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Many universities international activities have increased enormously in volume, scope, and complexity in recent years (Altbach & Knight, 2007; Altbach, 2015) with education providers seeking more innovative ways to provide education across boundaries. Joint doctoral degrees are one example of such an initiative, focusing on international collaboration between institutions. Joint doctorates can provide richer and more rewarding learning experiences for PhD students, supervisors and collaborating institutions. However, all the parties involved also need to be aware of the potential challenges and considerations that underpin effective outcomes, as well as the key differences between joint degree doctorates and doctorates with more traditional approaches. It has been pointed out that the literature on joint degree programmes is ‘thin’ providing limited information for institutional leaders (and other parties involved in their setting up and conduct) who may be contemplating joint degree initiatives (Michael & Balraj, 2003). This chapter draws on a unique case study of a joint doctoral programme that operates across continents and academic cultures to illustrate the challenges and considerations that should be borne in mind prior to entering into joint doctoral arrangements. Various ways in which the associated challenges may be overcome are also suggested in order to support effective outcomes for all the parties involved.

In the UK, the vast majority of university students specialise and study just one subject at bachelor degree level, commonly known in the UK as a single honours degree. However, nearly all British universities will permit students if they wish to study two or even three subjects, so-called joint or combined honours degrees, internationally known as a double major. The purpose of this paper is to explore whether the study of a joint rather than a single honours degree had an impact on employment outcomes six months after graduation.

The authors analysed the complete data set provided from the Higher Education Statistics Agency Destination of Leavers from the Higher Education survey. The data were analysed to establish whether there was a difference in the highly skilled graduate employability of the joint honours students. The authors established whether there were any differences inherent in completing a joint honours degree in a post-1992 higher education institution, by nation within the UK or within a Russell Group higher education institution.

The authors found an approximately consistent 3 per cent point negative gap nationally in the highly skilled employment rates of joint compared with single honours graduates. This gap was at its lowest in the highly selective Russell Group universities (−1.52 per cent points) and highest in post-1992, vocationally oriented universities (−7.13 per cent points) and in Northern Ireland universities (−12.45 per cent points). Joint honours graduates of Scottish universities fared well, with a +3.09 per cent point advantage over the national average for joint honours. The authors found that universities that had a higher proportion of joint honours graduates generally had a lower employability gap between their joint and single honours graduates.

This study focussed on joint honours degrees in the UK where the two or three principal subjects fall into different JACS subject areas, i.e. the two or three subjects are necessarily diverse rather than academically cognate. Future work will consider the class of joint honours degrees where the principal subjects lie within the same JACS subject area, i.e. they may be closer academically, although still taught by different academic teams. This grouping will include, for example, pairs of foreign languages, some social sciences pairings such as politics and sociology, and pairings such as history and theology from the historical and philosophical subject area.

The potential disbenefits of studying for a joint honours degree are apparent in this study. Joint honours students may face organisational, academic and cultural challenges that require a positive, conscious and sustained effort to overcome, on both the part of the student and the higher education institution. In particular for graduates of the post-1992 universities, it appears that there is a negative relative impact on highly skilled employment. This impact is lessened if the university is Scottish (four-year degrees with in-built breadth of study) or where the proportion completing joint honours degrees is relatively high.

In the UK, the majority of university students specialise and study just one subject at bachelor degree level, commonly known in the UK as a single honours degree. However, nearly all British universities will permit students if they wish to study two or even three subjects, so-called joint or combined honours degrees, internationally known as a double major. The purpose of this paper is to explore the relationship between graduate employment, pre-university educational attainment and degree classification achieved. The study also explored student choice with respect to university prestige.

The authors analysed the complete data set provided from the Higher Education Statistics Agency Destination of Leavers from the Higher Education survey, and combined this with data from the POLAR4 quintiles, Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) tariff points and degree classification. The data were analysed to establish whether there was a difference in the choices and highly skilled graduate employment of the joint honours students, focussing particularly on Russell Group and Post-92 Universities, in order to build on previous published work.

