How to use technology and digital innovations to foster cross-border and cross-cultural understanding, international education and global learning among larger numbers of students and faculty&nbsp;

Virtual exchange

What can blogging offer the higher education community? The London School of Economics and Political Science arguably has one of the most wide-ranging and professionalised academic blogging platforms in the UK, if not the world, and receives more than 10 million views a year. As editors of, respectively, LSE Impact blog and, until recently, LSE Review of Books, we have perhaps spent more time than most considering this question. More specifically, how can it help amplify student voices?We should begin by emphasising how far blogging, academic or otherwise, has evolved since its inception at the turn of the millennium. For many, blogging – a merger of “web” and “log” – still denotes a solitary activity, a slightly anachronistic exercise in a diaristic style of writing which, barring a few high-profile examples, holds little value in engaging wider audiences.&nbsp;How to engage with the media and expand the impact of your workGet the word out: four ways to communicate with non-academic audiencesYou’re a content producer now, part one: how to write articles for a mainstream audienceBut this view of blogs as the “primordial soup” of the internet age is at odds with the way digital platforms operate today. They are defined by multi-author blogs. Look at any newspaper, thinktank or research institute and they will host, or at least contribute to, various blogging platforms. Within academia, there has also been a recent proliferation of online magazines and publications aimed at reaching and engaging focused audiences – in effect, blogs by another name. There is growing evidence of policymakers using blog content, and the LSE blogs platform is regularly cited by major news outlets, linking them to potentially huge audiences. For instance, an LSE Impact blog post on ChatGPT featured in the Atlantic and has been influential in shaping the debate around artificial intelligence and assessment in higher education.In practice, blogs operate as part of what author (and blogger) Mark Carrigan has termed “the social infrastructure of scholarship”. Blogs link groups and audiences and enable them to collectively build online communities, discussions and interactions. This is something Claire Gordon, director of the LSE Eden Centre for Education Enhancement and co-founder of the LSE HE blog, recently elaborated on in a post in honour of its fourth anniversary, recognising the role it plays in maintaining a critical and reflexive community focused on teaching in higher education. Indeed, as the social media landscape tilts towards favouring fee-paying members or highly engaged influencers, multi-author blogs can perform an important equity function, providing open-access platforms for diverse, often marginalised voices that might on their own not receive a hearing.&nbsp;Hone your writing and teaching skillsThe practice of blogging can also help you experiment with your personal voice and develop styles of writing that engage wider audiences. As academic and blogger Pat Thomson argues, blogging can build confidence and encourages clarity and conciseness – a welcome skill in the often verbose world of academia! Blogging can also be used as a pedagogical tool, offering more creative and diverse forms of assessment than the traditional essay or exam paper, as evidenced by the Reviews in Translation collaboration between LSE Review of Books and LSE Language Centre.&nbsp;Give your students a platformThis combination of knowledge development and community-building – as exemplified by the LSE blog platform – is only enhanced when student voices are thrown into the mix. Just as the effectiveness of knowledge exchange is predicated on building it into research projects from the beginning, partaking in blogging as a student can be one way of strengthening those skills from the very start of research careers too.&nbsp;Of course, students may not be in the position to draw on new research findings from multi-year research projects or published research – typically the basis for academic blogs, including many within the LSE blogging community – and publishing early in the research process may come with some drawbacks. However, student blogs still offer an important mechanism for students to test out ideas, engage with the intellectual currents of their discipline(s) and stake out research questions and territory to develop as part of their work. This can be especially helpful for those looking to develop an academic career.As participants in higher education, students are expert in its workings – from understanding the importance of Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives and the need to take neurodiversity seriously in the academy, to interrogating the hierarchies of knowledge production and their impact on marking practice, advocating for international solidarity among student bodies and reflecting on the value of a university degree. These student contributions all show critical attentiveness to prevalent and pressing issues facing contemporary higher education structures and offer generative ways to tackle them.&nbsp;The “conversational scholarship” of blogging is enriched by the inclusion of student voices that can contribute to accessible and creative modes of thinking and writing higher education differently.&nbsp;Michael Taster is managing editor of the LSE Impact Blog. Rosemary Deller is knowledge exchange support manager at LSE and until recently was managing editor of LSE Review of Books.If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,&nbsp;sign up for the Campus newsletter.

