Integrating virtual internships into online classrooms
With the rapid increase in the number of online enrollments, educators are faced with the challenge of ensuring on-campus experiences are available to distant students, which meet quality and accessibility expectations. One of the biggest challenges with online courses is constructing meaningful group projects for part-time students who can be in disparate time zones. As part of our Master's biotechnology programme, offered completely online, we have developed a capstone course for students approaching graduation, which integrates a semester-long project working with a small biotechnology company in the DC metro area into the course curriculum. The experience and results from these projects have been well received by the participating students and companies. We describe some of the challenges we have faced, strategies we have developed, and ongoing modifications to the programme to integrate projects with small biotechnology businesses into the online classroom.
Business internships and new technologies: a scenario for growth and innovation
Literature on traineeships recognizes beneficial effects on its main agents: students, employers, and higher education institutions. Furthermore, some authors have identified added effects when applying new technologies to the business internship experience, specially referred to improved computer skills and learning outcomes. The Faculty of Business Administration and Management of the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia has had a remarkable increase of internships over the past years. As computer skills are being more demanded by employers in a globalized and technological world, it is expected that virtual placements and ICTs in the internship practice will be a trend in universities in the up-coming years. The management of internships of the two new Double Degrees in the Faculty of Business: Business Administration and Management + Computer Science Engineering, and Business Administration and Management + Telecommunications Engineering, could provide the perfect scenario to put into practice and to explore the possibilities of new technologies applied to internships. The recent change in the Spanish law and in the regulations of universities, such as the Universitat Politecnica de Valencia, allows business internships to take place abroad. This could also provide an opportunity for innovation and growth, if combining internationalization with virtualization of internships.
Career Choice Inclination of the College Graduates——under the Analytic Framework on the Basis of LMS Theory
Employment difficulty of college graduates has become a social problem in China today.The research group has found that college graduates have a strong inclination in career choice considering units and regions.In terms of China's manpower market and the segmented labor market theory,it is found that their inclination is caused by the great income gap of different regions,the high cost of job transfer,and the sharp differences in social welfare.It is thus obvious that solution to the problem lies with the gradual breakdown of the institutional segment of labor market.