The coronavirus pandemic has meant that many students have had to complete their [Hochschulveranstaltung/im Labor:] lab(course) / practical course practical training remotely. The remote internship format is new in many places and brings with it many challenges that need to be overcome by the target groups involved. The EPIDI ("European Partnership for Innovation in Distant Internships") project focused on the necessary framework conditions and skills. In order to successfully deal with the changes in working methods and in the workplace, the project aimed to develop best practice recommendations and e-learning modules for remote internships at universities.
Three partners of the EPICUR alliance, the University of Strasbourg, the Adam Mickiewicz University of Poznań and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), have joined forces in the EPIDI project to jointly formulate guiding principles and recommendations for distance internships and help make them an enriching experience for all involved.
In addition to students and employers, the participants also included academic and administrative employee members of the academic staff, research assistants, researchers who accompany or arrange distance internships. The four target groups focused on in the project were asked about their experiences with this special form of distance internship in a European survey between May and October 2021. The survey with more than 390 responses and 45 individual interviews provided the basis for the best-practice guide, which contains valuable tips and information on how to successfully manage and support remote internships.
In a next step, the results were translated into e-learning modules designed to help the various target groups identify obstacles to completing distance internships and apply solutions to typical challenges. In addition to units on overarching topics such as work-life balance and soft skills in distance internships, modules were created on the specific processes and requirements of distance internships at the participating universities. The e-learning modules were made available as a public resource (OER) on the project homepage
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