Despite the central role of internationalisation strategies in the agendas of universities all over the world – with BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) emerging as powerful regional stakeholders – very few studies have investigated how internationalisation is interpreted and operationalised in non-Western contexts. We offer an exploration of Internationalisation at Home (IaH) (Robson, Almeida, & Schartner, 2018) in the context of Chinese Higher Education (HE) with a focus on the perceptions of staff. This qualitative study investigates how 15 teachers and administrators understand the practice of Virtual Exchange (VE) within their institution’s IaH agenda. Findings show that participants think that VE could contribute to internationalisation and provide an inclusive way of accessing international and intercultural experiences. VE has the potential to enhance internationalisation and global engagement of Chinese HE Institutions (HEIs). At the same time, its implementation presents challenges that require careful consideration and planning. These include means for establishing partnerships with a mutual understanding of realities, unique power dynamics among learner groups, and techno-political challenges.
{"title":"Virtual exchange for internationalisation at home in China: staff perspectives","authors":"S. Ganassin, M. Satar, Ashleigh Regan","doi":"10.21827/jve.4.37934","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21827/jve.4.37934","url":null,"abstract":"Despite the central role of internationalisation strategies in the agendas of universities all over the world – with BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) emerging as powerful regional stakeholders – very few studies have investigated how internationalisation is interpreted and operationalised in non-Western contexts. We offer an exploration of Internationalisation at Home (IaH) (Robson, Almeida, & Schartner, 2018) in the context of Chinese Higher Education (HE) with a focus on the perceptions of staff. This qualitative study investigates how 15 teachers and administrators understand the practice of Virtual Exchange (VE) within their institution’s IaH agenda. Findings show that participants think that VE could contribute to internationalisation and provide an inclusive way of accessing international and intercultural experiences. VE has the potential to enhance internationalisation and global engagement of Chinese HE Institutions (HEIs). At the same time, its implementation presents challenges that require careful consideration and planning. These include means for establishing partnerships with a mutual understanding of realities, unique power dynamics among learner groups, and techno-political challenges.","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133088672","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Virtual Exchange (VE) provides a strategic approach for higher education institutions to internationalize. This study investigated how a USA Community College (US-CC) system and their partners started and grew their internationalization program through VE with teacher training, assessment, and support from a nonprofit bridge organization. Data were collected on program growth over three years, 2017-20, totaling 13 modules, 29 faculty, and 14 campuses. Cumulatively, students completed 341 pre-module and 202 post-module surveys which assessed the community colleges’ student learning goals: intercultural competence and awareness of the wider world, confidence in finding success in the global workforce, and ability to deploy 21st century skills (e.g. technology and teamwork). Quantitative and qualitative results provided concrete and nuanced evidence of program effectiveness and suggested positive impact. Our findings have two main implications: (1) positive student impact can help grow and sustain VE and other international programming; and (2) teacher training informed by and adapted with student assessment can help institutionalize VE programs.
{"title":"Virtual exchange program building: an assessment-based approach","authors":"N. Ruther, Alexa K. Jeffress, Lu Shi, Sarah Rabke","doi":"10.21827/jve.4.37156","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21827/jve.4.37156","url":null,"abstract":"Virtual Exchange (VE) provides a strategic approach for higher education institutions to internationalize. This study investigated how a USA Community College (US-CC) system and their partners started and grew their internationalization program through VE with teacher training, assessment, and support from a nonprofit bridge organization. Data were collected on program growth over three years, 2017-20, totaling 13 modules, 29 faculty, and 14 campuses. Cumulatively, students completed 341 pre-module and 202 post-module surveys which assessed the community colleges’ student learning goals: intercultural competence and awareness of the wider world, confidence in finding success in the global workforce, and ability to deploy 21st century skills (e.g. technology and teamwork). Quantitative and qualitative results provided concrete and nuanced evidence of program effectiveness and suggested positive impact. Our findings have two main implications: (1) positive student impact can help grow and sustain VE and other international programming; and (2) teacher training informed by and adapted with student assessment can help institutionalize VE programs.","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123927944","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The current global political, economic, and social challenges urge the need to cultivate global citizenship among students in their learning process. This paper presents the role of Collaboration Online International Learning (COIL) using theProject-Based Learning (PBL) approach in cultivating global citizenship among university students. The paper explains the different implementation challenges of a COIL course on the different levels and core design elements of the COIL-PBL model to overcome such challenges. Empirically, this paper presents a primary case study of the Great Debates course that was implemented in different forms by three partner universities, which are the University of Washington Bothell (UWB), the University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA) in the USA, and the Future University in Egypt (FUE). The implementation showed a positive impact on cultivating global citizenship among participating students, which isclear from developments in students’ skills in the areas of cross-cultural communication and negotiation, cultural sensitivity and tolerance, teamwork and coordination across virtual global teams, analytical skills, and perception toward other cultures and society. Notably, the COIL-PBL model has started to gain further popularity after the COVID-19pandemic as an alternative for physical mobility, which encourages future research in this area using other implemented courses using the COIL-PBL model.
