New challenges and opportunities for IT companies and (L)IS departments in managing student internships in the time of crisis

This paper discusses the organization of students’ internship in new circumstances caused by COVID-19 pandemic. The focus of the research is on the IT companies in eastern part of Croatia and their perspective on how they managed students’ internship during and after the lockdown. Some of these IT companies successfully cooperate with the Department of Information Sciences, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences at the University of Osijek. Since 2015 the Department enrolls students in graduate study of Information Technology track. From that time students used to do their internship and later find employment in IT companies in the region. The well based cooperation with local IT companies was interrupted in 2020 by the COVID-19 lockdown and semi-lockdown. In such a situation, teachers and IT companies’ managers have been trying to find out the proper ways in which students could fulfill their tasks via online or hybrid mode. To learn more about the experience from the perspective of IT companies, we interviewed 18 of them. The paper points out the observed advantages and disadvantages as well as suggestions for setting a framework for future internship programs. Employers are thinking about continuing to perform online or hybrid internships, and it is clear to them that one of the answers is well defined and regulated model of internships in the online environment.