Internationalisation at Home through Online Micro Masters and Virtual Mobility – Turkey, Macedonia, Slovenia, Lithuania Erasmus Project

Project Title

Internationalisation at Home through Online Micro Masters and Virtual Mobility – Turkey, Macedonia, Slovenia, Lithuania

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 2018

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

The project developed and implemented two international online Micro Masters, which provided by a virtual campus of four HEIs – Istanbul University (Turkey), Institute of Communication Studies (Macedonia), DOBA Faculty of Applied Business and Social Studies (Slovenia), and the Vytautas Magnus University (Lithuania). The 6-month specializations provided deep learning in the specific career fields of (1) Entrepreneurship Ecosystem and Innovation Strategy, and (2) Digital Communications and Marketing.
A total of 271 students from the two programs, 81 from the “Entrepreneurship Ecosystem and Innovation Strategy” program and 190 from the “Digital Communications and Marketing” program, provided with knowledge and competences relevant for the international labor market and gain a competitive advantage for professional success and personal development. Virtual mobility and collaborative online learning enriched the international experience and intercultural understanding of students from different European countries. Game-based learning had been used as an innovative teaching method capable of offering students key skills and information regarding different subject matters, while incorporating collaborative learned. The Micro Master credentials was recognized with a formal degree within the study programs of the four partners HEIs.

Context
The project enabled internationalisation at home (IaH) of the curriculum and learning process that is now becoming mainstreamed at the national and institutional level in most European countries and received a central place in the European policies for internationalisation of higher education. IaH has been seen as an effective strategy for integration of international and intercultural dimensions into the curriculum for all students within domestic learning environments. Thus the non-mobile majority students will have benefit from this project. The Micro Masters had been designed for those who need to complete a specialisation to enhance entrepreneurship, management and/or marketing competences, advance their education and/or career, find a (better) job, or launch own business.

Objectives
1. The project had improved the quality of education through pursuing internationalized teaching and learning in a virtual environment and to enhance individual’s potentials to effectively enter an inter-connected, cross-cultural market and to take part in the public life.
2. Curriculum for both programs was designed to provide participants with entrepreneurial, innovation and digital marketing skills applicable in a transnational corporate environment. Curriculums was designed as 6 course syllabuses and 2 project syllubuses.
3. A learning management system had developed that would facilitate virtual mobility, students´ engagement and learning, and collaboration with foreign peers and lectures.
4. Acquiring international and intercultural experience via virtual mobility and establishing interaction and networking among peers from other European countries had been achieved.
5. An innovative learning game as a platform for game-based learning had been developed.
6. Free online educational resources (OER) relevant to specific areas har been developed.
7. App for mobile learning had been developed in order to deliver videos and interactive course materials on demand.

Participants:
– Istanbul University’s Faculty of Communication (Turkey) (Project leader) – the oldest and longest established communication faculty in Turkey. Offering a theoretical and applied education, the faculty currently gives BA, MA and PhD education in three departments – Journalism, Public Relations, and Advertising and Radio/Television/Film. Having a dual education program, the faculty has also been providing distance education.
– The Institute of Communication Studies (ICS) (www.iks.edu.mk) is a non-profit scientific-research institution that administers one-year and two-year Masters Programmes for (1) Management of Strategic Communications and (2) Media Management and Multimedia. Since 2013, the MA studies are accredited by the Board for Accreditation and Evaluation of Higher Education of the Republic of Macedonia.
– DOBA Faculty for Applied Business and Social Studies (Slovenia) – online business school dedicated to the development of innovative individuals and eLearning. It offers BA and MA programmes in the areas of Business & Management, Marketing, Social Services and Lifelong Learning. With an annual intake of about 1500 students DOBA is the largest online distance education provider in SEE.
– Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) is the public institution implementing liberal arts study policy based on the Harvard study model, and relevant research activities aimed at contribution to the society, as well as global community. In 2015, VMU has implemented more than 94 study programmes for almost 8000 students at bachelor, master and doctoral level. Studies at VMU are organized by 9 faculties and the Music Academy.

Activities:
• Transnational Survey Research (to experts): 376 experts in the fields of entrepreneurship, innovation, digital communication and digital marketing in Turkey, Macedonia, Slovenia and Lithuania, to identify the deficiencies in the fields to be trained, to offer suggestions for the creation of the courses to be given within the scope of the program, to conduct an international survey. In order to provide a perspective, a survey study was applied. Survey results were presented to educators prior to curriculum discussions at Joint Staff Traning.
• Transnational Desk Research: All the consortium board members from the four partner countries were asked to make a list of the best schools in two major topics: Communication with a focus on digital communication and Entrepreneurship with a focus on Innovativeness. For the next step, the list of schools was analyzed according to three main questions ((1)What are the keywords that come up on the explanation of the programme? What are the main focuses of the programme? (2)What are the key topics that come up in the curriculum? (3)What are the most innovative and up-to-date courses?). Using the technique of retrospective web analysis, web pages of the schools were studied in detail. An information from the desk research provided initial understanding of the educational environment and policies and
• Joint Staff Training was organised for 24 HEIs representatives and mutual database for providing a coherent professional program was developed.
• Curriculum, including syllabuses, learning materials and OER was developed, and 3 online courses and 1 Capstone Project were provided for each traning program by the mixed teams of lecturers from different countries. (total 6 courses, each course consists of 4 weeks and 2 Capstone Project each consist of 8 weeks)
• The Learning Management System facilitated the management of the virtual classroom by tracking the students’ progress.
• Innovative learning game developed as a platform for game-based learning for support to learning process.
• The good practices from the project MASTER@HOME presented on a one-day public discussion about the trends of internationalisation strategies in higher education both at home and abroad. Public Debate, which was held online due to the pandemic, registered 200 people as listeners.
• Two academic papers and two posters was prepared at the end of the project on the basis of the evaluation of the MicroMasters and the project`s results overall. Papers and posters were presented at four different conferences.
• The meeting budget, which could not be realized due to the pandemic, was used for the development of intellectual outputs and as part of the dissemination activities, for a monograph. Online and print monograph of articles from mixed teams of lecturers from all partner HEIs was published by Pearson.

Impact and long-term benefits
• Improving the entrepreneurial and innovation capacity of students.
• To enable students to adapt to the digital environment in marketing.
• Strengthening the skills of students for a transnational competitive environment.
• Networking among students and professionals from different European countries.
• Strengthening the cooperation of HEIs.
• Developing learning game to support to educational process.

Project Website

http://micromaster.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 208669 Eur

Project Coordinator

ISTANBUL UNIVERSITESI & Country: TR

Project Partners

• Institut za KOMUNIKACISKI STUDII Skopje
• VYTAUTO DIDZIOJO UNIVERSITETAS
• DOBA Fakulteta za uporabne poslovne in druzbene studije Maribor