Evaluation of the Swiss Virtual Campus - Schweizerische ...

SVC Final Evaluation. Background Report Lepori and Probst
1 Introduction
This report constitutes the background report for the final evaluation of the Swiss Virtual
Campus (SVC) programme and, more precisely, of its consolidation phase (2004-2008): it
collects factual information on the programme itself, as well as the opinions and judgments
given by the actors themselves on the working and results of the programme. It serves as a
basis for the interviews and evaluation of the programme done by three international experts
during spring 2008, whose report is published separately.
The document is organised as follows. The rest of this section provides more precise
information on the SVC evaluation and on the sources and data collection for the report. Then
the next section gives an overview of the SVC programme, of its objectives and history. The
three following sections deal with the three main actions of SVC, namely the establishment of
Centre of Competence, Service and Production (CCSP) in Swiss higher education institutions,
the support to elearning development projects and, finally, the financing of a number of support
services and mandates. We conclude with a summary of the main results and with some
comments.
1.1 Framework of the evaluation
The final evaluation of the Swiss Virtual Campus programme was launched by the Swiss
University Conference (SUC) with two main objectives:
• Firstly, 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 to which
extent the Consolidation Programme helped the Swiss higher education institutions to
develop capabilities and instruments for the use of elearning in their educational
activities.
• Secondly, to assess the state and the perspective of the adoption of elearning in the
Swiss higher education institutions and to which extent these institutions have
sufficient resources and competences to develop the use of elearning after the end of
the SVC in 2008. If needed, to envisage possible measures at the national level or
concerning individual institutions.
The main addressees of the evaluation results are, on the one hand, the federal
organisations (Swiss University Conference; State Secretariat for Research and Education;
Federal Office of Professional Education and Technology; Rector’s Conference of Swiss
Universities and Rector’s Conference of Swiss Universities of Applied Sciences), and, on
the other, the higher education institutions themselves.
The evaluation process is organised in two main steps:
• Firstly, the redaction of a background report which provides detailed information on
the SVC activities, based on available information from SVC documents and
monitoring activities, as well as interviews and questionnaires to actors in higher
education institutions, SVC projects and other people involved in the programme.
• Secondly, an assessment done by an international panel of experts on the basis of the
background report and of a site visit in Switzerland.
1.2 Scope and main issues of the evaluation
The evaluation will assess the activities in the consolidation phase of the Swiss Virtual
Campus Programme (years 2004-2008) and more precisely (in decreasing priority order):
• The functioning and activities of the Centres of Competence, Service and Production
(CCSP) in the Swiss higher education institutions (Cantonal universities, Universities of
Applied Sciences, Federal Institutes of Technology). Firstly, the extent to which federal
funding has promoted the establishment of these centres and their development will be
examined; secondly, the evaluation will examine the support delivered by these centres for
the implementation of the 3 rd and 4 th series of SVC projects and for the maintenance of the
1 st t , 2 nd and 3 rd series projects. Finally, the extent to which the services delivered by the
centres will be continued by the institutions themselves after the end of the federal funding
will be assessed (see section 3 of this report).
• The implementation and integration in to educational curricula of SVC projects of the 3 rd and
4 th series (taking into account the different degrees of development of the different project
13