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Global Partners in Education Journal                                                                                                April 2011, Vol.1 No.1, pp. 3-7 

 

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History of Global Partners in Education 

 
Rosina Chia 

 
Elmer Poe 

 
Biwu Yang 

 
East Carolina University, USA 

 
In the US, less than 2% of college students participate in Study Abroad programs 
(Institute of International Education, American Council on Education, and the US 
Department of Education).  In most other parts of the world, the percentage may be 
even smaller.  There are many reasons for this with financial difficulty being the 
major factor.   There are other contributing factors, such as fear of foreign settings, 
lack of knowledge in the foreign language, not accustomed to the local foods, fear of 
the risk of terrorism and infectious diseases, etc.  However, while less than 2 % of 
students go abroad, 100% live in a world that requires them to be global citizens.  
The knowledge of diverse cultures will help us realize that all people do not think 
alike, do not have the same perspective, do not share the same values, and do not 
hold the same priorities. 

 
In 2002, a cross cultural psychologist (Rosina Chia),  a computer mediated learning 
expert (Elmer Poe), and a data network and information security expert (Biwu Yang) 
at East Carolina University got together to talk about the importance of global 
knowledge and the lack of opportunities for students to get that knowledge.  In 
general, American students do not spend much time reading newspapers anymore, 
nor do they watch the evening news or spend much time surfing the web for news, 
and they know little about what happens outside of the US.   Thus we talked about 
designing a course that would use Internet based technologies available to most 
countries to bring real time global experience into each partner’s own classrooms.  If 
that could be accomplished, the course would be accessible to all students. Our 
hope is that students can become more globally competent after taking such a 
course.   
 
With this goal in mind, we designed the Global Understanding course to provide 
experiences which would prepare students from all cultures, both developed and 
developing, to be global citizens. After many lively discussions, we agreed on a 
simple threefold definition of global competence, and our goal for the course was to 
provide experiences for all three aspects of global competence.  The three aspects 
are: cognitively acquire basic knowledge about other cultures; affectively become 
more open-minded towards other cultures; behaviorally acquire real time interactive 
and collaborative experiences with students from other cultures.   

    
We realized that it was important to read body language in any social interaction, 
especially for cross-cultural social interactions.  Thus from the first pilot of the course 
in 2003 we decided to use real time video conferencing technology (DVC).  It was 
also decided that tools based on regular internet connectivity would be used in order 
to accommodate the infrastructure in all of our potential partner countries. At East 



Global Partners in Education Journal                                                                                                April 2011, Vol.1 No.1, pp. 3-7 

 

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Carolina University we have a 14 week semester. In the Global Understanding 
course we divide the semester roughly into three 4-week sessions.  For each 4-week 
session we bring students and faculty from one other country to join our students via 
DVC to learn about each other’s culture.  The faculty from each country offers a 
short lecture on their own culture and after that the emphasis is on students 
interacting and learning from each other.   Considering that it is difficult for some 
partners to acquire textbooks, or have access to journal articles, we placed all basic 
information on partner countries on a website managed by ECU.  This website also 
includes English language news sources for our partner countries, and we require 
our students to read the front page and to know the current situation of their 
partners.  In addition to DVC, we use Internet Relay Chat (IRC) for individual 
discussion. IRC is also used by the technical assistant assigned to each class on 
both sides to maintain constant communication to assure that the class will go 
smoothly. 
 
One important aspect of the partnership is the administrative independence of all 
partner institutions.  From the outset we had wanted to provide opportunities for 
students all over the world to interact and learn from each other and to collaborate 
on joint projects. We would not let money get in the way.  Thus no money exchanges 
hands between partners. Students pay local tuition and receive academic credits 
from their local institutions.  Teachers in partner institutions grade their own students’ 
tests and papers and assign their final grades.  This enables all partners to maintain 
their own academic standards and meet their own accreditation criteria.   

