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Activities / results |
Description |
Partners |
Deliverable |
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Work-package 1 (WP1) Management |
Work-package 1 (WP1)Management
It will be a continuous activity in the course of the project. It comprehends coordination, communication, organisation and financial monitoring of the project. There are three major milestones that can be distinguished:
Kick-off meeting: to settle management issues and set and fine-tune the tasks in the project, the consortium will start with a kick-off meeting. This kick-off meeting underlines the goals and steps to take and formalises the roles of all participants. Each WP-leaders will present their approach, distribute tasks and announces the foreseen meetings, time schedule and foreseen results. Next, questions and practicalities will be discussed. All will than be formalised in a partner agreement with the coordinating body EADTU.
In the progress report and final report EADTU as coordinator will report on the progress, results, discrepancies and financial performance of the project. |
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Work-package 2 (WP2) Exploitation: sharing expertise and experiences of VM-coordinators |
Work-package 2 (WP2) Exploitation: sharing expertise and experiences of VM-coordinators
To build a European VM-community we rely on existing networks and projects. In a core-group setting of coordinators from the major European VM projects we share the expertise and experiences of VM and report on this. Partners in this core group are the project coordinators of:
- E-MOVE: 3 models of Virtual Mobility
- REVE: modes of Virtual Mobility by traditional universities
- Venus: Virtual and E-Mobility for Networking Universities in Society
- VM-base: VM before and after student exchange
- Sputnic: technology enhanced international educational cooperation
- Net-Active: model of intercontinental virtual mobility
- CSVM and CVBE: model of virtual internships
- MORIL: European model of Open Educational Resources
Only with the expertise of these coordinators and experiences they represent we can start working towards Virtual Erasmus. Still, many issues that prevent European universities from making their courses available to international students ask for further discussion. Instead of discussing and solving these in several isolated project groups we now start sharing and developing common views and approaches. The core group will therefore explore aspects of accessibility and its restricting factors like student admission, fee structures, credit transfer, assessment modes, language issues etc.
In addition the core-group will explore the opportunities and possibilities for organising a Virtual Erasmus next the Physical Erasmus. It will therefore meet on conceptualising the programme and extend its group meetings with stakeholder meetings, including the European Commission. These sessions will be concluded with the publication of a Study on organising Virtual Erasmus.
Meetings foreseen:
Next to the kick-off meeting the core-group will meet 2 x a year.
The 2 meetings of the first year are focussing on the issues of VM in preparation of the EPICS portal.
The 2 meetings of the second year will focus on organising Virtual Erasmus. This will be extended by stakeholder meetings.
Written outcomes of this WP will be produced by the group in between meetings. A balanced division of tasks will guarantee an equal involvement of all. |
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Work-package 3 (WP3) Combine and extend networks of VM and offerings |
Work-package 3 (WP3) Combine and extend networks of VM and offerings
In this WP3 we want to broaden and extend the existing networks to come to an increased offering of international courses. We therefore work in this WP with all partners of the consortium and beyond, meaning the network members of EADTU and EuroPACE.
In full group project meetings we will:
- present our current networks of VM and inventory the partners and courses by VM
- Look for extension of the current networks with partners present
- Look for course availability as well as services on-line within 20 European countries (covered by EADTU and EuroPACE members)
- Start new networks on initiative of the project group
- Stimulate staff involvement and dynamics of setting up new VM networks.
This WP will also implement a pilot in a Virtual Erasmus scheme.
Sub partners in this are EADTU OUNL, Uninettuno, Universidade Aberta, Anadolu University and Fernstudien Schweiz.
We have deliberately chosen for a combination of partners at different levels of experience in VM to create a realistic pilot setting.
Meetings foreseen:
In total we will have 4 meetings. The meetings are organised as an extension to the core-group meetings for the sake of efficiency as well as for the benefit of direct reporting by the core-group. For organising the Virtual Erasmus Pilot EADTU, OUNL, Uninettuno, Universidade Aberta, Anadolu University and Fernstudien Schweiz will meet 2 times extra. |
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Work-package 4 (WP4) Developing EPICS |
Work-package 4 (WP4) Developing EPICS
In this WP we will start with a division in this work packages for analysing the organisational and technical development of the EPICS platform:
on course submission
on course provision
on offering services on-line.
Together with the input of WP2 and WP3, WP 4 will come to a survey of the EPICS elements covering:
1) Analysis and synthesis of innovative practices and different approaches on VM-issues.
Inventory of solutions to increased accessibility and enrolment
2) Development of an organisational model for providing international courses and services via EPICS
3) Development of a technical model for:
Course submission
Course provision
Services (staff and students)
Selection of designer
This preparatory phase will be closed with a conceptualisation and blue-print of the EPICS portal containing:
Description of VM issues
Organisational model of EPICS
Technical model of EPICS
Wish list for designer
Design of the first scheme of the full EPICS portal
Based on this we will organise a tender for subcontracting a software development company. This will be followed by the actual design and development of a prototype. After testing and adjusting within the consortium a final version of EPICS will be launched.
