International Staff Week 1, Jagiellonian

The first International Staff Week of the Digipass Consortium was hosted by the Jagiellonian University in Kraków from the 13th to the 17th of May 2019. Twenty seven delegates represented the six member universities of the Consortium at meetings held in the offices of the eLearning Centre of the Jagiellonian University.

The first day of the meeting began with an ice-breaker activity, followed by a session dedicated to an overview of the project. The delegates were divided into groups according to the four phases of the student mobility life cycle (orientation, pre-departure, during mobility, and after mobility). This exercise helped to kick-start the Digipass project and was followed by a student toolkit session: a series of informal roundtable discussions about the stages of the student mobility life cycle with the participation of JU students and exchange students who had the opportunity to share their experience regarding their stay at the JU.

The second day saw the delegates giving short presentations, sharing their knowledge, expertise or ideas, that they have implemented whilst supporting different stages of the student mobility life cycle. One of the JU international students shared a presentation about the JU Ambassadors Programme.

The staff toolkit was the main area of discussions on the third day of the staff week. A series of informal roundtable discussions aimed to look into various areas of student support: academic, culture, career, finance, practical, health and well-being. The delegates had an opportunity to learn from each other, share thoughts and ideas and afterwards, during the ICT Tools Workshop, they got familiarized with the professional video infrastructure, tools and software. This session focused on explaining how to create short videos to be used in different stages of the mobility lifecycle. The delegates created plans of action for each participating university in order to create the community of practice at their institutions.

The fourth and fifth day of the event were dedicated to further discussions about the student and staff toolkits and the way of their implementation. The participants divided themselves into ‘matches’: pairs or small groups focusing on a chosen module, created in order to continue working on specific aspects of the project in the future. The delegates worked together as likeminded experts, explored the first steps in creating modules for the Digipass toolkits and agreed on a plan of action to be executed in the following months.

The staff week saw two events which were an opportunity for networking and socializing: a buffet dinner with a pub quiz organized at Rubinstein Hotel in the Kazimierz district and an Italian dinner at Trattoria Soprano. The week was concluded with a group photo taken at the terrace of a venue where the participants had lunch each day of the staff week.