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Chapter #15
GLOBAL INTERCULTURAL PROJECT EXPERIENCE
(GIPE): A Distributed Interdisciplinary Project-Based Learning
Framework
Manfred Meyer1, Attlee M. Gamundani2, Katja Becker1, Daniel Malpartida3, Agung Nugroho4,
José Ochoa-Luna3, Colin Stanley2, & Heike Winschiers-Theophilus2
1Westfälische Hochschule, Gelsenkirchen – Bocholt – Recklinghausen, Germany
2Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia
3Universidad Católica San Pablo, Arequipa, Peru
4Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Indonesia
ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a new concept and experiences of a distributed interdisciplinary learning
program for students across continents. The aim is to provide students with a truly Global Intercultural
Project Experience (GIPE) by working together with peers from around the world and solving real-life
client’s problems. We have received seed-funding for four annual projects to engage students from
Germany (Europe), Namibia (Africa), Indonesia (Asia), and Peru (South America). In 2020 and 2021,
28 and 44 students from four continents engaged in a one-semester distributed interdisciplinary project
for a Namibian and Indonesian client, respectively. Despite Covid-19 they successfully completed the
project expressing deep appreciation for the learning opportunities overcoming challenges of working
across widespread time zones, cultures, changing requirements, and various technical difficulties.
Considering the vast learning benefits, we suggest incorporating such projects in all tertiary education
curricula across the globe, while streamlining organizational efforts based on lessons learned.
Keywords: project-based learning, collaborative online international learning (COIL), distributed
software development, intercultural collaboration, interdisciplinary students project.
1. INTRODUCTION
Globalization requires Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) to provide relevant 21st
century skills and knowledge. The ongoing pandemic has fast-tracked a long-awaited
educational transformation promoting distributed online learning. Although the idea and
successful application of distributed student projects with online collaboration among
different HEIs dates back to the late 1990s (Brereton, Gumbley, & Lees, 1998), the focus on
international and intercultural aspects only appeared during the last decade (Appiah-Kubi
& Annan, 2020). Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) receives growing
interest as an innovative, cost-effective instructional method that promotes intercultural
learning through online collaboration between faculty and students residing in different
countries or locations within the context of a course (DePaul University, 2017). Moreover,
Project-Based Learning (PBL) is a well-established student-centered approach leading to the
acquisition of deeper knowledge through active exploration of real-world challenges and
problems (Bender, 2012).
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Thus, in this paper we present the GIPE project, which builds on PBL and COIL as a
hybrid realization with a short-term physical mobility phase to provide students with highly
competitive skills for working in an international, intercultural and interdisciplinary team,
while jointly working on one real-life project with a local client. In this chapter we share the
GIPE realization and experiences from two concluded project cycles. We discuss necessary
student support, organizational issues as well as the impact of Covid-19.
2. RELATED WORK
With an increasing digitalization of education and limitations of mobility the concept of
“Internationalization at Home” has gained momentum (Mudiamu, 2020). COIL offers
students “an inclusive, international learning opportunity for students and staff who may not
be able to or want to have a physical or blended mobility” (Helm & O’Dowd, 2020, p. 3).
COIL courses usually entail shared teaching by staff from different institutes and countries;
with students from both countries using a problem-based learning approach with local
learning outcomes, assessments, and communication tools (De Castro, Dyba, Cortez,
& Pe Benito, 2018). The benefits of using COIL courses have been widely recognized
(Almeida, Robson, Morosini, & Baranzelil, 2018; Barbosa, Santos, & Prado-Meza, 2020;
Duffy, Stone, Townsend, & Cathey, 2020; Mudiamu, 2020). 23 COIL experiences analyzed
by (Hildeblando Junior & Finardi, 2018), showed that learners developed intercultural
competencies, digital skills, international education experience, and global awareness.
A number of Universities have meanwhile implemented the COIL approach with varying
levels of complexity. Rauer, Kroiss, Kryvinska, Engelhardt-Nowitzki, and Aburaia (2021)
presents a telecooperative Global Virtual teams project concept, which can be adapted to
different study programmes. The authors ran a pilot study with 150 students from 5 different
universities and different disciplines working on simulated business tasks. Challenges
perceived by participants were mostly related to communication and language, lack of subject
specific knowledge and coordination, while the entire project experience was rated as
valuable by most students (Rauer et al. 2021). Multicultural communication project
environments are complex and demand awareness of cultural variations (Ochieng & Price,
2010). However, bibliometric review of research on communication in virtual teams by
(Muszyńska, 2021) show that issues linking communication with trust and leadership are
least explored areas. As echoed by (Ochieng & Price, 2010), creation and development of
effective cross-cultural collectivism, trust, communication, and empathy in leadership is an
important ingredient for remote project collaborations success.