Want to foster community? Start blogging

From educators to students, blogging is a vital social infrastructure for the higher education community. Michael Taster and Rosemary Deller offer their tips

Want to foster community and give your students a voice? Start blogging

Much has been said on the topic of virtual reality (VR) as a means for enhancing learning outcomes for university students. How can it enable teaching activities that would otherwise be dangerous, impossible, counter-productive or expensive in real-world settings (the so-called DICE criteria for VR in education and training)?Despite the promise, two central problems for VR exist. First, the difficulty of on-boarding: it takes time to become familiar, confident and proficient with the technology. Second, sickness: despite significant improvements in the technology, it is inevitable that a minority of students (and teachers) will be unable to use immersive headsets, as they can cause dizziness, nausea or eye strain in certain people.&nbsp;Three approaches to improve your online teachingHarness human and artificial intelligence to improve classroom debatesUsing VR to change medical students’ attitudes towards older patientsTechnology that aims to provide a holographic experience offers a solution here, providing several of the benefits of immersion. One of these is co-presence: the illusion of being there with someone who isn’t actually physically present. The technology also has low barriers, meaning that diverse and inclusive university communities can access the content provided.At Loughborough University, we are just starting to use holographic experiences in student-facing teaching. There are a range of possible immersive technologies in existence – and we are currently exploring use of “box-type” displays (human and table-top sized) that use high-quality transparent LEDs and various lighting effects to give a realistic impression of a 3D person or object. For the next six to 12 months the goals are to conduct the practice-informed research to understand the fundamental affordances of this technology, and its subsequent impact on the student learning experience. We want to develop the policy and training materials to empower academics to use this technology effectively.

  
      
  
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Vikki Locke and Gary Burnett use holographic technology

We see several ways it could be used, although this number will no doubt increase with our experience.&nbsp;Remote teaching: It is common practice to have guest lecturers and industry speakers contributing to university modules, allowing students to benefit from expertise not readily available within the institution while gaining broader, more global perspectives on problems. Such guests either need to be shown in 2D on a screen or must travel, costing time, money and CO2. In our planned investigations with the technology, we’ll aim to understand whether a hologram guest is perceived by students to be socially present, as engaging as an in-the-room teacher and yet not distracting, which is always a possibility with novel technology.&nbsp;Live innovation teaching: A potentially significant benefit of this technology will be control over the pixels, leading to a wide range of possible innovations in pedagogic practice. For example, different realistic scenarios could be presented to students with recorded content of actors and multiple decision points in the narrative that require focused debate in class. Students could also be shown modified versions of themselves, changed in size, age, gender or race, potentially in relation to a designed-artefact, as a means of stimulating in-depth discussion – for instance, concerning the impact of individual anthropometry (body size or shape) on issues of fit (reach, vision, clearance).Student-generated content: Similarly, we envisage students in creative disciplines using this technology to imagine the impossible – potentially using principles of magical theatre to showcase themselves and their digital content in new, exciting, engaging and memorable ways. We anticipate the technology providing an additional and welcome dimension to our popular degree show events.AI avatar interaction: The hologram doesn’t necessarily have to represent a living human and could be someone significant from the past – or even non-human. When combined with suitably tailored AI, students or the teacher can directly engage and ask questions to a realistic full-sized avatar and then analyse the answers in the context of the learning outcomes of the teaching session. We will be interested to explore how such an avatar could represent the values of the university to enhance the sense of community or portray a figure relevant to the teaching, to augment learning through contextualisation.Holograms afford many innovations in higher education teaching practice. Students and their teachers increasingly will need new digital literacy skills for understanding and working with these new immersive technologies. We look forward to experimenting in the use of holograms over the coming months – and reporting back with our findings to the higher education community.Gary Burnett is professor of digital creativity and Vikki Locke is professor of teaching practice, both at Loughborough University.If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,&nbsp;sign up for the Campus newsletter.

Embedding holographic learning experiences into teaching

While there are barriers for using virtual reality in the university classroom, holographic experiences could light the way forward. Gary Burnett and Vikki Locke explain how

‘You’re my only hope’: embedding holographic learning experiences into teaching

The Global Shared Learning Classroom, an initiative in which two universities from separate countries solve a real-world challenge&nbsp;together using digital communication tools,&nbsp;is a catalyst for connecting students and professors from different parts of the world in a collaborative virtual environment. Using the collaborative online international learning (COIL) methodology, it’s proven to be an effective vehicle for breaking both geographical and cultural barriers.

The GSL Classroom methodology is based on COIL, which was conceived by Jon Rubin at the State University of New York (SUNY). His approach emphasises the collaborative design of activities and the integration of COIL methodology, allowing students from all over the world to collaborate virtually. The programme extends for a minimum of four weeks, ensuring a deep immersion in course content. Participation in multicultural teams is essential, enhancing students’ intercultural skills and significantly enriching their educational experience. This holistic approach aims to provide substantive knowledge and promote global understanding and collaboration in an international educational environment.


