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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the Wiki and its influence on the anxiety produced during cross-cultural web-based collaborative learning sessions.

In total, 49 high school students participated in transnational collaborative learning and engaged in a one-month Google Wiki activity. A transnational collaborative learning anxiety inventory was used to measure the anxiety of the participants, which included the dimensions of social anxiety, foreign language anxiety, and computer anxiety. In addition, platform usage records were compiled using Google Wiki user records and participation process checklists. Relative data derived from these two items were compared with the questionnaire data.

The results indicated that participants who had experience with Wiki transnational collaborative learning exhibited significantly reduced SA and FLA. Participation process and user records revealed that embedding videos; responding to content created by others; proofreading and editing the content of others; updating layouts; underlining text, changing the font, and color coding; and increasing the number of edits reduced FLA. The number of times edits and responses were produced was correlated with decreases in SA.

The causes and effects of transnational collaborative learning have concurrently received attention. However, studies on Wiks and their impact on the anxiety produced during cross-cultural Web-based collaborative learning are limited. Therefore, Google Wiki was used in this study as the medium through which the effects of Wiki participation on anxiety resulting from transnational collaborative learning were explored.

This paper reports on a preliminary investigation into the instructional preferences of students from Confucian‐heritage backgrounds studying in a transnational Master of Business Administration (MBA) program of an Australian university. This is part of a long‐term undertaking to ensure that teaching and learning arrangements in the MBA program are improved. The teaching and learning environment of the program is characterised by an intensive teaching regime which utilises a mixed mode of face‐to‐face and online delivery which promotes independent and collaborative learning. The aim of the investigation was to provide lecturers with an understanding of the students’ instructional preferences so that, where possible and appropriate, they can better assist the students to meet the learning objectives of the MBA program. Questionnaire data was collected from students studying the MBA in English (EMBA) in both Hong Kong and Singapore, as well as students studying the MBA in Chinese (CMBA) in Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan. The findings demonstrate that whilst students ranked teacher‐directed, face‐to‐face instructional delivery highly, some students also indicated that an independent, online learning environment had advantages even though it was their least‐preferred approach to learning. These findings provide lecturers with insights into their students as learners and this is particularly useful in terms of informing planning processes for how to best assist students to work productively and successfully in the face‐to‐face and online teaching and learning environment.

This chapter offers an original conceptualization of co-mentoring – situated in the wider literature – together with evidence of its impact and factors facilitating impact across applications of co-mentoring in transnational schooling contexts. Co-mentoring is an alternative to more traditional, hierarchical, and unidirectional approaches to mentoring in education. Extending the extant literature on collaborative mentoring (or “comentoring”), co-mentoring is a collaborative, compassionate, and developmental relationship – informed by specific approaches to mentoring and coaching – that is intended to support participants' professional learning, development, effectiveness, and well-being, and potentially improve their workplace cultures. Detailing three different applications of co-mentoring across the United Kingdom and United States, the chapter evidences the realization of these intended outcomes (professional learning, etc.), and highlights factors found to be instrumental in facilitating the positive impacts of co-mentoring. We end with recommendations for undertaking research and practice that build human and organizational capacity through co-mentoring. A takeaway is that intentional approaches to co-mentoring can have value for participating parties and broader impact, as well as wide applicability.

Education to an international standard that can provide successful careers has arguably been the main drive of many parents to allocate scarce financial resources to the education of their progenies. Competition for high-calibre degrees has seen an explosion of opportunity in the private education sector. As many Global South countries do not have the equivalent control of standards provided in the United Kingdom (UK) by the Quality Assurance Agency, this can lead to dissatisfaction with the qualifications received in the Global South. This chapter aims to explore the factors influencing participation in higher education in the Global North versus the Global South, particularly where these relate to or vary by locality, and the relative influence these have on the propensity of the learners living in these areas to progress into higher education in local universities. The conceptual framework and methodology provided in this chapter show the differences between transnational education (TNE) as primarily a standalone or independent activity supported by a UK higher education institution (HEI)/provider versus being a collaborative effort between a UK host university and a South/Southeast Asian HEI university partner. The methodology provides a strategy for UK host institutions to best provide carefully aligned independent or collaborative partnerships with the partner country regulatory bodies. The chapter concludes with the author’s personal reflections and recommendations based on decades of collaborative and independent university provision of TNE. These reflections are focused on design-based courses in selected South/Southeast Asian HEI partnerships with the College of Architecture and Design at Birmingham City University.

Aim of the present monograph is the economic analysis of the role of MNEs regarding globalisation and digital economy and in parallel there is a reference and examination of some legal aspects concerning MNEs, cyberspace and e‐commerce as the means of expression of the digital economy. The whole effort of the author is focused on the examination of various aspects of MNEs and their impact upon globalisation and vice versa and how and if we are moving towards a global digital economy.

The primary research question in this study concerns the establishment of a platform for intercultural collaborative lesson study, which promotes reciprocal dialogue between culturally distinctive educational research groups. Therefore, this study aims to introduce a case of intercultural collaborative lesson study projects between Hiroshima University and Leipzig University and to illustrate the issues in intercultural collaborative lesson study.