For any UCAS tariff band, the higher the POLAR4 quintile the higher the rate of highly skilled destination. Russell Group outperform the Post-92 graduates in their rates of highly skilled destinations, for any tariff band and for both joint and single honours degrees. Higher POLAR4 quintile graduates are more likely to study at the Russell Group, with this effect increasing the higher the UCAS tariff. With the exception of first class honours graduates from Post-92 universities, joint and single honours from the Russell Group have a higher rate of highly skilled destination than Post-92 in the next higher degree classification.

Low POLAR4 quintile students with high UCAS tariffs are “under-matching” and there is an impact on their graduate employment as a result.

This study adds new insights into joint honours degrees and also reinforces the literature around educational advantage and achievement prior to university, and the impact on graduate employment. Educational disadvantage persists over the course of a university degree education, from the perspective of gaining graduate employment. Higher quintile graduates are proportionately more likely to achieve the highest degree classifications, and proportionately less likely to achieve the lowest classifications, than graduates from the lower quintiles. Joint honours graduates are less likely to achieve a first class honours degree than single honours, and this will affect their rate of highly skilled destination.

Library-related and resource access issues confronting students enrolled in an interinstitutional joint master’s degree program in public health are addressed in this chapter. It details a cross-institutional collaborative effort to identify and provide research resources to interinstitutional joint degree students and faculty and analyzes the program through the lens of literature on collaboration in higher education and in library instruction. Reports on findings from qualitative feedback and quantitative card sort analysis data were gathered to inform development of content for, and organization of, a library research guide. Bureaucratic structures and policies often affect library services to students and faculty in interinstitutional joint degree programs. Therefore, more salient information about library policies, services, and resources was needed in order for the affected libraries to coordinate instruction, collections, and services to best support such programs. One of the limitations of the case study was that limited qualitative and quantitative feedback was received. Also there was no prior formal needs assessment. Nevertheless, the chapter provides insight to challenges facing libraries and librarians supporting interinstitutional joint degree programs. It also points to administrative opportunities to create rich library collaborations. Existing literature does not adequately address obstacles of in-person interinstitutional joint degree programs. The contribution of this chapter is that it identifies the complications of access, library policies, and administrative procedure that will need to be address by two or more libraries that want to support joint degree programs at the college or university level.

Today higher education in the USA is faced with rising enrollment demands. As a means of efficiently and creatively meeting graduate education needs, universities are collaborating on doctoral programs. In California, although the sole authority for granting doctorates in the public sector belongs to the University of California (UC), joint doctoral programs may be developed between UC and the California State University (CSU), and between CSU and independent private universities. Currently there are 16 joint doctoral programs in existence in California. Development and implementation of these joint programs frequently involve lengthy, complex collaborations between universities. In order to gain an understanding of the challenges and factors that influence universities’ collaborations on joint doctoral programs, a study was conducted in spring 2000 using interviews with 14 university leaders. The article discusses several critical issues and factors that were found to influence effective collaborative planning and implementation of joint doctoral programs.

This paper aims to introduce a new design concept for robotic manipulator driven by the special two degrees of freedom (DOF) joints. Joint as a basic but essential component of the robotic manipulator is analysed emphatically.

The proposed robotic manipulator consists of several two-DOF joints and a rotary joint. Each of the two-DOF joints consists of a cylinder pairs driven by two DC motors and a universal joint (U-joint). Both kinematics of the robotic manipulator and the two-DOF joint are analysed. The influence to output ability of the joint in terms of the scale effect of the inclined plane is analysed in ADAMS simulation software. The contrast between the general and the proposed two-DOF joint is also studied. Finally, a physical prototype of the two-DOF joint is developed for experiments.

The kinematic analysis indicates that the joint can achieve omnidirectional deflection motion at a range of ±50° and the robotic manipulator can reach a similar workspace in comparison to the general robotic manipulator. Based on the kinematic analysis, two special motion modes are proposed to endow the two-DOF joint with better motion capabilities. The contrast simulation results between the general and the proposed two-DOF joints suggest that the proposed joint can perform better in the output ability. The experimental results verify the kinematic analysis and motion ability of the proposed two-DOF joint.

A new design concept of a robotic manipulator has been presented and verified. The complete kinematic analysis of a special two-DOF joint and a seven-DOF robotic manipulator have been resolved and verified. Compared with the general two-DOF joint, the proposed two-DOF joint can perform better in output ability.