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Our experience in the GSL Classroom highlights the importance of fostering active participation, designing challenging activities and facilitating teacher collaboration for effective global learning. Adaptability to cultural diversity emerged as a key factor, helping us create an enriching experience.&nbsp;

Here are our four tips for success with the GSL Classroom specifically:


	Encourage active participation:&nbsp;The key to GSL Classroom success is fostering active student participation. This goes beyond simply completing tasks –&nbsp;it involves engaging in meaningful discussions, sharing personal experiences and contributing to an enriching global dialogue. We use a metaverse, a 3D communication platform,&nbsp;to do this.
	Design challenging and relevant activities:&nbsp;Activities that address real-world challenges, especially those related to the UN’s&nbsp;Sustainable Development Goals, generate greater engagement. These activities stimulate creativity and motivate students to apply innovative solutions to global problems. We focus on finding solutions to generate clean and affordable energy (SDG7).
	Facilitate teacher collaboration:&nbsp;Collaboration among teachers from different parts of the world&nbsp;not only benefits students but&nbsp;enriches the teaching experience. Establishing spaces to exchange best practices, methodologies and resources strengthens the global community of educators. We had prior planning and organisation sessions via Zoom. The metaverse also offers a place to meet for academic activities.
	Adapt to cultural diversity:&nbsp;Cultural diversity in the GSL Classroom is a strength but also requires special sensitivity. Creating an environment that celebrates cultural differences and fosters mutual understanding is essential for the programme’s success. An icebreaker activity is an excellent way to foster cultural diversity and promote mutual understanding in the GSL classroom.


Here we offer five further recommendations, based on our success with GSL Classroom, for implementing similar programmes in your institution.


	Plan activities and meetings with international partners. Define goals, assign responsibilities&nbsp;and anticipate challenges in planning activities and meetings with international partners. Detailed documentation of agreements ensures shared understanding and effective follow-up. This practice optimises collaboration time, strengthens relationships&nbsp;and contributes to the ongoing success of the GSL programme. Cloud-based word processing applications such as&nbsp;Google Docs make this task easier.
	Integrate technology meaningfully. Use technological tools not only as support but&nbsp;as key facilitators for global collaboration. Interactive platforms, video conferences&nbsp;and online collaboration tools are fundamental for the GSL Classroom. For example, video conferencing systems such as Zoom, collaboration platforms like Google Workspace and real-time collaboration tools like Padlet and WhatsApp have all proved invaluable.
	Establish clear and measurable goals. From the outset, defining clear and measurable goals helps guide the programme. These goals should focus on internationalisation, promoting global education and effective collaboration between students and professors.
	Encourage continuous reflection and evaluation. Structured reflection at the end of the programme is vital. Encourage participants to evaluate not only the results but also the process to ensure continuous improvement and adaptation to changing needs.
	Explore international partnerships. Seeking partnerships with other universities and educational centres internationally expands collaboration possibilities. These partnerships can enrich diversity and perspectives within the virtual classroom. This strategic approach not only positions the institution for greater visibility but also provides a valuable differentiator, highlighting its commitment to global collaboration and educational excellence.


The GSL Classroom at Monterrey Institute of Technology&nbsp;is not only a model of educational internationalisation but a rich source of learning. Active participation, careful design of activities and effective global collaboration are key for success. These tips and recommendations provide a guide for colleagues and professors at other universities looking to implement similar initiatives, creating a global fabric of learning.

Jorge Alvarez is an associate professor at Monterrey Institute of Technology.

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Tips for mastering the Global Shared Learning Classroom

The Global Shared Learning Classroom can help extend internationalism beyond traditional exchange programmes. Jorge Alvarez offers advice

University internationalisation efforts typically include student exchange programmes (inbound and outbound), site visits, cultural tours and other activities. However, during the Covid-19 disruption, nearly all exchange programmes were suspended because of travel restrictions and quarantine measures. As a result, some students have been deprived of an opportunity to study at a foreign institution and need to find alternative ways to acquire leadership skills, appreciate transcultural knowledge and gain insights into globalisation.

During the Covid-19 disruption, many institutions switched to offering classes online or in a hybrid delivery mode. For nearly all universities operating online classes, all participants were, as might be expected, students enrolled there. In other words, technology was bridging the distance and timing divides of participants (teachers and students) from the same institution.

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However, with just a simple twist to this concept, technology can also bridge the distance and timing divides between students and teachers from multiple institutions. This gave birth to the notion of “global classrooms”, a type of internationalisation-at-home effort.

The global classroom

At the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), we have been piloting the use of the global classroom (GC) since 2017, well before Covid-19. The GC, a kind of collaborative online international learning (Coil), is defined as a learning space that fosters co-learning, collaboration, sharing and co-creation of deliverables among its participants.

Both synchronous and asynchronous activities can be included in a GC. Examples of synchronous activities are live/joint lectures, role plays, group discussions and Q&amp;A panel sessions. Asynchronous activities may include using a common online discussion forum, reflections on recorded content and co-creation of project deliverables by a joint project team (where members are drawn from multiple institutions).

