Evaluation of the Swiss Virtual Campus - Schweizerische ...

SVC Final Evaluation. Background Report Lepori and Probst
8.1.14 Cyberlearn Haute Ecole Spécialisée de la Suisse Occidentale
General description and organisation
Cyberlearn is basically a network of elearning delegates in the different schools and domains of the HES-SO with the
lead, technical and financial support located in Sierre.
Website http://www.cyberlearn.ch
Mission and strategy
To implement the elearning concept defined by HES-SO, to affiliate and support the projects developed in different
places, to offer technical training and framing to teachers in order to allow them to integrate blended learning in their
teaching, to provide students with online training resources, to draw a balance on research going on in the area of
elearning, to integrate the departments with already advanced experiences in order to appreciate their development at
the HES-SO level, to provide and manage the Moodle platform, to test and provide appropriate tools for elearning and to
implement elearning courses.
There is a Cyberlearn strategy, elearning is supported by the school management. The CCSP’s position is reinforced by
the implementation of the Bologna principles and therefore the introduction of elearning in all study courses.
Activities
SVC projects: 1 project second call (CALIS) 1 project fourth call (LWM – CCSP responsible is project leader).
Support and other activities besides SVC projects:
• Moodle platform: 655 courses (nov 2007)
• E-Creation: call for projects. First call: 10,000.- per project. >26 answered, 16 selected. Second call: 30,000.- per
project, conditions: project involves at least two sites and three professors from the same branche d'enseignement.
9 projects answered, 6 selected
• Hotline: phone, private courses and e-mail support to professors (around 20 calls per week and 8-10 mails per day,
regarding both course creation and help/fixing)
• Training: courses for professors and assistants about Moodle and the HES-SO Moodle structure, private courses
on demand (so far 7 courses)
• Newspaper once a year, distributed to all professors
• On professor's demand, implementation of specific learning resources
• elearning courses implementation
Competences: Different tools developed (for example elearning course for teachers), quality assurance for CCSP and
courses, handling of decentralised organizational units.
Resources
1 executive committee (5 collaborators (2 FTEs): 1 responsible (20%), 1 technical support (100%), 3 other collaborators
(20-30%)) + 12 members steering committee, from different HES-SO domains, all with solid background in elearning,
working from time to time on specific mandates.
Future perspectives
From 1.1.08 on Cyberlearn is part of the global HES-SO structure. No major changes are foreseen. HES-SO will fund
Cyberlearn with a yearly increasing budget at least until 2011. For 2008, the budget (350,000.-) is already accepted.
The aim is that at least 80% of all courses use Moodle (now ~40%). ISO 9001 certification is ongoing, elearning
certification is implemented. A concept of retribution of professors for online teaching is being tested.
Remarks and comments
The most important challenge for this CCSP lies in the lack of time of people involved in the steering committee and in
the decentralised structure of the HES-SO. People generally are overcharged with teaching; research tasks and elearning
tasks come asides. The CCSP seems to have found a valid answer to these challenges with the structure of
the steering committee representing all sites and domains.
However, it seems that this CCSP is well working and enthusiastic, even though time constraints are recognised also
inside the CCSP. E-Creation seems to be an interesting tool for the diffusion of elearning and for the stimulation of more
elearning projects, also outside these project calls. Cyberlearn’s future is secured, HES-SO will fund it and the budget
will even increase. It seems that the CCSP is well integrated and valued inside the HES-SO.
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