Online Programs = International students
How can we prepare our staff to deal with multicultural students, with different currency, and difference in time and skills?
Javier ,
First you would have to determine exactly who your target market is and how many countries you want to engage in. Time zones can be managed once you determine the number of students you enroll and where your faculty are located. Regarding skills, that will depend again on the countries and the level of academic preparation and experience you are requiring of your student population. Have you developed your e-learning strategy yet?
Dr. Robert Roehrich
Javier, this encompasses so much more than I think you are considering. I once worked in the Admissions Department of an online institution. Just to get an international student accepted into school was a hurdle in itself. If the student graduated from a HS outside of the U.S., the student had to mail a copy of his/her HSD and transcript to one of five centers in the United States, at a minimum cost of approximately $450, to get the transcripts evaluated and possibly translated to English. The evaluations would usually determine that the courses taken overseas weren't equivalent to a U.S. HSD, so the students would have to sit for the GED exam. Then there is the issue of financial aid. International students don't qualify. When I personally had to deal with international students, I always walked away from it; even though my job was numbers-based. It was easier to let it go than to have to deal with the headache of it. International students rarely ended up attending school online unless they became U.S. citizens.
