International Higher Education, Fall 2004

International Student Mobility: Project Atlas

Adria Gallup-Black
Adria Gallup-Black is director of research and evaluation for the Institute of International Education. E-mail: agallup-black@iie.org.

At the turn of the millennium, all trends pointed toward increasing international student mobility with no sign of declines. However, the data that supported these trends could not adequately address the transnational movements behind them. While UNESCO collected and disseminated international student data annually, transnational comparisons were problematic because countries differ in their choice of data definitions and time frames; most of the data were obtained only from state-run institutions.

This was an example of what Todd M. Davis, former senior scholar at the Institute of International Education (IIE), called a “lack of global vision” about student mobility, stemming from the absence of “a global source of baseline data that [enabled] us to see this emerging global higher education space as more than just the sum of its national host country parts.” Underscoring this scenario was the absence of a consensus, among the private and public entities charged with the collection and dissemination of international student data, about how that global vision could be conceptualized and defined.

The Atlas of Student Mobility
In 2003, the IIE, in partnership with the British Council and IDP Education Australia and with generous support from the Ford Foundation, produced The Atlas of Student Mobility, by Todd M. Davis (IIE Books, 2003). The Atlas was a first attempt at pulling together various sources of international student data from the perspective of the 21 main destination countries and 75 leading home countries, using publicly available data from the year 2000.

The Atlas was disseminated widely among NGOs, universities, and scholars. In response, several country representatives noted that the student numbers listed for their countries were incorrect, while acknowledging that the problem was due to the data upon which the creators of the Atlas had to rely. In this way, the publication served as a wake-up call and a reminder to those responsible for data collection that researchers and other important stakeholders were paying attention.

Ideally, this would serve as an incentive to improve the quality and timeliness of the data, but this would only be a first step. To truly facilitate a global analysis of student flows, countries would need to think collectively about how their data were collected and presented. This would require a collaborative approach, because transnational data would need to reflect common classifications and definitions.

Global Consensus Building
Approximately six months after the release of the Atlas, parties responsible for the publication initiated such collaboration, by hosting the first Project Atlas conference in France. Participants included policymakers who offered a broader perspective on the use of data for planning and development and individuals with hands-on experience in the intricacies of data collection. Over a short but very productive period of two and a half days, the group worked out agreements about several definitions and constructs. The following paragraphs explain some of the agreed-upon definitions.

International students. Should the definition be based on citizenship or some government-authorized mechanism for entering a country, such as visa status? Or, should this be based on where the student received his or her last qualification or degree? The group decided that the definition should fit different national contexts but at the same time concluded that the most useful and globally relevant definition should focus on “nonimmigrant, nonpermanent resident” status.

International study. Should this be defined based on whether a degree or qualification is issued? What about duration? Due to the rise in short-term courses (e.g., less than an American semester), it was agreed that data might be gathered to reflect differences in duration patterns: less than eight weeks, eight weeks to six months, more than six months. In addition, the group agreed that both full-time and part-time study be counted and that the course of study need not lead to a qualification or degree.

Who should be counted, and when. Should the definition be limited to incoming students only? Or should the “snapshot” approach be followed? The group agreed that both counts would be valuable, if feasible, but that the latter was the most commonly employed and should be maintained. In addition, there was strong consensus that the head count, rather than a full-time equivalent or fee-paying status, serve as the criteria.

International study in different contexts. For example, what about higher educational institutions operating internationally? These could include U.S. universities with their own campuses in Europe, privately owned institutions recruiting internationally, public-private partnerships (for example, U.K. and Australian universities operating with local partners in Singapore and Malaysia and recruiting international students to those countries), and institutions operating across national borders and sometimes with multinational public-sector ownership. Here, the group agreed to keep to its original definition of an international student: a person who physically moves from his or her place of residence for the purposes of study, regardless of the “ownership” of that place of study.

Next Steps
Apart from a series of tangible outcomes of the conference—for example, a document outlining the various decisions about definitions and plans to expand participation and update the data via a website to be launched in late 2004—there was one less tangible but important outcome: the message that no single organization “owns” Project Atlas, that everyone has a vested interest in its success and that it is the product of a collaborative effort with many avenues for contribution. More than anything else, this message was foremost in the building of a collective enterprise of data collection and dissemination, vital for the development of a global understanding of international student mobility.

(Note: the Atlas of Student Mobility may be purchased through IIE Books for U.S.$49; see http://www.iiebooks.org).