Alan Olsen is a Director of SPRE. He is a researcher, strategist and policy adviser on international education, transnational education and international student programs, based in Hong Kong. He has worked in international education in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong and has published extensively, with thirty-one publications listed on Australian Education International’s Database of Research on International Education http://aei.dest.gov.au.

As a consultant, Alan provides advice on international strategy to universities such as Swinburne University of Technology, La Trobe University, University of Technology Sydney, University of South Australia and RMIT University, and to other education entities such as Australian Education International, the Australian Technology Network of Universities, the Australian Universities International Directors’ Forum, TAFE Directors Australia, IDP Education P/L, the European Consortium of Innovative Universities, Hobsons PLC and Hobsons Asia Pacific.

In 2008 he was the author of International Mobility of Australian University Students: 2005, forthcoming in Journal of Studies in International Education and published OnlineFirst on 30 April 2008. http://jsi.sagepub.com/pap.dtl

In 2007 he was joint author with Melissa Banks and David Pearce of Global Student Mobility: An Australian Perspective Five Years On, the third study by IDP Education P/L to forecast demand for international higher education, and, with Jeffrey Smart, Benchmarking of Australian University International Operations 2006: Findings and an Institutional Perspective.

In 2007 he was also joint author of Ten Years On: Satisfying Hong Kong's Demand for Higher Education (see What’s New), the paper by Alan Olsen of SPRE Limited and Peter Burges of IDP Education P/L published in Hong Kong on 30 June 2007, ten years after the handover of Hong Kong to China. Ten years into Chinese rule, ten years since the last British Governor sailed out of Hong Kong, it is still difficult to get into university in Hong Kong.

In 2006 he was joint author of Models and Types: Guidelines for Good Practice in Transnational Education published online by the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, London, http://www.obhe.ac.uk/products/reports/, Benchmarking 2005 and Time Series 2002 to 2005 (see What’s New), the October 2006 paper for the Australian International Education Conference in Perth, Education Reforms in Hong Kong: Threats and Opportunities for Australia (see What’s New) and Academic Performance of International Students in Australia for the Winter 2006 edition of International Higher Education, http://www.bc.edu/cihe, showing that there is no difference between the academic performance of international students and their Australian counterparts.

In 2002 he was author of e-Learning in Asia: Supply and Demand, published online by The Observatory on Borderless Higher Education www.obhe.ac.uk and joint author of e-Commerce in International Student Recruitment: Three Years of Virtual Marketing by Four Australian Universities, a paper for the 16th Australian International Education Conference in Hobart, October 2002. (see What’s New)

In 2001, he was author of a chapter Online Education in the Context of Globalisation in Transnational Education: Australia Online, a research study on the critical factors for success in online delivery of higher education, and author of Four Reforms: Hong Kong’s Demand for International Education (seeWhat’s New)

In 2000, he was joint author of Transnational Education: Providers, Partners and Policy on the challenges for Australian institutions offering courses offshore, and joint author of An Evaluation of the Committee for University Teaching and Staff Development Initiative, published online by the Australian Universities Teaching Committee at www.autc.gov.au

He is joint author of chapters in Peter Scott's Higher Education Reformed (Falmer Press, London, 2000) and Keith Harry's Higher Education through Open and Distance Learning (Routledge, London, 1999).

He is joint editor of International Education: The Professional Edge (1999), and Outcomes of International Education: Research Findings (1998), two series of commissioned research papers.

His earlier publications as joint author include:

• Becoming Internationally Competitive: The Value of International Experience for Australian Students (1999)
• Internationalisation and Tertiary Education in New Zealand (1998)
• Comparative Costs of Higher Education Courses for International Students in Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Canada and the US (1997)
• Skills Recognition Directory for Professional Occupations in ASEAN and Australia (1996)
• Internationalisation and Higher Education: Goals and Strategies (1996).
  

He commissioned and edited the 1995 IDP Education Australia study International Education: Australia's Potential Demand and Supply.

Alan has a Bachelor of Arts degree with First Class Honours in Philosophy from The University of Sydney and a Graduate Diploma in Finance from University of Technology, Sydney.