APEC Education Mobility Data Collection Survey

The "APEC Education Mobility Data Collection Survey" was announced at the meeting in Chin. I was not able to find any more detail, but Richardson (2014) provided a Discussion Paper on "Promoting Regional Education Services Integration: APEC University Associations" at a Cross-Border Education Cooperation Workshop in May 2014.

The obvious way to provide students with access to education in other countries is by distance education with on-line courses via the Internet.  Richardson (2014) discusses Distance Education, Open Educational Resources (OER), Coursera and edX Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). However, the free and low cost online courses have been seen as a second class form of education and this has been further confused with the advent of free and low cost MOOCs. At the the 2014 IEEE International Conference on Computer Science and Education (ICCSE 2014) in Vancouver a few mo ths ago I preed a paper on "Chinese and Australian Students Learning to Work Together Online - Proposal to Expand the New Colombo Plan to the Online Environment". I was surprised this was not enthusiastically received by my Chinese colleagues, but this may be because of the perception that high quality courses have to be face-to-face.

In support of APEC’s student mobility target, the United States, with support from Australia, launched the first phase of a five-year project, APEC Education Mobility Data Collection Survey and Report, in July 2014.  For each member economy, the survey responses will be compiled into economy-level reports that will 1) identify key stakeholders in international education mobility, 2) document domestic data collection methodologies and indicators, and 3) show current trends in in-bound and out-bound education mobility.  Furthermore, the information collected will be used to establish a baseline of APEC economies’ currenthttp://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2014/11/11/fact-sheet-fulfilling-leaders-instructions-quality-higher-education education data collection efforts, which could then inform potential capacity building efforts to support APEC economies in tracking mobility.  Many economies have national data collection organizations, but the data collection process currently varies widely from economy to economy in terms of methodology, frequency of data collection, key definitions, and scope.  By aligning regional data collection methodologies and practices, APEC members can utilize that foundation to identify gaps in student mobility and opportunities to further promote regional educational exchanges in the lead up to 2020.  From "Fulfilling Leaders’ Instructions on Quality in Higher Education", The White House, USA,

November 11, 2014