International Franchising the story of a relationship

1
International Franchising the story of a
relationship

• Mike Holcombe
• Department of Computer Science
• University of Sheffield
• http//www.dcs.shef.ac.uk/wmlh

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Background

• The growth of franchising and validation in the
  1990s provided a number of challenges for
  universities
• Initially, there was no framework or little
  previous experience to inform the process
• Mistakes were undoubtedly made and many lessons
  learnt

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Franchising or validating?

• Roughly speaking a franchise involves the partner
  delivering an existing course at the partners
  site
• Validation involves the partner developing their
  own course to the approval of the validating
  institute.
• Whichever of these routes is taken and there
  are many variants - determines the relationship

4
Sheffields experience

• Initially we made a number of visits to see
  potential partners
• These visits involved senior academics and
  administrators
• It was felt that decisions about unsuitable
  partners needed to be made early
• But how should we decide?

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Criteria

• Staff quality we had to be convinced that the
  staff were sufficiently well qualified to deliver
  a high quality course
• The learning environment had to be appropriate
• The strategic vision of the partner had to fit
  comfortably with ours
• A shared intellectual culture needed to be
  possible

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Subjects

• Several colleges and universities from around the
  world approached the University to discuss
  possible relationships
• Popular subject areas were
• Business and management
• Computer science
• Education
• Engineering
• Medicine

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Approach

• Teams were assembled to visit and explore options
• No formal criteria or methodology were imposed
• Shared memberships and the evolution of
  specialist administrators in this area provided
  some consistence and quality control
• Board of Collegiate studies set up similar
  status to a faculty

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Events

• Teams visited potential partners
• Talked to junior as well as senior staff
• Met with current students
• The focus was on the people in the college rather
  than on detailed curriculum design
• Many of the things we were looking for were
  rather intangible but critical
• Relationships with staff, extent of shared
  visions, approaches to learning and scholarship,
  relationships between staff and students .

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Initial experiences

• My first visit a college in Greece was a
  disaster
• On the surface things looked reasonable
• Staff were well qualified
• Facilities were good
• Sensible curriculum discussed
• Successful recruitment history

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But..

• The relationship between students and staff was
  deeply flawed when we scratched the surface
• There was no research culture
• It was primarily a business activity
• We could not ground a common educational
  philosophy
• We said NO and left

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Another try

• Another college in the same city 6 months later
• A very different picture
• Staff all research active with good PhDs
• Students enthusiastic
• Open and supportive learning environment
• Learning rather than training
• Business backers were not excessively
  profit-oriented

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City College, Thessaloniki

• Computer science
• Management
• Undergraduate degrees
• MSc degrees
• Everything taught and examined in English
• Rigorous selection and progression criteria

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Beginnings

• MSc degree initially franchised but soon became
  a validated degree.
• Good test bed advanced teaching could the
  college deliver at this level?
• Soon became apparent that the needs of the Greek
  educational market and industry was different to
  the UK
• College developed modules to meet this

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Validation

• We moved quickly to a validation relationship
• Undergraduate programs were set up
• They were significantly different to ours but
  within our expertise
• The curriculum design, quality processes adopted
  by the college staff were excellent
• Giving them responsibility and trusting them
  worked
• Fundamentally this was because they were good
  our equals intellectually and we gave them
  flexibility we did not prescribe

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Monitoring

• We did review everything carefully
• Appointed highly qualified external examiners
  of equal status to our own
• Appointed moderators from Sheffield
• Maintained a research dialogue with their staff
• Always met with their students whenever we visited

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Processes

• They developed a wide variety of processes for
• Quality assurance
• Promotion and staff development
• Curriculum development
• We did not impose our processes but they often
  adapted ours
• They were often better than we were
• especially at quality

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Assessment

• They set exam papers we moderated them before
  they were sent to externals
• We sat in project vivas (MSc, 3rd year)
• We ran exam boards
• They were tough not afraid to fail students
• The graduates were of a high standard many went
  on to do PhDs, MScs at top UK and US universities
• Industry was very keen to recruit the graduates

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Other activities

• We joined staff promotion panels
• We collaborated with their curriculum development
  and strategic planning
• We helped them to develop a research library
  subscribing to the important journals
• Expansion into the Balkans
• Students recruited from Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia
  etc.
• Many of these were of outstanding quality
• Students Union established and excellent
  facilities all round

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Further expansion

• Turkey, FYROM, and even India and China!
• City College, Thessaloniki has established itself
  as a university with an international reputation
• The British Council offered its extensive library
  to a Greek University there was a bidding
  process and the university with the best proposal
  for its use was awarded this major resource.
• City won competing against the big state
  universities!

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Accreditation

• The degrees have been accredited fully by BCS
• QAA assessments have been outstanding a unique
  enterprise
• The Greek governments failure to accept the
  single market laws on university qualifications
  made BCS accreditation an important factor in
  success

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Current numbers

• Current enrolment is 700
• 250 University of Sheffield graduates per year
• Computer Science
• Business studies and management
• Psychology
• BSc, MSc, MBA degrees
• Full degree congregations are held regularly in
  Greece

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Other Sheffield validations

• Malaysia (medical school), engineering college,
  Northern Consortium
• Caribbean MEd programmes
• Holland economics
• Portugal information studies
• Singapore and Hong Kong control engineering
  etc.

