News and commentary

AUCC releases 2011 national enrolment update

OTTAWA – Canadian undergraduate university enrolment surpassed one million students this fall. The latest university enrolment figures show full-time undergraduate university enrolment is up three percent – approximately 22,700 more full-time students – since 2010, while part-time undergraduate student enrolment has remained constant.

“Canadian universities made history this fall. They welcomed 1,015,000 undergraduate students onto campuses across the country,” says Paul Davidson, president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. “This kind of consistent growth in student numbers reinforces the value of a university degree. Students, parents and employers understand that a university degree is a sound investment in the future.”

When students learn in a research-enriched, globally-engaged environment, they expand their knowledge, critical thinking and analytical skills and inspire new ideas and creativity, which they take with them into the labour market after graduation. As a result, university graduates earn on average $1.3 million more over a lifetime than high school graduates, and they are less likely to be unemployed. Even during the recession, between 2008 and 2010, there were 300,000 net new jobs created for university graduates.

In 2011, enrolment figures demonstrate that demand for university education has increased at all levels of study. Full-time graduate student enrolment increased by 3.2 percent since last year, or 4,600 students, and part-time graduate student enrolment has increased 2.3 percent since 2010. There are now 195,400 graduate students enrolled at Canadian universities.

For the 16th straight year, the number of international students is on the rise. Full-time international enrolment (all levels combined) has increased by more than 11 percent since 2010, a four-fold increase since 1995. There are now 100,000 international students in Canada, from more than 200 countries.

“I’m pleased to see more international students on Canadian university campuses,” says Paul Davidson. “Canada is increasingly reliant on international trade to drive our economy, and international students are a big part of our success. Canadian universities attract students from all over the world. We engage them in our local communities, and then provide them with knowledge and skills to facilitate international linkages.”

AUCC is the voice for Canada’s universities. It represents 95 Canadian public and not-for-profit universities and university-degree level colleges.

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For more information:

Helen Murphy
AUCC Communications Manager
hmurphy@aucc.ca
Cell: 613-608-8749

By Paul Davidson, president, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada

In recent weeks Canada’s universities have been criticized for their opposition to a new copyright tariff being proposed by Access Copyright, a creators’ collective that licenses photocopying of works. This is an important issue impacting students, faculty and the broader university community across Canada and I welcome this opportunity to explain the position of Canada’s universities, as both creators and users of copyrighted works.

The information revolution we are living through provides unprecedented opportunities for students to learn in new and collaborative ways. Students have access to a broader range of material and are accessing it in more formats than ever before. Today’s university students and faculty increasingly prefer to use digital material and this can pose challenges to ensure that creators are properly compensated. For the past two decades Canada’s universities have worked with creators through Access Copyright. Payments to creators have been large and growing. But now the collective wants to dramatically increase its price, for something students and universities are using less.

Access Copyright does licensing primarily for photocopying and scanned material. Moreover, in the digital environment, many publishers have decided they no longer need their collective as the “middle man” to act on their behalf. Publishers have bypassed their collective to negotiate directly with universities, or consortia of universities, for licences to cover the use of their works in digital format. In short, the digital alternatives to Access Copyright’s licenses have grown tremendously while its largely print repertoire is becoming less relevant to the university community.

In response to the changing dynamics of the marketplace, Access Copyright recently proposed a tariff of $45 per student, a very large increase in the amount of money that Access Copyright would receive from universities. Access Copyright wants universities to pay more and more for something they use less and less: photocopied material. Access Copyright has also refused to provide transactional permissions (payment per each use) to universities for the copying of any works not already covered by other licenses, thereby preventing institutions from paying based on their actual usage. It is this heavy-handed approach by Access Copyright that has led some universities to decide that they will not agree to pay a large fee-per-student to Access Copyright for the use of a small repertoire of digital works. Instead, these institutions are choosing to rely on their digital licences to satisfy most of their requirements.

Given the potentially high cost of the Access Copyright tariff, and the huge administrative burden it imposes on institutions by requiring that they answer extensive and detailed questions about all of their photocopying on campus, participate in copying surveys, and submit detailed monthly reports, it is not surprising that 35 universities have chosen to opt out of using the tariff and rely instead on their digital licences, transactional permissions obtained from publishers and the U.S. Copyright Clearance Center, and statutory exceptions for their copying needs. The “pay and play” digital licences that universities have signed impose none of the administrative burden that is intrinsic to using the Access Copyright tariff.

Universities are very willing to pay rights holders for the use of their works in education and research. However, each institution should have the right to choose, based on its particular circumstances, whether using the Access Copyright tariff is an appropriate solution to licensing its copying.

What Access Copyright is proposing is an antiquated and burdensome model that doesn’t reflect the needs of our digital age. For students and creators alike, we need to find a better solution.

