Virtual Learning Environment to Coach Interviewees Erasmus Project

Project Title

Virtual Learning Environment to Coach Interviewees

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 adult education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2016

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Labour market issues incl. career guidance / youth unemployment; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

Background: The project deals with the problem to find a job in another country which is derived from culture and ethnic differences. It aims to eliminate these barriers, providing equal opportunities to remotely attend a series of consulting courses through an innovative platform, and therefore facilitating the transition to world of work. In detail, the project aims at providing people with different age and economic backgrounds with the opportunity to explore the techniques of interview, through an innovative virtual world environment, offering high quality learning opportunities for unemployed and misemployed adults to adapt to different working environments and interviews.

Main objectives: To explore and apply traits of multicultural interview behaviours and diverse ethnic characteristics into the simulation learning tool to maximise the skills and the competence of Europeans; to eliminate physical barriers and create equal opportunities for adults from heterogeneous ethnic backgrounds to collaborate, broaden their views and mind, exchange ideas and engage in constructive dialogue; to provide the opportunity to adult learners to adapt to diverse working environments, and interviews; to influence, motivate, and provide the opportunity to interested stakeholders to utilise and extend the scenarios, and deliver a scalable and expandable open source virtual learning tool in terms of functionality and learning material.

Participants: 1) University of Cyprus (coordinator) – Higher education institution (tertiary level) participating in the project through the SEIT Lab, an integral part of the Department of Computer Science 2) Computer Technology Institute & Press Diophantus – Research Institute/Centre, a research and technology organization focusing on research and development in ICT with particular emphasis is placed on education, such as developing and deploying conventional and digital media in education and lifelong learning 3) Business Foundation for Education – Non-governmental organisation/association/social enterprise is a Bulgarian NGO with the mission to facilitate the development of the civil society through initiatives that enhance human resource competitiveness and contribute to economic development and prosperity. 4) FYG Consultores – SME, specialized in entrepreneurship, Strategy and Internationalization of start-ups and SME’s.

Main activities: IO1: Reviewed most popular theories of job interviews tips, techniques and case studies; defined learning activities specifications, the pedagogical approach and the conceptual model; specified the interview scenarios (questionnaire with 144 participants was used in this process). IO2: Development of 7 interview case scenarios in English based on the results from IO1 and tutorial/guidelines which explain the case scenarios, thus guiding the interviewees and interviewers in the procedure of executing each scenario. IO3: A virtual learning environment was developed based on Opensim, a open source 3D technology which was chosen from the Study on 3D virtual world’s platforms and technologies. The interview scenarios are simulated in the 3D virtual environment and all required information for the users are available in the welcome area of the VW platform. A detailed manual of the platform as well as a Demonstration video is also available.

Impact: Maximize competence and skills of European adults in self-presentation and job-preparation related skills; create opportunities for adults from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds to come together in constructive dialogue and exchange ideas; eliminate geographical barriers by providing equal opportunities to adults in distant areas across Europe to engage in participation; motivate and encourage adults to relearn and collaborate via a learning-by-doing approach and learner-centred means; increase the understanding of Europeans about the variations in interview cultures across EU nations to boost self-performance and maximize employment potential in the EU job market; expand interview skills and cultural awareness of participants; enhance the immersive experience and expand on the pedagogical techniques and theories to educate and expose individuals to numerous realistic and student-centric scenarios thus better visualizing real interviews and strengthening preparation skills.

Long-term benefits: For future and interested stakeholders, national communities, etc. to adopt the learning material proposed and evaluate the pedagogy approach and its influence, the didactics, and the virtual learning environment to expand its value and its use and thereafter to sustain the life and the prosperity of the project itself. It is expected that the embodiment and re-use of the tool will maximize the number of the European participants leading to a wider and long-term educational and life-long learning training process where cultural awareness on interview, competencies, skills and techniques is achieved and enhanced.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 129490 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITY OF CYPRUS & Country: CY

Project Partners

• INSTALOFI LEVANTE SL
• INSTITOUTO TECHNOLOGIAS YPOLOGISTONKAI EKDOSEON DIOFANTOS
• FONDATSIYA NA BIZNESA ZA OBRAZOVANI