Benefits of a GC

The GC has turned out to be a refreshing new pedagogy, thanks to the advancement of technologies and increasingly connected societies. More than typical internationalisation efforts, a GC enables all students in a subject to benefit, not just the handful of students who were approved for an exchange programme. Furthermore, the GC is very scalable; it does not require any additional investment in infrastructure or technology. 

It can also help students acquire much-needed skills that they might need as knowledge workers in the 21st century. For example, through carefully designed joint activities, students can enhance their communication, critical thinking, collaboration and presentation skills. 

In our own experience of the GC, feedback and reflections from teachers and students from participating institutions have all been very positive; they all reported that the GC offers a refreshing and impactful learning experience for all participants. Meanwhile, students participating in the GC as their graduate intake programmes during Covid-19 also relayed to us that their GC experience was highly valued by corporate interviewers. Many parties have agreed to continue hosting the GC and are permeating this pedagogy into routine operations in programme delivery.

GC challenges 

Behind the successes, of course, there are also major challenges in planning and hosting a GC. These are summarised alongside recommended solutions below:

Locating an overseas collaborator: Pursuing both official (the university’s international office) and personal channels (collaborators, former colleagues, people met at conferences) brings the best chance of success and also leverages existing relationships.

Long lead time: Start planning early, at least six to eight months ahead.

Finding a common time slot for synchronous collaboration: Ideally approach institutions that are within +/- four hours from the time zone of the home institution, as this offers a better chance of a window for a common time slot. Also, consider pursuing asynchronous collaboration, as GC does not necessarily need to be synchronous. Consider using only a portion of the class time for a GC. Pre-record a lecture for students to replay if a common time slot cannot be found.

Collecting feedback: Be aware of the policies and regulations of the overseas institutions and government before distributing surveys or approaching foreign students for interviews.

Measuring outcome and impact: This needs careful planning and alignment with the subject’s learning outcomes. In the past, PolyU subjects have used pre- and post-study surveys, feedback and interviews with students and teachers for this purpose.

Further GC value adds

After five years of operating the GC, we discovered another significant gain: enabling students to appreciate and accrue intercultural knowledge. This is commonly rated as a key factor for success in organisational decision-making as well as for global knowledge workers to excel. As such, we have been collaborating with US, European and South African universities to raise awareness and foster a deeper appreciation of the East-West cultural divide for students from different continents. The GC is a great pedagogy to operationalise this initiative. 

Culture is a topic that is discussed in almost all subjects (including the language, business, engineering, design, tourism and healthcare disciplines). Hence, offering a GC on culture is immediately welcome and also significantly expands the flexibility in hosting a GC (for example, it is no longer necessary to pair students from the same discipline and the same level).

Conclusion

The GC is a highly useful pedagogy and should be folded into the delivery of academic programmes worldwide. Universities developing a more flexible timetabling system to accommodate this pedagogy, along with the staging of intercultural lectures, add significant value to the many benefits already offered by the global classroom.

Eric Tsui is senior educational development officer at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.

If you would like advice and insight from academics and university staff delivered direct to your inbox each week,&nbsp;sign up for the&nbsp;THE Campus&nbsp;newsletter. 

Eric Tsui explains how to intensify internationalisation-at-home efforts, bringing many benefits to students and institutions alike, such as the sharing of transcultural knowledge

An introduction to the global classroom: benefits, challenges and value added

Globalisation and technological developments are changing the private and working lives of students and educators. It is now essential to be able to use technology to collaborate in culturally diverse international teams. Collaborative designs such as online co-teaching or peer learning can support this development. But how can we foster virtual collaboration within and across higher education institutions?

To answer this question the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) developed the International Virtual Academic Collaboration (IVAC) programme. IVAC gives instructors at German institutions the opportunity to develop virtual exchange courses in cooperation with international partners.

“Virtual exchange involves the engagement of groups of learners in extended periods of online intercultural interaction and collaboration with partners from other cultural contexts or geographical locations as an integrated part of their educational programmes and under the guidance of&nbsp; educators and/or expert facilitators,” wrote Robert O’Dowd of the University of León in 2018.

Since launching in 2020, IVAC has enabled more than 60 German HEIs to cooperate with 165 international partner universities in 56 countries. From October, a further 60 projects will be funded within the IVAC programme. To connect all IVAC projects, the DAAD initiated a community of practice (CoP) so they could learn from each other, expand their knowledge and create synergies.