This op-ed was published in Embassy magazine on October 19, 2011

by Paul Davidson, President of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada

University leaders believe that Canadian students deserve research-enriched, globally engaged learning experiences in a culture of innovation. We have a long history of international engagement. More and more university students are prepared to live and work in a global economy. At the same time, Canada is a growing destination for international students and researchers, who make vital contributions to our campuses and local communities.

However, Canada is not alone in its search for the best and brightest. Our global competitors for talent are strengthening their recruitment strategies and adapting to market changes influenced by emerging economic powerhouses. Canada must seize this nanosecond of opportunity to showcase Canadian education and research excellence in order to solidify our position as a leading international education destination.

According to UNESCO, the number of international postsecondary education students increased by 77 percent between 2000 and 2009, from 2.1 to 3.7 million worldwide. In Canada, the number of international university students more than doubled over the same period, with international students making up 10 percent of the campus population across the country in 2010.

Students choose Canada for a wide range of reasons, including the excellent quality of our university programs and the welcoming nature of our communities. The opportunities to transition to permanent immigration status, and the comparatively low tuition and living expenses also help to place Canada a step above its competitors.

Important progress has been made towards the development of a coordinated, pan-Canadian approach to international education marketing. In recent years, the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade has worked with provinces and education associations to develop the Imagine Education in/au Canada brand. Citizenship and Immigration Canada has also taken important steps to make it easier for international students to work off campus, and for graduates of Canadian universities to gain temporary work experience and apply for permanent residency. National education associations, including the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, have come together to form the Canadian Consortium for International Education Marketing, which aims to build Canada’s reputation as a destination for international students.

The 2011 federal budget allocated $10 million over two years to develop a new international education strategy, including ways to attract the best and brightest international students to Canada. Last week, a high-level advisory panel was established to make recommendations on the development and implementation of this strategy, which will be released in early 2012. Chaired by Amit Chakma, president of the University of Western Ontario, the panel will consult with key international education stakeholders across Canada in the coming months. Canadian universities look forward to actively participating in these consultations, working alongside panel members to enhance global connections for Canadian students, researchers and institutions. This coordinated strategy to attract talented students and researchers to Canada, and to promote Canadian expertise and education services abroad, will contribute to our nation’s prosperity.

Although international student recruitment is a priority for Canadian universities, other forms of international collaboration and connectivity are also essential, including international mobility opportunities for Canadian students and faculty, and international research collaboration. In our globally connected world, international partnerships help to create jobs, encourage economic growth and ensure that our labour force is ready to compete in the global marketplace.

The time is right for Canada to build new, effective and innovative research and higher learning partnerships, particularly with rapidly emerging economic powers like Brazil, India and China. Canada’s universities are helping to build enduring people-to-people linkages and institutional partnerships in these developing economies.

In November 2010, AUCC led a delegation of 15 university presidents to India. This largest-ever delegation of Canadian university presidents succeeded in positioning Canada as a partner of choice for Indian students, faculty, researchers and institutions. Since then, enrolment of Indian students in Canadian universities has increased. A second delegation of university presidents will travel to Brazil in April 2012. Led by the Governor General of Canada, His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, this even larger mission will focus on raising the collective profile of Canadian universities, building the brand of excellence in Canadian higher education, and establishing strategic university and research partnerships.

Emerging economies are signaling a profound commitment to higher education through significant investments in international opportunities for their students and researchers. The government of Brazil recently announced scholarships for 75,000 Brazilian students to study abroad for up to one year. With the Brazilian private sector expected to provide funding for an additional 25,000 students, this model exemplifies the importance of enhanced cooperation among governments, education institutions and the private sector. Canada wants to host our share of these students.

As high quality students from key markets around the world look beyond their borders for a study destination, Canada must become their first choice. Canadian universities are ready to welcome these students, providing internationally recognized programming at the undergraduate, master’s, PhD and post-doctoral levels, and offering a safe and welcoming learning environment.

With continued coordination and collaboration amongst governments and institutions, Canada is poised to become a top destination for international students and researchers. Vital institutional partnerships and research collaboration will also continue to multiply, bringing tremendous benefits to communities across Canada and offering new opportunities for young Canadians to gain the experience they need to succeed in today’s global, knowledge-based economy.

Universities welcome recognition of leadership in talent, discovery and ideas

OTTAWA – The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada values the vision of innovation outlined today in the report of the Independent Panel on Federal Support to Research and Development. The panel’s report is a timely call to action, and universities are ready to play their part in making Canada more prosperous and innovative.

“The panel’s analysis reaffirms the leading role that Canada’s universities play in providing the talent, discovery and ideas that serve as the cornerstone of our economy and society,” says Paul Davidson, president of AUCC. “We’re pleased the panel stayed focused on the major problem in our innovation continuum: the fact that Canada lags behind other highly developed countries on business investment and innovation.”

The recommendations in the report call for a series of measures that will create closer links among university research, business and governments in order to create a more dynamic culture of innovation in Canada. AUCC is pleased to note that many elements of the panel’s report mirror the analysis and proposals we made earlier this year in Canada’s universities: partners in the business of innovation, our recommendations to the panel.

