Running Projects

Below a brief overview of the European projects EADTU is involved in at the moment:

• E-XCELLENCE+

  Objectives: In the E-xcellence project under the E-learning Programme 2004, a quality benchmarking assessment instrument was developed that covers the pedagogical, organisational and technical frameworks with special attention on accessibility, flexibility and interactiveness. The instrument is supplemented by a full on-line manual. This is all fully available under the "creative commons license" at www.eadtu.nl/e-xcellenceqs. The EUA-evaluation report on the E-xcellence instrument, January 2007,highlighted the following : "By modelling the E-xcellence tool on the needs and interests of institutions and giving them a choice of modes with different degrees of intensity, the tool incorporates what has been endorsed on the European level as good practice in external quality assurance processes. Moreover, by developing a set of benchmarks for the European level to build its tool on, the E-xcellence project has contributed toward building a European dimension for the specific field of e-learning". With E-XCELLENCE+ we want to valorise the instrument at the local, national and European level for the higher education and adult education sectors. Further, within E-xcellence +, we want to broaden the implementation and receive feedback for enhancing the instrument. The E-XCELLENCE+ consortium consists of expert representatives from open universities, traditional universities and assessment and accreditation bodies in higher education and adult education already covering 13 countries and reaching out to the rest of Europe. Approach To further introduce E-xcellence in the European HE system, we will cooperate closely on the national level with involvement of assessment and accreditation bodies who cover the national higher education and adult education institutions. Therefore, in all participating countries we will organise local workshops and training seminars for universities and assessment and accreditation bodies on the subject of quality improvement of e-learning performance and integrate this approach at university level itself as well as with the quality assurance agencies. In the countries that already have a strong involvement of quality agencies we will implement the E-xcellence instrument in cooperation between the universities and the assessment and accreditation bodies. This cooperation will be a pragmatic exploration and fine-tuning of the current E-xcellence instrument to the contextual national setting and policy frameworks. All this to integrate the E-xcellence instrument in the institutional frameworks and the national policy frameworks In addition to promotional activities and implementation the sustainability of the instrument is further to be guaranteed by: -Regular updating of the instrument and manual and yearly publication of revised version -Adding good practice exemplars to the manual from the partner organisations and connected European organisations in the field of e-learning -Expanding a European network of experts -Connection with other European organisations in the field of e-learning Partners: EADTU, OULU, OUUK, OUNL, NSHU, EITSA, Hungarian e-University Network, UNINETTUNO, UNED, NVAO, KU-Leuven, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, Cztech Association of Distance Teaching Universities, University of Hradec Králové, Universitäre Fernstudien Schweiz, MESI. More information: EADTU Project Manager George Ubachs (george.ubachs@eadtu.nl)

• Hewlett Foundation Grant 2008 - Multilingual Open Resources for Independent Learning (MORIL)

  As an extension of the MORIL project, a supplementary Grant has been awarded to EADTU by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. The Grant is especially meant to facilitate two activities: (1) organising a Seminar Series – an OER Strategy Implementation Seminar, an OER Strategy Development Seminar and an OER Capacity Building Seminar; and, (2) initiation of the MORIL - OER Portal Development. Concerning the Seminar series: The OER Strategy Implementation Seminar targets European Open Universities on an advanced level. The OER Strategy Development Seminar targets mostly mainstream universities and associations of traditional universities, providing knowledge transfer with the Open Universities. The Capacity Building Seminar is to set the stage for OER capacity building on various Continents, starting by raising awareness and gathering different points of view, strategies and priorities on OER. More information: EADTU Project Manager Kees-Jan van Dorp (kees-jan.vandorp@eadtu.nl) Read all of Hewlett Foundation Grant 2008

• Cross-Border Virtual Entrepreneurship (CBVE)

  Multilateral project under the Lifelong learning programme 2007-2013 Sub programme Erasmus – Cooperation between Universities and Enterprises       Conventional universities have difficulties in effectively responding to the lifelong learning paradigm. A great number of conventional universities are still in the strategy of educating traditional students in the category of 18-25. To delineate this development would imply that a vast number of potential (lifelong) learners won’t be reached. Demographics and global competition however make the necessity of reaching those learners very clear. With the number of learners outside the traditional cohorts to increase, the need to act on development of their skills is of vital interest to the long-term competitiveness of the Union. CBVE is a collaborative European action by a 6C Consortium to urgently address the skills of the lifelong learner in a way that fits the needs of contemporary learners, not (longer) part of traditional cohorts (including minorities). The main objective of CBVE is to enhance the professional skills of students by lifelong open and flexible learning approaches, with a specific focus on the development, extension and expansion of entrepreneurial skills. CBVE pilots entrepreneurship as prospective part of the curriculum for students not (longer) part of traditional cohorts. In developing pedagogically-rich learning content and cross-border test-beds (embedded in a incubating virtual environment), CBVE directly engages the stated target group and offers them a unique opportunity to consume entrepreneurial training. CBVE innovatively fills the blank spot for the open and distance teaching universities where traditionally the investments in education, training and (external) networking for entrepreneurship are few. CBVE is an European action under the Commission’s Lifelong Learning Programme. Cross-Border Virtual Entrepreneurship (CBVE) is part of a larger EADTU employability-oriented programme, and as such the successor of Cross-Sector Virtual Mobility (CSVM). EADTU - Project Manager Kees-Jan van Dorp (Kees-Jan.vanDorp@eadtu.nl) EADTU - Project Website www.eadtu.nl/cbve