Initiating a community of practice 

During a monthly virtual round table, the IVAC projects discuss topics relating to virtual exchange such as ice-breaking methods, IT tools or the long-term integration of virtual exchange into curricula. This knowledge is collected and circulated in a monthly newsletter. To include the international partners of the IVAC projects, news and events regarding internationalisation and digitalisation of institutions are shared on a LinkedIn group. The community has organised virtual exchange events including the IVAC conference at SRH Berlin, the EduVEstival at the University of Cologne, and the IVAC Festival at the University of Göttingen. The knowledge collected during the community activities is summarised on three levels:

Level of instructional design 

“Instructors are not teachers, they received no educational training,” observed one of our participants. Some instructors have expressed the need for further training to boost their skills in instructional design, intercultural competences and digital literacy. If your university does not provide such training, you can benefit from interdisciplinary peer collaboration. For the development of a virtual exchange course at SRH Berlin, a research assistant in psychology supported the creation of icebreaker methods, while lecturers from the respective departments developed the course content and instructional designers provided support with the teaching concept. Part of their design consisted of students jointly developing a team contract in which they defined their project goals and individual roles, and distributed tasks. A code of conduct set out the rules for cooperation.

Ice-breaking methods that strengthen intercultural cooperation are a hot topic. The right methods at the beginning of your virtual exchange can result in more efficient collaboration throughout the course. The students from the University of Hamburg and the Université de Paris used Padlet to introduce themselves at the beginning of their virtual exchange. The benefits of ice-breaking methods were also stressed by the University of Hildesheim and its partner in Pune, India, where students explained the meaning of their names, the special features of their city and what they love about their country.

Level of technology 

When selecting and using IT tools, many instructors face one core challenge: how to navigate rigid university guidelines based on data protection and security standards. IT administration often limits the programmes that instructors and students desperately need to effectively collaborate with international partners, and this can affect the quality of the virtual exchange. A similar challenge occurs regarding the choice of a learning management system (LMS). Most German universities use Moodle, Ilias or OLAT. However, these platforms are rarely used internationally and so students are limited to the LMS of the international partner university. The conclusion for instructors who are restricted in choosing their tools is to involve all partner IT administrations at an early stage of development. Or simply let students choose which tools they want to use.

The University of Greifswald and its international partners have learned from their project that students have to be given the time, instruction and means to learn how to use new programmes, collaborative tools and platforms.

Institutional level 

Anchoring virtual exchange in strategy, structure and culture is a significant challenge on an institutional level. Structural developments often suffer due to the lack of financial and human resources as well as the extensive coordination processes required between international partners and within their own universities. Integrating shorter IVAC modules of three to six weeks into existing courses and curricula has produced good results.

From a bottom-up perspective, extensive project marketing can be a means to increase awareness at your institution and beyond. The establishment of interdepartmental or interdisciplinary working groups can be one way of increasing awareness. The BTU Cottbus project, as well as the UAS7 Virtual Academy project established working groups consisting of employees from departments such as administration, education, e-learning and marketing to create awareness and develop long-term solutions to embed digital and hybrid teaching.

Projects can also distribute the results of their virtual exchange through good project marketing. At SRH Berlin, an internal newsletter was used to create interest and synergies among professors and employees from other departments who had no direct connection to the IVAC project.

Joining or initiating a community of practice gives you the chance to share and expand your knowledge, create cross-departmental and international synergies, and thereby foster virtual collaboration within and across higher education institutions.

Eugene Schulz and Dagmar Willems are both senior desk officers at the digitalisation section of The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). 

Eugene Schulz and Dagmar Willems share insights and takeaway lessons from creating a community of practice for higher education instructors to develop virtual exchanges with international partners

How a community of practice can foster virtual collaboration  

With university graduates entering increasingly globalised workplaces, the need to foster their intercultural and global citizenship skills is ever more pressing. To help meet this need, the University of Edinburgh developed the Network for Intercultural Competence to facilitate Entrepreneurship (Nice) in collaboration with seven other European universities.

This blended learning programme aims to enhance student employability. It facilitates the development of intercultural competencies and entrepreneurial skills then offers opportunities for their practical application in real-life situations to address global challenges. The programme comprises online modules and regular live online sessions during term time, followed by a physical summer school focused on project-based learning, design thinking, social innovation and business in context – the summer school pivoted fully online during the pandemic.

Students collaborate in virtual transnational groups using a custom-built online platform that allows them to access interactive content as well as share comments and materials with each other. Institutions looking to implement VE programmes can create similar virtual collaboration spaces using Moodle or WordPress, for example, as well as tools such as Canva or Padlet to encourage engagement.

Virtual exchange (VE) initiatives can take many forms, including:


	
	connecting courses at different universities through a shared project
	
	
	designing a new course around cultural dialogue in a virtual environment
	
	
	blending virtual and physical exchange, allowing for a shorter in-person experience that is both highly impactful and time- and cost-effective for students.
	


Here is our advice to anyone looking to set up a VE programme at their own institution based on the lessons we have learned while running this intercultural project:

1. Find the right partners 

Internally, identify potential VE champions across your university, including in academic and professional services departments. Externally, consider approaching strategic partners or existing networks to assess interest. Depending on the kind of programme you are looking to create, you may need partners with complementary skills, expertise or resources. Start small with room to grow.