In its report, the panel identifies the primary role that universities, and their faculty, students and graduates, occupy as the leading contributors to innovation. It recognizes the pressing need for support for the institutional costs of research. And it calls for Canada to invest in basic research at internationally competitive levels.

Canada’s universities welcome the panel’s recognition of the importance of talent development for undergraduate, graduate and post-doctoral fellows (a move called for recently by Canada’s Science and Technology Innovation Council and by AUCC in its pre-budget submission to the House of Commons Finance Committee. “Our country needs more collaboration to bridge the gap between research and innovation. We are very pleased that the panel recognizes the willingness and efforts of universities to play our part,” says Mr. Davidson.

There are a number of very encouraging recommendations in this report, such as:

• creating vouchers to build relationships between small and medium-sized enterprises and universities;
• maintaining a broad range of intellectual property arrangements to meet the variety of needs Canadian businesses as they seek to engage in research and discovery collaborations;
• adopting procurement policies that encourage innovation.

The panel, which was chaired by Open Text chairman and chief strategy officer Tom Jenkins and included David Naylor, president of the University of Toronto, has charted “an ambitious and achievable agenda to make Canada a global leader in research, discovery and innovation,” Mr. Davidson states. Over the coming weeks and months, AUCC looks forward to meeting Parliamentarians, public servants and other stakeholders to further discuss the recommendations and move forward.

AUCC is the voice of Canada’s universities. It represents 95 Canadian public and private, not-for-profit universities and university-degree level colleges.

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Report of the Independent Panel on Federal Support to Research and Development

For more information:

Helen Murphy
AUCC Communications Manager
hmurphy@aucc.ca
613-563-1236 ext. 238

This op-ed was published in the Hill Times on October 17, 2011

By Paul Davidson, president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada

In recent weeks, Access Copyright and its supporters have published opinion articles making wild allegations about the decision of some universities to opt out of its proposed tariff. It’s time to set the record straight and to explain why some institutions have chosen this path.

In last week’s Hill Times, the Executive Director of Access Copyright claimed that universities are “walking away from the reprography licences that worked so well for decades.” This is simply not true. Universities, through the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, were prepared to renegotiate the model licence that formed the template for institutional licences with Access Copyright since 1994. Access Copyright never attempted to renegotiate the AUCC model licence.

It was Access Copyright’s decision to file a tariff with the Copyright Board on March 31, 2010, imposing a new copying regime on postsecondary institutions that would include far higher fees and a costly administrative burden on institutions choosing to use the tariff. Access Copyright chose the same approach in its dealings with other sectors when it terminated existing licensing arrangements and filed tariffs to cover copying in K-12 schools and copying by provincial and territorial governments. The fact is that it was Access Copyright that chose to upset the licensing apple cart in all of these sectors, not educational institutions and governments.

So why have some institutions decided to opt out of the Access Copyright tariff? Today’s students and faculty increasingly use materials in digital format. What Access Copyright is offering is primarily licensing for the use of photocopied and scanned materials. Secondly, the proposed fee of $45 per student is far higher than universities paid under the reprography licences that expired last year. The huge administrative burden associated with the tariff regime is equally disturbing.

For example, this spring, Access Copyright sent 122 interrogatories – very burdensome and onerous questions – to universities outside of Quebec. These questions, which the institutions using the Access Copyright tariff were obliged to answer, put those institutions to great effort and expense. The answers provided to Access Copyright, if printed out, would have weighed more than six Honda Civic automobiles.

Institutions using the tariff will also be required to participate in an Access Copyright survey of institutional copying to take place during 2012. This survey, too, will be administratively burdensome and costly. In addition, the tariff requires that institutions using the tariff submit detailed monthly reports on their copying.

There is no equivalent to these costly administrative burdens in the digital licensing agreements that universities have negotiated over the past decade with academic publishers. These agreements provide faculty members and students with access to digital works in each publisher’s database and broad rights to copy these works. Many academic publishers have bypassed Access Copyright because they do not need a “middleman” to license their works in the digital environment. The digital licences, for which universities pay more than $160 million annually, do not require universities to answer onerous questions, participate in copying surveys, or report on their copying. They are “pay and play” agreements that avoid the excessive administrative burdens associated with Access Copyright’s tariff.

Given the potentially high cost of the Access Copyright tariff, which may be applied retroactively by the Copyright Board when it makes a final ruling, and the huge administrative burden attached to using the tariff, it is not surprising that 35 universities have chosen to opt out of using the tariff and rely instead on their digital licences, transactional permissions, and statutory exceptions for their copying needs.

Universities are very willing to pay rights holders for the use of their works in education and research. However, each institution should have the right to choose, based on its particular circumstances, whether using the Access Copyright tariff is an appropriate solution to licensing its copying.

What Access Copyright is proposing is an antiquated model that doesn’t reflect the needs of our digital age. For students and creators, we need to find a better solution.