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Dear students:

Welcome to our Intercultural Virtual Collaboration!

As you know, in the next weeks, you will be working in intercultural virtual groups composed of members from University of Deusto (Bilbao, Spain) and HAN University of Applied Sciences (Nymehen, Netherlands).

The objective of this telecollaboration is to provide students with a richer pedagogical experience in what regards to the development of Intercultural Competence by giving them the chance to collaborate with colleagues from different cultures through online guided tasks.

The telecollaborative programme is composed of the following activities:

1. Development of a work plan based on the Comparison & Analysis of cultural products. This task will also require that you meet online to introduce yourselves to your colleagues from the other university.

2. Delivery of a Business case analysis (final assignment).

This sequence of activities has been developed according to research and aims at building trust among members of the intercultural virtual groups.

Given that critical reflection is essential for the development of intercultural competence, both assignments will be followed by a reflection task.

The instructions for all the tasks have been posted on each university’s respective learning platform (Deusto students can consult the instructions on ALUD platform and HAN students can see the instructions on Microsoft Teams). On this padlet board below you can see the general timeline for the project.

The assignments must be delivered to the teachers before the provided deadlines. Deusto students must deliver the assignments through ALUD platform and HAN students must deliver the assignments through Microsoft Teams.

From now on, you are supposed to get in contact with your colleagues in order to get the work started. You can find their email addresses in the first email sent. Based on our experience in previous collaborations, in order to exchange information in a faster and more immediate way, we advise that groups create a whatsapp group (one of the group members should volunteer to create the group).

We would also like to explain that this programme sets forth a holistic and formative evaluation. Therefore, we strongly advise you to complete each task mindfully in order to enhance your learning experience and reach better results.

Finally, all questions related to the programme can be asked directly to your local teacher in weekly face-to-face sessions. Students from University of Deusto can also ask their questions by email to teacher Luana Ferreira (luana.ferreira@deusto.es) and students from HAN should write to teacher Ingrid Bartels (Ingrid.Bartels@han.nl) or Angela Piccioni (am.piccioni@student.han.nl).

We hope you enjoy and learn a lot from this experience!

Best regards,

Luana and Ingrid

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Telecollaboration HAN-UD: Welcome video 2018

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Hello group:

This first task has two objectives:
1.  Allow group members to get to know each other and to exchange information about their personal work styles and cultural backgrounds
2. Get groups to develop a work plan to follow during the development of the final and main assignment of the project (business case analysis).

The specific instructions for this task can be found in the link provided in this card. You can also see it below:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a6uT9qaGZid5xm0ehuNpfefIfZJU75uJQga0kYKOaOA/edit?usp=sharing

You will see that, in this fist task, we ask you to:

1. Meet your group colleagues online to introduce yourselves and discuss the differences and similarities between the cultures represented by the group members (Hofstede's dimensions, communication styles, time perception....) and about the possible influence that such aspects might have on the functioning of your group.

2. Make a group report (up to 3 pages) with:
- a brief summary of the group discussion including individual observations made by group members in relation to point 1
- a group reflection of the pros and cons of the diversity represented in the group
- strategies that can be adopted in order to overcome problems that might derive from such diversity
- a workplan for the development of the business case (final assignment - instruction already posted on the platform) mentioning (1) frequency of meetings, (2) technology to be used by the group, (3) roles and responsibilities of participants (leader, communicator, secretary...), (4) milestones to be achieved, (5) expectations related to the quality of the work, (6) expectations related to the relationships between group members, (7) communication styles and (8) strategies to deal with conflicts.

IMPORTANT:
1. The specific instructions for this task can be found on this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1a6uT9qaGZid5xm0ehuNpfefIfZJU75uJQga0kYKOaOA/edit?usp=sharing

1. Bear in mind that we expect the collective reflection held during your online meeting to be reflected in the report and not a 'copy and paste' of individual perspectives.

2. At least one student from Deusto and one student from HAN must upload the work plan to their respective platforms within the given deadline.

The learning outcomes for this activity are:
- K1- Develop an increased understanding of the concept of culture, how cultures differ and the notion of ‘otherness’
- K3 - Identify vocabulary and concepts that are required in intercultural situations
- AW1 - Develop intercultural awareness - awareness of differences between cultures
- AW2 - Increase cultural self-awareness - awareness of oneself as a cultural being and of the fact that our own behaviour, views and reactions are conditioned by our own cultures
- AW3 - Increase awareness of specific cases when cultural conditioning is at play - not only knowing that culture is supposed to influence human behaviours but being capable of identifying this influence in practice
- ITM2 - Increase understanding of leadership roles and strategies for intercultural teams
- ICM2 - Be aware of strategies for identifying, analysing and solving intercultural conflicts
- IRB1 - Increase awareness of issues and challenges in intercultural relationship building
-IRB2 - Develop a positive attitue towards intercultual relationship building
- IRB4 - Develop strategies for encouraging intercultural relationships in one’s environment (private or work)
- CR4 - Increase critical awareness of others’ behaviours in an intercultural context
- DIC3 - Know how to identify logistic, specific and in-depth knowledge of individual cultures

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Hello all:
Please complete the reflection task related to the development of the work plan. The questionnaire can be found on your university's respective platform.
Best
Luana and Ingrid

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December 15th - Business case (Final assignment)

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December 15th - Business case (Final assignment)

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Business Case version Spain -The Netherlands final Ingrid Van Rompay-Bartels

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Hello all:
Please complete the reflection task related to the development of the final assignement (business case analysis). The questionnaire can be found on your university's respective platform.
Best
Luana and Ingrid

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Hello all:

Now that we have reached the end of the telecollaboration, we kindly ask you to fill in this satisfaction survey so that we can know your opinion about the different aspects of the course. It should take no more than 5 minutes to fill it up.

We take the opportunity to wish you a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year!

It has been a pleasure to be with you this semester.

Best wishes,
Luana and Ingrid