None of these have lasted except Thessaloniki
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The research dimension

• After a few years I asked them to take some PhD
  students
• I wanted to build research partnerships between
  staff at the 2 institutions
• Funded by fee waivers 2 in CS, 2 in Management
• Excellent students were recruited
• Joint supervision with Sheffield academics

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Teething problems

• Mostly caused by funding
• Fees were covered but students had to work
• Some found it too much
• A more focused approach was needed
• The University had to engage centrally to develop
  a mutually beneficial solution

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The South East European Research Centre (SEERC)

• was founded jointly by the University of
  Sheffield, UK and CITY Liberal Studies, Greece as
  a way of establishing a truly international
  research centre addressing the broad range of
  economic, political, social and cultural
  challenges facing an enlarged and enlarging
  Europe.

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SEERC

• Joint research centre set up
• Equal representation
• Funding from both institutions
• Independent from both
• SEERC to be the focus of the colleges research
  activities

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Research at SEERC

• addresses four broad areas of societal concern
• Business and Economics
• Information Technology
• Political and Social Sciences
• Media and Culture

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Progress

• Since its establishment in 2003, SEERC has
  managed to consolidate its structures and to put
  in place procedures administrative and
  strategic- for the planning of its research
  activities, which include
• The Doctoral Programme
• Research
• Networking
• Publications

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Activities

• 35 currently registered for PhDs
• Several international and national research
  grants
• Strong programme of research training
• Regular organisation of international conferences
  throughout the Balkans (SEEFM04, 06 - South East
  European Formal Methods conference
  Theassaloniki and Macedonia)

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Research Clusters

• Within the Information Technology Research Track,
  the following Research Clusters are currently
  active
• Intelligent Systems Research Cluster
• Software Engineering Research Cluster
• Information Knowledge Management Research
  Cluster

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Research Expertise

• Formal Methods Formal Specification Languages,
  Model Checking, Testing and Verification of
  Software Systems
• Artificial Intelligence Multi-Agent Systems,
  Biologically Inspired Computing, Parallel Logic
  Programming, Constraint Logic Programming, Neural
  Networks 
• Software Engineering Agile Methodologies,
  Object-Oriented Technologies, Web Services,
  Semantic Web Technologies

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Expertise continued

• Information Systems Analysis Design and
  Management of IS, Geographical Information
  Systems (GIS), Societal Effects, IT Policy
  Related Issues
• Educational Informatics Virtual Learning
  Environments, Multiple Teaching Strategies,
  Networked and Ambient Learning, Learning
  Management Systems (LMS)

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Some current projects

• EPOS e-Procurement Optimised System for the
  Healthcare Marketplace (eTen)
• FUSION Business Process FUSION based on
  Semantically-enabled Service-Oriented Business
  Applications (FP6)
• MIRIAD Managing and Infusing Research Investment
  and Development (FP6/Regions of Knowledge)
• Infusing Knowledge into South East European
  SMEs Establishing a Platform for Developing
  Business Alliances, Supply Chains and SME
  Research Community Interaction funded by the
  British and Foreign Commonwealth Office.

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Projects continued

• Embedding ICT/Multimedia Standardisation
  Initiatives into European Vocational Training
  Development Strategies, funded by DG Education
  and Training, Leonardo Da Vinci Programme.
• Regional Correspondent of the Socio-economic
  Survey programme of the International Labour
  Office for Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Croatia,
  Cyprus Kosovo, FYROM, Romania, Serbia and
  Slovenia. (2004).
• Ambient Learning Ambient, multimodal and
  context-sensitive lifelong learning (FP6 eTen)

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Some thoughts about this success

• Why have most validation agreements lapsed?
• The specification of the Sheffield Graduate
• makes it clear that they are educated in a
  research led learning environment by active and
  leading researchers
• Only City met this need
• We now work together on a much stronger basis of
  equality although greatly differing in size and
  wealth our philosophies align well

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Further thoughts

• We collaborate in both teaching and learning
• The things that have made this possible are
  rather rare
• Validation should not just be a money making
  activity

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Franchising

• We are entering some franchising agreements
• Mostly for feeder routes eg. Northern
  Consortium or specific Sheffield-based
  activities Kaplan
• These can have a role also but are clearly
  limited in scope and are essentially foundation
  routes aimed at students intending to study their
  full degree at Sheffield or City

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Conclusions

• We are now much more realistic about the benefits
  and perils of collaborative provision
• To ensure quality is both delivered and seen to
  be delivered it is necessary to collaborative
  with the right institutions
• It may not become a high profile part of the
  Universitys activities
• But is can add considerable value to all parties.

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Acknowledgements

• Tom Rhodes Registrar for Collaborative Studies
  and his colleagues (especially Phil Healy)
• Paul Marshall formerly of Sheffield University
  Management School
• Jiannis Ververidis (City)
• Pete Ketekidis ..
• Petros Kefalas .
• George Eleftherakis and many more

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