SVC Seminar "Field tests and sustainability of SVC projects"

Objectives

The aim of this seminar, which is organized by the Swiss Virtual Campus and by the mandate “Educational Management in the Swiss Virtual Campus” (EDUM), is to offer to all people involved in the SVC programme, both at the project and at the university level, a platform to discuss about the realization of field tests of SVC projects and about future prospects for the implementation of these courses in the university curricula.

The underlying assumption is that most SVC projects are moving towards a close integration between existing teaching activities and activities supported by the new information and communication technologies, as well as between presence and remote learning. Also, these courses will not be offered by an institution especially dedicated to distance learning, but will be an integral part of the Swiss university system. This means that some critical issues need to be closely examined, like the definition of the role of e-learning in the modernization of the Swiss university system, the strategies of the universities in this domain and the models of integration of e-learning (especially of SVC courses) into the existing curricula.

As the end of the 1 st phase of the programme is approaching and the SVC projects are moving from the development of course materials to their implementation, a series of questions needs to be discussed; these include the functioning of the field tests and the evaluation of their results, in terms of efficiency and of the achievement of pedagogical objectives; also very practical questions about organization of activities, infrastructures, needed human resources and the available budget, issues which will be critical for the functioning of the course and for the sustainability in the long-term. Therefore, the seminar will focus on four major issues:

1. Practical aspects of field testing of SVC projects, including issues of organization of time and human resources, scheduling of the course, infrastructures and technology.
   
   
2. Evaluation of pedagogical/didactical quality of SVC courses in their practical implementation.
   
   
3. The issue of the integration of the SVC projects into the university curricula, including possible different strategies of the project partners and the strategies of each university.
   
   
4. The issue of sustainability of the SVC courses and, in particular, of long-term integration into the curricula, of the maintenance of the course materials and platform and of the acquisition of the needed (human and financial) resources.