The exchanges of students and teachers between Uppsala University and the Royal University of Bhutan (RUB) have been temporarily dormant and replaced with other, more pandemic-appropriate, forms of cooperation. Perhaps the most important is that seven students from the College of Science and Technology (CST) in Phuentsholing (four in the autumn of 2020 and three in the autumn term 2021) have read the course Computing Education Research as pro bona students over the Internet, at the Department of Information Technology at Uppsala University.
The two final projects of the Bhutanese students done together in groups (Kuenzang Choden and Sangay Wangdi together with a Chinese student Jiecong Yang, and Eusang Dorji and Palden Ongmo Lhendrup with a Swedish student, Jonathan Franzén) held a good scientific quality. They were then accepted to a status conference in the United States, IEEE Frontiers in Education (FIE) 2021, where they presented online. This year’s student project is currently being developed into a conference contribution for iSTEM-Ed 2022 in Thailand.
The institutions’ rich collaborations have been presented in a scientific paper at FIE 2020 jointly presented by Tsheten Dorji and signed. The two universities are together driving two EU applications for international development funds in the spring of 2022 and the spring of 2023.
Finally, a personal comment: It’s fun to work with CST and RUB. Our two universities are driven by a curiosity and mutual respect where the differences will serve as inspiration and success factors.
Anders Berglund, Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor at the Department of Information Technology