The next step is the integration of EPICS in as many universities as possible. The consortium and other EADTU and EuroPACE members will therefore integrate locally a webpage on international courses on the university’s website directly linked to EPICS database. This will make the available international courses and services part of the mainstream offerings per university and therefore better visible to their students.
Meetings foreseen
1. 3 workshops in relation to (a.)course submission, (b.) course provision and (c.) offering services on-line.
2. Stakeholder meeting with WP4 in Heerlen (NL): we will organise a workshop for external experts as an evaluation event of the concept version of EPICS. For this purpose we invite 5 experts.
3. Full group testing meeting (Meeting of the Core-group and the portal designer in Madrid (ES) |
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Work-package 5 (WP5) QA |
Work-package 5 (WP5) QA
The work programme of the project includes a plan of evaluation. This, to monitor and evaluate the progress towards the stated objectives within the project.
The project co-ordinator will monitor the progression of the project financially as well as on implementation. The project implementation and the project results will be evaluated by an internal evaluation team consisting of George Ubachs (EADTU), Janerik Lundquist (NSHU) and Christine Cathrow (OUUK).
The internal evaluators will meet 3 times: once to prepare the evaluation procedure and set the indicators, once for preparing the interim report and a last time for discussing the final report. Special focus will be given on inclusion of E-xcellence in the institutional frameworks.
Separately from the former procedure, an external evaluation will be organised by George Ubachs (EADTU) and Koen Delare of EDUSER )as our external expert with specific competences in evaluating the project. EDUSER has a service contract with the European Commission (UNICA Network - Consortium Leader) for organising a training seminar in Vienna on the topic of LLL for the Bologna Experts and deals with ICT supporting physical mobility.
Evaluation on the implementation of the project will mainly focus on transferability and applicability.
EADTU will meet with the external evaluator on-line (flashmeeting) to discuss the evaluation procedure of the end products. The external expert will then deliver the evaluation in a written procedure at 3 stages.
to the interim report on approach of developing the end-products
feedback on the products in development
final evaluation on end-products
Evaluation activities will relate amongst others to the following success factors:
- reports and studies published
- target groups addressed
- geographical coverage
- increased accessibility and attractiveness
- number of institutions involved
- number of courses added to the EPICS database
- number of courses selected by the universities to extend their programmes
- number of students interested in courses offered by EPICS
- sustainability of the EPICS instrument
- general judgement on the value of the portal on courses and services
Next to the internal and external evaluation we plan a workshop of invited experts.
This workshop is foreseen as a testing phase in the tool development stage under WP4. This workshop will concentrate on content, services, user friendliness, completeness etc of the actual EPICS tool by the public.
Further testing and evaluation will be organised by involvement of the full EADTU network of 24 countries. All members will be asked to test the portal thoroughly and come with suggestions and recommendations of further improvement. |
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Work-package 6 (WP6) Dissemination and promotion |
Work-package 6 (WP6) Dissemination and promotion
In co-leadership between EADTU and EuroPACE we will organise a broad and effective dissemination and promotion approach. We will use a detailed promotion and publication plan for effectively informing and involving directly and indirectly concerned persons. The promotion and dissemination plan is an overview of the activities that will support communication to raise awareness of and interest in the project.
Categories of activities under this heading are
Communication by partners; all partners are responsible for communicating the progress and outcomes of the project at relevant local, national and international meetings they are involved in and report to the coordinator of the EPICS project on these occasions, including responses received.
Web-based communication; a web-based portal will be established and promoted by the EADTU secretariat and EuroPACE and the partner organisations to inform a wide public on the developments of the project.
Publications. Foreseen are a wide range of publications on the European level by EADTU and EuroPACE
Mailings through extensive databases; one of the core-businesses of EADTU and EuroPACE is to inform the HE community on new developments in HE and related EU subjects. EADTU uses for this purpose a database of some 7000 contacts in the HE community. If necessary, selected mailings can be made with regard to fields of interests.
Conferences: European and world conferences will be used as promotion of the project and its results
The EPICS portal will be promoted European wide as a direct and local entry point for students and universities to find available international courses, related services and good practices.
Several conferences and events are foreseen as promotional opportunities for the project.
The annual EADTU Conference in September 2008 in Poitier (F), will be an excellent occasion to publicly give a kick-off to this project and disseminate the project intentions. Especially as the scope of the Poitier conference under the French EU-Presidency is ” "Lifelong open and flexible learning in higher education: networked teaching and learning in a knowledge society”. EADTU’s annual conferences attract some 25 countries each year.
From 7-10 June 2009 EADTU will be the co-organiser of the Maastricht conference of the world organisation in distance education ICDE (International Council for Open and Distance Education). This will be an excellent occasion to promote the outcomes of the first year on this world platform of education. ICDE has members from 140 different countries in the world, representing all the continents. We expect some 1000 people attending our world conference in 2009. |
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