2. Build flexibility into the programme 

Organising a VE programme for students at different institutions can be challenging, not least because academic calendars do not always align. For this reason, it is important to allow individual students and intercultural teams the flexibility to work at their own pace through loosely structured course milestones.

3. Pay attention to group size 

One of the biggest challenges with running a VE programme is managing student engagement, dropouts and absences. This can be especially challenging when students are not receiving academic credit, as they often prioritise compulsory coursework. When students drop out, it impacts group dynamics and can have a knock-on effect for the rest of their team, as fewer students participate in discussions and those who remain may question their own motivation.

When a team becomes too small to operate effectively, which is generally three students or fewer, early enough in the programme you can merge groups but this can be a time-consuming process. For the 2021 round of Nice, we increased the size of the groups from five students to six, and as a result we did not have to merge groups during the programme. With six students in each team, one or two could drop out with little effect on the rest of the group, while the number remains small enough for students to establish the interpersonal relationships that are so crucial to VE. Beyond seven students, the virtual team dynamics can be impacted, with decision-making becoming harder and longer to achieve and therefore losing momentum and commitment.

4. Train facilitators to manage group dynamics 

Facilitators play a crucial role in keeping students engaged and on track throughout a VE programme. They must be trained to model best practice in intercultural communication, as well as to enable discussion and encourage students to reflect on their experiences. Facilitators set objectives and help clarify the learning and progress achieved, and they accompany the group through the stages of collaborative decision, activation and reflection.

We found that an extensive series of in-house training sessions, access to Erasmus+ Virtual Exchange resources, and online catch-ups at critical points during the programme helped facilitators build confidence, share experiences and troubleshoot issues together.

5. Use alumni as facilitators 

One of the most significant resource burdens for VE programme partners is providing facilitators to support each student team. For the 2021 round of NICE, we reached out to alumni from the 2019 and 2020 cycles of the programme to recruit facilitators. We also sent out a call for university staff interested in a professional development opportunity, or who just wanted to experience first-hand how a VE programme works. While the role was unpaid, many alumni and staff came on board to gain skills and take part in an innovative programme to boost their CVs.

Making international education accessible 

We believe portfolios of funded short-term blended or virtual opportunities allow students from a widening participation background, or with caring responsibilities or different abilities, to engage in high-impact, meaningful intercultural encounters, and access the personal and professional benefits of an international experience.

The University of Edinburgh was awarded Erasmus+ Key Action 203 Strategic Partnership funding by the European Commission in 2017 and developed Nice in collaboration with University College Dublin, University of Lund, University of Padova, University of Göttingen, University of Iasi, University of Salamanca and the University of Amsterdam.

Justine Seran is student well-being manager at Edinburgh Medical School and Randall Reinhard is study and work away projects adviser at Edinburgh Global, both at the University of Edinburgh.

Justine Seran and Randall Reinhard offer guidance on building a virtual exchange programme to provide flexible international learning opportunities for students who cannot travel abroad

Top tips for developing an effective virtual exchange programme 

How do you get students working with other students to develop the intercultural skills necessary for the 21st century? Global virtual exchange, although not a new idea in higher education, has fresh impetus. For anyone wanting to set up a global virtual exchange, our experience with Universidad Continental in Huancayo, Peru, offers a good example of some key things to consider.

What’s the purpose of the global virtual exchange? 

We wanted to bring together students from culturally diverse locations for intercultural understanding as part of a new master’s course in global education.

There are two main options for creating a global virtual exchange programme:


	
	Build your own module from scratch, working with international colleagues.
	
	
	Use an existing network providing global virtual exchange modules that can be tailored to the participants’ needs.
	


The first option requires a much more intensive set-up and organisation to find partners, coordinate times and content. The second option is a “plug-and-play”, ready-to-go set-up that is easier to run for the first time.

How do you set up a global virtual exchange meeting? 

Working through the Global Partners in Education (GPE) organisation, which provides centralised scheduling, course design and technical support, we were partnered with Universidad Continental for a four-week Global Understanding pilot. The programme involved two weekly 50-minute synchronous Zoom meetings and asynchronous connections covering:


	
	Introduction
	
	
	College life
	
	
	Family life and tradition
	
	
	Meaning of life and religion
	
	
	Stereotypes and prejudice
	
	
	Presentation day
	


We created a set time to communicate synchronously in-class on Zoom – 8am China time; 7pm Peru time – and had asynchronous out-of-class communication. As we’re now more familiar using Zoom, it is easier to set up and allows easy access from any device. A good tip is to run test links before the first meeting and troubleshoot any issues.

How do you get students to talk? 

Global Understanding is student-centred, and student interaction quickly become spontaneous – if instructors are willing to step aside and “embrace the silence”. Students figure out how to talk to each other without much guidance. Communication becomes the focus rather than language accuracy. Zoom also offers a good way to support students via direct chat, and you can create breakout rooms to change the dynamics.

