Aim: Organizing an effective Virtual Exchange Program as a platform for professional and intercultural interaction, exchange of experience, to ensure high-quality educational services and create conditions for developing collaboration and communication skills of young people to navigate the world’s challenges and broaden access to international learning for every student, regardless of their circumstances, background, or ability, especially at a time when student mobility is limited and finances are constrained.
Objectives:
- Creating an effective mechanism of supporting and Virtual Exchange Program, adapting to the new academic context and integration into the education system of the host university.
Virtual exchanges will increase the possibility of involving people in the processes of academic mobility, create the opportunity to study new disciplines, and also get involved in the cultural and educational environment of another state. Virtual exchange can help young people develop soft skills, communication and cooperation skills that are very relevant now.
- Formation of global competencies and skills (digital literacy, cultural awareness and the ability to negotiate and cooperate across borders) necessary for career growth among young people in Ukraine and Georgia.
The educational activity will be focused on sharing knowledge and forming skills of interaction in the multiethnic environment. There will be provided various methods of distant interaction, simplified procedures for creating and allotting teaching materials, checking and assessing knowledge, providing access to various resources required for a high-level educational process.
- Improving the qualifications of the administrative and teaching staff to gain skills in working with mobile students and helping them master the skills of intercultural communication and organizing effective interaction with students as representatives of different cultures.
One of the key targets of the project is improving administrative and teaching staff’s qualification by conducting seminars and trainings, consultations on the issues of intercultural and academic differences; getting the teaching staff working with mobile students ready to conduct individual and small-group classes; conducting a special course “Intercultural Competence” which targets administrative and teaching staff’s working with mobility students and helps them master intercultural communication skills; training of expert facilitators to develop virtual mobility projects and organize effective interaction with foreign students as representatives of various cultures.
- Development of a tool for exchange of information and intercultural dialogue among students and teachers of different universities, nationalities, cultures, religions and languages, improving the efficiency of the educational process by creating the web portal Common Information Space (CIS).
The CIS activity will cover two areas – the international educational web-platform and interaction with the target groups within their social and cultural environments. It can become a network resource for sharing knowledge and services, internationalizing the educational process, searching for new partners and creating a new multilingual, international and intercultural environment at the university.
- Сreating an international consortium within the system of advanced administrative and teaching staff training to work with intercultural groups and to develop the educational, scientific and cultural potential of all program participants.
The international consortium creates an excellent opportunity for institutional partners to introduce and pilot a system for Development of a Virtual Exchange Project, methodological and technical support for its implementation, to adapt Virtual Exchange Programs to the specific needs of the target audience.
- Improving the areas and forms of cooperation and communication for all academic and administrative units of the universities, methodological and technical support for Virtual Exchanges implementation and other issues that have a significant impact on the involvement of students in Virtual Exchange processes.
The project will establish and integrate the Counselling Centres into the university structure, which will work in cooperation with other faculties, institutes, administrative, auxiliary educational units of the university, etc. Particular attention will be paid to interaction and communication in providing social and legal support to students both within and outside the university, not only in virtual exchange programmes but also in physical mobility programmes.
Workpackages:
- WP1 Project Management, Coordination, Quality Assurance
- WP2 Development of methodological support for a model of Virtual Exchange programs
- WP3 Creating a network of Consulting Offices for Academic Mobility Programs
- WP4 Development of the web portal Common Information Space (CIS)
- WP5 Practical approbation of the Virtual National and International Academic Exchange Programs
- WP6 Dissemination