142767-LLP-1-2008-NO-ERASMUS-EVC

MINUTE/MEETING REPORT

WP number:WP4 Time and date: 17 -18 June 2010 Place: Lusófona University Av. do Campo Grande, 380B Participants: Ingrid Wegman and Remmelt Veenkamp, Inholland University of Applied Science, The Netherlands (INH), Klas-Göran Olsson and Eva-Lena Käll, Hälsohögskolan i Jönköping, Sweden (HHJ), Eduardo Marques and Joao Filipe Machado (Miguel Torga University, Portugal, (ISMT), Esteban Sanchez, Universidad Complutences de Madrid, Spain (UCM), Bob Sanders, Swansea University, England, Anita Lidaka and Lasma Ulmane-Ozolina, Liepajas Pedagogijas Akademija University, Latvia (LPA), Maria Irene Carvalho and Maria Emilia Ferreira, Universidad Lusofana de Humindades e Technologia, Portugal (ULHT), Wim Wouters, Katholieke Hogeschool Kempen, Belgia (KHK), Ulla Törning, Mannheim University of Applied Science, Germany (HSMA), Knut Simonsen; Anne Karin Larsen and Grete Oline Hole, Bergen University College, Norway (HiB) Chairman of the meeting: Ingrid Wegman (17 June) and Anne Karin Larsen (18 June).

Purpose of the meeting: The SW-VirCamp and the VIRCLASS Consortium meetings.

FROM VIRCLASS CONSORTIUM TO SW-VirCamp CONSORTIUM: TWO MANAGEMENT GROUPS IN DISCUSSION ABOUT MERGING.

Agenda with report: Welcome and the purpose of the meeting: Ingrid Wegman/Anne Karin Larsen. A brief presentation was given from each participant.

Presentation of the VIRCLASS year report with account for 2009/10. Anne Karin Larsen went through the PP showing the yearly report 2009/2010. Special interest was raised towards slides 11-12 (the students’ marks) and 18-21(students working hours in the course). This year the student spent less time on the study than earlier, and nobody spent more than 13 hours/week. This is far below what is expected. Many students also had problems with Evidence Based Writing (EBW), and this certainly influenced on their marks. We also see that the student find the literature difficult; - and this last issues might be seen in connection with the time amount the student dedicated to the course. Even though the marks were low and the students found the work hard, the students were very pleased with the courses, and will recommend them for other. This was for both Module 1&2. Grant Agreement 2008 – 3252 / 001 - 001 142767-LLP-1-2008-NO-ERASMUS-EVC

After going thought the account, there were a surplus of 1 775 Euro, even though the budget had calculated with fees that should just cover the cost for running the courses. There was a brief discussion over what to do with the surplus.

In addition to this the missing fee from Lusofona University for 2008 and 2009/10 of NOK 56463 will be paid during the next days.

1: Decisions VIRCLASS YEAR REPORT with Account for 2009/10 The VIRCLASS year report is approved together with the account for 2009/10. The VIRCLASS Consortium will let the SW-VirCamp consortium decide after October 2010 how to use the surplus for future courses.

Evaluation of the VIRCLASS Consortium. Klas-Göran Olsson presented the results from the electronic survey sent to all partners. There are 12 responding persons representing 8 of 9 partners (HiB, INH, UCM, HHJ, ISMT, HMA, ULHT, KHK. IUT did not respond)

KGO asked for comments from the CMG-group regarding the last question at slide 6: “The financial model has caused many problematic discussions in our institution”. The discussion clearly showed that this is related to the numbers of students each partners have in the program; if you have few students the cost might be seen as high regarded towards what the institution benefit from the participation. But there were an agreement upon that it has been a good experience; even though 50% find the workload high.

The responding partners had a very positive view of the students’ experience. There as f ex 100 % agreement on the questions: The students that have participated in the course have spoken positive about VIRCLASS”. On the two questions: “Please present what you think has been YOUR most positive /negative experiences from participating in the VIRCLASS Consortium”, there were many more comments /answers on the positive side than negative There were only 3 negative comments, and they all were related to workload.

