THE USAGE OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY IN PROMOTING THE CONCEPT OF VOLUNTEERING

Student participation in local community projects is an important part of any students’ experience and further career development. Most of the volunteering projects conducted by students are linked to underrepresented groups of people, which include national minority groups, people with disabilities, low social income, age, gender. The main goal of this research is to promote the concept of volunteering amongst University students with an emphasis on the usage of information and communication technology. This technology is used for educational purposes, communication with media and networking. Networking is based on usage of a web platform for networking with the Big Blue Button tool. The main purpose of this web platform is communication in the international environment as a part of a international student research symposium. A web platform has been developed for the main purpose of enabling networking of students’ researches. The quality of student volunteering projects is evaluated from a sample of 120 college and high school students participating at different volunteering projects. The data collection has been assessed using the Likert and semantic differentia scales. According to the research results, volunteering projects are a good model for developing social and professional competences and networking in the international environment, enabling students to better prepare for the post-graduate labour market. Further researches to be focused at are exchanges of examples of good practice within the international environment.