Evaluation of the Swiss Virtual Campus - Schweizerische ...

Introduction
The Swiss Virtual Campus (SVC) is a federally-funded programme to diffuse the use of new
technology into the higher education system of Switzerland. Funding for the programme came to
an end in 2008. The Swiss University Conference as agreed with FOET, which awarded grants
to specific projects in the SVC project, chose the following three evaluators to carry out an
assessment of the Swiss Virtual Campus:
• Professor Friedrich Hesse, University of Tübingen
• Professor Robin Mason, The Open University
• Professor Rolf Schulmeister, University of Hamburg
The evaluators were sent a copy of the Background Report which they read before attending a
three day workshop in Bern in April to assess the significance of the project.
1. Objectives and framework
The objectives of the evaluation were twofold:
• To verify the effective use of federal funds allocated by the SVC programme in its second
phase (2004-2008), as well as the degree of achievement of the consolidation programme
goals. In particular, the evaluation will examine the extent to which the consolidation
programme helped the Swiss higher education institutions to develop capabilities and
instruments for the use of elearning in their educational activities.
• To assess the state and perspective of the adoption of elearning in the Swiss higher
education institutions and to what extent these institutions have developed sufficient
competencies to use elearning after the end of the SVC in 2008. The need for further
measures at the national or institutional level should be considered.
Accordingly, the evaluators used the following sources in their assessment of these two
objectives:
• the background report prepared by B. Lepori and C. Probst;
• interviews with over 25 stakeholders in the SVC project: funders, administrators, rectors,
project implementers, and students;
• their knowledge and experience of similar projects in other countries.
Evaluation Questions
Examples of the main evaluation questions posed by the evaluators were:
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