Western notions of academic integrity as a barrier to international students

In recent years the number of international students, especially from the Asia Pacific region, coming to Australia to further their studies has "grown significantly" (Barron and Arcodia 200:16). After the United States and the United Kingdom, Australia is now the preferred destination for international students" (Barron and Arcodia 2002). This shift towards transnational education resulted from changes to Australian government policies in regard to funding universities, forcing Australian universities to "create additional sources of revenue through fee paying and revenue producing activities" (Kell and Vogl 2007a:16). After being initially, refused permission to collect fees from domestic students, universities commenced "aggressive recruitment of international [full fee paying] students" (Devlin and Gray 2007:193). This coincided with an unmet "demand for higher education places in many Asian countries" (Barron and Arcodia, 2003, p.16) including Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia, China, India, Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Fiji and Sri Lanka (Barron and Arcodia 2002). As a consequence, international education is now Australia's "fourth largest export industry" (Ahmed 2008) and these students now represent a significant income stream (Handa and Fallon 2006) on which universities have become reliant. While higher education institutions may regard international students as an unproblematic source of revenue there are calls to reconsider the "cash cows" (Given and Smailes 2005:2) perception held by some institutions and faculties. Recent research around globalisation suggests tensions and contradictions that result in challenges to international students. Handa and Fallon for example argue that while income from international students "accounted for a period of prosperity and growth in the sector" (2006:126) advances in global education require institutions to consider the whole international experience not just the income derived from these students. So, it is worth considering research on the experience of students from this region who study at foreign universities. This paper examines literature on international students, with a focus on academic writing. It explores the experience, cultural stereotyping of students from the Asia Pacific and western notions of academic integrity. It asks why academics should be concerned about standards of academic writing and responds by briefly describing an online program developed for students studying Education at an Australian university. Interwoven in the discussion are preliminary data collected in 2007/2008 by the author and a colleague on student use of the site.