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Internationalisation of the Curriculum Procedures

Please note that these procedures have not yet been revised or converted to the new format .

Prelude

The Internationalisation of the Curriculum Subcommittee of Education Committee will be responsible on behalf of Education Committee for drafting the policies, procedures and guidelines for internationalisation of curricula at Monash, including monitoring and evaluation strategies related to the process.

These procedures will be considered and approved by Education Committee and reported to Academic Board for noting.

Faculties, through Associate Deans Teaching (undergraduate, postgraduate and research courses), will develop approaches that are appropriate to internationalising the curricula in their own fields or disciplines.
Faculties will review their courses to ensure adherence to the policies as part of the normal course review processes, and regularly revise and report on their courses in keeping with guidelines for international and culturally inclusive curricula.
The University, through the Centre for Higher Education Quality, will develop an evaluation framework and evaluation guidelines which will be implemented by faculties to monitor the progress and impact of curriculum internationalisation.
The University will ensure that staff are aware of the University’s policies in these areas through the standard induction process. Faculties will ensure that that their staff are assisted to support and enhance the development of international and intercultural perspectives, understandings and skills amongst students, through appropriate academic professional development activities and opportunities
Faculties will ensure that all courses approved for initial and continuing accreditation include the principles and relevant guidelines for international and culturally inclusive curricula and mechanisms for their implementation.
Where possible, the University’s central support services (e.g. CeLTS, the Library and Information Technology Services) will provide Faculties with expertise where required to support course development and to create a suitable learning environment for the internationalisation process.
These policies, procedures and guidelines for internationalising the curriculum will be reflected in the operational plans of each faculty (under Learning and Teaching) and progress will be monitored according to relevant Key Performance Indicators.

Guidelines

Faculties and course teams should regularly review their program structures and designs to assess how well they match their particular purposes and goals for internationalisation and cultural inclusiveness. Course teams should as a matter of course, include offshore teaching staff in such reviews, to ensure they are drawing upon Monash’s own staff resources in respect of internationalisation. As a starting point, the OECD Typology for Internationalised Curricula 1994 in Appendix A outlines the major types and exemplary characteristics of each.

The variety of ways in which internationalisation and cultural inclusiveness can be incorporated into courses means that there can be no one set of guidelines that will be appropriate for all programs. Rather, faculties and course teams should be able to demonstrate that international and intercultural perspectives are appropriately integrated and infused into the programs for which they are responsible.

1. Guidelines for Monitoring, Reviewing and Revising Course Goals and Unit Objectives

Faculties and course teams should review and revise course goals and unit objectives to ensure that, where appropriate, graduate outcomes include the development of understandings and skills that enable students to perform competently in a global environment. This capacity will also include an awareness of other cultures and perspectives, as well as an awareness of their own culture and its perspectives.

Following are some examples of appropriate types of outcome statements that can be adapted to specific courses and units.

Identify the major demographic, economic, political and institutional trends that provide the context for international/intercultural relations in their field of study or professional practice;
Demonstrate specific knowledge of similarities and differences among cultures in regard to intellectual work and professional practices and obligations in their field;
Locate and use international content related to professional and academic tasks;
Identify ethical issues that may arise in their personal and professional lives in international and/or intercultural contexts; and
Obtain feedback from graduates (and their employers) working in international/intercultural settings regarding the extent to which the skills they developed in the program meet the needs of their workplaces and circumstances.

2. Guidelines for Monitoring, Reviewing and Revising Course and Unit Content

Faculties and course teams should review course and unit content descriptions to ensure that, where appropriate, they reflect diverse local and international perspectives on economic, political, environmental and social issues of global significance. This will enable students to understand the implications of cultural difference and diversity for academic and/or professional work within their specialisations. Following are some examples of appropriate types of content descriptions that can be adapted to specific courses and units.

Unit content should, where appropriate:

Include explicit references to both international and local subject matters, avoiding monolithic and stereotypical descriptions;
Address issues such as social justice, equity, human rights and related economic, social and global environmental issues;
Include examples and case studies from other countries and from culturally and linguistically diverse groups; many of these can be usefully contributed by staff on off-shore campuses;
Include information on academic and professional practices in other cultures;
Includes a reassessment of the currency of the national and international content in courses; and
Be culturally sensitive and accessible to a wide spectrum of learners and teachers; this applies to on campus programs as well as online learning programs.

3. Guidelines for Monitoring, Reviewing and Revising Learning and Teaching Strategies

Faculties and course teams should review and revise learning and teaching strategies to ensure that they are culturally inclusive, support diverse modes of learning and engage local students with international students. Wherever appropriate, experiential learning should be encouraged and facilitated through extension activities involving collaborative arrangements within the University or with external local and international partners. Following are some examples of appropriate learning and teaching strategies that can be adapted to the requirements of specific courses and units.