3. GIPE REALIZATION
3.1. Background
A quadrilateral partnership was conceptualized, building on long-term individual staff
and institutional bilateral collaborations of the Westfälische Hochschule (WH) with its
partner universities in Namibia, Indonesia and Peru. The proposed program was modelled on
previous successfully completed bilateral student software development projects engaging
German and Namibian students in real client projects. Concerned with providing equal
learning and traveling opportunities for all students and operating within funding options the
program incorporates traveling for all students; turn-taking client selections from the partner
countries with an emphasis on interdisciplinary projects. The program offers selected
students the opportunity to gain a truly Global Intercultural Project Experience (GIPE) by
Global Intercultural Project Experience (Gipe):
A distributed interdisciplinary project-based learning framework
189
working in a multicultural team on an international project. The main objective of GIPE is to
provide students with state-of-the art knowledge and skills while working in a distributed
multicultural and multidisciplinary team across continents. GIPE also aims at strengthening
the collaboration among its partner universities and promoting intercultural exposure in
general through ‘internationalization@home’ activities.
3.2. The overall framework
In an effort to strengthen internationalization efforts at German Universities of Applied
Sciences, the GIPE framework program received a four-year (2019-2023) funding. In the
beginning representatives of all four Universities congregated in Germany to plan the
implementation of the framework. A German representative then visited all partner
Universities promoting GIPE at management level to ensure institutional commitment and
support.
At the core of the GIPE framework are the annual student projects taking place from
February to June/July (subject to different academic calendars and lecturing periods)
preceded by a client and project selection, evaluation of students’ applications and awarding
scholarships as well as requirements gathering and detailed project planning together with
the selected client (see Figure 1).
Figure 1.
The Masterplan for the GIPE Framework 2019-2023.
The annual projects consist of four phases:
1. Online collaboration preparation: A virtual global kick-off event brings all stakeholders
together. Students then get prepared for the various project tasks through targeted
training. Students join the project in intervals depending on the home universities’
lecturing schedules.
2. Two-week face-to-face phase: All participating students and one representative lecturer
from each university meet in Germany for team-building, intercultural exposure and
mixed-team-setup (‘Spring School’).
3. Online collaboration: The students continue working on their project tasks in mixed
teams using various online collaboration tools.
4. One-week project-touchdown and hand-over: The German students travel to the client
situated in one of the partner countries.
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3.3. Operationalization of the GIPE Projects
The operationalization is based on a rigorous definition of participants’ roles and
communication (infra)structures. The 2020 and 2021 projects were of varying complexity
and took place entirely remotely due to the Covid-19 situation.
The Project Manager (PM) and Project Coordinator (PC) are responsible for strategic
and operational tasks as per funding agreement. Each University appoints a Local
Coordinator (LCs) and International Office Representative (IOR) to organize scholarships
and team-building, Guides (Stream Coordinators, SC) being faculty content experts, a Stream
Lead (SL, one person from this circle) as well as experts, sponsors and external stakeholders
and contact persons of the client. It is possible to fill several roles at the same time, for
example LC, SC and SL. The number of SC depends on the complexity and number of
streams of a project.
The allocation of students to teams is based on their country (mixed teams), their prior
skills, and their interest. The students fill in a skill competency survey based on competencies
needed for successful project completion. The survey also allows the PC to identify missing
skills to plan interventions. Each SC provides performance feedback on each student’s
contribution to the success of the project. Each University applied its own assessment and
grading system. Student feedback is provided voluntarily in the form of videos or text at the
end of the project, and formal challenges and reflections from the individual student progress
reports by the Namibian students.
Figure 2.
The Roles within GIPE.
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191
Day-to-day business is based on regular, synchronous project meetings via video
conferencing systems. There are a number of regular operational and project-related meetings
– starting mostly at 12:00 UTC, the only time accommodating the four time zones. Board
meetings (BM) are held fortnightly to discuss general information and decide on common
issues (Participants: PM, PC, LCs, SCs). In the Guides meeting (GM), every two weeks
(during project phase), SCs coordinate and exchange information and discuss problems with
PM and PC. The International Offices meetings (IOM) are held by arrangement, to coordinate
local marketing, application procedure and intercultural activities. Weekly stream-specific
meetings/workshops ensure project progress and alignment among students and clients. All
Students meetings (ASM) are used to answer students' questions, synchronize streams and
present results. Local Student's meetings (LSM) address administrative issues and
examination matters at the respective partner university. Client meetings (CM) report on the
progress of the project and open questions are clarified as needed.
