researcher relationships. On the administration side one main player is the interna-
tional office. Here evaluation has to assess whether the international office is
closely linked with the university faculty and what kinds of instruments are utilized
to support student and lecturer interactions.
The system theoretical approach distinguishes from common evaluation methods
by focusing on the individual learning processes of students, lecturers and re-
searchers within the university system. This is in line with the university’s genuine
mission to facilitate the learning process of students and to build up critical and
reflective thinkers. Since internationalization has to be seen as an important stimu-
lus for the individual’s learning, any assessment of success in university interna-
tionalization has to analyze the relationship between internationalization and the
student’s or researcher’s process of learning in the university system. Attempting
to assess to what extent internationalization contributes to an individual’s learning
is more difficult because the learning process itself is complex and influenced by
many internal and external factors. However qualitative evaluation of success in
university internationalization is important because it helps universities improve
the design of the system’s learning environment and also helps to increase the im-
pact of internationalization on an individual’s learning. Quantitative evaluation is
not linked to individual learning and therefore it can’t provide this valuable infor-
mation.
5. Strategies to become international
Most university strategies concerning internationalization concentrate on increas-
ing the numbers instead of focusing on exploring the given sources in “learning
efficient” ways. Increasing the numbers means hunting for new foreign partner
schools with student and lecturer exchange programs in attractive places all over
the world. Sometimes it is the university’s desire to have a network of foreign
partners which covers all five continents because this signals the omnipresence of
that university. From a university’s perspective this quantitatively-based strategy is
partially understandable: A university’s reputation and success are measured in
ratios and rankings. International quantities are part of these ratios and so contrib-
ute to the overall university ranking. However, despite this misleading incentive to
focus on quantities, it seems to be a wise strategy to consolidate the existing for-
eign exchange programs, international research contacts and international relation-
ships and to audit their impact on the individual learning process.
A quality-oriented internationalization strategy contains two main aspects:
16