road. These considerations lead ultimately to the aspect of evaluation of university
internationalization.
4.1. Most common approaches of evaluation
A review of the academic literature reveals that the most common approach used
to measure the degree of a university’s internationalization is to define a set of
indicators based on codified and publicly available information. Similar to the
analysis of financial statements in the corporate sector, these indicators are set up
as a ratio which expresses the magnitude of quantities of two variables relative to
each other.
According to Ayoubi/Massoud (2007, p. 333) “...only three variables available
from the HESA (Higher Education Management Statistics) could be used as a
proxy for the real international achievements of a university and .are easily appli-
cable and standardized measurements for the actual internationalization . These
variables are defined as follows:
1. Percentage of overseas students to the total number of students in each
university
2. Percentage of overseas income to the total income of a university
3. Percentage of market share of overseas first year students to the total over-
seas market share”
Instead of using only three variables most studies use a catalog of ratios which are
differentiated into categories such as research activities, faculty and student ex-
change programs, external funding, etc. In measuring the performance of interna-
tionalization efforts of universities, the German “Center for Higher Education and
Development” (CHE) goes one step further and differentiates indicators into the
categories of input and output indicators. Just as in the business sector, input indi-
cators record the use of resources for university internationalization while output
indicators document their results in terms of international reputation and the
number of degrees involving international experience.8
Because a ratio by itself holds no meaning (high or low, good or bad) it has to be
benchmarked against its own historical development, against a competitor’s ratio,
or against an index of competitors’ ratios. Therefore most studies use calculated
ratios of university internationalization to set up nationwide ranking lists and to
graph institutional differences between current and ideal levels of internationaliza-
CHE, p. 11f.