In order to ensure effective and efficient communication, various tools are used. The
main platform is Slite, where all important information is stored e.g. minutes of meetings,
presentations (maintained by PC). All project members (except for students) have read/write
privileges on everything. In the individual streams, information and deliverables are managed
via Moodle with general and stream-specific courses. Zoom is the main video conferencing
tool with additional rooms provided for 24/7 use. A project calendar is set up on Google
accessible for all project members (read-only for students). The primary communication
platform for asynchronous communication is Slack where pre-configured channels can be
used - general (all-board-experts-guides) and stream specific (with/without students) - or
direct messages as appropriate. Finally, Agantty is used for stream-specific project
management. However, the two projects have revealed that some platforms are more usable
such as WhatsApp. Thus, platforms that cater for different network bandwidths need to be
discussed and selected by the participants of each project.
4. THE 2020 STUDENT’S PROJECT
4.1. Participants
A total of 20 scholars were selected locally (see Table 1) before the start of the project
on the basis of criteria such as academic performance, English language skills, motivation,
previous intercultural/social engagement, and local need-based criteria. 8 additional students
joined the Namibian project team later.
Table 1.
2020 project scholars (+ additional students).
Country
Female
Male
Field of study
Level
Germany
1
4
Int’l Management, Business Comp.,
Software Systems, Mech. Engineering
Bachelor (4)
Master (1)
Indonesia
1
4
Electrical, Mechanical and Industrial
Engineering
Bachelor
Namibia
2
3+8
Software Development
Bachelor Honours
(5+8)
Peru
1
4
Computer Science, Business
Administration
Bachelor (4)
Master (1)
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4.2. Tasks
The Namibian National Commission on Research, Science and Technology (NCRST)
was identified as a suitable client, considering its (1) existing working relationship with the
respective partner university, (2) strong commitment of its management for such a "learning
project" carried out by students not professionals as well as (3) availability of
English-speaking staff at the client-side. High-level requirements were agreed upon with
NCRST prior to students joining the project. The task was to develop a national web portal
to manage research projects, publications and researcher profiles referred to as the Science
Technology and Innovation (STI) web portal. After signing off the requirement specification
document and deciding on the most appropriate state-of-the-art technologies to be used, the
project was internally divided into five sub-projects, each assigned to one team of students:
(1) Object Model, (2) Documentation, (3) Quality Control and Assurance, (4) Frontend, and
(5) Business Logic.
4.3. Process
The Object Model team duties were adjusted towards the end of the project to prepare
deployment (handing over the application to the client) since their main task was a
prerequisite for most of the other teams and already completed. The developed application
(see the interface in Figure 3), including its documentation, was handed over to the client
with minimal delay. As the client requested assistance with deployment as well as an
extension of some functionalities, two Namibian students continued working on the project
on the client-side, on a part-time basis.
Figure 3.
The new STI web portal developed for NCRST.
4.4. Student feedback
As pointed out by (Jara & Mellar, 2010), student feedback is essential for quality
enhancement especially in online courses. (Williams, Parkes, & Davies, 2013) present word
clouds as an innovative qualitative tool to provide fast and attractive feedback enabling
educators to adjust their programmes to positive and negative areas of student experiences.
Figure 4 shows a word frequency cloud, based on the GIPE students' video transcripts and
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written text feedback, illustrating the most prominent topics such as project, experience, time,
team, work, and challenge. We further provide supporting statements.
Related to the project work itself, the students recognized the professional support
provided by the PC and the SC. An Indonesian student commented: “I appreciate this project,
and when I go through the trouble, all the guides will help me through many problems.”
A Namibian student added that “there was always support. It was as much social as it was
technical.” A German student testified that "Due to the expertise of professionals, a great
project manager who kept us on track every week, and the dedication of each team, we were
able to do the final product that I am personally proud of".
Regarding their overall experiences, students expressed strong emotions. An
Indonesian student stated that "this is truly a life-changing experience, although it wasn't
smooth sailing all the way." while a German student exclaimed that "that's something you
would normally never think of." Students fully acknowledged the learning opportunity the
project provided, be it communication, technical or intercultural. For most of them, it was a
chance to improve their English professional skills, as mentioned by a German student:
“Within the project, I could improve my English skills and learnt how to work with an
international team through different time zones.”
Figure 4.
Student reflections Word Cloud 2020.
The students appreciated working in a multicultural team and expanding their personal
relations over continents. As expressed by an Indonesian student: “We were getting to know
each other and even talking about our countries, such as our culture, food and daily life.”
A Peruvian student said, "I think the most amazing thing about it is the fact that I've worked
with a lot of people from all over the world and we have achieved a very wonderful product
for our client."
