An Integrated Approach for Developing Showcase Profiles of Information Technology Students

Taking into account the global trends on job searching skills, particularly in IT sector, one should not neglect the significance of a lifetime personal and professional Web space. In order to answer the existing trends, the authors of the paper present the interdisciplinary joint work of the employees at their university to meet the needs of IT students and equip them to successfully enter the job market prior and/or upon their graduation. The paper presents an integrated experience of domain content and English language courses with the purpose to help students create a professional showcase via a visume (video resume), e-portfolio and LinkedIn account. The paper demonstrates the methodology developed and integrated into the curriculum of Computing and Informatics study programme at our university to scaffold students create and develop their e-portfolio on all three levels of studies: Bachelor, Master and Doctoral. The provided methodology helps students to demonstrate and organise the practical use of their academic knowledge acquired over the years. The e-portfolio data are further accompanied and linked to the visume and LinkedIn account. In order to evaluate the impact of the implementations made in our study programme, an online survey among 182 graduate IT students, who are part of University LinkedIn network, was conducted during December 2018. The results show that the collective experience is an excellent manner for future graduates to articulate their skills, abilities and achievements to their potential employers by placing them in a publicly accessible online space while at the same time the university displays higher teaching quality and gains better reputation.