A beneficial partnership with VisitAarhus 

Stephen Joyce works at the Department of English, where one of his courses is called “History, Society and Culture 3: Media and Culture”. In 2015, as a result of Aarhus University’s new commitment to provide at least 168 lessons per semester on all its Bachelor’s degree programmes, it was decided to increase the number of lessons on this course by one lesson per week. The teachers decided to spend the extra lessons on integrating a video project into their teaching. Aarhus was due to become a European Capital of Culture in 2017, so Joyce thought it would be a good idea to get the students to produce a range of videos promoting Aarhus as a cultural capital. 

At the end of the course, he contacted VisitAarhus on behalf of the students and offered them the chance to use the videos that the students had produced This was the start of a long partnership with VisitAarhus, since when Joyce and his colleagues have expanded the project work done on the course by including a wide range of partners. 

A project semester ending in a product presentation 

The students work on the same project in their study groups. The project starts at the start of the semester, with a representative of the partner attending the teaching and presenting the organisation that wants the students to develop a product that it can use. For instance an advert for a tourist app, or a video promoting Aarhus. The students work on this project throughout the semester and then present their products to the external partner. The partner is free to use the product if they wish.  

Here are some of the external partners that Joyce has included in his teaching:  

• VisitAarhus  
• Kunsthal Aarhus 
• Internet Week Denmark  

According to Joyce, the main reason why these organisations are interested in such partnerships is the chance to gain some input regarding tasks to which they are unable to allocate sufficient resources. The students get the chance to create unique value for the organisations. And the organisations regard such partnerships as an opportunity to meet potential future interns or members of staff.   

Stephen Joyce’s reasons for collaborating with a business partner  

• Working on a real project for an organisation or company strengthens the students’ motivation, creativity and self-awareness because it gives them the chance to use their academic competences in practice.   
• The task of performing a specific task can help to increase the students’ efforts because they have to meet a challenge as well as feeling a sense of responsibility to the external partner.   
• Collaborating with a company increases the students’ awareness of the kind of competences that the labour market is looking for. For instance, while working on promotion videos the students felt that their knowledge of storytelling proved to be extremely useful.   
• Collaborating with an external partner is also useful for your work as a researcher because it expands your network and makes it possible to establish new types of research collaboration.  

Stephen Joyce’s good advice and points of focus  

• A single external partner for each class works best, because having one partner for each study group places too much responsibility on the students. 
• It’s a good idea to limit the amount of communication between the partner and the students, because extensive communication increases the partner’s investment in the partnership and thereby the level of expectation attached to the students’ product. 
• The teacher can help to create a secure space for development for the students by informing the partner that the primary objective of the collaboration is the students’ learning process, and by underlining that the partner should not have unrealistic expectations about the quality of the final product because the students aren’t professionals. 
• It’s a good idea to give the students the chance to show their presentation to their fellow students as part of the teaching before they have to present it to the external partner. This will make them less nervous of the final presentation and help to develop their oral presentation skills.