Besides the disruptions caused by the pandemic, the students mentioned a number of
challenges with working across time zones as the most prevalent. A Peruvian student stated
that: "One of the major challenges of the project was coordinating the team because of time
zones. For some of us, that day was just beginning, others were about to have lunch and some
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others were finishing their day". While another Peruvian student said that "From the
beginning, we knew that it would be difficult to reconcile the schedules, since there is a
difference of 12 hours with Indonesia, so our weekly coordination meetings and meetings
with the students were adapted to that time." This sentiment was further confirmed by one of
the German students "I think the most required ability, though, was being agile, adjusting to
different time zones, participating sometimes late in the evening, all the morning during the
weekends with different time zones and different means of communication." Yet another
Peruvian student expressed the challenge of having to deal with multiple issues "I have to
manage to overcome the difficulties associated with the pandemic, schedules, language, and,
perhaps, specific knowledge of tools, to be able to develop together with students from
Germany, Namibia, and Indonesia". One student was concerned with having been the only
female in a team and her challenges of being heard and respected.
4.5. Client engagement
The NCRST required a fully functioning platform to support the development of
national STI policy and policy instruments effectively. They attended a number of meetings
and training yet had insufficient internal capacity. The basic functionalities were
implemented, and two students were assigned for deployment at the client-side. The Portal
is loaded on the NCRST server yet not accessible for end-users.
5. THE 2021 STUDENT’S PROJECT
5.1. Participants
A total of 32 scholars were selected locally (see Table 2) using the same selection
criteria s in the 2020 project. 12 additional students joined later.
Table 2.
2021 project scholars (+ additional students).
Country
Female
Male
Field of study
Level
Germany
5+5
3+1
Mechanical Engineering, Computer
Science, Software Development,
Business, Molecular Biology,
Environmental studies
Bachelor (7+6)
Master (1)
Indonesia
3
5
Engineering,
Business Administration
Bachelor (7)
Master (1)
Namibia
3+1
5+5
Computer Science,
Tourism
Bachelor (3)
Honours (5+6)
Peru
4
4
Business Administration, Computer
Science, Electronics and
Telecommunications Engineering
Bachelor
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5.2. Tasks
The selected client, Puspanita Eco-Spirit Center, located in Indonesia, is a private
institution providing eco-education to learners, students, and the general community. It was
agreed to develop three digital tourism platforms, dividing the students into five working
groups: (1) Business Model and Strategy, (2) Digital Marketing, (3) Website with Booking
System, (4) Educational Games and (5) Smart Farming. Special attention was given to ensure
each group has a student from each partner university to maximize the intercultural
competence achievement (Burdett, 2014). Additionally, in each group a staff member from
the client organization actively participated throughout the project.
The task of the Business model and Strategy stream was to create a new business model
using BMC (Business Model Canvas) concept and propose alternative strategies for
Puspanita to ensure the client keeps up with the current developments in digital technologies
and make optimal use of their resources, as well expanding their market. The Digital
Marketing stream was formulating marketing strategies utilizing digital technology and
social media. Meanwhile, the Website stream created a website equipped with a booking
system. Considering that the client was an educational institution promoting ecological
concerns to children, the Educational Game stream implemented an online ecology education
game. The responsibility of the Smart Farming stream was to develop innovative farming
applications using IoT installations as a medium for learning and study media for visitors and
students. Stream outputs are shown in Figure 5.
Figure 5.
Various stream results developed for Puspanita Eco-Spirit Center.
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5.3. Process
Since the first week, the students have been working on each of the streams. Scholars
and clients communicated intensively so that user requirements were considered. A virtual
spring school was organized replicating activities from the planned yet cancelled physical
contact phase. All project streams completed their tasks on time. Each Stream reported its
work to the GIPE project plenary and was launched in the Official GIPE 2021 Virtual Launch
Event, which internal and external stakeholders attended. This activity was covered and
disseminated by local Indonesian media and media in each member country. At the end of
the project, each stream team was measured on intercultural competence, project
management skills, and three stream-specific competence indicators. Additionally, the
educational game stream co-opted six game-design students to improve the output of the
apps.
5.4. Student feedback
While some of the feedback is similar to the 2020 project, we observed new terms
enlarged in the 2021-word cloud (Figure 6), such as business and model, which reflects the
differences in project focus.
Figure 6.
Student reflections Word Cloud 2021.
The high frequency of “amazing” relates to the enhanced experiences expressed by the
students and confirmed by a separate survey conducted (see results in Figure 7), where it was
revealed to be nearly as important as meeting people from other countries as a reason to
participate in the project.
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Figure 7.
Reasons for participating in the program.
A Namibian student provided a comprehensive summary statement “My GIPE 2021
experience was unforgettable. Besides the fact that I had the chance to work and
communicate with students from all over the world, we had a wonderful relationship with
our client. It was amazing to have an intercultural exchange of ideas and perspectives, and it
really allowed me to become more open-minded and learn about the world around me.