{"title":"Global citizenship cultivation through COIL-PBL model: case study of the Great Debates course","authors":"Greg Tuke, S. Kapur, Karim Ashour","doi":"10.21827/jve.4.35815","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21827/jve.4.35815","url":null,"abstract":"The current global political, economic, and social challenges urge the need to cultivate global citizenship among students in their learning process. This paper presents the role of Collaboration Online International Learning (COIL) using theProject-Based Learning (PBL) approach in cultivating global citizenship among university students. The paper explains the different implementation challenges of a COIL course on the different levels and core design elements of the COIL-PBL model to overcome such challenges. Empirically, this paper presents a primary case study of the Great Debates course that was implemented in different forms by three partner universities, which are the University of Washington Bothell (UWB), the University of North Carolina Asheville (UNCA) in the USA, and the Future University in Egypt (FUE). The implementation showed a positive impact on cultivating global citizenship among participating students, which isclear from developments in students’ skills in the areas of cross-cultural communication and negotiation, cultural sensitivity and tolerance, teamwork and coordination across virtual global teams, analytical skills, and perception toward other cultures and society. Notably, the COIL-PBL model has started to gain further popularity after the COVID-19pandemic as an alternative for physical mobility, which encourages future research in this area using other implemented courses using the COIL-PBL model.","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131197186","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This integrative review explores English language publications to determine trends present in Virtual Exchange (VE) research over a span of ten years. The review presents a brief introduction to VE, highlights key scholars in the field, and describes various VE models. In addition, learning outcomes and programmatic insights present in current scholarship are categorized and examined. This review can serve as a helpful tool for practitioners new to VE, as well as for scholars interested in expanding the VE research field.
{"title":"An integrative review of literature: virtual exchange models, learning outcomes, and programmatic insights","authors":"A. Zak","doi":"10.21827/jve.4.37582","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21827/jve.4.37582","url":null,"abstract":"This integrative review explores English language publications to determine trends present in Virtual Exchange (VE) research over a span of ten years. The review presents a brief introduction to VE, highlights key scholars in the field, and describes various VE models. In addition, learning outcomes and programmatic insights present in current scholarship are categorized and examined. This review can serve as a helpful tool for practitioners new to VE, as well as for scholars interested in expanding the VE research field.","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-11-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116807117","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Bartsch, Pisavanh Kittirath, H. Müller, Chandokkham Youyabouth
Virtual exchange (VE) in higher education provides an underemployed opportunity for fostering consumer and sustainability competencies. We explore how a crosscultural teaching-learning environment can be designed to encourage students to reflect on a complex global challenge - food consumption patterns - and their role in it. We discuss challenges regarding food consumption as a topic for VE and describe a didactic concept that employs inquiry-based learning and digital storytelling as the framework for student exploration and expression. Initially developed for VE in food studies and nutrition education, the concept can be readily transferred to other disciplines and topics. We present insights from a pilot implementation with 16 food science students from Laos and 26 pre-service teachers from Germany. The analysis of students’ responses from pre- and post-questionnaires and their digital stories suggest that the concept is promising, although some factors require improvement and careful attention, such as technologies and the lingua franca of the learning environment. Findings and lessons learned might inform other projects that similarly seek to address complex global challenges.