 
Also from the beginning we decided to choose a technology that would be feasible 
for partners in different parts of the world, including the countries that are in the 
developing world.  Dr. Poe and Dr. Yang did much research and finally decided on 
using H.323 based videoconferencing technology, since H.323 is an international 
standard.  ECU and some partner universities have high quality DVC equipment.  
For those partners who do not have video equipment, ECU provides consultation on 
acquiring an inexpensive camera and the videoconferencing software.  A plan in 
case of technical failure was created to ensure continuity of instruction during times 
of network congestion and low bandwidth.  Faculty members are always prepared 
with additional teaching plans and materials in the case of a complete network 
failure. 
 
To make the Global Understanding course affordable to partner institutions in 
developing countries, we selected minimum hardware requirements that should be 
available to most institutions around the world.  Each site needs 10 PCs, one for the 
video conference software, 8 for IRC chat, and one for the tech helper.  Gaining the 
approval and support of the senior administration is crucial to the success of this 
course.  
 
The pilot of the Global Understanding Course was conducted in 2003 and based on 
its success the number and diversity of partners has grown so that as of the spring 
semester of 2011, ECU offered 9 sections of the course with more than thirty 
partners in more than 20 countries. In February, 2007, partners from China, 
Morocco, Peru, Russia and ECU jointly presented a paper at the Association of 
International Education Administrators Annual Conference in Washington DC.  
During the conference these partners discussed possible actions to increase the 



Global Partners in Education Journal                                                                                                April 2011, Vol.1 No.1, pp. 3-7 

 

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effectiveness of this project, to get more partners, etc. During these discussions it 
was decided that we would form an organization. ECU was charged to accomplish 
this goal.   
 
During May 15-17, 2008 the association of Global Partners in Education (GPE) was 
established at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina.  
Representatives from China Agricultural University and Shaanxi Normal University, 
both from China; the University of Malaysia at Terengganu; San Ignacio de Loyola 
University and ESAN University, both from Peru; Lomonosov Moscow State 
University from Russia; the Universite Aboubekr Belkaid Tlemcen from Algeria; the 
Metropolitana University from Venezuela; the State Medical and Pharmaceutical 
University from Moldova, and East Carolina University, USA, were attendees in the 
inauguration.  Representatives from the Institute of Leadership and Communications 
Studies, Morocco; Azad Jammu of Kashmir University, Pakistan; and Universidad 
Regiomontana, Mexico, joined the conference virtually via videoconference.  ECU’s 
Provost Marilyn Sheerer and Senior Associate Provost Austin Bunch served as hosts 
for the conference.  After two days of productive discussions, the participants at ECU 
signed the GPE charter as Founding Members, and GPE was born.  ECU was 
elected as the first President and also elected to serve as GPE Secretariat for the 
first five years.  
 
In May 2009, the GPE II Conference was hosted by China Agricultural University in 
Beijing, China.  Twelve partner institutions sent representatives to Beijing, China 
Cultural University and Shandong University, both from China; ESAN and 
Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola, both from Peru; University of Jammu, India; 
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Maritime State University, Vladivostok State 
University of Economics and Service, all from Russia; University of Malaysia at 
Terengganu, from Malaysia;  Moldova Medical and Pharmaceutical University, from 
Moldova; Universite Aboubekr Belkaid Tlemcen, from Algeria;  and East Carolina 
University, from USA.  At the conference there was a paper presentation section and 
a section that discussed tasks related to GPE.  Many ideas were presented to make 
GPE more functional and beneficial for partners.  All the papers were published in a 
Proceedings volume produced by CAU.   ECU also conducted a virtual workshop to 
the participants at CAU on technology.   
 
In May, 2010, the GPE III Conference was hosted by San Ignacio de Loyola 
University in Lima, Peru.  Fifteen partner universities from 9 countries sent 
representatives to Lima.  Papers were presented and much of the time was used to 
discuss GPE related matters.  During the conference it was unanimously decided 
that GPE should have its own journal.  An Editorial Board was elected and Dr. 
Parikshat Singh-Manhas from the University of Jammu, India, was elected the first 
Editor in Chief for the GPE Journal.  Dr. Biwu Yang from ECU would take care of the 
electronic publishing of GPE Journal.  It was also decided at GPE III that each year 
the Secretariat will be responsible for gathering information, producing, and 
distributing a GPE Annual Report so we can have a record on file of the major 
events for all GPE partners.   
 
