Internationalization Efforts in Department of Library Science Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University THAILAND: a Personal View

Assist. Prof. Somsak Sriborisutsakul, PhD.

Internationalization The process of integrating a range of activities with relation to departmental improvement, curriculum innovation, staff development, and students employability to cope with the globalized academic environment1 The Departments facts and figures The first library school in Thailand since 1956 Many Thai LIS educators are the Departments alumni 3 assistant professors and 6 lecturers; 6 PhDs and 3 Masters holding degrees from USA & UK universities in 2016 46 current undergraduates in Information Studies 22 masters students in LIS taught programme Motives for internationalization The enthusiasm for internationalization (world ranking) of the universitys top management to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the university establishment in 2016 A campaign of making educational collaboration with member countries in the ASEAN region in 2015 A first step on the departments PhD programme development ladder in 2016 The ability to recruit highly competent staff A need for attracting students of high caliber (entering in a niche market) => A number of masters students have declined year by year => Rivals from LIS and other information-related departments/schools, e.g. IT, MBA, communication arts, and so on => Many BA graduates in Information Studies of ours prefer not to pursuing a Master degree in the department; some of them decide to work in other sectors); our current programmes may not respond to changing job markets => It seems not right to still become a mass-market department providing LIS education for this shrinking segment
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Knight, J. (2008). The internationalization of higher education: Are we on the right track? Academic Matters: The Journal of Higher Education, 5-9. http://www.academicmatters.ca/current_issue.article.gk? catalog_item_id=1234&category=featured_articles

The quality of teaching within the department Ways of researching at local level, but making a contribution to the global level in theory and practice (human-information interaction: HII)

International audit of existing efforts The department adopts a slow and gradual approach to internationalization. We have internationalized our curriculums and/or activities gradually, step by-step, as we gained learning-by-doing insights into successful internationalization. Departmental improvement Build up a sustainable collaboration with LIS & Information schools especially in ASEAN region Use web technologies and social media as channels of communication to share relevant information among our group of friends Curriculum innovation Develop the departments taught programmes in accordance with the universitys outcomebased learning system and officially launch it this year Include universal, up-to-date content into each syllabus of both undergraduate and postgraduate coursework Plan to offer the Master by Research instead of the taught programme Staff development Recruit a Thai lecturer with experience of teaching, researching and working abroad Give financial support for staffs international conference attendance Encourage the staff to do inquiries into international topics with regard to the departments HII area of research, and develop themselves to have their specialist expertise Invite overseas guest speakers to lecture in forums, workshops , or seminars Students employability Survey employers needs and satisfactions with performance of the graduates to improve the departments curriculums that help students be better prepared for employment in information industry Advise students to learn English as a compulsory and another foreign language as an optional of study Challenges to the departments internationalization Finding strengths and having our own identity Lack of an international, long-term policy in particular Implementation on an ad hoc basis Undertaking internationalization activities in a reactive rather than a proactive way In terms of collaborations, we attempt to shift from a taker to be a balanced, give and take department