1. Lüneburg, May 28, 2015
CONFIRMATION OF EMPLOYMENT
This is to confirm that Ms Nilofar Shamim Haja, resident of India, born on May 22, 1983, has been
employed as a Mentor of the Mentored Open Online Course, “Managing the Arts: Marketing for Cultural
Organizations,” from 15 Feb 2015 to 15 June 2015.
Established in October 2012, Leuphana Digital School is the provider of Leuphana University’s online
education formats. With its unique didactic concept – consisting of Speakers, Mentors and Tutors working
hand in hand with a peer-based group learning approach and supported by a sophisticated online platform
– Leuphana Digital School offers several University and Corporate Mentored Open Online Courses each
year.
The 14-week open online course “Managing the Arts: Marketing for Cultural Organizations,” was offered
by Goethe-Institut in cooperation with Leuphana Digital School under the auspices of Chris Dercon,
director of Tate Modern, London. Introducing an innovative pedagogical format for online education
developed by Leuphana University, the course emphasizes peer-to-peer and mentored problem-based
learning using case-scenarios. Upon successful completion, students may obtain a University certificate
awarding them with 5 ECTS.
More than 17,000 users from 170 countries participated in the MOOC out of which 800 were mentored by
7 Mentors throughout the entire course.
As Mentor of the Digital School Ms Nilofar Shamim Haja successfully completed the following tasks:
 Participation in and moderation of content-related platform discussions between all
course community members / online activity on the platform
 Guidance of 20-25 teams throughout the entire course
 Evaluation of teams’ submissions after each course phase
 Collaboration and weekly online meetings in a team of 7 Mentors, with the project
management of Leuphana Digital School, and the courses’ academic directors
Academic Director
Prof. Dr. Nishant Shah
MOOC Facilitator
Felix C. Seyfarth

2. 2
The course “Managing the Arts: Marketing for Cultural Organizations” is an open online course
structured into six consecutive assignment cycles. Participants are introduced to different concepts and
approaches for managing and marketing the arts within various social, political and institutional contexts.
While working on case-based assignments in teams of five, Participants collaborate within a global
learning community and receive individualized mentoring by academic staff. More information at:
http://digital.leuphana.com/.
Assignment 1: The cultural economy – Markets and marketing for cultural organizations
Participants developed a common understanding of contemporary discourses in cultural marketing.
Participants identified conceptual strategies for mediating the tension between the creation of aesthetic
meaning and maintaining organizational and personal financial stability.
Assignment 2: Mapping the terrain – Art organizations and cultural institutions in context
Based on these frameworks, Participants analysed a real-life cultural organization and its relation to its
socio-political environment to better understand factors that sustain, develop and limit the radius of its
activities. Participants drew up a strategy proposal mapping core strengths of the case organization and
areas of future growth and development to position arts organizations within ever-changing environments.
Assignment 3: Enabling creativity – Marketing cultural projects and managing artistic processes
Participants created project management models for creating relevance and responding to change with a
view to different dimensions of sustainability. Using this model as a blueprint for managing arts and
cultural projects, Participants conducted an analysis of challenges to institutional sustainability,
addressing dimensions of environmental, economic, social, and cultural factors.
Assignment 4: Reaching across the fourth wall – Building audience relationships
Participants were introduced to different approaches of building audience relationships and differentiating
between both actual and desired audiences as the basis for segmentation and development strategies.
Using these tools, participants developed grounded approaches to analysing audience composition and
leveraging available data into a strategic audience management initiative.
Assignment 5: Emerging identities – Co-creating and shaping digital brands
Participants reflected on digital practices for using and re-using both marketing materials and proprietary
artistic content as well as limits for centrally controlling brand-building while managing repercussions of
external publishing activities impacting organizational storytelling and brand equity.
Assignment 6: Curating strategies – Artistic practices and sustainability
Building on the previous milestones, Participants developed an integrated strategic marketing initiative for
a cultural organization that considers innovation, creativity, feasibility and sustainable engineering of
institutions through a design thinking approach. Teams had to identify and interpret concrete resources
underlying everyday practices to strengthen an organization’s vision and scale, to calibrate specific impact
and to critically evaluate curatorial qualities.
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