I would highly suggest any student who has the chance to partake in this incredible project
to do so!” An equally strong statement from a student in Indonesia confirms the sentiment
“a memorable journey … helped in building solid connections and sharing knowledge, which
we shall continue beyond the project 2021… What an extraordinary journey and how I fell
in love with the project.”
The importance of the Virtual Spring School through the lens of the students as shown
in Figure 8 where such reasons as getting a better overview of the overall project e.g. what
was happening in other streams, were among such aspects the students had to rate. The
concern of not being able to physically participate at the Spring School was raised as
confirmed by such feedback as, “It would have been great if we attend it physically”
complemented by another sentiment expressed by a student: “I liked the intercultural
experience in the Spring school and it was just then when I could meet other streams
participants. I think it is good to have a social space for students to interact in the kick-off as
well”.
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Figure 8.
Virtual Spring School ratings.
5.5. Client engagement
We captured the client feedback directly and indirectly from the responses during the
stream meetings and at the virtual launch event at the end of the project. In general, the client
was delighted with the students' work in all streams. The Business Model was a
down-to-earth proposal easy to implement. In addition to creating digital content for
marketing campaigns through social media, the digital marketing stream also created a new
logo for a unique and modern eco-spirit center. The organization was especially grateful for
the fully functional well-designed website with booking system. The installation of
smart-farming equipment (IoT) to monitor soil conditions in organic crop plots, has
convinced the client that it would be helpful for the people to learn how the ecological system
works.
6. LESSONS LEARNT
We have identified five themes of interest that need special consideration in such
projects.
6.1. Intercultural and interlingual competence development
As noted by (Cummings, 2021), students need cultural competence to make
international collaboration work in online spaces. The intercultural nature of GIPE is one of
the program’s cornerstones, with partner universities located in Africa, Asia, Europe and
South America, bringing the average distance between their campuses to more than 11,000
kilometers. The countries neither have a common language, nor much political or economic
association, nor similarities in infrastructures or everyday life. Benefits of intercultural
project experiences have been the development of transferable communication and
management skills (Lycko & Galanakis, 2021), and enhanced multilingual communication
competencies needed to navigate changing work contexts (Atabekova, Lutskovskaia,
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& Gorbatenko, 2021). In GIPE, English was chosen as the official project language, not being
the mother tongue of most students. Feedback from the scholars revealed that not only they
needed to adapt to different accents but also to the peculiarities in communication codes of
each country and culture. For example, subtle differences in communication forms meant
that the Indonesian scholars asked their Western colleagues to turn on their cameras during
meetings, as they expressed that face-to-face interaction, e.g. being able to see the other
person, was essential for them. As team members grew to know each other, they also learnt
to understand their partners. Nevertheless, the use of simpler language, with fewer figures of
speech helped to keep a clearer communication channel between the project participants.
Corner, Liu, and Bird (2021) postulated that in order to navigate complex interdisciplinary
and intercultural projects recognizing perspectives, managing relationships, and navigating
uncertainties are essential.
6.2. Team building
Striving to enhance team cohesion, process and performance, Klein et al. (2009)
suggest that team building should focus on (1) goal setting, (2) clarifying roles, (3) fostering
problem solving and (4) facilitating interpersonal relations. In GIPE (1) and (2) were realized
through the project organization and coordination, while (3) was given through the nature of
the projects, (4) was fostered through additional activities. Team building and socializing
activities are central elements in the GIPE framework, essential for the success of the project
and the “fun part” of the experience. Team building was actively pursued at the Global
Kick-Off and the Virtual Spring School, but played a recurring role throughout the GIPE
projects 2021 and 2020. It was conceived and planned mainly by the IOs. It consisted of three
elements: Low-threshold getting-to-know-you games, presentations about cultural & country
differences (Country Facts Quiz, Educational System, Working Life, Stereotypes) and
Socializing (Escape Game, World Café & socializing breakout-rooms). The games served as
ice-breakers, the cross-cultural information was deepened especially during the Spring
School to promote cultural understanding while the socializing events took place
continuously to foster exchange between project teams. In addition, a friendship book (Fact
sheet of all participants) with a playlist available online (favourite songs of each person) was
distributed at the start of the project.
The measures were more comprehensive and successful in the second project. The
friendship book and the socializing breakout rooms (“coffee kitchen”) were particularly
successful. Overall feedback was “more activities should be planned, especially at the
beginning”. Reduced to online only, the team-building was more challenging, in between
other tasks and activities. The available time slots between the different time zones are
limited and when project work is really needed, socializing activities are hard to be scheduled.
In the future, team building activities could be planned in a more streamlined and stringent
way and be more aligned with the individual project phases.
