Evaluation of the Swiss Virtual Campus - Schweizerische ...

SVC Final Evaluation. Background Report Lepori and Probst
involved professors). The creation of institutional centres of competence in the higher education
institutions was also meant to answer to these issues which emerged in the impulsephase.
2.2 The Consolidation Programme: mission and outline
While the overall goals of the programme were not modified, the second phase (consolidation
phase) took into account these experiences and, hence, entailed a significant change in the
implementation strategy, taking also into account the goal stated in the multiyear planning of
Swiss universities of the Rector’s Conference (CRUS) to have at least 10% of the courses
supported by new educational technologies.
The main innovation has been the goal of developing elearning competence centres (CCSP) in
each Swiss HEI, in a number of cases by strengthening already existing structures. These
centres should dispose of professional teams with the technological and pedagogical
competences needed to develop elearning courses, with two main benefits: ensuring long-term
accumulation of competences and experiences, also beyond the end of the individual projects,
as well as a reduction of the development costs through scale effects and transfer of
experiences from project to project. Moreover, these centres should permit a better integration
of the SVC projects in the overall university strategy, overcoming a weakness of the impulse
phase projects, which were largely located at the level of individual chairs.
To strengthen these centres, the SVC devised three types of mechanisms:
• A basic funding for each centre linked to the number of students and teachers. For
universities, the CCSP received a fixed allocation of 100,000 per university and per year
plus a variable allocation depending on the number of students and teachers. For UAS, a
similar mechanism was put in place through OPET funding.
• A stronger involvement of the centres in the SVC projects: both for the maintenance of the
existing projects and of the new projects the involvement of the CCSP was required; for
new projects, the CCSP received a fixed amount of money (overhead) to take care of the
production of the elearning modules. This was particularly emphasised for the last series of
projects, where the project proposal was jointly prepared and co-signed by the CCSP.
• Finally, a regular review of the CCSP functioning and activities by the SVC steering
committee, meant largely as a coaching for the development of the centres.
Moreover, additional funding was provided to already existing projects to help their maintenance
and integration in the participating universities (on the average 60,000 CHF per project and
year; no additional funding for UAS projects) which could be requested through applications
evaluated by the SVC steering committee; maintenance was later also available for the new
projects of the consolidation phase (3 rd project series). The decision on maintenance was based
on criteria related to the project network, the reduction of in-class hours, the number of users
and the recognition in the curricula of the developed modules. The main aim of the maintenance
was to finance updating of materials and to give more time and resources to integrate them in
the curricula.
Two calls for proposals for new projects were launched in 2004 and 2005. While the general
principles were the same as in the impulse phase, the new calls entailed a number of significant
changes:
• the blended learning approach was officially endorsed (instead of developing completely online
modules);
• the CCSP of the leading house was charged with the production of the elearning modules in
collaboration with the project leader and had to be integrated from the beginning in the
project;
• the amount of federal funding of the projects was significantly reduced. Each project
received a basic allocation of 300,000 CHF, of which 100,000 as a fixed overhead for the
CCSP (for the 4 th call the amounts were reduced to 150,000 CHF, respectively 50,000 CHF;
with a supplement of 50,000 CHF for some projects). UAS projects received lower funding.
Finally, a number of support measures and mandates were foreseen, concerning technical
support – including the provision of national learning management systems – as well as
pedagogy and organization of elearning.
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