• EADTU framework partnership (2008-2010) agreement

  The EADTU has been awarded a "framework partnership (2008-2010) agreement" as a European association active at the European level in the field of education and training". The framework agreement establishes a partnership relationship between the Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA) and the EADTU to allow the association to carry out its long-term Community policy.

• Stimulating European Employability through Cross Sector Virtual Mobility (CSVM)

  Stimulating European Employability through Cross Sector Virtual Mobility (CSVM) is a project submitted by EADTU and partners to the 2006 EC Leonardo Da Vinci Programme. The CSVM consortium consists of 10 partners stemming from seven European countries (BE, ES, EE, IT, HU, PL and NL) added with supportive organisations (to name: Chambers of Commerce, Regional Development Agency and Labour Centre). In the project an innovative approach is developed to facilitate distance education students to enter into online working, stimulate their employability, and provide distance educational systems with increased business and market connectivity. A European Web-based Portal, a Clearing House for Virtual Internships, is developed to provide students in distance Higher Education (HE) with the possibility to obtain an international learning experience through Virtual Mobility (VM). Students sign up for a virtual assignment to those organisations that fulfil the criteria of having challenging Virtual Internship descriptions. Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) are encouraged to participate in the project, as inflow of academic knowledge by Virtual Internships can increase their innovative capacity. SMEs generally have mainstream Information and Communication Technology (ICT) at their disposal, enabling coaching and assessment at a distance. Virtual Internships that require support by more complex and advanced ICT applications originate from Large Enterprises. ICT then focuses on Virtual Working Space, Virtual Coaching and Assessment, access to Company Portals, Business Communities, Digital Library Resources, Electronic Newsletters and Webconferencing facilities. The CSVM project supports the essence of the Lisbon Strategy and the Copenhagen Declaration through its development of the European labour market and the modernisation of European education and training. For more information: kees-jan.vandorp@eadtu.nl   Visit the CSVM projectsite: http://www.eadtu.nl/csvm/

• MORIL (William and Flora Hewlett Foundation)

  EADTU is preparing for the launch of a first wave of Open Educational Resources (OER), to be disseminated freely and online, throughout Europe in a multilingual format. Preparations for the establishment of a consortium of Open Universities dedicated to Lifelong Open and Flexible (LOF) learning will be finalised. The consortium will focus on two offers online: a non-matriculated study offer for individuals i.e., open tasters, free courses, and a matriculated study offer meant for students i.e., the same courses but now including formal tutoring, assessment and examination. In the first offer, learning is placed within an informal context. In the second offer, learning is placed within a formal context. The first offer enables all European citizens to freely acquire knowledge and skills. The second offer enables them to receive associated certification and labour market recognition. Both offers are seamlessly interconnected and provide the public a new gateway to university education. MORIL stands for Multilingual Open Resources for Independent Learning.

• EduContact (Erasmus Mundus)

  European Distance universities contact, a project for global transparency of European higher education courses. The main objective is to enhance the global promotion and accessibility of European higher education by making high quality course offerings of participating European universities transparent, through a European contact centre on distance Higher Education. It implies the broadening of a well experienced technologically advanced national French contact centre (call centre + e-mail) to a European level, and to organise the entry of specific university courses with a European dimension and reference to the overall supply of courses of participating European universities into this model. One of its key issues is the direct human interaction allowed by the use of the contact centre of the French national centre for distance education (CNED), already shared by the Fédération Interuniversitaire d’Enseignement à distance (FIED, 36 French universities), with an amount of more than 1 150 000 contacts in 2004 and up to 10 000 calls a day. “Tele-actors”, answering direct calls and e-mails, will advise students in either English, French, German, Portuguese, or Spanish on the courses selected by partner universities for their European interest, and, when necessary, relay them to the relevant partners for further advice and registration. Target groups are potential global learners, in particular those interested in distance higher education within a European context, as well as universities, regional authorities, business.

