Virtual Exchange (VE) China Hub

Information About This Initiative

The Virtual Exchange (VE) China Hub is an initiative designed to promote virtual collaboration between educational institutions in China and around the globe. This hub was launched by Regina Brautlacht, Presidential Commissioner for Global Digital Learning at Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences (Germany), Dr. Mirjam Hauck, President of EUROCALL and Academic Co-Lead for AI in Learning, Teaching and Assessment at The Open University (UK) and Dr. KAN Qian (阚茜), Director of the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University (UK). Professor TANG Jinlan (唐锦兰), Dean of the Institute of Online Education at Beijing Foreign Studies University (China), and Dr. CHEN Hao (陈昊), Associate Professor and Director of the Business Case Centre at Shenzhen Technology University later joined the Coordination Team as local leads in China.

Building on the success of the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University, which fosters a global understanding of Chinese language and culture, the VE China Hub is extending these efforts to the field of virtual exchange.

What is Virtual Exchange?

Virtual exchange (VE) stands for “pedagogically-structured online collaborative learning between groups of students in different cultural contexts and/or geographical locations” (O'Dowd, 2018, p. 2). It combines the deep impact of intercultural dialogue with the broad reach of digital technology (EVOLVE, 2020) and is an umbrella term for educational interventions also referred to in the literature as Telecollaboration, E-Tandem/Teletandem, Online Intercultural Exchange, Globally Networked Learning, Global Virtual Teams, and Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) (O'Dowd, 2018).

Organizations like the Consortium of Virtual Exchange (CoVE) actively promote these practices by offering a network for practitioners to collaborate and share best practices within the field of virtual exchange.