Building cross-border communities to energize learning, teaching and innovation in higher education

Abstract

As universities worldwide take an increasingly interdisciplinary approach to higher education, effective communication must bridge the gap across fields of study as well as across linguistic, cultural and professional boundaries. To build cross-border communities, scholars – and the publishers and librarians who serve faculty and students – need a sophisticated ‘communications technology’ toolkit. When an international publisher sent an e-mail survey to a global network of more than 1,000 scholars, with questions about the methods, systems and platforms that work best in their collaborations with colleagues, the results showed their technology preferences to be simple and straightforward, not much different from old-fashioned letters and phone calls. The real challenge, these scholars said, is to develop a methodology for cross-cultural collaboration and enhance training and support systems at different levels – to look beyond the technical aspects of connecting and focus on the human challenge of communication and understanding.