Year, one major player, Coursera, continued to grow at the rate of 6,900 new participants (Courserians) PER DAY. Anything that grows at such a rate cannot be ignored and Coursera is just one of an increasing number of MOOC providers bringing together a diverse and expanding range of open online courses.
MOOCs started as a form of collaborative online learning with people interacting and learning from each other and being exposed to different perspectives, views and ideas. Over the past year, MOOCs have started to move to the mainstream and increasingly resembling more traditional courses, especially as a significant number of MOOCs are shorter versions of many traditional courses, and often delivered by highly qualified professors and academics whose research and academic expertise underpins the course on a MOOC.
Some of the MOOCs, such as EdX, continually research their courses to better understand how participants learn and explore ways of using the technology to transform and further enhance the learning and online experience for the participants. Read more...

We hope that you will join us in Hong Kong to find out more about EFMD accreditation and the many benefits the accreditation process can bring to your school. The EQUIS & EPAS Accreditation Seminars will be hosted by the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Faculty of Business, on Thursday 4th July 2013 and Friday 5th July 2013.
Accreditation from EFMD is one of the best and most complete ways to certify the actual quality of a business school as accreditation involves an extensive self-assessment by the school, the visit of an international review team who spend several days interviewing many different people in the School, and finally a very experienced jury evaluating the assessment and findings of the review team to determine whether the School should be granted accreditation. There are currently no substitutes for such an in-depth assessment of quality.
Currently there are 140 EQUIS accredited schools and 81 EPAS accredited programmes at 61 business schools around the world.The Seminars are targeted at institutions considering applying for EQUIS or EPAS accreditation, those holding active eligibility or accredited Schools wishing to get a better understanding about the systems. They are relevant for Deans and Directors, Associate Deans, Directors of major programmes, Directors of External Relations and Accreditation Officers. EQUIS and EPAS Peer Reviewers are also encouraged to attend in order to receive an update on recent process developments within the EFMD accreditations. Find out more about EQUIS, EPAS and EDAF. Read more...

EFMD has recently signed a strategic partnership with CVTRUST. The aim of CVTRUST is to increase trust where it is becoming ever more valuable: in academic and education credentials. Smart Diploma™ (patent pending) is a highly secure, easy to use solution to grant thousands of academic credentials in just a few clicks: diplomas, certificates, attestation letters, transcripts, badges, etc.
The purpose is to make life easier for academic institutions and education bodies as well as their graduates and alumni by creating a digital academic passport to store and showcase credentials. Graduates from universities, business schools and training centers can now collect certified credentials in this centralized space, for life. Indeed, in a world where continuous education is becoming the norm, Smart Diploma™ is the digital passport allowing people to control and show off all their credentials for any job opportunity.
Discover what the Financial Times is saying about Smart Diploma. Read more...

Following the recent integration of ESMU into EFMD we are pleased to share an invitation to attend the Heads of University Management & Administrative Network in Europe (HUMANE) 2013 Annual Conference that will be hosted by the Università per Stranieri di Perugia, Italy on the 14-15 June 2013. This historic setting will be a beautiful backdrop to a very dynamic conference on the theme of - International Students: Challenge and Change!
With speakers from DAAD, the University of Amsterdam, i-Graduate, the University of Nottingham and our hosts, this subject will be explored form different angles. We are proud to announce the leading presentations from:
    * Internationalisation in Higher Education: Rationales, Drivers, Stakeholders
      Nina Lemmens, Director for Internationalisation and Communication, German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) (DE)
    * How to Attract and Retain International Students
      Nannette Ripmeester, Director of Client Services Europe, i-Graduate Europe (NL)
    * Social media strategies for Universities: engaging students on the web
      Donatella Padua, Adjunct Professor of Sociology, University for Foreigners of Perugia (IT)
    * Branding the intellectual hub in Europe
      Yasha Lange, Head of Corporate Communication and Spokesman of the Executive Board, University of Amsterdam (NL)
    * Three memos for this millennium
      Roberto Fedi, Professor of Italian Literature and Dean, University for Foreigners of Perugia (IT)
    * The case of Nottingham (tbc)
      Paul Greatrix, Registrar, University of Nottingham (UK). Read more...
See also on the blog: Successful Universities, The social dimension in European higher education, Next HUMANE Seminar: Edinburgh 22-23 September 2011.