There was a brief discussion which revealed that many teachers had problems with getting the work integrated in their home-university workload. One was reminded about the “tacit benefits” for the teachers participating in VIRCLASS, as getting updated on new literature; meeting colleagues from other countries; get new teaching and learning skills etc. After slide 17: Accreditation; the comments were related to that the answers in the survey might be a bit too optimistic, several of the partners had had some problems here. The issue of how to make the VIRCLASS -benefits’ clears for the accreditation organs must be addressed for the future.

Discussion after his presentation: So far our experiences have proved to be good for teachers, and we have very high student’s satisfaction in the VIRCLASS courses. To teach and tutor this way is time-consuming, but this can also give teachers ideas and input which can improve the quality of the programs of their institutions. But one need all partners for the future; if many are leaving that will be a problem.

The question about associated partners was raised; maybe some institution might deliver teachers and students without paying the full fee. In the pilot-period we have been reluctant to invite new partners in. But now everyone can promote the projects when participating in conferences, meeting others etc for the future, to recruit new partners.

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At the question if someone planned to leave: UCM, ISMT and KHK will stay, LPA would like to continue, HSMA would decide after this and the September meeting. The participants from ULHT could not say anything this stage, the decision is taken at the top of the intuition. They will give their response at the end of July. Inholland and HiB is positive towards the continuations, and Bodø have signalized they want to continue. University of Swansea and HHJ will not sign up for the new Consortium. HSM has responded that they will not be able to continue, but they will support with assessors for the courses. The question of leadership was also briefly discussed, as Anne Karin has made it clear that she will not continue as leader after September 2011.

2: Decision: The future situation of the VIRCLASS Consortium From the 1 October 2010 the VIRCLASS Consortium will end, provided that the SW-VirCamp Consortium has been successful in signing a new agreement. The SW-VirCamp Consortium will offer the VIRCLASS e-learning courses as part of the portfolio in the SW-VirCamp Consortium. The regulations for the Virtual Learning material made for the VIRCLASS Virtual Book will continue to exist as it is today stated in the VIRCLASS Consortium Agreement. If the SW-VirCamp Consortium is not able to make a sustainable continuation, the VIRCLASS Consortium will continue to take the responsibility for the arrangement of the e-learning courses including the Community Work module developed in the SW-VirCamp project.

18 June 2010 Discussing the future situation for SW-VirCamp Participants: Ingrid Wegman and Remmelt Veenkamp (INH), Klas-Göran Olsson, Eva-Lena Käll, (HHJ), Joao Filipe Machado (ISMT), Andrès A Astray and Esteban Sanchez, (UCM), Bob Sanders, (Swansea University), England, Anita Lidaka and Lasma Ulmane-Ozolina, (LPA), Ana Canhao (before lunch), Maria Emilia Ferreira and Maria Cavalho (after lunch), (ULHT), Wim Wouters (KHK), Ulla Törning (HSMA), Knut Simonsen, Anne Karin Larsen and Grete Oline Hole, Norway (HiB) Chairman of the meeting: Anne Karin Larsen

Summary of the experiences from the Pilot – Community Work from an International Perspective/ Klas-Göran Olsson Klas-Göran Olsson gave a summary of the SW-VirCamp course and also showed bits and pieces of the course for those who had not participated.

Brief summary: Students: too big drop-out-rate! 51 started, 22 haves delivered final assignments, 2 more plan to deliver delayed. But after reading the reflections from 6 students he is impressed over the knowledge of the students who stayed in the project. They had read the literature, integrated the theories/practice of Community Work (CW) and made a good project-plan, even though very few knew anything of CW before start. A diversity of students BA, MA and professional SW, made problems when agreeing upon chat-times etc!

Learning Process: Group work is seen as important and very rewarding. The transparency in the classroom is good; and put pressure on us teachers to give productive feed-back. He talked briefly about the Principles of learning behind the course.

