Ten simple rules for running and managing virtual internships
2021-02-18

The importance of managing projects virtually and effectively has increased over time. Today, many research groups in the computational and natural sciences have become more international. In addition, many students are participating in virtual internships and research projects. This trend also extends to how students are supervised on various projects—often remotely and by faculty members or organizational supervisors outside their own institutions. In the following paper, the authors outline ten rules for any faculty interested in successfully running virtual projects with students from other institutions than their own. These recommendations build on existing guidance related to preparing for and hosting traditional on-site internships [1–3]. Virtual internships are computer-mediated internships where the intern works for an organization, usually employers, remotely. This means that these virtual interns and the organization are often located in different cities, countries, and even time zones. Many interns complete such internships to gain work experience or complete projects for academic credit [4]. Due to the ease of locating suitable talent for research projects, such internships are also of interest to many academics who seek suitable and motivated talent for research projects. Faculty members can play a similar supervisory role as the managers in organizations. In the following section, we outline ten rules that can guide research supervisors in higher education and research institutions who are interested in running such virtual internships. These rules are relevant to both virtual and traditional internships that involve a dispersed team collaborating on a shared project. Nonetheless, the nature of virtual internships implies that project success is contingent on some aspects that are usually easier to track in traditional internships. Open communication, progress monitoring, proactive tool adoption, learning, and documentation are particularly critical in virtual settings to create transparency and facilitate project success. While some of these rules were created based on previous work we reference, none of the previous virtual internships focused on internships in research facilities. We believe that these rules can be readily applied to research projects focusing on computational biological analysis in multiple research disciplines as today’s technical infrastructure now allows labs and researchers to collaborate virtually on joint projects, using shared online resources and analytical tools. In order to highlight the relevance of our rules, we included feedback and observations from three female and two male students who completed virtual projects in bioinformatics. Virtual internships are known in various fields; however, to our knowledge, this is the first time that virtual internships have been applied to the field of bioinformatics. In contrast to traditional wet lab internships, virtual internships in this research area can be offered if the supervisors provide the computational resources. All five interns completed their projects over the course of a three to six months’ period (with a time commitment of around 300 hours to 800 hours). Most virtual interns lived in Germany like their internship supervisor; however, they came from different educational institutions and lived in various locations. Rule 1: Preparation is everything Project-based virtual internships require a significant amount of preparation to be successful. As a first step, supervisors need to identify suitable projects that can be completed in the time frame of an internship (several weeks to months). Moreover, supervisors have to create a road map that candidates can follow. In addition, supervisors need to consider the amount of time they can dedicate to training, meetings, and mentoring during the anticipated project time frame. Supervisors need to be clear on the required candidate and technical skills as well as on the project time frame. In addition, it is important to clarify the technical specifications (hardware and software) as most interns will be using their own equipment rather than university resources to complete the projects. If the appropriate software is not available to the student via their own university network, temporary licenses will need to be made available by the supervisor to ensure that the successful candidates can complete the project in question (unless open-source solutions can be used instead). A key aspect in the recruitment stage pertains to the identification of suitable target groups from which to engage in the selection process. If the project and thus training time is shorter, more skilled candidates may be preferred. Many students will be new to these internships, which means the supervisor will also have to introduce both project and virtual internships in general [5,6]. As soon as candidates have been selected, appropriate documentation is necessary to record the agreement between supervisor and student (e.g., project and task description, requirements around academic credit, potential remuneration, data management, project confidentiality, training or software agreements, and expected hours and time frame for the internship). This documentation may also be complemented by a learning agreement or a learning contract (since it is an internship after all), where mutual expectations around communication and supervisory support are outlined (e.g., mentoring).