Bula!
Fiji is famous for its sandy white beaches, blue waters, palm trees, sunshine and smiling faces. But behind the island beauty lies a much uglier reality. Since Commodore Frank Bainimarama seized power of the South Pacific nation in 2006, the regime has systematically stripped workers of their wages and conditions. Now, over 60 per cent of Fijian wage earners are living below the poverty line, hotel workers earn less than $3 an hour, and workers vocal in opposition to the regime have been threatened and assaulted. We can support the people of Fiji get their island paradise back.
Take action and tell our government - and Frank Bainimarama - that we won’t stand for human rights being abused. The Fijian regime relies on our tourist dollars so it needs to know we’re watching – and we need to tell our government to take action.
Show your support for the people of Fiji by joining the campaign today.
Almost 700,000 people visited Fiji in 2011 – almost three-quarters of those visits were for a holiday. If you're thinking of a holiday to Fiji, make sure you know the facts about the real situation before booking your ticket. And send a message to the Fiji regime that your visit to their country is not an endorsement of the brutal crackdown on workers' rights.

By Jeannie Rea. The NTEU Analysis of the 2013-14 Federal Budget, prepared by National Policy and Research Coordinator Paul Kniest, is now available for download: NTEU Analysis of 2013 Federal Budget.
This analysis clearly demonstrates that:
* Over the four year forward estimate period, the Government will pocket about $900 million in change from cutting higher education to fund school education. Yes this is the same amount as being cut from university grants as the ‘efficiency dividend’.
* The efficiency dividend includes $7 million less in funding for Indigenous Support, Disability Support and Participation and Partnership funding.
* The impact of the efficiency dividend on the real level of CGS funding per government supported student places (CSP) is:
          o A significant and ongoing write-down in funding of some $340 per student, and
          o Reduction in real direct Commonwealth funding of some $160 per student.
*  The significance of the cut in real funding of $160 per student is made even starker when we recognise that the Bradley and Base Funding Reviews both recommended increases in the order of 10% per student.
*  Claims made by the Government that university funding per student will increase from approximately $18,000 per student in 2014 to $18,100 per student in 2017 can only be true if the real contribution made by students through HECS increases by about $260. That is, the Government is relying on the indexation of student contributions to offset the real reduction in its own contribution.
This will not result in a Smarter Nation. The Government’s own reviews showed that all levels of education are in need of additional public funding – not real cuts in funding.
Please utilise this analysis to continue to campaign against the dumb cuts: www.dumbcuts.org.au.
Regards, Jeannie Rea, NTEU National President.

By Phil Hill. Yesterday, 58 faculty members from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard wrote an open letter to the dean requesting faculty oversight of HarvardX. When schools sign up for edX, their implementations tend to be called SchoolX, thus HarvardX specifically refers to their usage of the MOOC platform, not to the overall edX organization. This distinction is important, given Harvard’s founding role in creating the edX organization and $30m pledge of support.
The letter is short, so I’ll quote it in full (the signatures are much longer than the letter itself). Read more...

By D’Arcy Norman. David Wiley nicely wraps up MOOCs, and why they’re important even if much of the hype is just marketing drivel spouted by elite institutions:
    For a complex tangle of political reasons, “the people in power” are currently paying a tremendous amount of attention to issues relating to access to education, and the role of the cost of education in regulating that access. MOOCs have popularized and significantly advanced the conversation regarding both universal and free. The general public is beginning to believe that technology may have the near-term potential to provide a genuine solution to the problem of making education both universal and free. We can take advantage of the space MOOCs have created in the public conversation to introduce and advance the idea of truly open educational resources to people who are unfamiliar with it.
    The comparison I made above between MOOCs and learning objects was a carefully chosen one. I believe that MOOCs will run – are already running – up against the reusability paradox. I believe people will eventually come to realize the pedagogical restrictions that are inseparably connected with the copyright and Terms of Use restrictions of MOOCs. As with the learning object mania of yesteryear, diehards will stick around but the rest of the world will move on as the experiment fails. If we message correctly before that happens, we can create a general understanding that much of what is frustrating about MOOCs to faculty, students, and others would be solved by the simple application of an open license (the same way an open license can resolve the reusability paradox). Read more...