Summary

Aims

Re.ViCA aims

• to make an inventory and to carry out a systematic review of cross-institutional Virtual Campus initiatives of the past decade within higher education at European, national and regional levels.
• to look not only at currently operational Virtual Campuses, but also at the legacy and impact within higher education generally of those Virtual Campus initiatives that have ceased activities.
• to identify relevant parameters and success factors for evaluating and comparing Virtual Campuses, based on thorough research and expert input.
• to organise in-depth discussions at various stages of the project, to incorporate the input of different interest groups: including Virtual Campus management bodies, relevant networks, students, policy makers and a range of experts at a global as well as European level.
• to compare in-depth studies of European cases to selected non-European initiatives in order to refine and elaborate parameters and success factors and to formulate a set of action points that can be applied to ensure the realisation of successful European Virtual Campus initiatives.

Overview

Re.ViCa will conduct its research on Virtual Campuses along a broad range of parameters that will be defined and investigated at the on-set. During this desktop research phase, attention will be paid to former initiatives which can be useful for Re.ViCa’s study. This desktop research will be validated by the numerous discussion sessions that Re.ViCa will organise with different stakeholder groups throughout the project. To ensure the success of the in-depth case studies, special care has been taken in the selection of the partnership with respect to Virtual Campus management experience and a vast range of useful contacts with international experts. Partners will employ this expertise and these contacts to the fullest, in order to further validate and compliment the research. Partners will be involved in nearly all work packages in order to facilitate knowledge sharing. Contacts outside the partnership and external visibility will be established by prominent presence at the two major annual conferences in the field: Online Educa Berlin and the Eden conference. At the latter stage of the project, Re.ViCa will prepare a global benchmark overview in order to make the most of its non-European campus visits.

Results

As a result, Re.ViCa will:

• provide an inventory and systematic review of cross-institutional Virtual Campus initiatives that are fully active, have been discontinued or merged with other initiatives or, especially, those that have continued, albeit with a modified structure, within higher education. This review will lead to a taxonomy of cross-institutional Virtual Campuses and will be complemented by recommendations for the different groups of stakeholders.
• stimulate dialogue and share knowledge through the organisation of several discussion sessions at carefully chosen events.
• identify measures of success, best practices and generic parameters that influence the outcome of a Virtual Campus initiative, which can be used as replicable solutions for the set-up of a cross-institutional Virtual Campus.
• contrast its European findings to non-European initiatives and will feed the outcomes of this effort into a set of findings that can be used for future European initiatives.
• compile a manual of guidelines, best practices and recommendations that will be made readily available online and in hard copy.

Partners and administrative details

Applicant organisation: Katholieke Universiteit Leuven – AVNet (BE)

Contact details: Kapeldreef 62, 3001 Heverlee, (+32) 16 32 82 00, Fax: (+32) 16 32 82 70 http://www.avnet.kuleuven.be - wim.vanpetegem@avnet.kuleuven.be

Coordinating organisation: EuroPACE ivzw (BE)

Partners:

• Audiovisual Technologies, Informatics and Telecommunications bvba (ATiT) (BE);
• FernUniversität in Hagen (DE);
• Teknillinen korkeakoulu, Koulutuskeskus Dipoli (Helsinki University of Technology, Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli) (FI);
• Université Louis Pasteur (FR);
• Nyugat-Magayarországi Egyetem (University of West-Hungary) (HU);
• Università Telematica Internazionale UNINETTUNO (International Telematic University UNINETTUNO) (IT);
• Matic Media Ltd (UK)

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