With the establishment of the GPE, partners began to use it as a vehicle to establish 
other global activities in addition to the Global Understanding project.   Using the 
same video conference technologies that all partners already have, different kinds of 



Global Partners in Education Journal                                                                                                April 2011, Vol.1 No.1, pp. 3-7 

 

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projects have been developed.  For example, there is the ILEP (International Lecture 
Exchange Project) where partners either jointly lecture to similar discipline classes in 
both countries or one partner offers lectures to another partner.  There is the ICEP 
(International Course Exchange Project) where two partners jointly teach a class for 
an entire semester.  There is the IREP (International Research Exchange Project) 
where faculties use video conference technology to discuss ideas and theories and 
jointly work on papers and grants. The continuous success of these initiatives has 
impressed the US Department of State so they approached us to partner with them 
on a Global Climate Change course.  In Spring 2010, the US Department of State, 
Faculdade de Jaguariuna from Brazil, Shandong University from China, University of 
Jammu from India, and East Carolina University from the US, started a pilot 
collaborative course on Global Climate Change.  It was a success and Universidad 
Regiomontana from Mexico was added to this course in fall, 2010.  

 
Over a period of 6 years we have witnessed the growth and success of global 
academic initiatives using technology.  We have learned much from our experience 
and firmly believe using technology is the most cost effective way to rapidly set up a 
global network of educational partners and to facilitate the internationalizing 
curriculum.  Through GPE, faculty and students within the GPE network have 
benefitted from opportunities to interact with their peers around the world, including 
the Global Understanding course, the Global Climate Change course, the ILEP, 
ICEP and IREP projects.  The GPE Journal will provide another venue for the 
exchange of ideas and inviting more partners to join us.     

 
We believe GPE has helped to accomplish our vision of creating a network where 
students from a wide range of countries have an opportunity to become global 
citizens and to function successfully in a global community.  We believe that the 
global academic projects carried out among the GPE partners have indeed made 
progress on achieving our threefold goal of providing global awareness; enhancing 
positive global attitude; and acquiring real global interactional experience through 
collaborative projects.  We look forward to developing more partners, exploring 
different kinds of technologies to make the links and activities better, and exploring 
innovative ways to strengthen the GPE network, so we can be even better in 
accomplishing our vision. 
 



Global Partners in Education Journal                                                                                                April 2011, Vol.1 No.1, pp. 3-7 

 

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About the Authors 
 

Dr. Rosina Chia is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Global Academic Initiatives at 
East Carolina University.  With her Chinese background, she has always been 
interested in research in the cross-cultural psychology area.  She co-developed the 
ECU Global Climate Change and Global Understanding Projects, the latter includes 
more than30 partners in more than 20 countries. This virtual partnership has 
expanded to other formats of collaboration on the university campus, high schools, 
and elementary schools.  She can be reached at chiaro@ecu.edu.  
 
Dr. Elmer Poe is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Emerging Academic Initiatives at 
East Carolina University. He has directed a team in the applications of innovative 
tools and approaches in collaborative intensive, Internet based education in a variety 
of learning settings. Elmer co-developed virtual world culture courses, such as 
Global Understanding and the Global Climate Change, that use real time video and 
collaboration tools to bring students from around the world together on a daily basis. 
He can be reached at poee@ecu.edu.  
 
Dr. Biwu Yang is a Professor in the Department of Technology Systems, East 
Carolina University.  He teaches in the field of data networking, information 
technology, and information security.  He has served as the key technology person 
in all aspects of Global Academic Initiatives since its inception, including the Global 
Understanding project that includes more than 30 partner universities from more 
than 20 countries, and the Global Climate Change course including Brazil, China, 
India, Mexico and USA.  He can be reached at yangb@ecu.edu.  

 


