CHECK-IT: An international internship center on improving the professional skills and intercultural communication competence in IT for undergraduates

CHECK-IT (China Holland Educational Competence and Knowledge Center on IT) is a unique international internship center set up by a consortium of the Software School of Xiamen University and five Universities of Applied Sciences of the Netherlands in Aug. 2009. In this paper, we discuss the implementation of CHECK-IT. First, we introduce the background and history of CHECK-IT, and then focus on the establishment of the center, the selection of the internship projects, and the effective management of the progress. Based on the long experience of supervising, this paper proposes an enhanced internship project that is funded by the State Administration of Foreign Experts and reports preliminary results of this programme. In addition, suggestions based on experience are made for future development and monitoring to achieve beneficial outcomes for all participants involved.