Virtual simulated international placements as an innovation for internationalisation in undergraduate programs: a mixed methods study.

BACKGROUND: Inherent features in virtual simulation could be utilised to deliver collaborative global education that is inclusive, accessible, and valued by students and facilitators. The aim of this study was to evaluate the impact of the International Eyecare Community (IEC) platform's virtual simulated international placements (VSIP) in optometric education. METHODS: An international, multi-center, cross-sectional mixed methods study with Deakin University, Australia, and the Elite School of Optometry, India, was used to evaluate the impact of VSIP in the IEC using pre-existing deidentified data collected from teaching and learning activities within the optometry course curriculum. Data on students and facilitators perceptions of the VSIP were collected through deidentified transcripts from focus group discussions. The data were interpreted using descriptive statistics and qualitative analysis using constant comparison for thematic analysis. RESULTS: A total of 64 out of 167 student participants completed survey responses (39%) and 46 out of 167 (28%) completed self-reflective inventories. Focus groups with 6 student participants and 6 facilitator participants were recorded and analysed. Student participants reported the IEC was relevant (98% agreement) and motivated them to apply theoretical knowledge to a clinical context (97% agreement). The themes identified through qualitative analysis were: factors inherent to the virtual simulation that enabled learning through VSIP, the VSIP supported cognitive apprenticeship, VSIP enabled clinical learning for optometric education, VSIP' role in cross-cultural professional identity development in optometry students. CONCLUSION: The study found that the VSIP platform helped to motivate students to learn and improve their clinical skills. The VSIP was considered a potential supplement to physical clinical placements and could revolutionize global optometric education by offering co-learning across cultures.

International Mobility Flows and COVID-19 Effects: Evidence from Instituto Politécnico de Bragança

Facing the difficulties and the new challenges that COVID-19 has created for Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), the future needs to analyse and reflect on this crisis. Considering the increasing value of international mobility in Portuguese HEIs in the last decades, this research aims to study the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on the flow of student and faculty mobility. Since international students, as well as teaching staff mobility, are an asset for many HEIs, this study will be applied to the Instituto Politécnico de Bragança (IPB), an institution located in the interior of Portugal where the weight of international students is quite significant. The paper provides an overview of the mobility flows between the period 2004/2005 and the 2020/2021 academic year. According to the findings obtained, the restrictions on international physical mobility are observed as the biggest challenges that occurred in IPB during the COVID-19. From the results presented, a sharp growth in international mobility flows is evident until the 2018/2019 academic year, as a consequence of the investment made by the IPB's presidency, in which one of the pillars of the institution's growth is based on the internationalisation strategy. Afterwards, in the last two academic years, there has been a sharp decline;both in terms of student mobility, on average, there was a decrease of around 26.0%, and faculty mobility, on average, there was a decrease of approximately 55%. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.

E-Learning and Cross-Border Higher Education: Post-Pandemic Potentials and Challenges

The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on higher education goes beyond campus closures and disruption in programme delivery. The crisis has indirectly allowed higher education institutions to re-examine their existing programme structure in order to be more flexible and accessible to students both locally and internationally. Such need has triggered a new interest in assessing the use of e-learning in enhancing cross-border higher education, which was traditionally restricted mainly to campusbased physical experience. This chapter discusses the challenges and potentials of implementing cross-border higher education through elearning mode in the context of post-pandemic higher education ecosystem. The transition to online learning during the pandemic as faced by higher education institutions has elevated the interest in maximizing the roles that e-learning could play in higher education. While e-learning has the potential to allow more cross-border programmes to be offered internationally via virtual mobility, issues surrounding quality assurance, infrastructure and diversity remain critical to be addressed. Higher education institutions should not emphasize solely on penetrating new markets without taking measures to deal with the issues mentioned. On the whole, this chapter would serve as a good reference to relevant stakeholders in uncovering the hidden potentials of e-learning in crossborder higher education and evaluating its challenges. © 2022 by Nova Science Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved.

How (Im)Mobile Are Coworkers in Mid-Sized Cities? Comparing the Spatial Mobility Trajectories of Coworking Communities in Lille, Lyon and Rouen

This paper studies the spatial mobility of around a thousand coworkers of three, mid-sized French cities to better understand coworking spaces. Our analysis, based on online available data on coworkers’ career and education trajectories, and confirmed by selected interviews with the founder, managers and users of the three coworking spaces, reveals a community with purposefully reduced mobility. We provide insights into how coworking spaces, by pooling a diversity of local resources, foster dynamism and allow a reduced spatial mobility option for a less kinetic elite of highly educated workers. Coworking spaces allow coworkers to develop entrepreneurial capabilities whilst striking a balance with their private life. The studied coworking community collectively achieves its goals, with individuals engaging in little international mobility and an overall reduced spatial mobility.Alternate :Ce papier étudie la mobilité spatiale d’environ mille coworkers de trois villes moyennes françaises. Notre analyse révèle que la communauté de travail ainsi constituée se caractérise par une mobilité délibérément réduite. Plus précisément, nos résultats montrent que les espaces de coworking étudiés regroupent une large diversité de ressources locales qui rend possible une mobilité spatiale limitée notamment à l’international. Les espaces de coworking permettent à des coworkers globalement hautement instruits non seulement de développer leurs capacités entrepreneuriales mais également de trouver un équilibre entre vie professionnelle et vie privée.Alternate :Este documento estudia la movilidad espacial alreador de mil coworkers en tres ciudades medianas francesas para conocer mejor los espacios de coworking. Nuestro análisis revela una comunidad con una movilidad deliberadamente reducida. Ofrecemos perspectivas sobre como los espacios de coworking, aunando differentes recursos locales, promueven dinamismo y permiten una opción de movilidad reducida para une élite menos cinética de trabajadores de alto nivel de educación. Los espacios de coworking permeten que los coworkers fomenten habilidades empresariales et consigan un equilibrio con la necessidades de la vida privada. La comunidad estudiada obtiene colectivamente sus objetivos, y los individuos ejercen una limitada movilidad internacional y una reducida movilidad espacial en general.

