Handbook – Moving towards a more equitable and inclusive implementation of Virtual Exchange

This handbook offers an Open Educational Resource which illustrates guidelines on the more equitable and inclusive implementation of Virtual Exchange – Critical Virtual Exchange. It shares the expertise which was accumulated throughout the project and links to further training materials for students, lecturers, and administrative staff, which can also be accessed as OER.

What can be found in the handbook?

First, we would like to offer our insight into the topic of critical virtual exchange, which is the format that ROCKET has conducted all of its trainings in. In particular, this handbook presents a guideline to more equitable ways of practicing virtual exchanges, so that you too may implement them in an educational context. Subsequently, we offer a brief overview over the wide array of training and learning resources that have been developed throughout ROCKET. All resources are available as OER on ROCKET’s website and were created to be re-utilized across diverse educational settings. All OER materials are shared under a Creative Commons licence (CC BY NC). This means those interested may adapt these materials to their individual needs.

Next to the three extensive training courses, this handbook will also refer to a number of smaller resources which may be integrated into any course, training, or self-study unit by anyone interested. Particularly, we provide the reader with a link to a collection of role-playing game scenarios which revolve around conflict transformation and diversity, equity and inclusion in higher education, a unit on roleplay facilitation and safety, a lecturer guideline on diversity, equity and inclusion in diverse teaching contexts, and a manual on how to create your own overview of institutional resources (whole-institution maps).

In compiling this handbook, we have done our best to ensure that diversity, equity, and inclusion are not only discussed in the provided materials, but also actively practiced. Therefore, our training contents are already or will be made available in two versions: a graphical version which includes pictures, and an accessible version without pictures that is more compatible with regular screen readers. The handbook has been written in an easily understandable, gender-sensitive language, and tries to take a large spectrum of diverse identities as well as intersectional challenges into account. While aware of the implications of English as a lingua franca, we hope that a wide readership can be reached in this language both within and beyond European higher education.

Finally, this handbook has been written for anyone who holds an interest in playfully taking on a new perspective, in innovating in-person or digital teaching formats, or in better dealing with diversity and conflict in their daily lives. We cordially invite students, lecturers, administrative staff, and members of the public to peruse and use our materials, in the hopes of making a small contribution to a more equitable and inclusive society.