Building out-of-class friendships helps in-class activity and can remove some cultural and language barriers. Each student was assigned a partner and asked to get to know them and to work together on a project. From the outset, students used a variety of channels to communicate, sharing photos and information on their cities, customs, lifestyles and interests, building rapport.

How do you connect the conversations to your content? 

My Peruvian partner and I had our own course outcomes and used the shared content in different ways. We allowed students freedom to discuss issues within the broad topics. Students were encouraged to explore what they felt was important and then report back to the class. This way they shared and discussed their findings with others, creating student-directed and active learning.

This makes the role of the instructor “a guide-on-the-side” and mentor for synthesising the information as well as managing intercultural issues. Few instructions were given to direct the conversation, with the instructors working locally to help students understand the cultural differences and apply it to their fields of study.

What are the learning outcomes? 

Global Understanding broadly focuses on global citizenship and intercultural skills that are essential for the 21st century. As part of the GPE requirements, students took a CQ (cultural intelligence) test and kept a journal reflecting on their experiences and learning. The key take-aways for students were:


	
	Discovering Peru or China and the environment, geography and history.
	
	
	Working with another non-native English speaker but using English as the lingua franca.
	
	
	Building student-centred skills to explore topics freely with little intervention from instructors.
	


There were learning outcome for instructors, too, as our own intercultural skills were developed by the programme. So, Global Understanding has proven a learning experience not only for students but also for us.

What are the key considerations? 


	
	What type of connection do you want to have? Build as much face-to-face time as possible and encourage out-of-class conversations.
	
	
	What do you want to discuss? Find shared topics or broad umbrellas to allow freedom to talk.
	
	
	How do you encourage conversations? Build project-based learning tasks into your work and encourage&nbsp;students to develop friendships.
	
	
	What does the instructor do? Embrace a student-centred approach and allow the students to take the initiative.
	
	
	How do learners get the most out of this activity? Promote intercultural skill building and information exchange.
	


Christopher Brighton is assistant professor in educational studies and chair of the international committee for the Academy of Future Education at Xi’an Jiaotong Liverpool University.

Christopher Brighton presents a model of global virtual exchange that could be easily replicated at any institution to enhance its students’ intercultural knowledge and skills

Global virtual exchange: promoting international learning

Student collaboration has always been integral to the learner journey. But now, as the pandemic has limited opportunities for face-to-face discussions, such interaction must take place online.

Remote learning, aided by&nbsp;mediation that technology can offer, has made online collaborative learning in 2021 more important than ever,&nbsp;particularly for students wishing to study abroad or learn from different cultures.&nbsp;

So how can universities support greater online collaboration?&nbsp;

Introducing virtual exchange

Virtual&nbsp;exchange&nbsp;enables students&nbsp;in geographically distant locations to meet&nbsp;online to work together on shared subjects. Students in such&nbsp;virtual exchange&nbsp;projects meet&nbsp;and complete learning activities using widely available online communication tools&nbsp;such as&nbsp;Zoom, Facebook, Google Docs, WeChat&nbsp;and more.&nbsp;These projects are&nbsp;often&nbsp;formally supported&nbsp;and&nbsp;under the guidance of teachers or trained facilitators within&nbsp;students’&nbsp;institutions.

Virtual exchange can enhance&nbsp;learning in areas such as foreign languages, digital skills and intercultural communication, research shows.&nbsp;Digital skills&nbsp;are&nbsp;particularly important, as&nbsp;almost all&nbsp;frameworks&nbsp;reflecting&nbsp;on skills critical for success in the 21st century include technological competencies.

But whether all learners&nbsp;are able to&nbsp;develop&nbsp;these&nbsp;skills through&nbsp;online collaboration&nbsp;can be&nbsp;questioned.&nbsp;In some studies&nbsp;students&nbsp;expressed substantial gains&nbsp;in&nbsp;foreign language skills&nbsp;or digital competences while&nbsp;in other reports, students did not&nbsp;feel they learned&nbsp;anything from&nbsp;the exchange.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Collaboration mediated by online technologies&nbsp;might not be a panacea for all&nbsp;learners.&nbsp;

Why some benefit more than others&nbsp;

Our&nbsp;studies&nbsp;using data from&nbsp;the&nbsp;Evaluate project,&nbsp;which&nbsp;involved 23&nbsp;virtual exchanges&nbsp;in&nbsp;classes of initial teacher education at 34 institutions across the world&nbsp;between&nbsp;2017&nbsp;and&nbsp;2019, revealed that three key&nbsp;factors&nbsp;influenced students’ perception of their&nbsp;learning&nbsp;of digital skills:&nbsp;


	students’ reported ability to overcome challenges and/or anxieties during the&nbsp;virtual exchange&nbsp;was&nbsp;a&nbsp;major&nbsp;differentiator&nbsp;between&nbsp;those&nbsp;with high and low learning gains&nbsp;
	the expectations&nbsp;students&nbsp;had of&nbsp;virtual exchange, with higher expectations incurring reports of lower learning&nbsp;gains&nbsp;
	the students’&nbsp;prior technological capabilities, with students who already had good digital skills&nbsp;before the&nbsp;exchange&nbsp;feeling they had not learnt as much from the project.&nbsp;


