International Journal of Higher Education

The IJHE continues to be the choice of journal for many global researchers. As such, the strength of the IJHE journal is reflected in this issue’s five research articles from Canada, South Korea and Saudi Arabia. This issue has a strong focus on improving the online curriculum and learning space for students. Global events continue to dominate media outlets and present everyday challenges for some with seemingly no end or resolve. With significant political change in the air, it is important that we continue to prioritise education and lifelong learning, researching areas that will improve educational access and strategies for success. The IJHE provides an important platform for the development of theory, the addressing of policy questions, and the dissemination of innovative practice in the field of tertiary education, specifically widening participation and lifelong learning.

The first article is from Larose and colleagues who examined the trajectories of college student adjustment in terms of academic and social functioning, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. They found that most students experienced moderate declines in their academic and social adjustments in response to the pandemic. The next article by Sonnilal and Bruce examined the pedagogy, technology, and the configurations of the online learning curriculum and learning spaces, through the implementation of the Surrogate Avatar Experience (SuAvE) on the interrelationships within higher education learning spaces. SuAvE navigates the intersection of digital technologies bridging them to the physical realm of learning, to provide physical embodiment within the hybridization of educational spaces. They found that SuAvE had a role as both a catalyst and a canvas for innovation and transformation of the online learning space. The third article is from Qi and colleagues from Belgium and China who address the lack of attention given to international cooperation beyond like-minded countries, to emphasise the importance of understanding the Heads of international cooperation perspectives. They did this by examining the cooperation with Chinese universities from the perspectives of nine Heads of international cooperation at six European universities. Their findings offer practical insights and contextualised empirical data on future directions for international cooperation between European and Chinese HEIs. The study further underscores the active and autonomous roles that universities should play in fostering international cooperation amid global uncertainties. The fourth article is from Kim and Ok who looked at the fascinating area of the potential text mining has as a method of analysing text data to derive the characteristics curricula status of real estate education programs at Korean universities. They report three findings that have local and global implications for implementation. The final article in this issue is from Ali Obaid Alyami who reviewed previous industrial revolutions, and focuses on the technological advancement achieved by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and its impact on the quality of legal education in Saudi Arabia.  He reports a number of mechanisms through which legal education institutions can adapt to the requirements of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and advocates for the student training in future skills as the most important strategy to be adopted, especially since these skills will distinguish human legal consultants from machine legal consultants.

I sincerely hope that the broad range of topics and information shared are of benefit to our readers. Importantly, I would like to thank all contributors and reviewers who continue to make the timely publication of the current issue possible.  I look forward to receiving more contributions from researchers and practitioners for our future issues. Wishing all readers all the very best with their research studies.