{"title":"Inquiry-based learning and digital storytelling in virtual exchange: an approach for reflecting on food consumption in the Global South and Global North","authors":"S. Bartsch, Pisavanh Kittirath, H. Müller, Chandokkham Youyabouth","doi":"10.21827/jve.4.37152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21827/jve.4.37152","url":null,"abstract":"Virtual exchange (VE) in higher education provides an underemployed opportunity for fostering consumer and sustainability competencies. We explore how a crosscultural teaching-learning environment can be designed to encourage students to reflect on a complex global challenge - food consumption patterns - and their role in it. We discuss challenges regarding food consumption as a topic for VE and describe a didactic concept that employs inquiry-based learning and digital storytelling as the framework for student exploration and expression. Initially developed for VE in food studies and nutrition education, the concept can be readily transferred to other disciplines and topics. We present insights from a pilot implementation with 16 food science students from Laos and 26 pre-service teachers from Germany. The analysis of students’ responses from pre- and post-questionnaires and their digital stories suggest that the concept is promising, although some factors require improvement and careful attention, such as technologies and the lingua franca of the learning environment. Findings and lessons learned might inform other projects that similarly seek to address complex global challenges.","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-10-22","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"128403744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We report on the results of the second-year study of an interdisciplinary, international collaboration among students and instructors at one European and two US universities. The purpose of the study was to examine whether our changing four pedagogical elements from Year 1 to Year 2 affected the students’ perceptions of learning. The primary purpose of the pedagogical collaboration itself was to involve students in authentic collaborative learning activities intended to support them in developing an understanding of disability and accessibility concepts in a business context. Students in a business English course proposed start-up companies and created business plans for their ventures. Students in an introductory professional writing course designed websites for the planned businesses, while students in a gateway technical communication course served as advisors to the other two classes regarding how to make the proposed businesses and websites accessible to people with disabilities. We collected quantitative and qualitative data through pre- and post-project surveys. These data were supplemented with qualitative data from student interactions, student submissions (work products), video conference meeting minutes, and instructors’ notes. The analysis revealed that students reported increased awareness of disability and openness to finding solutions for accessibility issues.
{"title":"Designing virtual team projects with accessibility in mind: an illustrative example of cross‐cultural student collaboration","authors":"Sushil K. Oswal, Zsuzsanna B. Palmer, Rita Koris","doi":"10.21827/jve.4.37192","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21827/jve.4.37192","url":null,"abstract":"We report on the results of the second-year study of an interdisciplinary, international collaboration among students and instructors at one European and two US universities. The purpose of the study was to examine whether our changing four pedagogical elements from Year 1 to Year 2 affected the students’ perceptions of learning. The primary purpose of the pedagogical collaboration itself was to involve students in authentic collaborative learning activities intended to support them in developing an understanding of disability and accessibility concepts in a business context. Students in a business English course proposed start-up companies and created business plans for their ventures. Students in an introductory professional writing course designed websites for the planned businesses, while students in a gateway technical communication course served as advisors to the other two classes regarding how to make the proposed businesses and websites accessible to people with disabilities. We collected quantitative and qualitative data through pre- and post-project surveys. These data were supplemented with qualitative data from student interactions, student submissions (work products), video conference meeting minutes, and instructors’ notes. The analysis revealed that students reported increased awareness of disability and openness to finding solutions for accessibility issues.","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2021-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"134060884","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This paper discusses a teaching approach that can be used in Collaborative Online International Learning – Interdependent Intercultural Tasks (IIT). IIT are characterized by the following features: (1) they include culture-specific information that creates cognitive dissonance and motivates students to analyze information about another culture; (2) they provide instructions aimed at learning subjective information about individuals from another culture; and (3) they can only be performed through interaction between students from different countries. We expect two learning outcomes of implementing IIT in a Global Leadership course; an increase in (1) intercultural interaction when working on a collaborative project; and (2) awareness of general cultural differences and those related to a specific global problem. Preliminary findings suggest that employing IIT (i.e. having students discuss native and non-native country media articles describing culture-specific perspectives on a global problem) increases the frequency of student interactions outside the classroom and improves coordination between teammates.
