Virtual Exchange Medium – a Centro Paula Souza publication
Patricia Patrício is a journalist and professor of Endomarketing and Internal Communication at Fatec Ipiranga, Centro Paula Souza, São Paulo, Brazil.
She has been working with our colleague Osvaldo Succi and the Virtual Exchange Team at Centro Paula Souza since 2020.
In her role, Patricia has created and curated the editorial project – an online magazine entitled Virtual Exchange Medium or VEm.
She’s been publishing the magazine every two months since then and it’s now on its thirtieth edition.
Patricia has a small team to help her with proofreading and layout of the texts, but essentially, it’s ‘her baby’, as she does all the interviews and curates the content.
“The primary recipients of VEm are our professors here at the various institutions that make up the Centro Paula Souza. Especially our technical colleges called FATECS”.
The CPS is a public institution in the state of São Paulo that manages 228 technical high schools (Etecs) and 83 technical colleges (Fatecs).
The first COIL Virtual Exchange project took place at Fatec Americana in 2013 and received the “Guia do Estudante” prize for best academic partnership. The project “Approaching future international managers” and is still active today.”
Fatec Americana vence Prêmio Guia do Estudante | Centro Paula Souza
Contents of VEM
Despite limited funding and a very small team, Patricia has grown the magazine organically and received positive feedback
“It’s very important for us to document, publicise and spread the word about virtual exchange projects among our professors and coordinators.
Sections include for example, best practices in virtual exchange where our professors share their experiences in COIL projects.
We have a ‘Who’s Who’ section with interviews with prominent figures in the field, such as Jon Rubin (COIL Connect), Hope Windle (SUNY COIL Center), Rosi Leon (DePaul University) … They share their wisdom with our partners worldwide. More recently, we’ve introduced an ‘Opinion’ section too, where professors can share and exchange reflections on virtual exchange/coil and this has included student voices.
Vista do VEm: Virtual Exchange Medium – nº 19 – interview with Rosi León
Moreover, we also publish special coverage about the events we have been organising every year since 2021. For example, the International Virtual Exchange Symposium, and the Jornada de Projetos Colaborativos Internacionais, or Collaborative International Projects.
Our Virtual Exchange coordination team usually attends international events, such as the International Virtual Exchange Conference (IVEC), so we cover these types of international events too and surveys that help us continue to improve our collaborations.”
Analysis and Research – findings
Each semester, students at Fatecs are invited to respond to a perception survey, which is an important tool for evaluating and improving the COIL Project, especially in long-term partnerships. At the International Virtual Conference (IVEC) 2024, Patrícia presented the results of the survey conducted with 57 students from Fatec Ipiranga and Universidade de Aveiro (Portugal), who engaged in a COIL project in 2023.
These results were analysed by students from the Big Data programme at Fatec Ipiranga in the first semester of 2024, under the supervision of professor Carlos Menezes. They used AI tools, such as Streamlit, Google AI, Pandas, Wordcloud and Plotly, to create dashboards, word clouds and reports.
The analysis showed that it is possible to infer that there is a causal relation between teamwork and learning. Teamwork plus Leadership influence 50% of learning; as well as intercultural awareness and leadership.
These findings were published in VEm 26:
Vista do VEm: Virtual Exchange Medium – nº 26
“So, it’s very important to document our findings to preserve this memory, this history of our experience, and share with our colleagues.”
Patricia says she recently attended a conference and a colleague from the southern part of Brazil had read her newsletter which gave her great satisfaction.
“It’s going beyond the walls of our institution which is exactly what virtual exchange should be doing and impacting other areas of society including partners abroad.”
Ten years of VE/COIL at CPS
Patricia produced a special edition of VEm to commemorate 10 years of international projects.
“It was a special issue, celebrating this and we have some facts and numbers.
Since 2013 up to now, we have had 693 projects developed in 53 Fatecs, with 60 international universities in 25 countries. That has included about 14,000 students engaged in our virtual exchange projects. We are very proud of these achievements.”
Now Patricia thinks it is time to consolidate long running partnerships and nurture those relationships. She says it’s important to ensure they are durable before embarking on new ones.
Things are going well, says Patricia, with results indicating that students who engage in virtual exchange improve competencies such as respect, tolerance, leadership and adapting to new situations and academic challenges.
“So, virtual exchange is much more than about technical contents, it’s about expanding those soft skills and being comfortable outside your comfort zone and what you know. Soft skills are so important for our labour market.”