Xenophil is an app enabling co- and extra-curricular international social encounters for university students in a safe, structured educational environment with options for tutor-led joint and collaborative student interactions as well as common in-app platforms for broader information and exchange. It integrates a variety of inter-personal and/or collaborative activities ranging from light-touch ice breakers and to collaborative project work with peer-to-peer text, audio and video communication functions that may feed into other more formal course contexts if desired. We believe you may engage internationally and build friendships across the world without needing to study abroad, irrespective of (limited) study times and exchange opportunities or travelling restrictions and lockdowns.
Xenophil contains a Pinterest-like Forum that may serve as institutional news board and for participants’ collaborative exchange and discussion of digital artefacts. Participants may share views and materials related to their personal international experiences in openly accessible themed forums.
Xenophil aims at facilitating students’ international engagement, enhancing their cross-cultural competence and expanding personal global networks. An international Engagement point (IE points) system could record the in-app achievements by the following activities.
1. Encounter
• a light-touch conversation with a randomly assigned international partner;
• no specific time limit;
• a list of icebreaker questions may help to facilitate initial communication;
• no count towards IE, but required as entry threshold for subsequent activities.
2. Challenge
• a short-term collaborative activity of informal nature aimed at intensifying personal relation; • approx. one-day engagement;
• a pool of pre-considered challenge task from which to collaboratively choose; tasks correspond with Forum groups;
• students may usually finish the task entirely in-app;
• evaluation: submission of a collaborative output in Forum, and a short reflective statement to backend;
• One IE point will be counted after attended an activity and completed evaluation.
3. Collaboration
• a longer-term collaborative assignment of more formal nature that requires a well-established relationship to be completed;
• approx. one-week engagement;
• a pool of pre-considered collaboration assignments and/or specific course assignments; • students may consult outside app tools to complete the assignment, but submit through the app;
• evaluation: submission of assignment outputs plus a reflective statement;
• Two IE point will be counted after attended an activity and completed evaluation.