Through a case study of a recently established but rapidly growing research-intensive university in China, this study explores how transnational joint doctoral programs are strategically instrumentalized to overcome policy restrictions on postgraduate degree accreditation. It utilizes the cumulative (dis)advantage theory as the analytical lens. This study investigates the innovative, bottom-up initiation of transnational higher education tailored to the development goals of the university and this region, thus providing an alternative perspective for the dominant top-down discourse on transnational higher education research in China.

This study employs a qualitative case study design that incorporates semi-structured interviews and document analysis to investigate the examined university’s joint doctoral programs.

The study examines how, through its transnational joint doctoral programs, the case university actively accumulated the advantages of recruiting excellent research students, cultivating the public’s confidence and deepening international collaboration. These advantages created a virtuous circle, which further reinforced each other and accelerated the university’s development. The disadvantages include power disparities between the case university and its partners, students’ study discontinuity because of temporal and spatial division and the challenges of co-supervision. Accordingly, the university implemented counterstrategies such as adopting a differentiated stance with varying partners, offering flexible administrative and management supports and aligning differently with various supervisors’ collaboration styles.

This study presents innovative institutional strategies in the Greater Bay Area of China to pursue rapid development and internationalization through transnational higher education programs. It also strives to illuminate the significant role of transnational higher education in facilitating experimental governance with Chinese characteristics.

This paper aim to argue for Cambodia to take internationalization of higher education seriously and strategically to position it for higher education development, and this starts with enhancing its buy-in among the key stakeholders, fine-tuning its conceptualization and contextualization and a government-funded comprehensive policy and investment program.

This paper explores policies and practices of internationalization in Cambodia, using Knight's (2004, 2007) conceptualization of internationalization and Wan's (2018) list of six dimensions, by which the authors track and measure internationalization.

Systematic policy implementation to position internationalization to achieve national and institutional goals is little. Given utilitarianism of internationalization, policy statement has geared more toward employing internationalization to achieve institutional building, in order of significance: mobility, research collaboration, policy formulation and quality control, and much less on networking and aligning with international instruments. Subtle differences among the four universities under investigation exist. While all focus on student and faculty mobility and exchange, some aim at research collaboration and networks; some at indigenous “international” and language programs, and some at joint degree programs. But, internationalization is not a key priority nor is it strategically positioned to achieve institutional aspirations.

Without comprehensive, strategic policy guidance and implementation from the government, internationalization has taken its own course, and such is not healthy for higher education development.

There are few studies on internationalization in Cambodia. Clayton and Yuok (1997), Clayton (2002) and Pit and Ford (2004) examine politics or its politicization and higher education development after the end of the Eastern Bloc's support (Tek and Leng, 2017). Recent studies (Leng, 2015; Leng, 2016; Yun, 2014) underline institutional case studies to illustrate status, issues and challenges in internationalization. This article attempts to provide an overarching map of internationalization to inform policies and practices toward higher education and national development.

Transnational learning has become a mainstream issue in recent years due to the rise of global education. There are many kinds of overseas learning, including degree-seeking, joint/double degree, student exchange, internship, service learning and so on. The scope of learning may involve research, teaching/learning and community service. The purpose of the case study is to investigate how the Taiwanese students participating in an international internship project of the US–Taiwan Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) acquire professional knowledge and soft skills, including cross-cultural awareness, interdisciplinary communication, skill development and social networking. It also explores how a joint research project contributes into a collaborative educational program.

To better understand participants' experiences in the PRIE, this study held three focus groups and seven in-depth interviews on the students, faculty members and project managers for data collection.

Three major findings are shown in the study. First, participants agreed that the overall learning experiences in knowledge acquisition or skill development have been positive. Second, participants obviously expressed their greater interests in intercultural interaction with the locals, which did not happen quite often during the internship. Third, the extent of interest in applying for the PIRE deg ree program after the internship program is escalating year by year.

More investigation into participants’ social and cultural engagement in similar project will be needed for future research.

The results will be implicated into other cross-border education project evaluation.

This study manages to investigate the cross-border research initiative from different participants' perspectives and received comprehensive feedbacks.