For example, learning and teaching approaches could, where appropriate:

Be designed, wherever possible, with staff and students’ participation and avoiding negative or potentially offensive cultural stereotypes and assumptions;
Seek to secure the participation of all staff and students - local, indigenous and international - and encourage all staff and students to know and listen to each other;
Include problem-solving exercises in international or intercultural contexts;
Provide opportunities for experiential learning such as ‘language partnerships’ which pair local and international students to help each other learn the other’s language and culture; local volunteer work in intercultural environments and in culturally diverse welfare agencies and institutions; and
Include inquiry-based assignments involving contact and communication (face-to-face or electronically mediated) with people from different cultural backgrounds and/or located in other countries.

4. Guidelines for Monitoring, Reviewing and Revising Instructional Materials, Media and Resources

Faculties and course teams should review and revise instructional materials, media and resources to ensure that they have diverse authorship and cultural origin and, where appropriate, optimise the development of global perspectives. Following are some examples of appropriate types of instructional materials, media and resources that can be selected to meet the requirements of specific courses and units.

Instructional materials, media and resources could, where appropriate:

Promote diverse cultural and international perspectives;
Challenge accepted orthodoxies and dominant cultural constructions (eg. Eurocentric histories);
Include material in languages other than English where appropriate;
Be reviewed before adoption to identify and eliminate cultural stereotypes and biases; and
Relate to international professional best practice standards where they have been developed.

5. Guidelines for Monitoring, Reviewing and Revising Assessment Strategies

Faculties and course teams should review and revise assessment strategies to ensure that they measure the skills and understandings associated with global and intercultural perspectives. Such assessment strategies will use a variety of formats, setting tasks at an appropriate level to enable all students to demonstrate their competence in these areas. Following are some examples of appropriate types of assessment strategies that can be adapted to meet the requirements of specific courses and units.

Assessment strategies could, where appropriate:

Ensure that the requirements of assessment tasks are clear and unambiguous for students of different backgrounds and in different locations;
Address learning outcomes specific to those aspects of the curriculum that are internationalised;
Be reviewed to identify cultural biases and adjusted if necessary to minimise such biases;
Include timely and appropriate written or oral feedback which includes both formative and summative elements;
Ensure frequent feedback to students in the early stage of their course of study; and
Include explicit and supported pedagogy to clarify use and reporting of sources and understanding of academic integrity.

6. Guidelines for Using University Support to Assist Implementation of Internationalisation of the Curriculum Policy

Where necessary, faculties and course teams should collaborate with other appropriate groups and divisions to assist staff to develop and review their curriculum for a broad range of students including those from culturally different backgrounds.

Strategies for collaboration/assistance could, for example:

Be planned and organised in a systematic way to ensure maximum impact on programs and benefit for faculty staff;
Include provision of University-wide and faculty-based workshops and courses;
Allow for partnerships in Internationalisation of the Curriculum projects and research;
Focus on curricula, pedagogies and assessment;
Open up opportunities for offshore staff and student input. International student groups should be regularly consulted about their learning at the University, and on approaches (course content, pedagogy and assessment) that may assist them. Student representation on relevant curriculum committees should include international students and offshore staff; the latter may require negotiation of faculty/department meeting times to ensure video/teleconferencing participation is possible;
Encourage faculty academic staff to consult with library support services and learning and teaching support such as that offered by CeLTS in the development and delivery of units and courses;
Include pre-departure induction for staff teaching on all campuses;
Include debriefing of staff returning from other campuses to build organisational knowledge and improve pre-departure induction;
Ensure staff inter-country exchanges are encouraged;
Include benchmarking of internationalisation of the curriculum against other universities;
Include reward mechanisms for staff excelling in the provision of an international focus in their curriculum, teaching and assessment; and
Encourage visiting national and international scholars to facilitate and enhance the quality of the internationalising process.

Scope

Policies will be established at the University level and will be administered through Education Committee and Academic Board. Implementation will occur on a Faculty wide basis through education committees in each faculty. Associate Deans (Teaching) will be responsible for ensuring that policies and procedures are adhered to. Courses will be audited and good practice highlighted to facilitate compliance.

Deans have overall responsibility for internationalising the curriculum in their faculties. Associate Deans (Teaching) and the faculty representatives on the Management and Reference Groups of the Internationalisation of the Curriculum Subcommittee of Education Committee are expected to play a major leadership role in their faculties. The Subcommittee Management Group will oversee and monitor the introduction of policies to each of the faculties.

Definitions

Culture: used to mean the accumulation of knowledge, values and practices within society, and encompasses race, class, ethnicity, gender and sexual preference.

Governing Documents

Monash University Act 1958

Responsibilities for Implementation

Faculty-wide – Deans, Associate Deans (Teaching)
University-wide – Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education), Director, Learning and Teaching
See Appendix A for more detail on implementation process

Date Effective

Implementation is expected throughout new course development, for new course delivery at offshore sites and in a gradual and progressive manner through course revision for local and offshore programs. The process should commence in Semester 2, 2005.

Approval

Education Committee 1/2005, 16 February 2005

Change to "Responsibilities for Implementation" made by Education Committee Meeting 6/2005, 26 October 2005.

Review

These procedures will be considered for review concurrently with any review of the Internationalisation of the Curriculum Policy.

Acknowledgement

The Internationalisation of the Curriculum Subcommittee of Education Committee wishes to acknowledge the generous support of Deakin University in providing its own policy documentation which helped inform the Monash policy development.