{"title":"Interdependent intercultural task as a tool for developing intercultural awareness through Collaborative Online International Learning in Global Leadership","authors":"Lori M. Curtindale, S. Krylova, S. A. Minyurova","doi":"10.21827/jve.3.35803","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21827/jve.3.35803","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses a teaching approach that can be used in Collaborative Online International Learning – Interdependent Intercultural Tasks (IIT). IIT are characterized by the following features: (1) they include culture-specific information that creates cognitive dissonance and motivates students to analyze information about another culture; (2) they provide instructions aimed at learning subjective information about individuals from another culture; and (3) they can only be performed through interaction between students from different countries. We expect two learning outcomes of implementing IIT in a Global Leadership course; an increase in (1) intercultural interaction when working on a collaborative project; and (2) awareness of general cultural differences and those related to a specific global problem. Preliminary findings suggest that employing IIT (i.e. having students discuss native and non-native country media articles describing culture-specific perspectives on a global problem) increases the frequency of student interactions outside the classroom and improves coordination between teammates.","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-12-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125643280","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The purpose of this paper is to investigate the first 15 minutes of ten initial Teletandem Oral Sessions (iTOS), which means the first virtual encounter among speakers of different languages who want to study the each other’s language. Our aim is to verify iTOS genre status within a telecollaborative learning environment. We understand genres as communicative events organized in standard structures used by members of a discourse community to achieve their communicative purposes (Swales, 1990) and assume that the teletandem context is composed of a specific community with shared objectives. A study of iTOS had first been proposed by Aranha (2014), who analyzed nine iTOS and identified some recurrence in their discoursal structure. Our data, ten iTOS, are part of a previous version of MulTeC (Multimodal Teletandem Corpus) (Aranha & Lopes, forthcoming) and participants are proficient in Portuguese and English. The video files were transcribed and the sessions were analyzed based on Aranha’s (2014) findings. We identified rhetorical organization for the sessions which was similar to Aranha’s, but varied depending on the learning scenarios, i.e. the learning context in which they occurred.
{"title":"Telecollaboration and genres: a new perspective to understand language learning","authors":"Laura Rampazzo, Solange Aranha","doi":"10.21827/jve.2.35637","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21827/jve.2.35637","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this paper is to investigate the first 15 minutes of ten initial Teletandem Oral Sessions (iTOS), which means the first virtual encounter among speakers of different languages who want to study the each other’s language. Our aim is to verify iTOS genre status within a telecollaborative learning environment. We understand genres as communicative events organized in standard structures used by members of a discourse community to achieve their communicative purposes (Swales, 1990) and assume that the teletandem context is composed of a specific community with shared objectives. A study of iTOS had first been proposed by Aranha (2014), who analyzed nine iTOS and identified some recurrence in their discoursal structure. Our data, ten iTOS, are part of a previous version of MulTeC (Multimodal Teletandem Corpus) (Aranha & Lopes, forthcoming) and participants are proficient in Portuguese and English. The video files were transcribed and the sessions were analyzed based on Aranha’s (2014) findings. We identified rhetorical organization for the sessions which was similar to Aranha’s, but varied depending on the learning scenarios, i.e. the learning context in which they occurred.","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-10-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123303467","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-03-25DOI: 10.14705/RPNET.2019.JVE.4
Marie-Thérèse Batardière, Marta Giralt, Catherine Jeanneau, Florence Le-Baron-Earle, Veronica O'Regan
For more than 30 years, the Erasmus programme has given thousands of higher education students throughout Europe the chance to live and study abroad. For many, this sojourn in a foreign country is an extraordinary learning experience which enriches their language and (inter)cultural learning process. However, for others, this opportunity is undermined by cultural shock or lack of preparation...