This study reconstructed the sequence of the project as a case under the narrative structure. Data were retrieved from a collaborative project between Hiroshima University and Leipzig University, which corresponds to the theoretical framework, as they represent a clear cultural contrast. The description of the project is reconstructed and reduced into a linear storyline of procedure.

This study identifies three key issues: (1) sharing data and culture, (2) visualising methodology and process, and (3) responding to research questions and answers.

This platform does require one cultural group neither throwing their own norms away nor creating an utterly new paradigm beyond their own cultures. It is a place “between” original places that enables groups to capture their own culture and another culture, which does not compel to change but effectively allows reflection and changing themselves.

Although several transcultural reports find that one cultural asset is imported and exported, the arena of bi-directional intercultural dialogue remains undeveloped. The collaborative project between Hiroshima and Leipzig is then introduced and examined to overcome the current problems in transnational lesson study.

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.

Transnational arrangements between different types of higher education institutions provide an interesting example of partnership working, being business arrangements with learning as a core organising principle. Successful partnerships both learn and work together and can become mutually transformative, sources of growth for the individuals and institutions involved. Individual projects early in the lifecycle of a partnership can support this development, enabling both organisations to take responsibility for relationship building and the demonstration of trust. This approach has the advantage that it takes the focus away from the home/away dichotomy often apparent in discussions of transnational partnership working and instead attention turns to the development of a new hybrid organisation, a ‘third space’ characterised by reciprocity, commitment, effective communication, competence and trust.

This chapter provides a case study analysis of a learning and teaching programme which provided the opportunity for a partnership between a London-based university and a private provider in Sri Lanka to have transformational potential. It uses multiple sources of data to identify practical characteristics associated with developing a culture of transformative partnership working which includes the experiences of the ‘boundary spanner’ responsible for its development and leadership.

The purpose of this paper is to examine an Iranian mathematics lesson through the eyes of Japanese educators, and the critiques of Iranian teachers for raising the quality of teaching. In this paper, the Japanese lesson study process is considered as an approach to raising the quality of teaching.

Qualitative methods including pre-lesson planning, peer observation of the lesson, post-lesson discussion, and semi-structured interviews with the participants of the post-lesson discussion meetings in Iran and Japan were employed for data collection. A detailed description and analysis of the lesson is provided for deep understanding of students’ mathematical communication in the class and teachers’ points of view in the post-lesson discussions about raising the quality of teaching.

The findings are intended to clarify the significant influence that cross-cultural analysis has exerted on raising the quality of teaching and developing a culture of transnational learning that supports teachers to design appropriate learning tasks, to conceptualize mathematical phenomena, and to provide mathematical communication which encourage students to participate more in classroom activities.

This study provides a transnational learning opportunity for Iranian teachers to learn from Japanese educators how to deliver evidence-based analysis of a lesson for raising the quality of teaching in practice, look culturally and differently at what actually goes on in the classroom, and localize lesson study as a global approach to the “science of improvement.” However, issues to be considered in future studies include how such “small changes” can be linked together in local communities to expand the improvement from bottom up, and how to facilitate collaboration with the global community to expand transnational learning.

Traditionally in Iran, there are a variety of teacher training programs but there are no examples of lesson study like those that take place in Japan as a model of practitioner inquiry for raising quality of teaching. Hence, it can be said that Japanese lesson study may provide a new approach of transnational learning in the Iranian education context for building a “science of improvement.”

In the case of Iran, especially at the elementary school level, teachers do not have enough preparation or experience. Therefore, raising the quality of teaching through lesson study that has an actual impact on teacher and teaching quality and developing a “science of improvement” has become a pressing concern in national and international contexts.

The case study shows that the transfer of the Japanese model of lesson study plays a significant role in harnessing the potential of students and teachers as well as teachers themselves by improving teaching. Efforts by teachers to communicate and learn from each other’s strengths, in fact lead to the realizing of the students potential and thinking process. In particular, it helps supply more open-end and in-depth task learning, which anticipates student thinking, understanding, recognizing and questioning.

The purpose of this paper is to explore graduate students’ perception of how soft skills are developed at a transnational university in Vietnam, and how these soft skills contribute to their perceived employability.

This study utilized a qualitative case study method. In depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with 24 graduate students at Vietnamese–German University.

Findings suggest that faculty utilized classroom-based practices to provide students the opportunity to enhance soft skills that are perceived to contribute to employability, such as skills related to independent work, interpersonal relationships and the ability to work in global contexts. In addition, interacting with international faculty played a large part in providing students the opportunity to develop their independent skills, critical thinking, communication and cultural competence.

Implications include multiple approaches, including faculty training, curriculum development and learner preparation. Institutions must consider how their curriculum contributes to the development of soft skills and how international faculty are prepared to engage meaningfully with students, particularly within specific global and political contexts. In addition, graduate students must also be prepared to engage in a classroom that promotes group work, class presentations and independent work.

This study provides insight on how a transnational institution can foster soft skills for employability in graduate students in Vietnam. Considering the growth of collaborative transnational institutions in Vietnam and Southeast Asia, findings and implications from this study provide recommendations on how to better prepare graduates for employability within a global economy.