Re-considering university rankings: on-line education, internationalization and adaptability

• In Event: Education Policy and Improvement

Proposal

The changing education platform throughout 2020-2022 due to Covid-19 restrictions has created both challenges and opportunities for higher education across countries. Therefore, the paper looks at this current and fast-changing issue in terms of reconsidering quality of education.
The unexpected breakout, rise and spread of Covid-19 have acted as shock waves in different realms of activity all over the world. Almost all education institutions, both schools and universities, have been forced to adapt their operations, study programs and methods of instruction from face-to-face to on-line mode in a very short period of time.
In certain aspects, it has been even felt that the pace at which education institutions managed to switch from face-to-face to on-line style of instruction has served as an indicator of success, and hence high quality, of any specific institution. This adaptability has been perceived as a kind of quality-indicator across education institutions.
However, the changing education platform throughout 2020 due to Covid-19 restrictions has created both challenges and opportunities for higher education across countries. Therefore, this current and fast-changing issue in terms of reconsidering quality of education is also significant across regions.
On the one hand, it could be argued that introducing on-line classes across the world has created opportunities for students to join the courses at their desirable universities from different countries and from different parts of the world. The easy access to electronic resources and study materials, to video recordings of classes or to live on-line streaming of lectures has facilitated the spread of education all over the world. This fact, in itself, has opened up possibilities for students to obtain certificates, diplomas, credits, degrees and qualifications based on on-line assessments and evaluations.
On the other hand, the on-line access to education requires certain IT equipment and the availability of the internet, which is not always provided in economically disadvantaged parts of the world. This fact puts number of students at a disadvantage relative to others.
Besides, the quality of on-line instruction has become questionable, especially regarding examinations, tests and various types of assessments. This in its turn, has put the validity of credentials, degrees and diplomas under scrutiny in certain contexts. Especially, if quality is associated with global rankings, it acquires high stakes and makes on-line instruction debatable.
Therefore, while expanding internationalization through on-line instruction, universities need to consider and revisit the assessment and evaluation issues that constitute important part of quality of education. Therefore, Covid-19 adjustments have had double-sided effects on education institutions.
Moving further step ahead, the organizations and websites involved in university ranking procedures need to re-consider the criteria of assessing university standings and include the item of high on-line adaptability without losing the quality instruction before publishing further university ranking lists on-line.
Besides, looking at the language that university websites use to attract prospective students is also interesting to identify the quality and adaptability indicators that are usually implemented in this case. This has become particularly important again during the pandemic period, since the majority of students have started referring to university websites for extracting the necessary information about the standing and quality of universities.

Methodology and data collection

The methodologies implemented in the present research were qualitative analysis of questionnaires and survey results. The questionnaires were sent out on-line to administrative and academic staffs of various universities, as well as to the students of the same universities. The universities of the U.S., western and eastern Europe were most frequently approached. The questionnaires asked about the perceptions of quality of education, about the connection of quality of education with internationalization and on-line adaptability, as well as expectations and disappointments with education that certain students had regarding education programs.
Besides, the content analysis of university websites was conducted to identify the linguistic and extra-linguistic units implemented by the universities to describe the quality of academic life at their institutions and to attract the students.
Approximately 59 academic and administrative staff were approached, and about 145 students. Also, the websites of 25 universities were analysed.
The analysis of the on-line questionnaires identified the following important findings regarding the on-line adaptability, internationalisation and education quality inter-relation. The most widely named implications of internationalisation for the quality enhancement were: more decision-making power of universities; organisational decentralisation; more flexibility in modern study programs and instruction; more academic freedom; more contacts with international companies and research centers; promotion of open-market liberal economies and outsourcing internationally. Moreover, as the majority respondents, both students and staff, noted, the diversification process through internationalisation has triggered competition between the universities and has necessitated manifold quality check and re-check. This means that internationalisation process has helped the local universities to put their programs on a par with worldwide known universities and to become internationally comparable. This development has brought about the discussions about the inclusion of certain local universities in global rankings.
In addition, if we consider the pandemic period of 2020-2022, the process of on-line adaptability of universities has been closely associated with international accessibility, which could be considered a new dimension while considering the quality of education or the inclusion of universities in worldwide ranking.
If we break down the questionnaire responses according to the respondents, the following major issues emerge.
The specific examples of benefits of internationalisation as named by the top administrative and academic staff were the inclusion of their universities in global competition and university rankings, and the creation of world class programmes.
It should be noted that when asked in the questionnaires, both academic and administrative staff named four rationales for internationalisation. These were, academic (new programs, quality); business oriented (new enterprises and business start-ups); sociocultural (building bridges with the universities across the world and understanding their cultures); economic (attracting more funds).
When asked about the benefits of internationalisation, the students gave the following examples: expanding employability, becoming more entrepreneurial in terms of innovations and developing creative approach to any given issue.

Author

• Mariam Orkodashvili, Georgian American University