{"title":"Promoting intercultural awareness among European university students via pre-mobility virtual exchanges","authors":"Marie-Thérèse Batardière, Marta Giralt, Catherine Jeanneau, Florence Le-Baron-Earle, Veronica O'Regan","doi":"10.14705/RPNET.2019.JVE.4","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14705/RPNET.2019.JVE.4","url":null,"abstract":"For more than 30 years, the Erasmus programme has given thousands of higher education students throughout Europe the chance to live and study abroad. For many, this sojourn in a foreign country is an extraordinary learning experience which enriches their language and (inter)cultural learning process. However, for others, this opportunity is undermined by cultural shock or lack of preparation...","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-03-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121034180","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-12-28DOI: 10.14705/RPNET.2018.JVE.3
Francesca Helm
The long and winding road is a metaphor for a journey, often used to describe life journeys and the challenges encountered. The metaphor was used for the title of my keynote to refer both to the journey towards the current position of virtual exchange in education policy – but also the long road ahead. This paper aims to explore the emergence of virtual exchange in educational policy and how it has been adopted by non-profit organisations, educational institutions, and policy makers to address geo- and socio-political tensions. Though still a relatively new field, in recent years there have been some important developments in terms of policy statements and public investments in virtual exchange. The paper starts by looking at the current state-of-the-art in terms of virtual exchange in education policy and initiatives in Europe. Then, using an approach based on ‘episode studies’ from the policy literature, the paper explores the main virtual exchange schemes and initiatives that have drawn the attention of European policy makers. The paper closes by looking at some of the lessons we have learnt from research on the practice of virtual exchange, and how this can inform us as we face the long road ahead of us. The focus of this paper is on the European context not because I assume it to be the most important or influential, but rather because it is the one I know best, since it is the context in which I have been working.
The long and winding road是旅途的隐喻,通常用来描述人生旅程和遇到的挑战。我在主题演讲中使用了这个比喻,既指虚拟交流在教育政策中的现状,也指未来的漫漫长路。本文旨在探讨虚拟交换在教育政策中的出现,以及非营利组织、教育机构和政策制定者如何采用虚拟交换来解决地缘和社会政治紧张局势。虽然虚拟货币仍然是一个相对较新的领域,但近年来在政策声明和公共投资方面取得了一些重要进展。本文首先考察了欧洲教育政策和举措中虚拟交换的现状。然后,使用基于政策文献中的“事件研究”的方法,本文探讨了引起欧洲政策制定者注意的主要虚拟交换计划和倡议。本文最后回顾了我们从对虚拟交换实践的研究中学到的一些教训,以及这些教训如何在我们面临未来漫长道路时为我们提供启示。本文的重点是欧洲背景,不是因为我认为它是最重要或最有影响力的,而是因为它是我最了解的,因为这是我一直在工作的背景。
{"title":"The long and winding road…","authors":"Francesca Helm","doi":"10.14705/RPNET.2018.JVE.3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.14705/RPNET.2018.JVE.3","url":null,"abstract":"The long and winding road is a metaphor for a journey, often used to describe life journeys and the challenges encountered. The metaphor was used for the title of my keynote to refer both to the journey towards the current position of virtual exchange in education policy – but also the long road ahead. This paper aims to explore the emergence of virtual exchange in educational policy and how it has been adopted by non-profit organisations, educational institutions, and policy makers to address geo- and socio-political tensions. Though still a relatively new field, in recent years there have been some important developments in terms of policy statements and public investments in virtual exchange. The paper starts by looking at the current state-of-the-art in terms of virtual exchange in education policy and initiatives in Europe. Then, using an approach based on ‘episode studies’ from the policy literature, the paper explores the main virtual exchange schemes and initiatives that have drawn the attention of European policy makers. The paper closes by looking at some of the lessons we have learnt from research on the practice of virtual exchange, and how this can inform us as we face the long road ahead of us. The focus of this paper is on the European context not because I assume it to be the most important or influential, but rather because it is the one I know best, since it is the context in which I have been working.","PeriodicalId":107205,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Virtual Exchange","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2018-12-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124989721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}