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Globalisation has placed a growing importance on English language speaking and listening. Prior research indicates that many international students from Asia, studying in Australia, face serious learning difficulties and lack confidence in speaking and taking a proactive role in classrooms. The paper reports on data gathered in interviews with students from five Asian nations, which suggest that these learning difficulties are grounded in weaknesses in students' prior learning experiences--focused on grammar and reading skills in teacher-centred classrooms, not conversational skills--and in beliefs about language learning instilled during schooling. The paper proposes strategies for overcoming these problems.

This study sought academic staff and students' views of electronic exams (e-exams) system and the benefits and challenges of e-exams in general. The respondents provided useful feedback for future adoption of e-exams at an Australian university and elsewhere too. The key findings show that students and academic staff are optimistic about the future adoption of e-exams if the e-exams system is sufficiently improved. They are fully aware of the benefits the technology could offer in supporting learning and education in general and see e-exams as an innovation for learning and teaching in higher education.

Internationalisation of Australian higher education was initially characterised as growth in the number of international students. While the economic benefits brought by this student cohort and the challenges associated with teaching them are well noted in the literature, their academic contributions are hardly acknowledged. Using a qualitative research approach, the paper explores the extent to which international students facilitate the internationalisation of the curriculum and the intercultural learning of domestic students. Interviews with academic staff in one university in Australia indicated that international students brought a diversity of cultures that inspired teachers in their teaching. While academic staff members positively value these potentials, they argued that domestic students remained neglectful and unaware of the changing cultural environment. It was a challenge for staff to get domestic students to utilise the cultural resources represented by the students. Some implications were discussed concerning ways in which the process of internationalisation can be progressed in a more effective way.

"International student security" refers to the international student's maintenance of a stable capacity for self-determining human agency. The article focuses on the role of English-language proficiency in the security of students from English as Foreign Language countries, drawing on evidence from a program of semistructured interviews with 200 international students. The interviews show that language proficiency is a pervasive factor in the human security of the international students in all domains inside and outside the classroom. There is a strong link between language proficiency and the capacity for active human agency. Both findings confirm prior research literature. The article concludes with implications for practice and for further research. (Contains 1 table.)

While extensive discussion has been devoted to internationalising the curriculum in a response to the presence of international students, little is known about how academic staff members perceive the presence of this student cohort. Using data collected through semi-structured interviews with 80 academic staff from four different faculties in one higher education institution, this study investigates staff understanding regarding international students, with particular attention given to how disciplinary differences shape their responses. Findings indicate that staff from "soft" and "hard" disciplines hold different instructional beliefs, which then affect their teaching and learning practice. Discussions are provided on how these differing conceptions of teaching fit into the context of academic development with respect to international education. (Contains 4 tables.)

While the economic benefits created by international education export are well documented, few systematic and qualitative analysis studies have been conducted to examine how academic staff perceive the presence of international students in their institutions. Using interview data from 80 academic staff from different disciplines in one higher institution in Australia, this study examines whether the presence of international students has an impact on staff teaching practice. Some of the academic staff reported that they made no adjustments to their teaching. They treated all students as one student group. Other staff members said that there have been changes in their teaching in response to the presence of international students in their classroom. The paper discusses some of the underlying causes of these responses, and implications for the practice of international education. The discussion of the findings is informed by Bennett's Developmental Model of Intercultural Sensitivity, which helps us understand how people respond to cultural differences.

International education has generated complex problems of governance. As well as being beneficiaries of educational services and consumers of a product, international students are also migrants, workers and beings with civil rights. Arguably, the regulation of international student security as consumer protection fails to recognize this full range of human rights. The research consisted of 70 semi-structured interviews with international students at two institutions in New Zealand, which has devised a unique consumer protection regime embodied in the New Zealand Code of Practice for the Pastoral Care of International Students. Student problems in relation to language difficulties, finances, accommodation, personal safety and freedom from discrimination, and social integration are discussed. The study finds that support services do not fully cater for the needs of international students nor accord them the full range of potential rights. The Code covers some but not all aspects of student security; and the fact that international students know little about the Code constrains its efficacy as a regulatory framework.

The omission of international students from the Australian Vice-Chancellor's Committee (AVCC) 2007 national study on student finances is indicative of a pattern of exclusion. The exclusion is unacceptable from a humane perspective and feeds the belief that Australians perceive international students primarily as "cash cows". This study partially compensates by drawing on information derived from indepth interviews with 200 international students across nine Australian universities. The data cast light on the sources and adequacy of international student income and how these students cope with the financial risks of living and studying in a foreign land. It is revealed that significant numbers of international students experience serious financial difficulties. Thus, we argue that government regulators and university managers should put into practice their affirmed belief that Australian university students should be treated in a consistent and caring manner. Further, we suggest the AVCC should immediately commission a study to examine the financial circumstances of Australian university international students. (Contains 6 tables.)