Designing virtual exchange&nbsp;for the benefit of all&nbsp;

The&nbsp;findings provide useful insight for instructors wishing to improve the learning outcomes for all students involved in online collaborative projects such as virtual exchanges.&nbsp;They must consider the following:&nbsp;

1)&nbsp;Get to know the profiles of your students, their anxiety levels and familiarity with technology&nbsp;

It is important to check in with students to make sure they are all happy with the technological set-up of the project. Turn the differences between the collaborating students into a strength by organising peer-to-peer support. Students more familiar with technology can mentor students who are less tech-savvy and take initiative setting up social spaces on the online platforms used in the project. Additional support on tech know-how can, where necessary, also be provided and monitored by instructors.&nbsp;

2)&nbsp;Make&nbsp;students aware of&nbsp;the&nbsp;likely&nbsp;challenges&nbsp;of&nbsp;virtual exchange&nbsp;and how to overcome them&nbsp;

Challenges may include anxiety about&nbsp;technology, with research suggesting that the&nbsp;fear of using new technology&nbsp;is common. Another challenge&nbsp;is a belief that technology is for socialising&nbsp;and is not suitable for learning,&nbsp;which means some&nbsp;students may not take such learning seriously.&nbsp;It may help to have explicit discussions with students about the potential benefits of technology for learning.&nbsp;

Then there are all the usual&nbsp;challenges&nbsp;of&nbsp;collaboration itself – lack of interpersonal skills,&nbsp;not all voices being heard,&nbsp;not enough time or opportunity&nbsp;for&nbsp;teams to create common frames of reference.&nbsp;This is where&nbsp;virtual exchange&nbsp;can help students&nbsp;develop&nbsp;better&nbsp;communication skills, as&nbsp;students&nbsp;learn&nbsp;to&nbsp;adjust their behaviour&nbsp;to be understood&nbsp;and&nbsp;“negotiate&nbsp;meaning”&nbsp;with their peers to complete tasks&nbsp;successfully.&nbsp;Fostering&nbsp;peer&nbsp;support&nbsp;and&nbsp;checking how&nbsp;students&nbsp;feel about themselves and the project will help more students benefit from&nbsp;the&nbsp;online group work.&nbsp;&nbsp;

3)&nbsp;Provide&nbsp;a&nbsp;clear&nbsp;framework and&nbsp;expectations&nbsp;&nbsp;

This&nbsp;should&nbsp;describe&nbsp;what the virtual exchange is aiming to achieve&nbsp;and what it is not aiming to achieve.&nbsp;It&nbsp;provides&nbsp;students with a clear view of what they are&nbsp;working towards&nbsp;and a sense of achievement upon attaining it, while&nbsp;avoiding&nbsp;potential disappointment&nbsp;over&nbsp;unrealistic expectations.&nbsp;

4)&nbsp;Strengthen collaboration&nbsp;within&nbsp;student teams&nbsp;&nbsp;

Encourage&nbsp;more communication between&nbsp;students&nbsp;including&nbsp;informal&nbsp;socialising&nbsp;as well as&nbsp;discussions&nbsp;around&nbsp;the learning tasks.&nbsp;Through these interactions,&nbsp;students will not only improve their on-task&nbsp;learning, but&nbsp;discover&nbsp;the cultural context in which their peers live.&nbsp;The&nbsp;many&nbsp;communication channels enabled by online platforms provide plenty of&nbsp;opportunity&nbsp;for such socialising.&nbsp;&nbsp;

5)&nbsp;Help&nbsp;the students shape&nbsp;and direct&nbsp;their virtual exchange together&nbsp;

Provide&nbsp;multiple&nbsp;tools for synchronous communication,&nbsp;as well as&nbsp;facilitating&nbsp;explicit discussions about&nbsp;how the&nbsp;group&nbsp;is&nbsp;organised. This feedback and discussion will mean you can refine and shape the virtual exchange together, in a way that works for all.&nbsp;

Applying these&nbsp;evidence-based recommendations&nbsp;may help more&nbsp;students&nbsp;achieve&nbsp;better outcomes&nbsp;from&nbsp;online group work.

Irina Rets is a research&nbsp;associate in the School of Management at&nbsp;Lancaster University and Bart Rienties is professor of learning analytics and programme lead in the Institute of Educational Technology at the Open University.&nbsp;