6.3. Knowledge and skills support
As students from four different partner universities and from different programs take
part in the projects, it’s inevitable that they join with different levels of prior knowledge and
skills as regards the topics and technologies required in the project. (MacLeod & van der
Veen, 2020) suggest a scaffolding approach to prepare students to work in an
interdisciplinary team, by equipping students through carefully designed modules with the
appropriate technical skills.
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In the GIPE 2020 project, a Web Engineering project (with some business aspects for
the few business students enrolled), almost all students needed to familiarize themselves with
the state-of-the-art technologies and tools selected to be used. Therefore, in phase 1 tutorial
material was compiled and provided to all students for some hands-on training finally also
supported by two half-day workshops given by the Peruvian and Indonesian students for the
students from Namibia and Germany who joined the project later due to different academic
calendars. However, this familiarization phase reduced the time left for the development of
the main application resulting in the hand-over of a core but functional web portal to the
client.
As the scope of the 2021 project was much broader to attract students from various
programs and strengthen the interdisciplinary character, familiarization with technologies,
tools and methods did no longer take place separately. Faculty experts on each stream
facilitated ‘learning while doing’. Although this approach allowed for more time working on
the deliverables for the client, students finally gained more project-specific knowledge and
skills as needed to solve their particular tasks rather than general concepts.
In future projects, both aspects, (1) the alignment of prior knowledge and skills and
introduction of general concepts and methods in phase 1 and (2) their application on the given
project need to be carefully balanced to ensure that students are well prepared for the tasks
within their sub-project but also leaving enough time to achieve valuable results for the client.
6.4. Project organization
Although a specific unique meeting time was selected considering all time zones, the
participants expressed it to be a challenge. In further project implementations, a rotational
time slot mechanism could be explored to distribute the burden of early or late meetings for
one project partner. While the number of meetings seems excessive, they proved to be
necessary to manage the project and ensure cohesion. However, the length of the meetings
needs to be strictly controlled with measures such as voting instead of consensus-oriented
discussions and use of a slack-channel for discussions could be adopted going forward.
Regarding course and project organization, (Guth, 2013), reporting about 24 successful COIL
courses, emphasizes that the use of asynchronous tools, real-time communication, course
content, etc. is dependent on various factors. One important lesson learnt was the need to be
flexible, and trial and error helped teams overcome difficulties of first-time courses.
Considering the stream's handling of the projects and keeping the various teams into
manageable sizes provides easy to monitor progress checks and identifying call for attention
sections. Identifying Subject Matter Experts at the beginning of each project is a necessity to
handle the multidisciplinary demands of the project. For this to be successful, however, it
requires thorough requirements specification with the client at the onset. If new demands for
the project surface, while the project has already kicked off and the required skills were not
planned for, that is where complexity is birthed. Another challenge is the differing academic
calendars, including student registration and availability.
6.5. Impact of COVID-19
Although GIPE was conceived as an online collaboration project since its inception,
Covid-19 measures required a number of adaptations in the organization. Many team
members reported a variety of challenges that arose throughout the pandemic that made
effective teamwork challenging, as well as communication adjustments in terms of quantity
and quality. Some students did not have adequate conditions for online participation at home
and needed technical and financial support. Some participants were affected at a personal
level either suffering of Covid-19 themselves or close relatives. Challenges are similar to the
once reported by (Wildman, Nguyen, Duong, & Warren, 2021), who has analyzed 90
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A distributed interdisciplinary project-based learning framework
201
open-ended questionnaires of students who worked on group-projects during Covid-19
restrictions. Besides external factors, they also mentioned communication issues, student
performance matters as well as logistics. In GIPE, organizing client meetings was a challenge
in different phases of the lockdown in 2020, where the client was not reachable for weeks.
Moreover, the postponement, and ultimately cancellation, of both spring schools was one of
the most regrettable decisions that the program had to take. These kickoff meetings were
intended for scholars, guides and staff to meet in person before starting to work together on
each yearly project.
Having learnt from the first years’ experience, the partners were able to plan in advance
for a Covid-19 scenario. Subsequently, every interaction was scheduled to take place online,
including client meetings. There were only a few impediments such as the inability to
physically install the sensors for the Smart Farming stream and the impossibility to visit the
client’s facilities to develop the Mixed Reality platforms.
7. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, the GIPE project experience was enriching in many ways: culturally,
academically, and professionally. Reviewing the sentiments expressed by the students
confirms that though they experienced many new challenges they equally appreciated the
learning and the multicultural context. Working in an interdisciplinary team on a software
development project required a steep learning curve in a short time. The students received
structured technical training and were exposed to new web programming frameworks, and
learned good project management practices using professional tools. An invaluable reward
was the creation of new personal and professional relations during a time of “social
distancing”. The Covid-19 pandemic drastically changed the implementation of the planned
GIPE framework, depriving the students from travelling to Germany to experience a
two-week team-building workshop, as well as depriving the German students from handing
over the project to a client on another continent. Yet the distributed interdisciplinary projects
were completed successfully with a multicultural team of students from four continents,
serving as a proof of concept.
