The five Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in this project have large part-time (in-work) student populations. These part-time students, and many full-time students as well, have no or limited opportunity to travel for their study programme or to apply for an Erasmus exchange programme. They still need to develop skills like intercultural communication, digital competences, teamwork and research skills in an international setting to enhance their employability in todays globalised working environment. Professionals who can work effectively in international, virtual, multi-disciplinary teams are increasingly demanded by employers. Initially a cooperation was set up by the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool van Amsterdam) in the Netherlands and the Business Academy Aarhus in Denmark in 2009 to tackle this problem. Marketing and Multimedia students in two countries worked together virtually on designing creative marketing campaigns without having to leave home. This project was called Market Basket 1.0. The Market basket 1.0 had a positive evaluation by and effect on students and lecturers, therefore we now aim to further develop and test this model. We also hope to inspire other HEIs to use the Market Basket Virtual Student Collaboration model (MAB 2.0) and we aim to stimulate the growth of a Market Basket network. A full implementation pack with handbooks and a full set of teaching materials will be developed and offered via a new Open Platform and make MAB 2.0 ready for European wide distribution. The need for information about cross-cultural topics and market information among small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) induced us to include SMEs as important stakeholders. Chambers of commerce, our SME business networks and our sixth partner in the consortium, Technology Park Varazdin, will provide real-life assignments from the SMEs or start-up companies for the student teams to work on. This will add the entrepreneurial element to the students' assignments. These virtual student teams from different countries and from different disciplines and courses will work together on the specific project assignment e.g. an international advertising campaign, an innovative product launch or market research. Students (nor lecturers) will ever meet in person, but use skype, email, social media, the networks’s online platform and other sharing methods. In this way they will acquire the virtual (and intercultural) collaboration skills which they will need for their future workplace. Afterwards, students evaluate, analyse and benchmark cross-border working methods and techniques, cross-cultural competencies and publish their research findings for the companies in a report on a dedicated website. The methodology used in carrying out this two year strategic partnership project is as follows: The first phase will be the development of an implementation pack with training materials and necessary resources and an Online Platform as an Open Educational Resource. The second phase will be the testing, evaluation and adjusting of the implementation pack and platform through concrete pilots. During the testing phase the MAB 2.0 will be open to students from various Bachelor programmes of the participating HEIs, e.g. Marketing, Project Management, IT, Multi-media , Communication Management and many other programmes. Partners outside the consortium can join the pilots which will stimulate further dissemination. Other dissemination activities during the project will be training sessions for teaching staff, multiplier events for non participants, presentations at international conferences and publications in educational magazines. The final result of the MAB 2.0 project will be a well-documented and tested educational model whereby students collaborate in virtual, international, multi-disciplinary teams on research projects commissioned by actual SMEs. The impact and long term benefits of the final MAB 2.0 model are many fold. As a plug-in model it will be possible to implement virtual collaboration within HEIs without radically changing the curriculum. As a well-documented and tested model it will be easier for lecturers to gain support from the institute's IT services and quality assessment departments. Moreover, the model will foster cooperation and bridge the worlds of education and work by working with real assignments of SMEs via the business networks. We intend to promote free access for the public to the intellectual outputs of the project. We will upkeep the Online Platform after the EU funding has stopped adding to the sustainability of the project. The Market Basket Online Platform will be the hub for any interested university to implement MAB 2.0 and will be a knowledge centre for the business sector.
Partners: Austria: University of Applied Sciences bfi, Vienna, Croatia: University of Zagreb FOI & Varazdin Technology Park, Denmark: Business Academy Aarhus, Netherlands: Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (project coordinator), Poland: Kozminski University, Warsaw. The five Higher Education Institutions in this project are both universities of applied science as well as academic universities. The universities have part-time (in-work) student populations. These students, and many of their full-time students as well, have no or limited opportunities to travel for their study programme or be part of an international classroom, especially from Poland and Croatia. However, they still need to develop skills like intercultural communication, digital competences, teamwork and research skills in an international setting to enhance their employability in today’s globalised working environment. Professionals who have a proven ability to work effectively in international, virtual, multi-disciplinary teams are increasingly in high demand. The solution we offer is the Market Basket Virtual Student Collaboration model which we have developed based upon virtual student teams from different countries. Students from the same or different disciplines and courses working together on a specific project assignment. This could be an assignment issued by small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) or a case study or another practical assignment. The students do not meet in person, but use Skype, email, social media or online platforms to work together. In this way they acquire the virtual (and intercultural) collaboration skills which they will need for their future workplace. Afterwards, students evaluate, analyse and benchmark cross-border working methods and techniques, cross-cultural competencies and present their research findings to the clients in a report. The need for information about cross-cultural topics and market information among SMEs induced us to include SMEs as important stakeholders. SMEs or start-up companies from the partner's business networks and our sixth partner in the consortium, Technology Park Varazdin, provided real-life assignments for the student teams to work on. This added the entrepreneurial element to the students' assignments and taught students to interact with clients. Since we also aim to inspire other HEIs to use our virtual teamwork model, we decided to make the model less marketing oriented and more multi-disciplinary. The new name and visual identity became “Beezr”. A full implementation pack with handbooks and a full set of teaching materials is offered via our website www.beezr.eu . No login needed and available for use within Europe or outside Europe. The methodology which was used in carrying out this two year strategic partnership project was as follows: During the first year the implementation pack with training materials and necessary resources and a website as an Open Educational Resource and with a login protected work and sharing space (only available upon registration) was created. Throughout the two project years the testing, evaluation and adjusting of the implementation pack and website was carried out through concrete teaching pilots from various Bachelor programmes of the participating HEIs, e.g. Marketing, Project Management, IT, Multi-media , Communication Management and other programmes. This included 450 students, about 30 lecturers and 12 companies. The final results of the project were disseminated during a launch conference called Virtual Collaboration Across Cultures for 75 lecturers and managers from HEIs from the Netherlands, from Europe and beyond, on 28 and 29 November 2016. Key note speaker Liat Shentser, manager at Cisco Systems, confirmed that virtual teamwork is not the future, but that it is already very much the present. ‘Graduate students need to be taught the skills how to function in such teams consisting of colleagues in many different countries and from many different cultures’. The impact and long term benefits of the Beezr (MAB 2.0) projects are manifold Firstly, a set of support materials is available as open resource on www.beezr.eu . Secondly, lecturers and managers of our own institutions have incorporated virtual teamwork in their lessons. Lastly, awareness has grown within our partner institutes and beyond about the importance of introducing virtual teamwork into the educational programmes because employers need students to have intercultural, virtual teamwork skills and graduates who are savvy at both the ICT as well as the interpersonal side of this collaboration. Moreover, the model shows examples of how to foster cooperation and bridge the worlds of education and work by working with real assignments of SMEs via the business network. This is why we intend to continue the website for the next two years to promote free access for the public to the intellectual outputs of the project adding to the sustainability of the project