TriRed, a combination of English and Spanish words, signifies the collaborative, multi-cultural spirit of the consortium. Since it is important that business students in Canada, Mexico, and the United States achieve sophistication in their understanding and use of evolving communication systems, the TriRed Consortium seeks to offer innovative courses that will build skills in information technology and provide and exposure to North American cultures through work experience and study in host countries. The core of the program is student mobility, and the bulk of funds support costs of student travel. Each school is expected to send at least seven students to partner schools in the other countries.
All instruction is in the language of the host country.
The program also includes collaboration in the development of courses that may be jointly taught and delivered online from any partner school to students at any location. TriRed will establish trilateral teams of students who will engage in computer mediated communication with their counterparts in other countries. Students will also participate in work placements or internships to gain hands-on business experience at companies in the host country. Among the activities during the first year of the program were course development, development of an overall program design, initiation of steps toward curriculum coordination, and establishment of guidelines for mobility, credit transfer and on-campus responsibilities. During the second year of the program, the partners met twice in Mexico City to collaborate on the development of online courses and to refine the procedures for an online business computer simulation.