Developing International Experience for Students through Virtual Mobility

To succeed in today’s European labour market, new skills are required. These include, amongst other things, the ability to collaborate with international partners in virtual environments. It is essential that higher education institutions develop and implement innovative strategies to prepare students for the challenges of tomorrow. One such strategy is ‘internationalisation at home’! This was tested as part of the Erasmus+ project MOVIDIS, in which project partners from France, Spain, Italy and Germany jointly developed and trialled the concept of Virtual Mobility (VM).

VM offers students the opportunity to benefit from study programmes at a university abroad without having to leave their home country. VM is an excellent alternative for those who, for financial, health or other reasons, cannot participate in traditional physical mobility but wish to experience internationalisation from their home university. The best part is: in addition to relevant international and intercultural skills, VM students develop digital literacy, which is becoming increasingly important in today’s knowledge society.

During the course of the MOVIDIS project, the participating universities established and tested the administrative, pedagogical and technical requirements for a virtual student exchange. Teaching in a virtual environment with international students demands, above all, outstanding pedagogical knowledge and skills from university lecturers. To this end, project partners developed innovative teaching and learning concepts and methods specifically tailored to virtual teaching and designed to foster the desired skills in learners.

The FHM participated in this exciting project through its Department of Economics, whose students were able to try out and experience virtual mobility. Two scenarios were tested in which FHM students were able to benefit from selected courses at a foreign university as well as participate alongside international students in familiar FHM courses, within innovative learning settings. Both scenarios equally fostered the targeted skills among students and advanced the FHM’s internationalisation strategy.