Universities, and higher education systems worldwide, are being transformed by new or changing practices, programs, policies, and agendas. From notions of ‘global competency’ and the ‘global engineer,’ through to ever more common perceptions that international collaborative research is a desirable objective, through to the phenomena of bibliometrics, rankings and benchmarking that work at a global scale, contexts are changing.
This course is designed to help students better understand the complex and rapidly changing nature of higher education and research in a globalizing era. A complementary objective is to experiment with the MOOC platform and assess how well it works to support international collaborative teaching and service. We decided to participate in this initiative to engage in some ‘learning while doing’ that will build on our experiences in international collaborative research, advising, and teaching, as well as Kris’ experience at UW-Madison with a relative new online course (Geography 340 – World Regions in Global Context).