Market Basket Virtual Student Collaboration Model Erasmus Project

Project Title

Market Basket Virtual Student Collaboration Model

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

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

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 142130 Eur

Project Coordinator

STICHTING HOGESCHOOL VAN AMSTERDAM & Country: NL

Project Partners

• AKADEMIA LEONA KOZMINSKIEGO
• TEHNOLOSKI PARK VARAZDIN DOO ZA INKUBACIJU INOVATIVNIH TEHNOLOGIJSKIHPODUZECA
• SVEUCILISTE U ZAGREBU, FAKULTET ORGANIZACIJE I INFORMATIKE
• ERHVERVSAKADEMI AARHUS
• FACHHOCHSCHULE DES BFI WIEN GESELLSCHAFT M.B.H.