The encounter from the 2021 GIPE project of working hand-in-glove with the client as
part of the project streams, brought alive the experience of participatory design methodology.
There were best practices gained from facing head-on the challenges highlighted in this
chapter. Being flexible to try new approaches and experiment with alternatives where need
is called, will surely be part and parcel of steering the noble endeavour such as bringing the
international, intercultural and interdisciplinary experiences to the participants of the GIPE
project each successive year of its implementation. Each new project will present its own
new challenges but learning from past failures and successes and being ready to adjust and
customize accordingly helps in building the desired results without missing the main
objective of the project which is to create a Global Intercultural Project Experience (GIPE).
We postulate that integrating such international projects in existing curricula across the
globe promotes the acquisition of 21st-century skills for students from all disciplines.
Although GIPE received funding for a period of four years only, it is intended to be continued
and sustained once the processes have been established and the value for all participating
institutions has been recognized. The coordination of such international educational
collaborations, however, requires consideration of formal university structures, human
resource-intensive project preparations, planning and management, communication
dynamics and challenges, technical and methodological aspects. Based on our experiences,
we conclude that a refined concept of this interdisciplinary, international project-based
learning is a promising approach to support global educational development, even during
pandemics.
M. Meyer, A. Gamundani, K. Becker, D. Malpartida, A. Nugroho, J. Ochoa-Luna, C. Stanley,
& H. Winschiers-Theophilus
202
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The GIPE Project is funded by the German Federal Ministry for Education and Research
(BMBF) through the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) under grant no.
57510482.
AUTHORS’ INFORMATION
Full name: Manfred Meyer
Institutional affiliation: Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, Department of Mechanical
Engineering
Institutional address: Münsterstr. 265, 46397 Bocholt, Germany
Email address: manfred.meyer@w-hs.de
Short biographical sketch: Manfred Meyer is a Professor for Business Informatics, a Fellow with
Capgemini, one of the top five IT consulting companies worldwide, and an independent consultant in
IT, online marketing, project and innovation management. He holds an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in Computer
Science from Kaiserslautern University and has published more than 40 conference papers, journal
articles and books in the areas of logic programming, online marketing, digital tools in education, as
well as entrepreneurship & innovation. In 2018 he received a Fellowship for Innovations in Digital
Teaching and Learning by the State of Northrhine-Westphalia in Germany. He has been lecturing at
universities worldwide including Canada, Indonesia, Mexico, Namibia, New Zealand, and Vietnam -
and since 2019 he is the Project Manager for the GIPE project.
M. Meyer, A. Gamundani, K. Becker, D. Malpartida, A. Nugroho, J. Ochoa-Luna, C. Stanley,
& H. Winschiers-Theophilus
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Full name: Attlee M. Gamundani
Institutional affiliation: Namibia University of Science and Technology, Computer Science
Department
Institutional address: 5 Jackson Kaujeua Street, Private Bag 13388, Windhoek, Namibia
Email address: agamundani@nust.na
Short biographical sketch: A Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at NUST, Attlee’s
engagements involves Teaching, Research, Administration and Community engagement. As an ICTD
Fellow (Postdoc Researcher) at United Nations University Institute in Macau, his work on AI
Governance and Ethics falls under the Sustainable Decision-Making Tech research project. He is driven
by the passion to implement participatory AI Ethics and Governance in the Health and Education
sectors. He is part of the organising team for establishment of the AI Africa Expert Network in support
of the UN Secretary General’s Roadmap for Digital Cooperation to enhance multi-stakeholder efforts
on global AI cooperation. More details are found on his personal website: https://amgamundani.com.
Full name: Katja Becker
Institutional affiliation: Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, Department of Computer
Science and Communication
Institutional address: Neidenburger Straße 53, 45897 Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Email address: katja.becker@w-hs.de
Short biographical sketch: Katja Becker is a Professor of Media and Interface Design at the
Westphalian University of Applied Sciences, where she heads the DesignLab in the Department of
Computer Science and Communication. With a design background, her research interests lie in social
and sustainable issues related to computer science and current technologies. This perspective
determines her work in the areas of innovation with and through design, (co-)creation processes and
participatory research in interdisciplinary creative projects. She is currently researching various
educational topics with a focus on inclusion and innovation as well as speculative approaches in the
field of urban transformation of cities. Katja Becker has a strong professional background with over 15
years of agency experience with award-winning work and self-initiated projects.
