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2022 has been a year to remember for FRAMES. Together with our partners and community, we have mobilised change by training and inspiring educators to embrace and adopt Virtual Exchange, facilitating the integration and accreditation of Virtual Exchange in Higher Education throughout Europe and beyond. This year we have:

• delivered an Collaborative online Training on Virtual Exchange and blended mobility integration running from May 2 to May 29 2022 with 122 participants, of which 59 have been awarded an Open Badge for successfully completing the course;
• published a research article “Scenarios for the Integration of Virtual Exchange in Higher Education” in the Journal of International Students;
• produced the “Toolkit for Integrating Virtual Exchange in Higher Education”, which provides key information, inspiration, tools and case examples of the approaches that Higher Education Institutions can take to integrate and accredit Virtual Exchange;
• Hosted the online launch event of the Toolkit on September 29, with 58 participants
• Presented the findings of our work at a variety of online and onsite events, such as:
  • What’s new in Brussels? Recent Developments in European Policies and Programmes, organised online by ACA – Academic Cooperation Association, 3 February 2022
  • Virtual Exchange and Mobility: Access, Integration, and Internationalisation, organised online by the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College (CIHE), 15 February 2022
  • 2022 European Learning & Teaching Forum “On site, online, on point?”, organised by EUA – European Universities Association, 17 February 2022
  • Integration and accreditation of blended mobility and VE: from theory to practice, EAIE2022 conference, 15 September 2022 – Barcelona, Spain
  • Developing a framework for the integration of Virtual Exchange across the curriculum, I-HE2022 conference, 19-21 October 2022 – Athens, Greece
  • Developing an action plan for integrating Virtual Exchange in Higher Education, IVEC 2022 conference, 28 October 2022 – Valencia, Spain
  • Using FRAMES to improve your VE experience within your HEI, Digital Fair of possibilities, organised within the framework of the online conference “Digitalisation. Education. Connection. Education.” organised by Technische Universität Braunschweig on November 30 – December 2, 2022

We have also had insightful discussions with our FRAMES colleagues, during our monthly meetings and continuous exchanges, and we finally met in person in Rome in May 2022!

We are grateful to the many educators, experts, VE practitioners and everyone who has contributed to our activities along the year. Now it is time for Higher Education Institutions to mainstream Virtual Exchange into their institutionalised mobility activities.

At the beginning of 2023 we will launch a call for contributions, in the form of a consultation, to provide feedback and contribute to enriching the FRAMES Strategic Framework, aimed at supporting the adoption of Blended Mobility and Virtual Exchange as a regular practice within the international activities of Higher Education Institutions across Europe.

Also, we invite you to save-the-date for the FRAMES closing event, which will take place on February 28th, 2023 at the University of Siena (Italy). Stay tuned!

We very much appreciate your engagement with FRAMES during 2022, and we are looking forward to cooperating with you all in 2023 and beyond!

Virtual Exchange as an educational practice has been shown to work as a complementary component of physical exchange programmes, allowing more students to benefit from meaningful international and intercultural experiences as part of their higher education. Now it is time for Higher Education Institutions to mainstream this approach into their institutionalised mobility activities. 

To support educational professionals with this mission, the FRAMES consortium is happy to present the ‘Toolkit for Integrating Virtual Exchange in Higher Education’. This one-stop-shop provides key information, inspiration, tools and case examples of the approaches that Higher Education Institutions can take to integrate and accredit Virtual Exchange.

Whether you are an administrative officer curious to explore what Virtual Exchange integration can bring to your institution, or a teacher willing to find ways to accredit and sustain your Virtual Exchange activities in the curriculum; this product will help you with essential tools, activities and best practices. Visit this webpage to download the digital or the printer-friendly version of the toolkit, and explore additional multimedia assets like the FRAMES podcast 

The toolkit has been externally reviewed by Professor Anna Turula, Head of the Technology Enhanced Language Education Department at the Pedagogical University of Krakow, who said:

“The Toolkit … has every chance of serving the purpose it was designed for and to live up to the expectations of both the project authors and prospective users. [T]he Toolkit is a good, effective means of devising ways for integration and accreditation of virtual exchange in the institution of the user.”  

The Toolkit has been created in the framework of the FRAMES project, a Strategic Partnership funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union spanning over 2 years (March 2021 – February 2023). The project is implemented by a consortium composed of UNIMED – Mediterranean Universities Union (coordinator), UNICollaboration, Sharing Perspectives Foundation, Universitat de Girona, University of Limerick, and Università di Siena.

This special issue of the Journal of International Students, Virtual Exchange: Evidence and Analysis to Advance the Field, co-editors Melissa Whatley and Taylor C. Woodman and international teams of researchers explore the complex realities and provide new directions for the rapidly growing field of virtual exchange and its continually evolving models and modalities.

Our FRAMES-related paper Scenarios for the Integration of Virtual Exchange in Higher Education” describes the results of the analysis carried out within FRAMES which collected and analysed Virtual Exchange (VE) case studies building upon desk research and through an open survey, so as to identify and describe various scenarios of accredited VEs. By using a qualitative methodology based on pattern matching analysis, collected cases were aggregated into four scenarios to be potentially used by a variety of European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs): VE as a preparatory or follow-up activity to physical mobility (blended mobility); VE as an intertwined component of physical mobility (blended mobility); VE as a stand-alone learning activity; VE as a component of a course. The main conclusions and recommendations revolve around the need to expand the number of potential scenarios across all disciplines and contexts and the urge to  train  academic  as  well  as administrative  staff  to facilitate the integration of VE in HEIs.

The open access article is available here.

The JIS Special Issue is available here

Published: 2022-09-09