Categories: Publications

The International Education Research Foundation (IERF) recently released the following news bulletin:

IERF is proud to announce the release of the Index of Secondary Credentials. As a handy companion to The New Country Index, it serves an important reference tool for registrars and admissions officers in the assessment and placement of international students.

This 104-page resource consists of the following:
Part I – a listing of the names of secondary credentials from nearly 200 educational systems
Part II – a collection of sample documents from 35 countries
Part III – an introductory article on O and A Level qualifications

Request your complimentary copy by emailing countryindex@ierf.org.

In addition, IERF is currently editing the second volume of the New Country Index and hopes to make it available for publication in late 2010 or early 2011.

As a reminder, the NAFSA annual conference was last week, and tons of handouts can be found online at http://acsearch.nafsa.org/KCSessions.aspx?KC=RAP . Do keep in mind that there are several sessions in the General Interest category that have wide appeal so if you like free resources, you might want to poke into all of the Knowledge Communities, not just the one linked above which is specific to Recruitment, Admissions, and Preparation (RAP).

We know you haven’t adjusted to the April revision of the Research e-book yet, but now there’s another new one, complete with an extra 20 pages’ worth of neat (and mostly free) stuff!  Also, it features our new logo, which has not previously been unveiled since the website redesign is still in progress.

To celebrate this exciting news, we are currently giving away FREE subscriptions to our new service, quarterly revisions sent to your inbox of our e-book, Researching International Education Systems and Institutions.

From now until the end of June 2010, if you send an email to info@transcript research.com with the subject line “Free Research Subscription”, you will get one year of free quarterly updates to the Research e-book.  From this point forward, there will be only one free edition annually of the Research e-book (in the summer), but subscription holders will get 4 revised editions per year for a nominal fee.

The free e-book, Researching International Education Systems and Institutions, that we attempt to update every year has just undergone a major revision. Tons of broken links and outdated web-pages have been removed while literally hundreds of new publications, (free!) e-books, websites, ministry or other government links, conference handouts, and presentations have been included.

Expect another minor revision in the next few weeks, but we wanted to get this out as soon as possible. Please let us know if you find broken links (they’ve all worked within the last 2 weeks while we furiously updated) or think other things should be added.

Enjoy!

Okay, this are still crazy here, so regular updates are not happening yet.  However, I did want to share this for those who’ve been getting questions or may in the future.  It’s Census time here in the United States, and many people are uncertain how to advise their international student community.

From the Toolkit for Reaching College and University Students

Depending on living situations, students will participate differently.

- Living on campus: If a student lives in a dormitory, residence hall, sorority or fraternity house, he or she will receive a 2010 Census form in April or May 2010. Students should complete the form and turn it in to a designated site on campus. It’s that easy.
- Living off campus: If a student lives off campus, 2010 Census forms will be delivered or mailed to his/her house or apartment in March 2010. All students living at the address are considered one household, so only one form should be completed with information about all the people living at that address. Mail the completed form in the U.S. mail envelope provided.
- Living with parents or guardians: If a student commutes to school and resides full-time at his/her parents’ or guardians’ household, the student should be accounted for on his/her parents’ or guardians’ household form.
- An international student or not a U.S. citizen: Everyone in the United States must be counted. This includes people of all ages, races, ethnic groups, citizens and noncitizens.

There you have it!  International students can and should complete the census!

We have uploaded the latest segment to our Training and Research collection, material on the nine Nile Basin countries.

This material covers credential evaluations for secondary and tertiary institutions in the nine Nile-basin countries: Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.

These materials came from a conference session presentated at NAFSA Region III in October 2009. The face-to-face session involved hands-on evaluation and group discussion of equivalenices, grading scales, and placement  recommendations.

http://www.transcriptresearch.com/overview.pdf

Inside Higher Ed posted a fascinating article earlier this week about university enrollment trends since 1970.  Their article summarizes a study done for the National Bureau of Economic Research showing how university enrollments have risen worldwide over the last four decades but have shifted away from the US.  In addition, the information emphasizes the disparity of science/engineering graduates in the US compared to the rest of the world, especially in doctoral programs.  The article also addresses China’s growth as a higher education giant, gender enrollment patterns worldwide, and some interesting insights into graduate programs in the US and the expansion of graduate education internationally.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/10/05/global#

YouTube recently unveiled “channels’ from 45 universities around Europe, the UK, and Israel to offer, “from science to Shakespeare, university social activities to Globalisation the videos cover a wide range of topics including: Understanding Shakespeare’s sonnets and Globalization & Religious Pluralism.”  YouTube EDU will and can obviously be used as marketing material for online tours and commercials, but it also has the potential to showcase classes and excite applicants.

In a similar vein, the mostly-volunteer-run International University of the People provides free, online education to those who are unable to otherwise gain higher education due to geography, poverty, or other prohibitions.  The institution is not accredited but launched last month with slightly less than 200 students from roughly 50 countries; during its ‘experimental stage,’ it is offering just two undergraduate programs: computer science and business administration.

These are just two examples of the fantastic application of technology to advance higher education and “the international exchange of people and ideas.”

http://www.utalkmarketing.com/pages/Article.aspx?ArticleID=15504&Title=Universities_turn_to_YouTube_EDU_for_knowledge_sharing_network

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2009/oct/06/online-university-no-fees