Full name: Jose Eduardo Ochoa-Luna
Institutional affiliation: Universidad Católica San Pablo, Department of Computer Science
Institutional address: Urb. Campiña Paisajista, s/n, Quinta Vivanco, Arequipa, Peru
Email address: jeochoa@ucsp.edu.pe
Short biographical sketch: Jose Eduardo Ochoa-Luna holds a Ph.D. in Science (Engineering School
at Sao Paulo University, Brazil). He is currently an assistant professor and researcher in the Department
of Computer Science at Universidad Católica San Pablo. His main research interests include graphical
models, deep learning, and natural language processing (NLP). In particular, he has mostly focused on
solving NLP tasks for the Spanish language. He has published over 40 papers in refereed international
journals, conferences, and workshops. In addition, he has also served as a program committee member
in top NLP conferences. His research projects mostly address the artificial intelligence applied to
education, health, and engineering.
Full name: Daniel Malpartida
Institutional affiliation: Universidad Catolica San Pablo, Department of Business and Economic
Sciences
Institutional address: Quinta Vivanco s/n, Urbanizacion Campiña Paisajista, Arequipa, Peru
Email address: dmalpartida@ucsp.edu.pe
Short biographical sketch: Daniel Malpartida is a part-time lecturer of Finance at the Department of
Business and Economic Sciences, where he previously served as Department Director. His topics of
interest include financial markets, asset management and entrepreneurship. Daniel is a close ally of
Kaman, the university’s business incubator member, being a member of its Advisory Board and part of
its mentors’ network. He served as an Independent Board Member at Caja Rural Incasur and as a
Member of the Investments Committee at Blum SAF, an independent asset manager. Currently, he
works as Head Trader at Profuturo AFP, a Peruvian pension fund.
Global Intercultural Project Experience (Gipe):
A distributed interdisciplinary project-based learning framework
205
Full name: A.Y. Agung Nugroho
Institutional affiliation: Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia
Institutional address: Jl. Jendral Sudirman 51, Jakarta 12930 Indonesia
Email address: agung.nugroho@atmajaya.ac.id
Short biographical sketch: Dr.rer.pol. A.Y. Agung Nugroho is Head of Department of MBA Program,
former Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs, and Dean of the School of Business Administration at the
Atma Jaya Catholic University of Indonesia, Jakarta. He is also Vice Chairman of the Association of
the Indonesian Business Administration Studies (AIABI). He is a senior lecturer majoring in business
administration and management, both in the Undergraduate and Graduate Program. He earned his
bachelor’s degree in Public Administration and Master of Management Degree from Gadjah Mada
University, Indonesia. He holds Doctoral Degree in Business Administration from the University of
Rostock, Germany.
Since 2019 he actively coordinated the Indonesian team of a DAAD-funded project entitled
GIPE - Global Intercultural Project Experience for the project for the years 2019-2023 that brings
together students from Peru, Namibia, Germany, and Indonesia in a global project conducted virtually.
Full name: Colin Stanley
Institutional affiliation: Namibia University of Science and Technology, Computer Science
Department
Institutional address: 5 Jackson Kaujeua Street, Private Bag 13388, Windhoek, Namibia
Email address: cstanley@nust.na
Short biographical sketch: Colin Stanley is the Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor for Research,
Innovation and Partnerships at NUST. Colin Stanley’s research focuses on deconstructing Afrocentrism
as an African epistemology for co-designing technologies with the indigenous rural communities. He
co-designed a crowdsourcing task management application with the Namibian ovaHimba indigenous
communities as an auxiliary tool for safeguarding their indigenous knowledge. He aspires to empower
the indigenous communities to appropriate mainstream software solutions from their context of
meaning-making and independent use. His research approach is grounded on Community-Based
Co-Design and Afrocentric insights and operationalised with Action Research principles of planning,
taking action and reflecting.
Full name: Heike Winschiers-Theophilus
Institutional affiliation: Namibia University of Science and Technology, Computer Science
Department
Institutional address: 5 Jackson Kaujeua Street, Private Bag 13388, Windhoek, Namibia
Email address: hwinschiers@nust.na
Short biographical sketch: Heike Winschiers-Theophilus, is a Professor of Computer Science, with a
research focus on co-designing technologies with indigenous and marginalized communities as a means
to provide alternative learning ecologies for communities and students; foster socio-economic agency
of marginalized; enrich established research paradigms with indigenous and marginal knowledges,
promote diversity in education, and generate inclusive tech innovations. Her research projects are based
on Long-term collaborations beyond individual projects with different Namibian communities and
international partners. The research is fully integrated into course and thesis work, with undergraduate
and postgraduate (national and international) students involved at all levels of the projects allowing
practice-based learning and early career research development. Heike has co-chaired numerous
international conferences, published more than 100 articles, and currently leads a local tech innovation
hub facilitating EdTech innovation design with public school learners and digital tourism with
indigenous communities.