• Eliminating Language Barriers in European Prisons through Open and Distance Education Technology (ELBEP)

  ELBEP aims to promote intercultural dialogue and meet the communication needs of prison staff members in the EU countries, regarding many foreign prisoners they encounter in their work environment. Operational definition of “Foreign Prisoners” within the scope of ELBEP covers prisoners who are sentenced and also imprisoned detainees in the trial process. Furthermore, the project is designed to meet the criteria for the Association of Language Testers in Europe (ALTE) A1 level in order to develop products that can be certified and accredited in many European countries. ELBEP focuses on Russian, Polish, Spanish, Greek and Turkish language needs of the EU prison staffs, since foreign prisoners speaking these native languages compose important percentages in European prisons. Overall, the expected impact of teaching beginner’s level second languages to European prison staffs, via flexible Open and Distance Learning (ODL) environments, proposes an alternative to solve the communication problems. Concentrating on this objective, ELBEP shall promote intercultural understanding, tolerance for diversity and lead to a suitable environment where rehabilitation and adult education of prisoners are achievable. The project ELBEP aims to fulfill the following objectives: (1) Explore the condition of current language barriers between prison staffs and foreign language speaking prisoners in European Prisons, (2) Determine the level of awareness and perception of prison staffs for the need to learn second languages to be able to communicate with foreign language speaking prisoners throughout European Prisons, (3) Examine the current competency of prison staffs in second language skills, (4) Clarify a range of supportive possibilities in European prisons to design ODL environments to provide second language education, (5) Develop and deliver Second Language e-Learning Portals via ODL media to European Prison staffs, (6) Evaluate the impact of the program through qualitative and quantitative measurement tools. The outputs of the project are five online language portals at A1 level (Russian, Polish, Spanish, Greek and Turkish). The impacts envisaged are: (1) Promote education of guards and other penitentiary authorities within a perspective of lifelong learning (2) Creating an environment conducive to mutual understanding and learning (3) Heighten a public awareness concerning particular communication needs of prison staffs and foreign prisoners regarding the ALTE criteria (4) Improve understanding of the difficulties and cultural backgrounds of foreign prisoners so as to prevent prejudiced attitudes from arising (5) Improve the communication within prisons by helping to prevent prejudice and intolerance (6) Reduce the feelings of discrimination, depression and isolation felt by prisoners. Project management: Anadolu University / Murat Barkan (murat.barkan@yasar.edu.tr)

• e-JUMP 2.0 Project summary and main objectives

  The main objective of the project is to link up and connect various learning communities all over Europe and raise the role of communication in learning processes through implementation of 2nd generation e-learning (e-Learning 2.0) in higher and vocational education. The specific aims of the project are the following: To promote e-Learning 2.0 and raise the competence and confidence of teachers by developing 3 electronic training courses for the teachers and other staff of higher and vocational education, concentrating on e-learning 2.0 technologies, assessment methods and administration (please see D4 part 6, the preparatory phase); To enhance and develop the training courses further through testing the e-courses among 90 teachers and other staff of higher and vocational education (please see D4 part 6, the testing phase); To identify the success factors and obstacles (assess and document the changes and improvements) of the training courses and e-Learning 2.0 by carrying on an action research among the teachers who have participated in the training courses (please see D4 part 6, the evaluation and updating phase); To establish 3 sustainable networks of teachers of higher and vocational education while writing the compendiums of the action research (sharing best practice of using e-Learning 2.0) with the help of the training course tutors (please see D4 part 6, the evaluation and updating phase); To share the results and resources of the project with wider community through composing the database where all the metadata and modules of the e-courses are included (please see D4 part 6, the dissemination and exploitation phase) In the context of the current project the e-Learning 2.0 means all computer and Internet-based activities that support teaching and learning, where students create content, collaborate with peers through mechanisms such as blogs, Wikis, threaded discussions, RSS and others to form a learning network with distributed content creation and distribution of responsibilities. E-Learning 2.0 takes advantage of many sources of content aggregated together into learning experiences and utilizes various tools including online references, courseware, knowledge management, collaboration and search. An action research in the context of the current project means a research where the teachers themselves will assess and document the changes and improvements that will accompany with the using of e-Learning 2.0 in everyday teaching processes. The main target group consists of 90 teachers and other staff of higher and vocational education from 8 countries of EU, who participate the e-courses on the testing phase. According to the study The ICT Impact Report: A review of studies of ICT impact on schools in Europe (by Balanskat, Blamire and Kefala) one of the main obstacles of using ICT widely in everyday teaching and learning processes, is the teachers’ poor ICT competence, low motivation and lack of confidence in using new technologies. The project will raise the competence and confidence of the teachers in using e-Learning 2.0 in everyday teaching processes. Project management: EITSA (EE) / Jüri Lõssenko (jyri.lossenko@eitsa.ee)