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This committee seeks to expand the scope of data collection and analysis in the field through a variety of initiatives. It is charged with the development of new and effective methodologies for collecting quantitative and qualitative data about education abroad, including data about student participation, program characteristics, and issues and topics in the field.
The Forum on Education Abroad is pleased to announce an opportunity for Forum member institutions to participate in a groundbreaking project to advance the Forum’s work in the area of Health, Safety, and Security for education abroad.
The project will involve the piloting of an education abroad database that will track various types of incidents that occur on study abroad programs. The project is a result of the Forum’s Fireside Dialogue, “Beyond the Basics of Risk Management,” that was convened in Portland, Oregon in February, 2009. Attendees identified a need for the field to collect accurate information on the number and range of incidents that occur on education abroad programs to help inform health, safety and security policies and practices. In response, the Forum has formed a task force led by Bill Frederick of the School for Field Studies. A full list of the task force members appears below.
By documenting and learning what incidents occur in study abroad, the field will be better prepared to refine protocols for health, safety, security, and risk management, and continue to develop and disseminate effective best practices. Moreover, the field will be better able to understand factors that contribute to incidents, and thereby be prepared to mitigate and plan for risk, as well as utilize resources more strategically.
Results of the pilot project will be discussed and analyzed at the Forum’s Standards of Good Practice Institute, Beyond the Basics of Health, Safety and Security to be held on March 24, 2010 in Charlotte, North Carolina in conjunction with the Forum Annual Conference. It is expected that the results of the pilot will be utilized to create an annual education abroad report that will provide comprehensive, aggregated data on the number and range of incidents. The Forum seeks to provide accurate information on what safety-related events actually take place rather than depend on anecdotal information and what are often misperceptions about safety and education abroad. The database will catalog the types and number of incidents and provide information about the patterns of incidents based on variables such as location and program type through a consistent, standardized reporting mechanism.
The Pilot Project
The Forum seeks the broadest possible participation from all institutional, organizational and program types in order to represent the diversity of the field in the pilot project. Participants will help to determine the type of data to be collected and offer significant input that may lead to the development of a permanent database. To protect the anonymity of the participants and encourage participation, the Forum will not announce the organizations that participate in the project.
The Forum will manage the data collection, analysis and dissemination of information that results from the pilot project and has taken steps to insure the complete confidentiality of the information collected. Data will be collected in such a way that specific incidents will not be associated with a particular institution, organization or program, thus guaranteeing the anonymity of the pilot participants. Data will be collected beginning with programs that begin after August 15, 2009 and continue until February 1, 2010. Further details about the data collection process will be provided to participants upon acceptance to the pilot project.
Application for Participation
Participation in the pilot project is restricted to Forum Member Institutions, and the Forum encourages applications from as many Forum members as possible. Applications to participate in the Pilot Project are available here:
Education Abroad Incident Database Pilot Application
Application Deadline: To apply for participation, please complete and email the application to info@forumea.org by August 7, 2009
Education Abroad Incident Database Task Force
Bill Frederick, School for Field Studies, Chair
Brian Brubaker, Dickinson College
Regine Lambrech, Columbia University
Natalie Mello, Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Chris Powers, IIE
Gary Rhodes, SAFETI
Adam Rubin, CIEE
Arlene Snyder, Arcadia University
John Tansey, Dartmouth College
This signature initiative takes the pulse of the Forum membership on a variety of topics of critical importance to the field. The data gathered from this second Survey is compared with benchmark data from the first State of the Field Survey (2006). New this year are several questions that are part of a collaborative research effort with the Institute for International Education (IIE) to assess the capacity for education abroad expansion.
A pdf of the Report on the Results is now available here. Beginning Friday, January 16, the Data Set will be available to Forum members in the Standards Toolbox. A hard copy of the report will be distributed at the Forum annual conference in Portland, OR (February 18-20); members not attending the conference will receive their copy by mail.
Thanks to Kim Kreutzer, Charlotte Blessing, Elise Rayner and the entire Data Committee for their leadership.
This long-anticipated project examines the professional development of the field by gathering data about salaries, workload, and other job-related topics. The Forum is pleased to present a report summarizing the data, discussing the challenges faced by institutions and organizations, and the next steps the Committee will take based on these results.
The Forum Pathways Survey 2008: Report and Results
The report will be distributed in print form at the Forum conference in Portland Oregon, members not attending the conference will receive a print copy after the conference. The data set from the survey is available to Forum members in the Standards Toolbox.
The Forum thanks the Data Committee, and Sarah Spencer, Kim Kreutzer, and David Shallenberger for their leadership on this project.
This susrvey completes the original Pathways to the Profession survey dataset, authored and conducted by Dr. Joe Brockington (Kalamazoo College). The results of the initial project were first presented at the NAFSA-San Antonio conference in May 2002. The text of a report on the original findings, and a powerpoint presentation discussing them are linked here: Pathways Report to SECUSSA 2003, Pathways Presentation 2003.
At the April 2008 Forum conference in Boston, the Data Committee reported on benchmark data collected on job functions, titles and qualifications, salaries and workload. The session discussed challenges and the next steps towards establishing standardized job descriptions, institutional or organizational environments, and areas outside education abroad which will be well served by the data, such as human resources industry. Kim Kreutzer, David Shallenberger and Sarah Spencer's presentation is available as a pdf: Professionalizing the Field: Salaries, Workload and Other Job-Related Topics That We Don’t Discuss.
The terminology of the field of education abroad is as diverse as its practices. Education abroad professionals have lacked an agreed-upon set of definitions to which to turn, whether for use in data collection, grant and funding applications or effective outcomes assessment. The Forum’s Education Abroad Glossary addresses the pressing need to standardize the field’s terminology. The Glossary will make its print debut at the Forum conference in Portland Oregon in February 2009.
The Education Abroad Glossary is a project of the Forum’s Data Committee, resulting from a four-year effort of the Glossary Task Force, led by Chip Peterson (University of Minnesota), along with feedback and dialogue from Forum members and the field at large.
The Education Abroad Glossary is the next in a series of groundbreaking essential resources produced by the Forum for the field of education abroad.
The Forum thanks the following members for supporting the publication of the Education Abroad Glossary:
Partner
Supporters
Council on International Educational Exchange (CIEE)
Dartmouth
Ohio State Unviersity
Southern Methodist University
University of Melbourne
The committee has also undertaken the following surveys:
READ Database
The committee, led by Vija G. Mendelson, has created a new resource for the field: the Research on Education Abroad Database.
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