The disturbance of urban mobility in the context of COVID-19 pandemic.

Since the COVID-19 outbreaks, extensive studies have focused on mobility changes to demonstrate the pandemic effect; some studies identified remarkable mobility declines and revealed a negative relationship between mobility and the number of COVID-19 cases. However, counter-arguments have been raised, exemplifying insignificant variations, recuperated travel frequency, and transitory decline effect. This paper copes with this contentious issue, analyzing time series mobility data in comprehensive timelines. The assessment of the pandemic effect builds on significant change rate (SCR) ceilings and the density of the semantic outliers derived from the kernel-based approach. The comparison between pre- and post-pandemic periods indicated that mobility decline pervaded Australia, Europe, New York, New Zealand, and Seoul. However, the degree of the effect was alleviated over time, showing decreased/increased SCR ceilings of negative/positive outliers. The changes in resulting outlier density and SCR ceilings corroborated that the pandemic outbreaks did not lead to persistent mobility decline. The findings provide useful insights for predicting epidemics and setting appropriate restrictions and transportation systems in urban areas.

Agriculture, Development and Sustainability in the Covid-19 Era

Domestic and international mobility restrictions helped to reduce the numbers of confirmed Covid-19 cases until the end of 2021. Indonesia entered 2022 with caution, however, as Omicron cases began to rise. Recent success in managing the pandemic has coincided with what might be the start of an economic recovery, in no small part driven by high commodity prices—mainly for coal and palm oil—improving the fiscal and trade balances. The new tax harmonisation law is intended to lower the fiscal deficit to less than 3% of GDP by 2023, and a carbon tax will be implemented in April 2022—starting with a cap-and-tax scheme for coal power plants, before more sectors are included. Agriculture has played a key role in helping Indonesia to weather the pandemic, with the sector’s growth supporting employment and food consumption during the crisis. A resurgence in the palm oil price, together with rising agricultural wages and a narrowing of the labour productivity gap, has helped the agriculture sector lead the recovery, but concerns remain over the sector’s environmental footprint. Against recent food and environmental policy commitments, a renewed focus on increasing on-farm yields is a critical area for policy. We conclude with some reflections on the national palm oil replanting program and how better benefits might be delivered for smallholders and the environment.

Modeling international mobility using roaming cell phone traces during COVID-19 pandemic.

Most of the studies related to human mobility are focused on intra-country mobility. However, there are many scenarios (e.g., spreading diseases, migration) in which timely data on international commuters are vital. Mobile phones represent a unique opportunity to monitor international mobility flows in a timely manner and with proper spatial aggregation. This work proposes using roaming data generated by mobile phones to model incoming and outgoing international mobility. We use the gravity and radiation models to capture mobility flows before and during the introduction of non-pharmaceutical interventions. However, traditional models have some limitations: for instance, mobility restrictions are not explicitly captured and may play a crucial role. To overtake such limitations, we propose the COVID Gravity Model (CGM), namely an extension of the traditional gravity model that is tailored for the pandemic scenario. This proposed approach overtakes, in terms of accuracy, the traditional models by 126.9% for incoming mobility and by 63.9% when modeling outgoing mobility flows.

Functions of digital learning within the international mobility programme - perspectives of university students and staff from Europe.

This paper is based on research studies conducted in the academic community of students and staff members (teachers, researchers and administrative staff) from 16 European universities that focus on digital learning in international mobility. The context of our qualitative study is digital learning during an international mobility scheme when university staff and students do not go abroad for their mobility programme but take courses offered by a partner university from home. By taking the perspectives of both of these academic groups, we aimed to arrive at a clearer understanding of how the digital environment supports digital learning within mobility, ascertain the functions of digital learning and describe the opportunities and challenges that are presented to students engaged in international mobility. Empirical data was gathered using questionnaires and focus group interviews. This study puts forward the assertion that distinctive features of learning in a digital environment within international mobility are systems thinking, self-directed learning and focus on course content. Digital learning environments support motivation to learn, and independence in gaining knowledge. In international digital learning, the online courses of which are characterized by their innovative pedagogical and assessment practices, students and staff become more autonomous in their learning, and more willing to open up to meeting the challenges encountered in various educational settings. Digital learning in the context of mobility means giving meaning to one's own activity in a digital environment and extension of the course content, meaning oral expression such as discussing and interacting with teachers and peers.

International travel in times of the COVID-19 pandemic: The case of German school breaks.

The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered severe global restrictions on international travel with the intention of limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2 across countries. This paper studies the causal effect of the partial relaxation of these travel restrictions in Europe on the COVID-19 incidence in Germany during the summer months of 2020. It exploits the staggered start of the summer school breaks across German states as an exogenous shock to the travel opportunities of the population. While the school breaks also increased mobility within Germany, the event-study type regressions precisely control for domestic mobility and local COVID-19-related restrictions. The intention-to-treat effects of the relaxed travel restrictions show a significant and sizable increase of the COVID-19 incidence in German counties during the later weeks of the school breaks. Part of the increase can be attributed to a mandatory testing regime for travel returnees from high-incidence areas.