The present reality of digital era brought the necessity of digital skills and competence development also in Higher education students work experience sector. It has clearly pointed to the importance of virtual internships and its potential effectiveness for all parties involved, which has been also supported by a recent enabling of virtual internships within Erasmus+ program. During these times of Covid-19 pandemic and connected restrictions, the realization of standard physical Erasmus+ internships has been quite limited across all countries. Virtual internships remain now for HE students almost the only possibility for getting the international work experience. We also believe that apart from current situation, virtual internship is a valuable complementary option for getting work experience now and in a future "new normal". For the people with different barriers it is the only option regardless to current situation. We believe that acquiring work experience via internships is a necessary part of skills and competence development of Higher education students and to be able to fully use the potential of virtual internships too, it is necessary to target the gap in skills and specific knowledge areas this topic requires not only at the side of students/trainees but also among university internship coordinators as well as host organization representatives. The option of having internship virtually/online is an efficient alternative but the current reality has showed that since the Erasmus+ has included them into the program there has been quite low number of students and companies joining. One of the main reasons is that comparing to standard physical internships there are new specific skills and competence needed to be learned at the side of all parties involved and more than ever before the digital access to such learning content is nowadays a must. The objective of our project is to develop a digital learning portal "Virtual Internships Academy" (VIA) , offering the complex digital learning content for trainees, university coordinators as well as host organizations for successful preparation, execution and closure of virtual internships while assuring the good quality for all parties. Our project will help to carry out virtual internships as a supporting learning source which will help increasing their number not only within Erasmus+ program (with direct positive effect on graduate employability) but will also help to encourage all parties using innovative digital learning tools. Moreover with our project University internship coordinators will be able to switch their preparation activities for students, done in present form, for a modern and effective digital learning tool. Our project team consists of 6 experienced partners who either have experience with virtual internships, or plan organize virtual internships as a new opportunity of Erasmus+ program or are host organizations and company consultants which will be able to use the project to motivate and couch the other companies for offering and successful execution of virtual internships. All together we cover the required skills at all levels needed for the project from identifications of needs to multilevel and cross-sectoral expertise. The team has also great possibilities for analysis and dissemination of the project outcome among regions of partners and their networks, together covering all the target groups of the project users. Only incorporating the VIA digital learning platform into the work practice of the project partners as a first step after completion, will have a huge impact to their networks of different target groups, which will have a natural domino effect to further multiply the users with fast sharing of its benefits. The expected impact of our project is mainly in helping to carry out virtual internships with our project as a supporting digital learning source, which will help increasing their number and quality not only within Erasmus+ program and with direct positive effect on graduate employability. The project aim is also in helping to encourage all parties using innovative digital learning tools. VIA digital learning portal will be freely accessible to everybody interested to learn how to prepare for and successfully execute virtual internships. There will be a certification of completion issued to every participant completing all the lessons with all modules of selected target group. The VIA certificate will serve for the further recognition and awareness of virtual internships and need for their quality preparation. VIA platform will be a digital tool and we will use the full potential of online promotion possibilities and digital measurements of its impact to all target groups in all regions. We believe our project will help students to be confident joining virtual internships, university internship coordinators to successfully coordinate them and companies to be more open to offer virtual internship opportunities.
By implementing of the project we wanted to provide a free access efficient modern digital solution to the needs of the target groups, challenges and trends described above. We wanted to achieve that students, universities as well as employers, not familiar with virtual internships and remote collaboration would be using the VIA portal for the preparation and successfull implementation of virtual internships. University internship coordinators would learn how to support their students and companies for virtual internships to motivate them this way. Companies, especially new or startups would learn how to manage trainees on virtual internships so they can prepare better before they take interns virtually on board. But the portal would serve mainly to students, by gaining the basic knowledge and practical advice on what to expect, be aware of and prepare for when starting the virtual internships or working remotely. We want to achieve that ideally companies wil be asking their students to make a VIA certificate before they start virtual internships. Universities will be asking companies if needed to take a VIA certificate before they start receiving their students for virtual internships. In general the VIA portal is a free access learning portal for everyone who just want to increase the knowledge in the are of virtual internships and remote work either as trainees, receiving companies or universities. They all would be able find an interesting news in the world of VI as well as other recommended virtual work experience programmes to help them increase the skills and knowledge in this area.
Rapidly developing digitalisation in the world of practice brought the necessity of digital skills and competence development also in Higher education students work experience sector. It has clearly pointed to the importance of virtual internships and its potential effectiveness for all parties involved, which has been also supported by EC via incorporating of Virtual internships / as part of blended internships now into the Erasmus+ programme. The project was proposed during times of Covid-19 pandemic and connected restrictions, when the realization of standard physical Erasmus+ internships of Slovak HE students in our case decreased dramatically to cca 10% and our foreign partners confirmed the similar trend across Europe. During the travel restrictions due to pandemic the virtual internships remained for HE students almost the only possibility for getting the international work experience. We also believe that apart of Covid-19 restrictions, virtual internship is a valuable complementary option for getting work experience now and in a future "new normal". The large part of the current businesses have been operating online for many years and manage their employees remotely, especially after the Covid pandemic. The large part of future graduates will be working remotely as it already is the standard way of working in many sectors. Last but not least virtual internships help people with disabilities, mothers on maternity leave and other people with different barriers for commuting to the work, to gain valuable work experience for their future carriers. We believe that acquiring work experience via internships is a necessary part of skills and competence development of Higher education students and to be able to fully use the potential of virtual internships too, it is necessary to target the gap in skills and certain knowledge areas this topic requires not only at the side of students/trainees but also among university internship coordinators as well as host organization representants. The option of having internship virtually/online is an efficient alternative but the current reality has showed that since the Erasmus+ has included them into the program there has been quite low number of students and companies joining. We believe the reason is that comparing to standard physical internships there are new specific skills and competence needed to be learned at the side of all parties involved and more then ever before the digital access to such learning content is nowadays a must. Our project will help to carry out virtual internships as a supporting learning source which will help increase their number not only within Erasmus+ program (with direct positive effect on graduate employability) but will also help to encourage all parties using innovative digital learning tools. With our project University internship coordinators will be able to switch their preparation activities for students, done in present form, for a modern and effective digital learning tool. Moreover if virtual internships should be accepted as a part of study then we believe that quality digital preparation training for virtual internships our project represents should be adapted as standard digital learning tool in higher education at international level. We have identified a specific needs for each project target group (students/employers/universities), they were missing or were keen to learn in order to prepare for and successfully implement virtual internships. VIA project will serve these groups to fulfil their needs the modern digital way. Moreover as the virtual internships has no borders and are carried out by parties present in different countries across the world, our project VIA is reflecting the necessary requirement of flexible access of the digital learning content regardless to location. Transnational approach is also necessary in order to include the experience, challenges and potential differences in needs of target groups depending on location so the final content is accessible, valuable and efficient for all users in all countries.