IVEProject FAQ

1. What is the International Virtual Exchange Project?

The International Virtual Exchange Project (IVEProject) has as its goals:

• To improve students' and teachers' intercultural competency.

• For students to experience authentic communication with peers from other cultures.

• For students to find out about their own and others' cultures and lifestyles.

• To improve students' communication skills. In this project, this means learning to communicate in another language with people who do not know much about your culture.

• To improve students' digital literacy skills.

Students interact asynchronously (and, on occasion, synchronously) in English as a lingua franca. Each official IVEProject is carried out over an 8-week period but students often continue to interact after that 8-week period finishes. To begin, teachers from each of the participating classes signup, then send the exchange administrator a CSV file with their students’ information. This is uploaded into the system. Once the project begins, online communication takes place using forums and other interactive activities. Participation in the forums involves posting and replying using student-created text, audio, and video posts. Students can also add links and other multimedia to their posts.

Teachers can see how their students are participating using a number of tools that show how many times each of their students post/reply, how many words they are using and other metrics that help with assessment. Students participating in the project are of varying levels, many are even non-English majors at the low-intermediate level. Forums for upper-intermediate/advanced students are also available. There is also an open forum where students can choose the topics they discuss and other activities for students to do.

Teachers are encouraged to monitor the forums and give feedback to students. Teachers are also offered resources to help their students reflect on their participation. There is no obligation to assign grades to students for their participation, but teachers are strongly encouraged to do so. All teachers are included in a separate teachers’ group where they can exchange ideas and information. Online tutorials for teachers and students are also provided.

2. Does it cost anything?

The exchange was, in the past, run with funding from a Japanese government Kaken grant and with assistance from different universities. Hence, the server on which it is based has been maintained with financial assistance from a Japanese government Kaken grant in the past and more recently by help from those participating in it. It is therefore free-of-charge for developing countries' educational institution's students to join. From 2025, the basic project will be free-of-charge but there will be a small fee for the extra features that assist teachers. Those teachers whose students use the IVEProject online text book will have access to all basic features and have special access to other features too.

3. Who runs it?

Eric Hagley is the lead in this project. He is chair of APVEA. He is assisted greatly by Adam Jenkins of Shizuoka Institute of Science and Technology, Andrew Johnson (Future University Hakodate), Matt Cotter (Hokusei Gakuen University Junior College), and Hülya Tuncer of Çukurova University

On the Colombian side, Ruben Pulgarin Cruz was the initial force behind expanding the exchange in Colombia and now Laura Rincon from SENA headquarters is greatly assisting.

Individual teachers are in charge of their own classes.

4. What platform does it use? Is it email or what?

The exchange is carried out on Moodle - one of the most popular learning management systems in the world. Teachers and students do NOT require any understanding of Moodle to participate in the exchange, nor do they need to have Moodle at their home institution. Moodle is an open-source platform.

The basic exchange is asynchronous. As there are many different time zones, this is understandable. The Moodle app can be used and is encouraged. Moodle headquarters has given us unlimited use of the app for free for which we are extremely grateful. We try to encourage students to do synchronous activities but they are not a prerequisite.

5. Who will my students interact with?

At present, the main participants are from some 50 institutions throughout Japan and the SENA in Colombia. Thus, your students will be interacting with a minimum of one or both of these countries' students. Your students will also be able to interact with the other participating countries/regions outlined below.

6. How many countries/regions are involved?

To date, 29 countries/regions have participated in the exchange but more are coming on board every year. As noted, at present the main participants are from some 50 institutions throughout Japan and the SENA in Colombia. Thus, your students will be interacting with a minimum of both these countries' students. They will also be able to interact with students from the other participating countries/regions. Students from these countries have participated to date and, though not always in every project, are often participating: Angola, Brazil, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Djibouti, Ecuador, Germany, India, Indonesia, Korea, Mexico, Niger, North Macedonia, The Philippines, Poland, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Syria, the region of Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam and in the coming exchanges teachers from other countries have also expressed interest in joining.

7. Can I carry out research on my students?

You are welcome to carry out research on your own students (after attaining their consent) but if you are wanting to include the students in other countries, of course, you need to attain their permission via their teacher, and also that of the co-ordinator, Eric Hagley.

8. How much work is involved for students?

For the exchange to work, students need to reply to other students' posts. We ask that students reply at least twice a week so that students receive timely interaction. This should take less than an hour per week though many students who become engrossed in the project spend much longer than that. Students who want to improve their English should obviously spend longer too.

Students should be aiming to use over 50 words per post/reply. Students can also add self-made videos, multi-media and other information to their posts/replies.

9. How much work is involved for teachers?

The teacher's role in this exchange is crucial. It is one of the reasons why individual students are not allowed to participate.

The first job of the teacher is to signup and then send the csv file with their students' information to the coordinator, Eric Hagley. 

There are online workshops for teachers prior to the exchange beginning.

After the exchange begins, teachers should offer their students support and show them how to post/reply/add multi-media and/or direct them to the student tutorials. They should also check that their students are posting/replying to the students in other countries. The forum report assists teachers with this.

Teachers should also assign a grade for their students' participation in the exchange. A rubric can be used (one is available if required) or an assessment method that the teacher designs. Dependding on how many students the teacher has, this could take between one and three hours per week.

10. My students aren't good at English. Will they be OK?

The majority of students participating in the exchange are pre-intermediate level students. Most of the topics students post about are simple and aimed at developing basic language proficiency and better intercultural understanding. In a nutshell, yes, even if your students aren't particularly good at English, they will be fine.

11. Do the students use Zoom or some other tool? Is it synchronous or asynchronous?

Students are not required to use Zoom or other synchronous communication tools, though you can ask your students to do so. The main component of the exchange is done using this site’s forums and other media related resources and is asynchronous.

12. How are my students able to interact with other students?

The coordinator uploads your students into into the system with the students of other countries. Your students are also placed in "your" class group(s) so that you can see all of their work in one easy to view page. Initially, you have to send the details of your students to the coordinator for him to organize that. After you have contacted the coordinator (details below) he will show you what to do.

13. Which universities/schools have participated to date?

14. Dual Language Virtual Exchanges

We also have Dual Language Virtual Exchanges (DLVE) where, for example, students in Australia and the U.S. studying Japanese, work with students in Japan studying English or students in China studying Japanese working with students in students in Japan studying Chinese. If you are interested in carrying out such an exchange on the platform, please contact the organizer using the mail address below.

15. OK, I want to join. What do I do?

If you would like your students to join in the IVEProject, please send an email to eric(at mark here)iveproject.org

Generally, exchanges begin in April or October and run for 8 weeks but we are looking at increasing the number and frequency of these.

Only teachers from accredited schools/universities and the students they teach can join this exchange. (Individuals cannot join this exchange. If an individual sends me an email asking to join, sorry, I won't reply.) 

Include in the email:

• Your school's / University's name

• Its address and phone number

• Approximate number of students you would like to join

• Any other information you would like to include.

You should receive a reply within 24 hours.