In contemporary higher education, interdisciplinary integration is a key approach to project-based learning, as it encourages the transfer of knowledge across fields and its application in complex, open-ended tasks. Interdisciplinary integration represents a planned didactic strategy through which students integrate knowledge and competences from different subject areas into a unified, problem-oriented practical assignment. Through collaboration between the courses Advertising Campaigns and Social Media and Marketing Strategies, within the study programme Marketing, Social Media and Public Relations at DOBA University of Applied Sciences, the design focused on the comprehensive development of a campaign: from shaping the communication concept and creative solutions to planning content execution, selecting channels, and monitoring effectiveness on social media using appropriate metrics.
The key added value of the collaboration was in the organisational design of the implementation: the same group of students worked simultaneously in both courses, maintaining a stable team structure, using a shared MS Teams environment, and operating with the support of the same online mentors. This arrangement enabled continuity of work and more effective alignment of content and processes between the two courses.
Students prepared a joint team assignment, designed as a continuous task, which they systematically upgraded and enriched in terms of content within both courses. This established a mode of work comparable to the development of communication campaigns in professional practice, where strategic, creative and executional decisions are shaped iteratively and in mutual interdependence.
The interdisciplinary integration was designed so that the two courses complemented each other meaningfully:
Students did not stop at the conceptual design of the campaign, but developed it to the level of execution planning, testing, monitoring performance indicators and justifying decisions based on results. In the course Advertising Campaigns, 72 students participated in 15 teams, while 70 students took part in the course Social Media and Marketing Strategies.
For the advertising component, students worked from concrete client briefs, which enabled them to develop campaigns based on defined objectives, target groups and communication starting points. Among the cases addressed were:
Such starting points are particularly suitable for interdisciplinary enhancement, as the course Advertising Campaigns contributes the strategic and creative design (concept, key messages, creative solutions), while the course Social Media and Marketing Strategies provides the executional and analytical component (channel selection, posting dynamics, targeting, format adaptations, and monitoring and evaluation of results).
The assessment was designed so that the joint team assignment was evaluated separately within each course, enabling students to fulfil course requirements on an ongoing basis and to meaningfully build on the results of their work. The final phase included a concluding online presentation, with the assignment assessed separately within each course, in line with the predefined criteria and assessment rubrics of each course.
Students gain valuable experience of working on a real study case that includes several key components:
Interdisciplinary integration enables students not only to gain a theoretical understanding of advertising campaigns and social media, but also offers a opportunity for practical application of acquired knowledge in real situations. Through this approach, students develop skills that enable effective teamwork, adaptation of creative solutions to different needs, and analysis of campaign performance across various channels. Participation in interconnected courses allows students to become familiar with all key phases of communication strategy development and to gain practical experience that is important for their further professional development.
