Internationalising Higher Education

The Global Studio is a teaching, learning and research initiative that links design students, academics and industry partners across the globe. University partners have included Hong-ik University, Korea; Auburn University, USA; Ohio State University, USA; and RMIT, Australia. Industry collaborators have included Motorola (design studios based in London and Seoul); Great Southern Wood (USA), Medical Inverness (UK); and Intel (USA). The aim is to provide students with experience in operating in cross-disciplinary, cross-institutional, cross-cultural and geographically distributed design teams in order to develop skills in intercultural communication. Projects undertaken over the past four years will be discussed to explore complexities associated with developing and sustaining international collaborative partnerships. This poster will address topics and questions such as the following: What IT resources are needed to facilitate communication and data exchange between participating international educational and business organisations without compromising the security of the partners' IT infrastructure? What organisational challenges are associated with the delivery of the Global Studio? Who should be responsible for the overall co-ordination of projects that are distributed across a number of institutions? What skills do student and academic staff require in order to participate in an international project such as this?