1. Background of the Questionnaire

The Secretariat for ASEM-DUO Fellowship has been serving over 800 professors and students since its operation in year 2001. The Secretariat needed feedback from program users how effective the program and operation have been carried out and seek advice for possible improvement.

With such regard, the questionnaire consists of 16 questions in 3 parts, covering the following issues;

General information and administration affairs

Fellowship, selection and evaluation criteria (for fellows only)

Comments and advice on public relations

  1. Procedure and Method

In June, the Secretariat sent questionnaires by email to program participants. Total of 1,146 questionnaires were emailed and the recipients can be broken down into the 86 from DUO-Denmark, 360 from DUO-France, and 700 from DUO-Korea 700.

Participants were given 3 weeks to fill out the forms and return by email or fax until the first week of July, 2004. As a result, the Secretariat received 146 completed questionnaires which is return rate of 12.7%.

The completed questionnaires were examined by program (i.e. DUO-Denmark, France, and Korea) and status (i.e. professor, student, and international office manager) for the following reasons;

Each program has slightly different principles that generated different answers depending on which program participant was in.

Each participant with different status has a different perspective for he/she experienced different procedure and requirement accordingly.

  1. Demographics

Out of 146 completed surveys, 20 were from DUO-Denmark, 57 from DUO-France and the rest of 69 from DUO-Korea. The majority of participants was found to be students with 69 in number closely followed by 55 professors, 11 international office managers, and 8 teachers. Thirty six percent of participants were from Asian region, 38% from European, and the rest did not state their origins.

  1. Route to awareness of ASEM-DUO Fellowship program

Home institution was found to play a major role in disseminating the ASEM-DUO program among user groups. More than a third of participants answered that they found out about the program through their home institutions. DUO-France, however, relied heavily on professors as the focal point as 44% of participants marked they knew the program through professors. This is due to the fact that DUO-France places professors as main players, project leaders, to apply for and carry out the program.

5. Search of Partners

Since the DUO-Program cannot be complete without a partner for exchange, home institutions have been crucial partners of the Secretariat for nearly half of partners was selected by their home institutions. One third to 40% of Professors, on the other hand, said that they facilitated their networks to carry out the project.

6. Program’s Administrative Efficiency

Seventy percent of participants admitted that they did not face any difficulties in administrative affairs. For those who have, the actual recipients of the program had trouble in financial transaction of fellowship fund and international office managers in filling out application forms.

7. Understanding Core Principles of Program

Participants from 3 DUO programs expressed their difficulties of understanding the program on the area of selection procedure, definition of ‘unit’, and fund transfer. Depending on status of participants, the answers differed; students who have high reliability on financial need said fund transfer was the most difficult part. For professors and office managers, filling out application forms and selection procedure topped the list.

8. Satsifaction on Application period

Currently, DUO Denmark, France, and Korea start calling for proposals in April, March, and May respectively. Except for DUO-Korea, nearly 40% of participants of DUO-Denmark and France expressed their wish to have their application period in earlier than March to earn enough time to prepare an plan project for the next academic year. The same percentage of DUO-Korea participants showed satisfaction with current practice.

9. Satisfaction on Fellowship

Sixty-six percent found the fellowship to be sufficient enough and 80% said fellowship covered more than 75% of their expenses. The areas that the fellowship covered were mainly on living expenses, transportation, and accommodation. Half of participants requested to receive the full fellowship fund in advance while 38% of them were satisfied with current procedure of receiving the fellowship in 2 stages. However, there was concern on the imbalance of living expenses between Asia and Europe. The Secretariat received suggestions to allocate higher fellowship fund to Asian professors and students for their exchange stay in Europe.

10. Consideration over selection criteria and evaluation procedure

Nearly 70% found both selection criteria and evaluation process satisfactory and appropriate. Approximately 30% of participants were frank about the fact that criteria were not well communicated that resulted in negative or no comment answers.

11. Suggestion of Advertising for ASEM-DUO Fellowship

Despite enjoying easy access to internet era, 47% of participants preferred traditional ways to promote ASEM-DUO Fellowship such as brochures/posters. Announcement on institution’s homepage rated as a second place with 29% closely followed by school fairs with 21%. Others included universitynetwork and journals.

12. General Comments

Thirty-three participants made valuable comments, and they can be divided into 3 categories.

Request for improvement (18)

Disclosure of selection process

More efficient advertising of ASEM-DUO Fellowshp Program

More selections of participants

Simplified request for transfer procedure

Creation of DUO-Fellow Community and e-letter

Early announcement of awardees

More fellowship for Asian students

Compliments (12)

Appreciation over given opportunities

Satisfaction with the program

Appreciation to the Secretariat

Others (3)

Request for posting correct amount of fellowship

Inquiry whether pairing is necessary to bring best result

Inquiry of applying for the same program twice

13.Conclusion and Resolution

More than 65% showed satisfaction on the following area;

Understanding ASEM-DUO Fellowship Program

Administration Procedure

Fellowship Amount

Selection Criteria

Evaluation Process

However, we also found that there were areas that needed improvement as the following;

Fund transfer procedure

Application period

Advertising method

The areas for improvement should be discussed with contributing countries for further action. The following steps have taken place for feasibility;

Contact each government official of contributing countries with the analysis report

Suggest simplifying fund transfer, setting earlier date for proposals, designing and publishing brochures and posters. After making a general agreement, the application forms along with other documents shall be updated for the academic year 2005/6.