European Co-Laboratory for the Integration of Virtual Mobility in Higher Education Innovation and Modernisation Strategies

The "European Co-Laboratory for the Integration of Virtual Mobility in Higher Education Innovation and Modernisation Strategies " (VMCOLAB) project was selected in 2012, and funded from 1 October 2012 until 30 September 2014 by the European Commission, under the Lifelong Learning programme – Erasmus –Multilateral projects - Mobility strategies and removal of barriers to mobility in higher education.

The VMCOLAB web site is at http://vmcolab.eu

Summary

Virtual mobility stands for “a set of information and communications technology supported activities, organized at institutional level, that realize or facilitate international, collaborative experiences in a context of teaching and or learning”. The aim of the VMCOLAB project is to contribute to the innovation and internationalisation of European Higher Education Institutions by exploiting the full potential of ICT and Virtual Mobility and broadening the access to international learning experience to all European students.

Concrete objectives of the project are to:

(1) Develop a Quality Assurance approach for Virtual Mobility

The quality standard will allow the development of a virtual mobility handbook for Higher Education institutions willing to uptake virtual mobility but having less knowledge on the concept of this phenomenon, and the quality factors, resources and infrastructure needed.

(2) Develop institutional awareness of the potential of Virtual Mobility for academic institutional cooperation and students’ access to international and multicultural learning

Institutional awareness building aims at disseminating and raising awareness on the potential of virtual mobility within Higher Education Institutions, at producing successful examples and at elaborating a toolkit to be used as an awareness instrument.

(3) Develop students’ awareness on opportunities and concerns offered by ICT to develop intercultural study

This activity aims at developing students’ awareness on opportunities and obstacles of using virtual mobility or ICT to develop intercultural study and this through the collection of case studies of students who experienced virtual mobility and through the promotion of public debate between peers (students with experience or without any experience in virtual mobility).

(4) Develop and test a set of mutual support services for HEIs willing to develop, pilot and integrate Virtual Mobility programmes

The development and testing of the mutual support services will be focused on the different type of actors who participate in a virtual mobility experience (decision makers, students, teachers, administrative staff…), trying to provide them with the appropriate support for their needs.

(5) Integrate Virtual Mobility in institutional academic contexts and enlarge the initial partnership to involve a significant number of HEIs and relevant associations/networks representatives of higher education stakeholders

Outcomes

So far, VMCOLAB partners have already delivered several concrete outputs for different target groups (and more are under development):

For higher education institutions

- A Quality Assurance handbook for Virtual Mobility

- A Virtual Mobility Integration Kit

- Institutional Awareness Seminars

For students

- A Students‟ Guide to Virtual Mobility

- „Virtual4Me‟ website

For policy makers

- Policy recommendations

- Policy event

Furthermore, within the project, three virtual mobility pilot courses are set up: (1) a pilot on Water Management, led by KU Leuven; (2) a pilot on Open Educational Resources, led by Vytautas Magnus University; and (3) a pilot on Career Service Staff Training, led by the University of Padova. Support and training for setting up these virtual mobility pilots is foreseen. Piloting guidelines will be derived from the experiences and will present a synthesis of existing know-how on different ways to implement virtual mobility courses and programmes.

In the end the project will result in the creation of the VMCOLAB Co-Laboratory, a collaborative laboratory in which newcomers to virtual mobility will find the support of more experienced people. This co-laboratory wants to generate, on the one hand, a policy level impact (reaching for key actors) and, on the other, also promote the creation of a community that will continue to exist and be used after the project end.

Partners

• Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - Belgium
• University of Granada – Spain
• United Nations University – Germany
• University of Padova – Italy
• University of Porto – Portugal
• Vytautas Magnus University – Lithuania
• Coimbra Group – Belgium
• EFQUEL – Belgium
• University Polytehnica of Bucharest - Romania

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