Virtual Exchange as Innovative Practice across Europe: Awareness and Use in Higher Education. EVOLVE Project Baseline Study

Abstract

This report presents the findings of a survey conducted by the Erasmus+ KA3 project EVOLVE (www.evolve-erasmus.eu) on the awareness and use of Virtual Exchange (VE) in Higher Education across Europe, primarily on the basis of data from universities belonging to the Coimbra Group and SGroup university networks.VE is an educational practice based on sustained, technology-enabled communication and interaction between individuals or groups of learners from geographically separated and/or different cultural backgrounds. This type of online collaborative learning, which can be either in the form of class-to-class exchanges supported by university teachers or in the form of group exchanges facilitated by external exchange providers, is promoted by the EU as a tool for inclusion and to offer more young people an international experience. It also links up with institutional strategies and policies of 'internationalisation at home' and internationalising the curriculum. Finally, it is regarded as a tool to enhance students' employability in terms of transversal skills which employers seek, including foreign language proficiency and intercultural competence, and digital and collaboration skills.Our study found that VE is not yet widely known as educational practice by key stakeholders in implementation, such as educators, educational supporters, internationalisation officers and policy officers and managers. Policy officers and managers show a slightly higher degree of awareness, but this may partly be due to the fact that they associate VE with virtual mobility or online learning more generally.VE is not yet used on a large scale by respondents in our sample. The main disciplines where it is implemented and understood are in Education; Arts and Humanities (especially languages); and Social sciences, journalism and information. Implementation, however, is not restricted to these areas and covers most other disciplines distinguished by our study.Support, when it is provided, is normally in the form of technical and ...