Social presence: the teacher shows themselves as human beings set the frame for the class atmosphere. The time-schedule, the weekly programme is structured towards give clear message of expectations for students. With links to readings, tasks etc.

Assignments: everything is put in the portfolio; as preparations for the final project plan. The

Grant Agreement 2008 – 3252 / 001 - 001 142767-LLP-1-2008-NO-ERASMUS-EVC feedback to students during the course is important for their learning process.

The Virtual book: the book was shows the book, - lectures with the text as a pdf., triggers and the case: The Green Park Community. The video-presentation of the gardener and Maja were shown. The students’ works were shown.

Teacher reflections: two teachers were interviewed (slide 12-14).: The “Mapping exercise” was useful in the beginning. The project work: good that it was related to the park. For a pilot-course it is important to know what is seen as not so good: and the workload was far too heavy; and the assessment-guide, the evaluation form and the template for the project-plan must be improved.

Students’ reflection from 6 students: (slide 15- 17). The course gave them input to use in their work. But also the students identified some problems, where improvement is needed. But the overall impression was very good.

After Klas-Göran’s presentation the question about to what extent the students have CW in their school, and how does this influence their work were raised. This was one of the issues mapped in the first survey. There are differences between partners, and while few schools teach specific CW, have all BA educations various CW integrated in some of their courses.

Arrangement of the future e-learning courses: Remmelt presented the ideas from the Steering Committee regarding the Time-schedule for the academic year 2010 – 201. They plan to shorten the time-span of Module 1 & 2; to let it fit better into the partners’ semester schedule, and to be able to integrate the two modules of 15 ECTS credits in one semester.

The discussion after his presentation showed that even with these adjustments, there will be problems for some of the partners to integrate M1, 2 and 3 in their program.

KHK: there will be some problems for us. M1 can fit in, but M2 will be problematic, - cannot be offered next year. There is also an overlap towards course-start and our ordinary examination period. And like this year, the students’ grades in M3 should be finished earlier than suggested here, so we have the grades ready before the date for their final graduations. HSMA: There might be some problems. The professor in charge of the course that can be replaced will not be happy to see that his course at 5 ECTS over 15 weeks can be replaced with a 7 weeks course. And there is an overlap in time between M2 and M3; - might make it difficult to take M3 just after being student in M2. Regarding ISMT: it looks like that both M1, M2 and M3 are made as options in the 2.nd semester of the 2.nd year; but Felipe must check with Eduardo. LPA has the same problems as KHK with M3 regarding students graduation. And their students cannot have all 3 modules in one year. At UCM the modules are integrated in the ordinary curriculum plan. But the time-schedule overlaps with the students’ exam-period. Not only we have the overlap from M2 and the start-period of M3, but the courses will also start when students have other exams. ULHT: Do not see a problem regarding the time-schedule, motivation and language is more problematic. So far they have had more students from the practice field than SW students. INH: this does not fit in with the time-schedule of 10 week. It will give an overload of work in the start period of the courses, and there are some challenges regarding how to fit this in with the student practical period.

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HiB: The M1 and M2 will be difficult to integrate in the CP as it is now. Then we have to make special adjustments for these students. The M3 will be ok for our students.

Anne Karin remembered the partners that the 3 modules can be switched; one doesn’t have to start at Module 1 and continue with 2 and 3. And there might also be a possibility to integrate the different modules in both the 2.nd and 3.rd year and even the 4th year. KHKempen mentioned the problem they will have with their students if we end the M3 in the middle of June. Anne Karin suggested that we sort this out by ending M3 at the 7th of June. We can use the meeting in Latvia to see how we can make the necessary changes in the plan.

When discussing the suggestion towards the teachers’ work-load, it became clear that not all partners could recognize the suggested hour of works. But for all partners some hours for the VC teaching will be a part of their official work-load.

LPA and ULHT would discuss the possibilities for continuing in the Consortium and would come back with answers as soon as possible; not later than the end of July.

