Editorial

Abstract

We are very pleased to bring you this Special Issue (SI) for the Journal of Virtual Exchange entitled Virtual Exchange and the Development of Transferable Skills : A Review of Practices Across Disciplines. The overarching theme of the papers, each one integrating online pedagogical practice within a Virtual Exchange (VE), is the development of participants’ transferable skills to other work and study contexts. While there is no one universally-accepted definition of what transferable skills are, or consensus on what they include or exclude, they are as a blanket-term increasingly sought after by employers in recruitment and job descriptions to complement professional knowledge. O’Dowd in the Foreword provides a succinct discussion of the term. We understand transferable skills as a concept embracing a wide spectrum of cognitive, affective and behavioural competencies; examples featuring in the manuscripts below include intercultural communication and global citizenship, digital literacies, critical-thinking and mentoring. Expanding the concept of transferable skills, the newer term transversal skills can include ICT, language and cognitive skills (e.g., collaboration, negotiation and information-sharing) (Goggin et al., 2019), and these learning outcomes can also be seen in the Special Issue.