Blended Remote IT Internships
Recommendations and guidelines for remote internships with short on-site phases.
We developed recommendations and guidelines for remote internships with short on-site phases in companies whose focus is on community-based open source culture. Remote work and learning have had deep roots in the IT industry and especially in the open source area for decades.
This is in direct line with the implementation goals of the EU Commission's “Open Source Software Strategy 2020-2023," specifically “Develop skills and recruiting expertise” and “Increase outreach to communities."
Why did we develop this product?
In pandemic times, all industries are facing major challenges. Companies are being forced to offer their employees home office and distance e-learning. But we should not overlook the impact this has had on potential future employees, who are now finding it difficult to make their way into the professional world. The internship is often used as the first step into a company and due to the pandemic, this essential professional orientation has momentarily been lost.
Remote work will continue after the pandemic. Many employers have found that remote work solutions offer many advantages for the future world of work and have created welcome freedom for employees that could have a lasting positive effect on professional life.
Objectives and target groups
- Primary target group are internship providers: IT companies
- Secondary target group are interns who can use the guidelines to get a feel for internships.
Project results
With the concept of the blended remote internship, we have broken new ground. We collected mosaic pieces from different worlds. We have gained experience with digital work processes (remote work) in IT and in free and Open Source software, but we also consider processes and contributions to real (IRL) internships and e-learning.
With the blended remote internship, we assumed on the one hand that a digital internship must be structured differently than the real one and on the other hand that attendance phases are necessary in the internship.
Based on experiences from different worlds, we designed a concept and defined a process for an internship in which digital and IRL processes and methods go hand in hand.
In 2021, an expert meeting took place in an alpine pasture, where we discussed, analyzed and supplemented our findings with experts from IT and remote work.
- Interview with Paul Roeland
- Interview with Fred von Dijk
- News from Multiplier Event at Schatzbergalm
We then refined the still rough concept using the new information collected at the meeting. We transformed it into a guide for companies, the process is documented and presented to a broader audience for the first time at an IT conference at the end of October.
The resulting process content was then further developed into a modern information design over the winter to spring 2022, which is now technically implemented.
The opinion of the IT companies has then evaluated using a questionnaire.
The internship guide has been published on the project portal. It is publicly available as webpages as well as PDF documents:
Organisation & Lead
Christine Baumgartner, Klein & Partner KG - Project Lead
Christine Ihnen, International Formation Center - Research
Sebastian Albrecht, Talentbrücke - Research
Magdalena Kahr-Göpfart, The Schubidu Quartet - Design
Antonia Pokorn, The Schubidu Quartet - Design
Jens Klein, Klein & Partner KG - Technical