Assessors work-load were briefly discussed; and it was clarified that one could have assessors without the e-pedagogy course.

External assessor: if there are many students; on will have external assessor for 25%, randomly chosen students. This is as a quality control, to present the base-line for comparing the opinion between the external and internal assessors. But being an external assessor is a good way to integrate new teachers in the courses!

3: Decision Arrangement of the future e-learning courses 3 a: In the next study year, only modules 2a and 2b will be offered, not module 2c. If the number of students is less than expected, we will only offer one of the themes. 3 b: Study-program:

M1: 27 September-15 November (7 weeks), 5 ECTS credits

M2 A and B: 15 November-22 December and 3 January-21 February (12 weeks), 10 ECTS credits each theme

M3: 31 January-14 (7th )June (18 weeks), 15 ECTS credits

3C: The workload for VIRCLASS/SW-VirCamp teachers is expected to be : Teachers have 8 ,5 hours per week for 10-15 students. The head teachers have 60 hours per theme/course.

The assessors have: 1,5 hours per student for M1, 2 hours per student for M2 and 3 hours per student for M3. 2 hours will be added for consultation among the assessors per assessor .

The working hours of the teachers and assessors will be accepted as part of the workload for the teacher in their Institution

The amount of assessment time for M3 will be evaluated after the pilot-course is finished.

3d: External assessors:

The number of external assessors should be reduced, and there will be external assessors only assessing a minor 25 % of the students in the courses.

In a group with several teachers, each teacher should assess the work of students that s/he has not been teaching him/herself.

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4: Advertisement and Intake procedure Till now intake of students have been centralised, the students sent their applications to HiB. The Steering Committee suggests a de-centralised intake procedure; each partner recruits their own students, and by this each institution keeps their ECTS credits for student passing the courses. There will be no application form at the web-site; as each partner must make their own form. (Anne Karin will send each partner a copy of the one we used last year as a template). HiB take the responsibility to get the students into it’s learning. It is important that all partners keep in mind the intake criteria: a huge amount of drop-out is due to this. Next year there will be an online English test available for students to check their English skills before they apply.

The last date for applying is 2 weeks before the start of the courses. The list of students to be integrated in it’s learning (IL) must be sent to Anne Karin a week before, as well as the name of the “contact-person for ICT help” and the “it’s learning- person”. The prestart week are now combined with the first week, due to the shortening of the course, Therefore it is very important at all students can log into to IL early; to join the course. If someone of the contact-person at the university has not assessed IL before, make sure that s/he has done this before the course start.

4: Decisions Advertisement and Intake procedure: 4b) Intake of students:

The intake of future SW-VirCamp students will be made by the partner institutions, which will guarantee the students’ qualifications for the international courses and will offer these as optional courses in their ordinary study programmes.

The list of students from the partner institutions will be sent to Bergen University College for the incorporation in the Virtual Classroom in it’s learning. The list of students must be sent to HiB within two weeks before the courses starts.

HiB will send the students their username and password to access the courses online.

Each partner institution will during the first week of each course make sure that their students will be online and give support to manage the beginning in a new learning arena.

4a) Advertisement for the course:

A new pamphlet and a poster will be made for the advertisement of the SW-VirCamp/VIRCLASS courses for the next study years. The expenses of these will be covered if possible by the SW-VirCamp project or by the VIRCLASS Consortium if the first option is not possible.

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Decision upon next years’ teachers and assessors: M1 M2a M2b M3 Head Remmelt Eduardo Fernando Rina Visser Teachers Veenkamp Marques Lucas Cueva Teachers Wim Andrés A Remmelt Siv Oltedal Wouters Astray Veenkamp Jochen Peter Wim Klas Göran Eduardo Wouters Olsson Marques David A LPA ? Bieke Dierckx Gonzales Anne Karin Anne Karin Larsen Larsen Internal Jochen Peters Wim Fernando A Siv Oltedal assessor David A Wouters Lucas Bieke Dierckx Gonzales External Gudrun Person from Klas Göran Maria Carvalho assessor Ehlert UCM Olsson Kjell Henriksbø Anita Lidaka

Remmelt informed the Steering Committee that the Teacher Group has started the work to adjust the Curriculum Plan and the time-schedule and will address feed-back of students’ reflections and more use of peer-feedback after the discussion at the teacher meeting this week. This work will be finished before July.

