Going Global in the Time of Corona: HCT-SAIT Virtual Student Mobility Pilot

DOI

10.2991/978-94-6463-286-6_3How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Collaborative online international learning (COIL); Virtual Student Exchange; Student Mobility; Challenges; Benefits; Mitigation strategies

Abstract

The concept of international exchange of students, in person or virtually, is in existence for several decades and the benefits and challenges of such exchange programs are extensively discussed in the literature. However, the literature is limited to the students’ exchange programs for language courses and is confined to the western countries such as UK, USA, France, Sweden, Finland, Poland, Ireland and Israel. There is a dearth of scholarly work on the international exchange of students between Middle Eastern Countries and Western countries. Furthermore, the process from conception to completion of an exchange program reflecting the benefits and challenges from faculty and students’ perspectives is not readily available. The purpose of this white paper is to share the process adopted by the Higher Colleges of Technology (UAE) to pilot its first successful virtual student exchange with the Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (Canada), using the collaborative online international learning approach. The paper also highlights the challenges faced during the pilot, and strategies adopted to mitigate the challenges and benefits of the exchange program for the faculty and students. Paraphrasing Gabriel García Márquez’ “Love in the Time of Cholera” in the title of this paper, the authors want to emphasize the context in which this experience took place – both as an obstacle and as an opportunity.

Copyright

© 2023 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Bharti Pandya
AU  - Marko Savic
PY  - 2023
DA  - 2023/11/23
TI  - Going Global in the Time of Corona: HCT-SAIT Virtual Student Mobility Pilot
BT  - Proceedings of the HCT International General Education Conference (HCT-IGEC 2023)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 14
EP  - 25
SN  - 2667-128X
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-94-6463-286-6_3
DO  - 10.2991/978-94-6463-286-6_3
ID  - Pandya2023
ER  -