Educational Technology Working Group (ETWG)
The mission of the Educational Technology Working Group is to foster new learning technologies at Swiss universities, develop strategic plans and obtain political support.
Meetings
Next meeting
tbd
Past meetings
Jan 28th, 2010 - agenda and minutes
Sept 25th, 2009 - agenda and minutes
Feb 3rd, 2009 - agenda and minutes
Jul 4th, 2008 - minutes (PDF)
Feb 1st, 2008
About the ETWG
eduhub is currently looking for a new chair.
In the kick-off meeting of July 4th 2008 participants agreed on the main goals and organization of the ETWG.
Goals of the ETWG
National Cooperation Goals
- Build trust and get to know the members of the Swiss e-learning community.
- Organize inter-institutional exchange for staff trainings and other services.
- Find experts with particular experience, knowledge and skills and help to establish contact.
- Help experts to develop specific experience, knowledge and skills.
- Develop common quality standards and certification instruments.
- Develop juridical guidelines and best practice approaches.
- Cooperate and exchange with related national networks or assemblies.
- Contribute and benefit from national e-learning exchange platforms (e.g. eduhub or educanet).
- Develop plans to implement successful e-learning.
eLearning Lobby Organization Goals
- Put e-learning on the political agenda of universities at national level.
- Assure future funding for projects, research, support and awards.
- Identify requirements and develop strategies for successful use of e-learning in the future.
- Develop commitment between UAS, Uni, FIT, UTE.
- Establish and maintain contact with CRUS, KFH and COHEP.
International Cooperation Goals
- Participate in internationally funded projects (e.g. EU projects).
- Get international visibility and attention for e-learning activities at Swiss universities.
- Contribute to developments that are relevant for the Swiss e-learning community (e.g. standardization bodies: IMS, CETIS. Initiatives: UNESCO; exchange platforms: e-teaching.org).
Organization
The assembly is organized as SWITCH Working Group.
The Assembly
- Assembly members are representatives of Swiss instituttions of higher education such as universities, universities of applied sciences, federal institutes of technology and universities for teacher education as listed here: http://switch.ch/edu/educ_orgs.html. Every organization has one vote.
- The Assembly is interested in cooperation with research institutions, commercial partners and political bodies. Non-voting guests are welcome to participate. They will be invited upon request.
- The Assembly has a chair and a secretary. Both are elected for a period of two years.
- The Assembly acts on political level as an e-learning lobby organization and implements the goals of paragraph 2.2 (political agenda, future funding, strategy, institutional commitment, conceptions).
- The political agenda is put into practice by the following means:
- Individually by the members, by lobbying at the institution rectors (who are represented in their rectors conferences).
- As group by submitting applications to the SWITCH foundation board.
- International contacts can be established by various means:
- The Assembly may themselves establish the contact to foreign organizations.
- The Assembly may delegate foreign contacts to a SIG.
- SWITCH has a long lasting tradition to cooperate with foreign organizations. The Assembly may benefit from these contacts or establish new contacts with the help of SWITCH.
Special Interest Groups (SIG)
The purpose of Special Interest Groups (SIG) is to assemble specialists in specific e-learning topics and to allow in-depth discussions and developments at expert level.
SIGs are associated to and coordinated by the ETWG.
- SIGs concentrate on a particular subject (e.g. didactical best practices, copyrights, legal aspects, lecture recording, e-portfolio, e-assessment, technical standards, development and exchange of staff training, open educational resources, technical aspects, bologna process implications, authoring tools, etc.).
- SIGs cover subjects that are of interest to the ETWG or e-learning community.
- The initiative to start a SIG may come from the Assembly (formal, top-down) or from the e-learning community (informal, bottom-up). The creation of a SIG must be approved by the Assembly.
- SIG members may be officially mandated by the Assembly to contribute to (inter-)national like working groups, standardization bodies, etc.
- SIGs can be organized to work formally or informally. They usually define their way of cooperation and communication themselves. This may include regular meetings, video conferences, mailing lists, wikis, seminars, expert cafes, brainstorming excursions, etc.
- SIGs regularly report to the Assembly.
- SIGs work transparently and inform the eduhub community about their status and achievements (e.g. conference, blog, papers, web sites, etc.)
- If a SIG becomes inactive or less important for the eduhub community, the SIG or the Assembly can decide to close it.
