World Education Services now Recognized as the Recipient of Verified Chinese Degrees for the United States and Canada

Last night I spent several hours searching through and clearing out my various e-mail inboxes and Google Reader looking for resources that would be helpful for my dissertation research and I came across a recent announcement from World Education Services, Inc. (WES) that I wanted to post about to IHEC Blog.

According to a January 20, 2010 WES press release, they have signed an official memorandum of understanding with the China Academic Degrees & Graduate Education Development Center (CDGDC). CDGDC is the “authorized agent responsible for verifying Chinese degrees for the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China and the Academic Degrees Committee of the State Council. The CDGDC is the legal entity that provides verification of degree certificates, diplomas and other related educational materials conferred by Chinese education institutions.”

You can read more about this new agreement here.

U.S. Summit & Initiative for Global Citizen Diplomacy

I’m a little late in posting to IHEC Blog about the upcoming U.S. Summit for Global Citizen Diplomacy. Exciting news out of the U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy! The following news is a taken from the Center’s website and is being posted with permission of my colleague Derek Forsythe from the Center:

The U.S. Center for Citizen Diplomacy (USCCD), in partnership with the U.S. State Department and in support of more than 1000 U.S. Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) conducting citizen diplomacy activities, will convene a historic U.S. Summit for Global Citizen Diplomacy on November 16-19, 2010 in Washington, DC. The goal of the Summit and ten year Initiative for Global Citizen Diplomacy is to double the number of American volunteers of all ages involved in international activities at home or abroad, from an estimated 60 million today to 120 million by 2020.

The U.S. Summit & Initiative for Global Citizen Diplomacy supports current efforts of President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, Judith McHale to make global citizen diplomacy a national priority. Secretary of State Clinton will serve as Honorary Summit Chair alongside an Honorary Citizen Diplomat Chair. The President is being called upon to speak at the event, the first since President Eisenhower addressed a similar gathering on September 11, 1956 to call Americans to greater involvement in international relations. Fifty-four years later in an increasingly globalized world, the call is as relevant and urgent as ever.

You can learn more about the U.S. Summit for Global Citizen Diplomacy at http://www.uscenterforcitizendiplomacy.org/summit/

IHEC Blog is now an Amazon Associate

As frequent IHEC Blog readers know, from time to time I occasionally review or highlight a new book that I find interesting. Almost every book that I review or highlight is linked to Amazon.com in case anyone would be interested in purchasing. I will still continue to post to IHEC Blog about new and forthcoming publications in the field that may be of interest to readers. What will be new is that you will now see a new format in how I display the book on IHEC Blog and it will be in the form of an image with a bit of Amazon branding included (occasionally just a link but more often an image and link). The small amount of revenue that may be generated from this venture will help support the continuation and future enhancements of IHEC Blog and related activities.

Please note that all proceeds from IHEC Blog's Kindle edition will be donated to UNICEF.

Video of the Week – Parisian Love

While I didn't watch the Super Bowl I caught one commercial and in my opinion it was a good one. It was the Google "Parisian Love" commercial and it starts with the search "study abroad paris france" and the commercial becomes even more enjoyable after that. Perhaps it's been aired on Television before (I don't watch much TV) but to have it aired during the Super Bowl was a nice $3 million move by Google. I'm also thankful that CBS allowed this commercial to be broadcast.

Congratulations to CEA Global Education, Global Learning Semesters, AIFS and Studyabroad.com for showing up in the search!

Survey on Social Media in International Student Recruiting and Outreach

If you are in international student recruitment, outreach and admissions field please consider taking a new survey being conducted by GlobalCampus on the use of social media in international student recruiting and outreach. I’ve been communicating with my colleague Nicolle Merrill from GlobalCampus about this survey and I’m excited to see the results. I found the following snippets from Nicolle’s blog post introducing the survey to be quite interesting and I’m posting them with her permission:

NAFSA’s Nov/Dec issue of International Educator featured the Brave New World of Recruiting, declaring Internet recruiting “is here to stay.” Facebook is taking over admissions Universities are jumping on the Twitter bandwagon.

“Social media tools, like Facebook, Twitter and blogs, are key to communicating with this generation of students,” said Joyce Smith, CEO of NACAC . University admissions are keen on using social networking sites to promote their schools, engage alumni and attract future students to their schools.

While we at GlobalCampus agree, we’ve spent many months wondering about the specifics of those social media strategies and engagements. Beyond using social media there are loads of questions about effectiveness and measurement of social media outreach: What are the benefits and drawbacks of using social media in Internet recruiting? How is the target audience responding to social media outreach? How is social media outreach improving recruiting results? Perhaps the single more important question to ask: How do universities measure the results of social media for Internet recruiting?

You can learn more about and access this survey here.

Photo credit: Ivan Walsh

Remember to vote in the Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs 2010 competition

Voting in the Top 100 International Exchange and Experience Blogs 2010 competition ends Feb. 14th. Check out all of the nominated blogs at http://www.lexiophiles.com/ix09/vote-for-ix10-here. IHEC Blog is nominated again this year and last year was voted #10 blog in the competition. So far in this competition, IHEC Blog only has 11 votes and is way out of the competition so if you have free minute IHEC Blog could use your vote!

Canadian Student Handbook on Opportunities in India

Some time ago I learned about the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute and a relatively new publication that they produced that caught my attention and I thought I'd post to IHEC Blog about it.

First, a little something about the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute (or L'Institut indo-canadien Shastri). According to their website, the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute is “a binational organization that promotes understanding between India and Canada through academic activities and exchanges and their mission is to improve the quality of life of the peoples of Canada and India by building and strengthening intellectual and cultural linkages through research, dialogue and exchange.” I’m really interested in the work of these types of educational exchange organizations as well as their history so I spent quite a bit of time checking out their entire website to learn more of what they are all about. Check out the work of the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute here.

Something that really caught my attention was new publication entitled “Canadian Student Handbook on Opportunities in India” produced by Sarah Hawkins (Communications Officer at the Shastri Indo-Canadian Institute). I, like most people working in the field of international education, receive much programmatic literature that I try to at least look at but often times recycle before too long. For me, the "Canadian Student Handbook on Opportunities in India" is different and I found myself reading it and appreciating the value in the information provided. This thirteen page publication is well produced and provides Canadian students with an excellent overview of all of the academic and work/volunteer opportunities available in India. The information is not overwhelming for the students (and people like me) and allows for easy, informative and engaging reading. Check out the “Canadian Student Handbook on Opportunities in India” here.

I don’t see IHEC Blog heading down the marketing advice avenue (I’ll save that for Chris Brogan although I doubt he will delve into the international educaiton profession) but I have, receive and read much literature (both scholarly and practical) that I just may comment on from time to time about it on IHEC Blog.