Tools for virtual mobility

If you have international contacts with a university and wish to find out if your department/faculty has an agreement with that university, or if you do not have contacts but would like information about potential partners, you should first of all contact the person managing the international collaboration agreements at your faculty.

Under the staff pages internationalisation you will find information about various types of agreements as well as the contact persons at faculty level and at the Office of external relations (managing university wide agreements). 

By working together with your faculty agreement manager and the senior internationalisation officers at ER you'll be able to identify a suitable partner for your project.

If you want to apply for EU project funding for teaching or research you will need at least two international partners. If you need help to find suitable partners see the heading above entitled "How to find a suitable partner university".

For support in your research project application, contact Anna Kivilehto, Office for external relations.
For support in teaching project applications, contact your faculty officer for collaboration agreements and/or Camilla Andersson Lundqvist, Office for external relations.

The is a wide range of digital tools that enable you to collaborate with colleagues anywhere in the world. We have a toolbox of digital tools called Smarter collaboration where you will find lots of tools arranged according to function: collaborative writing, shared workspace, curate, plan, news-gathering, screencasting, e-meetings, research, mindmapping, presentations, publish, surveys and forms. In each of these categories you will find a selection of tools, short descriptions and an introductory video.
(Please note that these tools are not supported by the IT department)

Remember that it takes time to test new tools. Some might seem complicated at first but don't give up. Try it, see what happens, have patience and be persistent. Don't worry if things aren't perfect first time. Remember how you learned to cycle, swim, play an instrument etc. Sometimes it's not the tool that is faulty, it can be your computer settings or your network. Take one step at a time and test the tool with friends before you use it for work.

Being able to collaborate online is an important skill in many international organisations today. Employers are very positive about the ability to create networks and work in virtual teams.

Today there are thousands of online courses in all subject areas that you can study free of charge. Many go under the name of MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) and are offered by well-known universities all over the world. These course normally don't lead to university credits (some course offer the chance to earn credits for an examination fee). Most courses are in English but there are an increasing number of courses in other major languages like French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic.

The main MOOC consortia in the world are Coursera, EdX and FutureLearn. These offer hundreds of courses, mostly in English from universities all over the world.

Some tips

• You can search for MOOCs in English via Class Central or FutureLearn. For courses in French see FUN, in Spanish Miríada, in Russian Universarium/УНИВЕРСАРИУМ and in Arabic Edraak (إدراك). There is also a European platform called EMMA where you can find courses in 9 European languages.
• You can supplement your studies by downloading free lectures from thousands of other universities around the world via platforms like iTunes U (you need to download the app to your laptop, tablet or mobile first). Here you will find over a million free lectures. You can also subscribe to a series of lectures and watch them for free on your device whenever you want.
• Open course can complement your studies here at Lnu. They offer a good introduction to a topic and provide other perspectives in your subject area. Even if you don't get credits you can gain new knowledge, skills and an international contact network. Certificates from such courses can also be added to your CV.