Student security is a composite social practice that includes the domains of consumer rights, entitlement to a range of welfare supports and pastoral care, and freedom from exploitation and discrimination. Three traditions shape the systems used for managing and regulating international student security in the nations that export education: pastoral care, consumer protection and quasi-citizenship. Each has different implications for the positioning of students as agents. This study used semi-structured interviews with 70 international students from nine countries in two contrasting universities. It investigated the provision of international student security, including the distinctive New Zealand regime of security, regulated by the National Code of Practice for the Pastoral Care of International Students. This Code binds provider institutions and the International Education Appeal Authority, and permits Code-based claims by students from providers. The study found that international students in New Zealand have varying expectations of student security, which draws eclectically from all three traditions. There are gaps in the coverage of pastoral care, including the areas of financial matters and intercultural relations. Where the Code does provide protection, its provisions are not always fully implemented, such as for accommodation assistance. More seriously, there is little knowledge among students of the Code of Practice and their Code-based entitlements, and almost no knowledge of the Appeal Authority. Numerous students testified to poor information flow. This limits not only their capacities as quasi-consumers and their access to pastoral services--so that in practice, the New Zealand system is similar to the Australian system, which is explicitly limited to consumer protection--but even their ability to fully utilize consumer protection. This defect renders the promise of a regulated pastoral care regime grounded in active student agency largely inoperative. (Contains 2 notes.

In the period immediately preceding the 2007 Australian election, much attention was accorded to the impact of the nation's labour laws on vulnerable employees. This debate centred on specific groups including women, youth, migrants and workers on individual employment contracts. International students, by contrast, were ignored in the debate. This omission reflects the fact that though three million students study outside their home country, this community has not previously made an appearance in the labour studies literature. In this paper, we address this omission by depicting the work experience of 200 international students studying in Australian higher education institutions. We argue that a much greater proportion of international students participate in the labour market than earlier research has indicated and that in many cases they are compelled to accept very poor conditions of employment. Furthermore, we suggest that as major sponsors of international student visas, universities should inform and protect students' labour rights and that given the dire situation of many they must become a recognised part of the vulnerable-worker debate. (Contains 2 tables.)

In a study of international student security, consisting of 200 intensive interviews with students, resident onshore in Australia, it was found that two thirds of the group had experienced problems of loneliness and/or isolation, especially in the early months. According to Weiss, students experience both "personal loneliness" because of the loss of contact with families and "social loneliness" because of the loss of networks. Both forms of loneliness are at times exacerbated by their experiences in institutional sites. The article discusses the coping mechanisms that students use. It identifies a third kind of loneliness experienced by international students, "cultural loneliness," triggered by the absence of the preferred cultural and/or linguistic environment. This can affect even students with adequate personal and social support. Thus, same-culture networks are often crucial for international students. Yet same-culture networks are not a universal panacea: They cannot substitute for adequate pastoral care by universities or ensure satisfactory engagement with local cultures, so some causes of cultural loneliness often remain. The article concludes that the creation of stronger bonds between international and local students in the educational setting, helping international students to remake their own cultural maps on their own terms, is key to a forward move on loneliness.

In a global environment in which global, national and local nodes relate freely within common networks, all research universities must pursue strategies for building global capacity and facilitating cross-border staff and student movement and research collaboration. The study compares readings of the global environment, global and international activities and relationships, and global capacity and strategy, in two leading national universities, one in a middle level developing country (Indonesia) and the other in a middle level developed country (Australia). The main tool of investigation was interviews with parallel groups of institutional leaders and leaders of academic units and research centres, in conjunction with study of the national and local contexts. It was apparent that in both cases, while global elements are increasingly important in university strategy, mission and identity, resource capacity remains highly dependant on national government and students. This belies the romantic myth of the "stand-alone" corporate university in the global marketplace. The two cases also differ in some respects. While both universities are peak national institutions, and each respects the other, the Australian university is more strongly placed in the global environment and practical dealings between them are asymmetrical. The study helps to illuminate the dynamics of global stratification and hierarchy between developed and developing nations and institutions in higher education.

The paper critically reviews the concept of "global flows", beginning with the discussions of flows and networks in Appadurai (1996), Castells (2000) and Held "et al." (1999). Emphasising the need to embed "global flows" in agency and history, and to explore global connectedness in terms of situated cases, the paper develops an analytical framework for analysing global flows in higher education. It then applies that framework in an examination of global "scapes", impacts, transformations, situatedness and relations of power in two national universities, research leaders in their nations but located in contrasting nations: Universitas Indonesia and the Australian National University. (Contains 3 tables and 6 notes.)