Modelling Advice and Support Services to Integrate Virtual Component in Higher Education

The Modelling Advice and Support Services to Integrate Virtual Component in Higher Education (MASSIVE) was selected in 2004, and funded from & 1 January 2005 until 31 March 2007 by the European Commission - DG Education & Culture under the eLearning programme.

The MASSIVE web site is at http://cevug.ugr.es/massive/

Summary

It focused on the following specific objectives:

• Defining the conceptual model of virtualisation
• Identifying and classifying good practices in the organisation of support services to the University community regarding University virtual components
• Exploring and comparing the elements for transferability
• Validating the approaches to develop the support services
• Guaranteeing the wide dissemination of the practices and use of the model

The aim of the MASSIVE project is to design a model of necessary support services for European traditional universities to successfully implement the virtual component of teaching. Since the Lisbon strategy pointed at e-Learning as a key element for higher education, universities have taken many steps to put this idea forward. These steps have consisted not only of single university initiatives aiming at the creation of virtual environments, but also of their involvement in cooperation projects and activities promoted by the main networks and Associations towards virtualisation. Projects such as Eunite, cEVU, VirtUE, Hectic, Spot-Plus, Benvic or Nineveh have proposed approaches and strategies to integrate virtual campuses in higher education.�However, the adoption of e-Learning strategies by 'traditional' universities does not only need to integrate pedagogic or technologic approaches onto their strategies but to provide a set of support services that will facilitate their integration into the university provision. Different innovative solutions have been found in this direction but there is still a long way to go to disseminate and connect them so as to gather all those who have worked on the same line to further define a model of support services to the virtualisation of traditional universities.�For this purpose, the MASSIVE project comes out with a network orientation approach in an open space that will be assured not only by the consolidated relationship that exists among the participants but for their respective roles in the main EU HE networks and their involvement in many EU funded projects aiming at the introduction of e-learning approaches onto traditional universities.�This will allow to also involve different stakeholders not directly participating in the project, by means of a Strategic Advisory Committee.

Six areas where identified as a particularly critical and needed in EU higher education institutions:

1. University Strategies towards the integration of ICT in the Teaching/learning practice
2. Evolution of University Libraries
3. Management of IPR issues
4. Support to teaching staff
5. Support to students
6. Design of online courses

Through a peer review evaluation approach MASSIVE promoted a mutual support model for service provision among specialised teams of university staff.

Outcomes

Main outcome of the project is the Peer Review Handbook of MASSIVE project (PDF), by Joseph D. Cullen with the contributions of M. Begoña Arenas, Jeff & Denise Haywood.

This document sets out proposals and procedures for carrying out the MASSIVE Peer Reviews and provides instruments and Guidelines for data gathering and analysis. It draws together and further develops strands of work that have previously been carried out within the context of the MASSIVE Peer Review process, notably the ‘Methodology Report’, the ‘Peer Review Schema’ and the ‘Peer Review Visit Questions’ developed by partners. A key purpose of this document is to integrate this accompanying work and to address some of the ‘gaps’ hitherto not covered. Against this background, one of the main objectives of developing this ‘handbook’ is to ensure adequate ‘triangulation’ of different stakeholder perspectives within each of the participating review sites, and to prevent a single ‘voice’ dominating the results of the Review. In order to achieve this, the Handbook provides for the utilisation of three different, though complementary data gathering methods: archive and documentation analysis; interviews and observation. It also proposes a three-stage process for the Peer Review, comprised of an initial ‘set-up’ phase; a subsequent phase of data gathering focused on the site visit, and a final ‘analysis and synthesis’ stage involving the production of recommendations arrived at through collaborative reflection between the MASSIVE team and the hosting institution.

Other outputs of MASSIVE are available at the project website http://cevug.ugr.es/massive/outputs.html.

Partners

• University of Granada - Spain - Co-ordinator
• FIM New Learning - Germany
• The Tavistock Institute - UK
• EuroPACE ivzw - Belgium
• SCIENTER Italy - Italy
• University of Barcelona - Spain
• BME, Budapesti Mûszaki és Gazdaságtudományi Egyetem - Hungary
• MALTS & School of Education, University of Edinburgh - UK
• University of Bergen - Norway
• Digital Society of Authors and Publishers - Group SGAE - Spain
• SCIENTER Spain - Spain

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