By: Diane Stirling
(315) 443-8975

 

Syracuse University students have the opportunity this Friday to learn about an IT-focused study abroad program, now in exploratory stages, that is proposed between the School of Information Studies (iSchool) at Syracuse and Denmark’s leading IT university, ITU in Copenhagen.

The information session takes place this Friday from noon to 2 p.m. at the iSchool’s iCafe, in the lower level of Hinds Hall on the main SU Quad. 

Lunch (waffles from Funk n’ Waffles, representing a Danish food flair), will be provided free of charge. Students who attend will be able to learn what the semester abroad would be like by hearing from students at ITU in Copenhagen, via Skype. Live presentations and question/answer sessions are planned by students and professors from both schools to describe the educational and cultural advantages of going abroad, and to detail the study experiences the schools offer. SU students will present, via Skype, for students in Copenhagen who are attending a simultaneous information session at ITU.

The idea to consider an actual semester exchange grew from the course collaboration this semester between the iSchool and the IT University of Copenhagen (ITU). The project is part of Professor Carsten Oesterlund’s IST 683 course, “Managing Information Technology-Enabled Change.” The effort began as a campaign to illustrate how a globally-distributed IT project could occur, and the idea to conduct an actual semester-abroad exchange program between the universities grew from there.  

Together with ITU’s Professor Susanne Branner Jespersen, students in both universities are collaborating on the program’s joint information campaign. The effort is called “SlapIT” (for “Student Learning Abroad Program IT”) and it is intended to gauge student interest as a prefacing step. If it proceeds, the initiative has a proposed timetable of spring 2014 for the first student exchange to take place.

More information is available via a platform the two groups of students have collaborated to create, located on Facebook at: http://bit.ly/SlapIT. Information on IT University of Copenhagen can be found at: http://www.itu.dk/en/