5: The need for new teachers. Each partner institution must do what they can to increase their staffs e-pedagogical competences. The e-pedagogy course is free available on the Internet were demonstrated. It was suggested that the partners think over how they want to use this. It would be a good idea to let teacher work with this together, as a group. If someone want to use the IL platform they must inform Anne Karin. The address for the course is: http://www.virclass.net/eped

5: Decisions towards the need for new teachers: Each partner institution in SW-VirCamp will make it as an aim for the next year to increase the e-teacher competences for minimum one academic staff that will be able to continue as teacher in the SW-VirCamp courses from 2011/12.

For the continuation of the Programmes it is important that all partners deliver at least two competent e- teachers. 6: Financial and administrative model for SW-VirCamp by Anne Karin Larsen. Everyone got an overview of costs and timeshare. Anne Karin outlined the background for the new suggestion. We have decided to have a more decentralised administration; and this will mean a more shared cost among the partners. When HiB is not longer responsible for intake, administration and certificates the administrative costs will be reduced and the workload will be shared.

The Steering Committee has made an overview over administrative cost in the decentralised /centralised Model. With a decentralized model the administrative work is

Grant Agreement 2008 – 3252 / 001 - 001 142767-LLP-1-2008-NO-ERASMUS-EVC calculated to 350 hours per year (of 39 EURO per hour). This will be 13650 EURO per year and must be shared by the partners involved. 8 partners = 1706 Euro each partner.

Additional other cost that have to be shared: VITERO, Marketing, training courses for teacher, travel and accommodation costs for meetings. If we continue to use VITERO in future we can probably reduce the number of seats and by this the costs for rent till 13 seats, and only rent a bigger room when needed. Anne Karin will sort this out with the company.

Estimation of hours for administration according to the decentralized model Number of hours for coordinating the SW-VirCamp (leading institution) 350 h 40 days Number of hours for participation in the Steering Committee (including 2 meetings + 2 online meetings): 100 h 12 days Number of hours for chairing the CMG 40 h 5 days Number of hours for administration of the it’s learning/support 25 h 3 days Research coordination 25 h 3 days Development coordination 25 h 3 days Education coordination 80 h 10 days

Marketing Overview of Practice placements Overview of Study abroad Intake of students Certificate and overview of marks Web Portal

Steering Group will consist of the consortium leader and coordinators and they will cover the job with coordinating the activities within their area and the updating of web portal for their subject area

The hours for coordination of the whole SW-VirCamp (the leading coordinator) will have responsibility for the progress and coordination of the total SW-VirCamp activities work, of coordinating the assessment, the administration of the web portal and the coordination of the.

Each partner will be responsible for recruiting and intake of students for the courses, to give their students certificate for the courses, and for marketing and to support the coordinators.

The Consortium leader (leading institution) will change every 3 year and the steering group will be elected.

Discussion after the presentation: the administrative cost is calculated for 30ECTS and a certain amount of students. Some partners have fewer students; but this is shared work, hopefully we will get a kind of balance through the years. It is important to be aware of the administrative cost when home-university plans what their involved teacher/staff should do. There is a need for a more detailed description of partners’ new role within the decentralised

Grant Agreement 2008 – 3252 / 001 - 001 142767-LLP-1-2008-NO-ERASMUS-EVC model. This will be made, and will also be included in the Quality Guide.

Anne Karin informed partners that she is working on the new Virtual Campus web-pages together with the Media Centre, and HiB will take the responsibility for the further development of the web-portal.

The leader institution, the chair of Consortium and the leading partners will be decided upon in Latvia.

