Educational Technology Working Group - ETWG
The mission of the educational technology working group is to foster new learning technologies at Swiss Universities, to develop strategic plans and to obtain political support.
Meetings
Next meeting
Jan 28th, 2010, 14h-16, Montreux (after the eduhub days '10)
Past meetings
Sept 25th, 2009 - agenda and minutes
Feb 3rd, 2009 - agenda and minutes
Jul 4th, 2008 - minutes (PDF)
Feb 1st, 2008
About the Working Group
In the foundation meeting of July 4th 2008 the participants have agreed upon the main aims and the organization of the assembly.
Aims of the National Working Group
National Cooperation Aims
- Build trust and get to know members of the Swiss e-learning community.
- Organize inter-institutional exchange of staff trainings and other services.
- Find experts with particular experience, knowledge and skills and help establishing the contact.
- Help experts to develop specific experience, knowledge and skills.
- Develop common quality standards and certification instruments.
- Develop juridical guidelines and best practice approaches.
- Cooperation and exchange with related national networks or assemblies.
- Contribute and take advantage from national e-learning exchange platforms (e.g. eduhub or educanet).
- Develop conceptions to implement successful e-learning.
E-Learning Lobby Organization Aims
- Put e-learning on the political agenda of universities and on the national level.
- Assure future funding for projects, research, support and awards.
- Identify requirements and develop strategy for successful use of e-learning in the future.
- Develop commitment between UAS, Uni, FIT, UTE.
- Establish and maintain the contact with the rectors conferences CRUS, KFH and COHEP.
International Cooperation Aims
- Take part in internationally funded projects (e.g. EU projects).
- The e-learning activities of Swiss Universities get international visibility and attention.
- Get the possibility to 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).
Working Group Organization
The assembly is organized as SWITCH Working Group
The Working Group Assembly
- The Assembly members are representatives of Swiss higher education institutions: Universities, Universities of Applied Science, Federal Institutes of Technology and Universities for Teacher Education as listed here http://switch.ch/edu/educ_orgs.html . Each organization has one vote.
- The Assembly is interested to cooperate 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 2 years.
- The Assembly acts on the political level as a e-learning lobby organization and realizes the aims 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 itself 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 existing contacts or establish new contacts with the help of SWITCH.
Special Interest Groups (SIG)
The purpose of Special Interest Groups (SIG) is to bring together specialists of a specific e-learning topic and to allow in-depth discussions and developments on a level of experts.
SIGs are associated to and coordinated by the e-Learning-WG.
- A SIG concentrates on a particular topic. Non exhaustive list of examples: didactical best practice, copyrights and legal aspects, lecture recording, e-portfolios, e-assessment, technical standards, development and exchange of staff trainings, open educational resources, technical aspects, bologna process implications, authoring tools, ...
- A SIG covers a topic that is of interest for the Working Group or the 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 should 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 themselves their own way of cooperation and communication. This may include regular meetings, video conferences, mailing lists, wikis, seminars, expert cafés, brainstorming excursions, etc.
- SIGs regularly report to the Assembly.
- SIGs are working transparently and inform the community about their status and achievements (e.g. in the Conference, via Blog, by publishing papers, by maintaining web sites, ...)
- If a SIG becomes inactive or less important for the community, the SIG or the Assembly can decide to close it
