Although university-level distance education often sets itself up in contradistinction to conventional educational provision, the thinking most distance educators is framed by a set of un-stated axioms that derive from the conventional system. This axiomatically framed approach to university education at a distance may well blunt the potential for…

The expansion of private sectors of higher education has usually been regarded as a factor of diversification in higher education systems. Some of this differentiation has been found to arise from the affiliation of private institutions with organizations outside the field of higher education. This article reports the results of a study of this…

In a global environment in which global, national and local nodes relate freely within common networks, all research universities must pursue strategies for building global capacity and facilitating cross-border staff and student movement and research collaboration. The study compares readings of the global environment, global and international…

The paper explores the dynamics of competition in higher education. National competition and global competition are distinct, but feed into each other. Higher education produces "positional goods" (Hirsch 1976) that provide access to social prestige and income-earning. Research universities aim to maximise their status as producers of positional…

In recent years there has been a major expansion by higher education institutions in setting up "for-profit", offshore programmes and campuses. It has been claimed that for-profit provision in a free, or unregulated market, responds to student demand and acts as a catalyst for innovation, thus fuelling arguments for a global "free market"' in…

This study focuses on the discourse of an intercontinental on-line Master's programme in adult learning, using English as the lingua franca of the programme and involving four collaborating universities in Sweden, South Africa, Canada and Australia. The programme is highly interactive, emphasising communication between students. Taking the…

The aim of this article is to shed light on some aspects of professional responsibility by investigating students' visions of future work and notions of professional responsibility. The data is based on interviews with samples of freshmen in three educational programmes at the University of Oslo in Norway. The data has been analysed in relation to…

The hypothesis that an economic recession in society leads to class equalisation in the recruitment of new students to higher education is tested, using data from Sweden. The 1990s is a period suitable for these analyses, as the recession started in 1991, reached the highest unemployment level in 1993; finally, at the end of the decade the labour…

As part of the impetus to increase and widen participation in the UK, and in Scotland in particular, there has been considerable effort put into creating links between Further Education Colleges (FECs) and Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). However, because no unique identifier is used to track students between the two sectors, little is known…

This article questions the assumption that increasing competition among higher education institutions is the best method of achieving a strong higher education sector in developing countries. It notes that there has been increasing emphasis on the importance of higher education institutions for sustainable development, particularly because of…

The "independent learner" is a key construct within discourses of educational policy and practice in the UK. Government policy statements stress the importance of developing learner independence, and higher education pedagogical practices tend to rest on the assumption that students are independent learners. This paper draws on research with…

This paper discusses how assessment practices in higher education can improve or hinder learning. An example is given to illustrate some common educational practices that may be contributing to underpreparation and underperformance of students. Elements of effective learning environments that may better address underlying metacognitive issues are…

We have completed a piece of research into the process of production of speech on the part of students as regards their idea of "the good student", taking social postmodern theories as a conceptual reference and within the university context. The study tries to show how disciplinary technologies are a major influence in the make-up of particular…

Systematic procedures for quality assurance and improvement through evaluation have been in place in Western Europe since the mid 1980s and in Germany since the mid 1990s. As studies in Europe and beyond show that multi-stage evaluation procedures as the main quality assurance instrument for evaluation of teaching and learning in higher education…

No institution of higher education in the world can make valid claims that it is immune to the effects of change and transformation. An array of trends such as the massification of higher education, widened access, response to new demands of technology, globalisation, internationalisation, increased accountability, the use of new modes of delivery…