6: Decision Financial and Administrative model for SW-VirCamp: The SW-VirCamp Consortium will have a “decentralised administrative and financial model” from 2010/11. This year will be a pilot for the new model and will be evaluated after the first year.

During this year HiB will take the leading position and will transfer the leading responsibilities to the next partner from 2011/12. The positions for the future leadership and the Steering Committee will be sorted out before the middle of July 2010.

The new Consortium Agreement will then be developed and presented one month before the final SW- VirCamp Consortium meeting in September in Latvia. For the next year: Ingrid Wegman will be the chair for the Steering Group. Remmelt Veenkamp are the leader of the Teacher Group, Andrés A Astray are the leader of Research Group. The Development Group: Wim: will think over if he can be the leader of this group. Anne Karin will take responsibility for developing the new Web Portal. A job description will be made for the future involvement of the partner’s responsibilities regarding the de- centralised administrative model, and be an annex to the Quality Guide.

The Quality Guide: Andrés Arias Astray presented the Quality Guide; and there were comments upon this from the partners. In-put and Recourses Standards: Standard 1.1- 1.13 As discussed earlier, we need a detailed guide of what to do in some of the standards, (1.2, 1.5). Practice Replacement /study abroad is not mentioned; and we must include a standard of this (mention partners duties, and let the International office / coordinator of each Institution take care of rest) Process and Practices Standard 2.1-2.3 Standard 2.1: The intake of students is now a decentralised process, The decisions taken earlier today must be included in the standard under this point 2.3: Must say something about the portfolio assessment. And also about External assessor (jfr earlier decision) Outcome and Practices Results Standard 3.1-3.5

The way forward and evaluation of the meeting

7) Decision: The SW-VirCamp Consortium Agreement – process towards signature See under progress Decisions taken: See the blue colored text above

Appointments (who does what when): Remmelt will finalise and adjust the Consortium Agreement before mid July so that it can be sent to partners for signature. The Agreement must be discussed by the Steering Group before it is sent to partners.

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Andres will finalize the Quality Guide before mid July. Remmelt will assist him and Anne Karin can be consulted about the routine descriptions.

Ulla will make the text for a new pamphlet with information about the 3 modules. Anne Karin will ask the Media Centre to do the lay-out and to get it printed.

Anne Karin will send information to partners about the new routines for the intake of students (before the end of June) and prepare the new web portal (before courses starts in October. She will together with Ranveig and with input from the Steering Committee prepare the final report and this will be presented for the Consortium meeting in Latvia. Progress: The SW-VirCamp Consortium Agreement – process towards signature

As soon as possible and latest by the end of July 2010 each Partner Institutions have to present their conditions for partnership to the Project leader of the SW-VirCamp.

The Steering Committee will before the middle of July 2010 present the final Consortium agreement for the Partners in SW-VirCamp. Adjustments of the Agreement will be made in consultation with the Steering Committee and the partners and will result in a final Agreement that will be sent for signature before the end of August 2010.

A vision for the continuation of the SW-VirCamp after the project period is necessary to keep up the good spirit. Please bring in your ideas about this before the meeting in Latvia. Next meeting (when and where): The planned Steering Committee meeting in Liepaja was cancelled due to the difficulties for partners to be away for a full week in the beginning of a semester. The Steering Committee will meet in VITERO. 25 August at 10:00. Probably we will need a meeting before middle of July to settle the Consortium Agreement.

Suggestion for change of the time for an extra Teacher Meeting for the adjustment of the Community Work Module in Liepaja: arrival 30.08 Meeting on the 31.08- 01.09. (Preparing the meeting online end of August)

Consortium Meeting: arrival 01.09 Meeting will start in the morning 02.09- 03.09 (departure 4.09) The programme will be settled when checking the flight schedules

The evaluation of the meeting was taken online.

Minute/report made by: Grete Oline Hole / Anne Karin Larsen

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In front of Lusofona University

With the view of Lisboa in the background

From the delicious lunch table at Lusofona

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From the Dissemination Seminar at Lusofona University on the 17 June 2010

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