Evaluation of the Swiss Virtual Campus - Schweizerische ...

SVC Final Evaluation. Background Report Lepori and Probst
maintenance of UAS projects of the first phase (or for UAS partners in university projects).
Moreover, for 3 rd and 4 th series projects UAS received lower amounts of funding than
universities and, actually, for the 4 th series projects it was not possible to fund all projects
selected by the SVC committee. The following table provides more information on the use of the
federal funds.
Cantonal universities Universities of Applied Sciences
New projects 9.7 3.1
Maintenance 6.3 0
Mandates 4.0 0.2
CCSP 8.0 3.2
Coordination 2.0 0.5
Total 30.0 7.0
Table 1. Federal funding for the SVC programme, 2004-2008, mio. CHF
To these federal funds, the substantial contribution by the involved higher education institutions,
at least at same level, should be added (matching funds).
2.5 Conclusion of the programme
At the beginning of the consolidation phase, it was already foreseen that the programme as
such would not be continued in the new funding period 2008-2011, but it was felt by the
Steering Committee that a gradual phase-out would be needed, especially to allow for the
integration of the CCSPs in their institutions and to complete and maintain the 4 th series projects
(which would have had just two years development time).
Consequently, a proposal was submitted in 2006 to the Swiss Rector’s Conference (CRUS) for
a specific programme on technology-enhanced learning. However, in September 2006, the
CRUS decided not to include this programme in the new cooperation programmes for 2008-
2011 since the goal of establishing e-learning as a standard tool in university education was
considered as achieved and it was expected that the future development of elearning could be
assumed by the HEIs themselves.
Consequently, SVC activities will be concluded during 2008. CCSPs, projects and mandates
are allowed to use remaining federal funding until summer 2008, while the programme
structures – coordination unit and Steering Committee – will be progressively closed by the end
of 2008.
We notice that a number of proposals have been elaborated to establish a number of activities
inside the Switch association (which manages the Higher education informatics network), under
the still provisional name of Switch eduHub, including dissemination of elearning products (with
the creation of a platform displaying existing projects), networking and information, as well as
some technical services such as the establishment of a Learning Objects Repository to ease
the exchange of didactical materials between institutions (a pilot project has been launched in
2007). Moreover, the creation of an assembly of the HEI support centres is foreseen, whose
secretariat would be hosted by Switch. Federal funding will be partially provided through the
new cooperation project series for the period 2008-2011.
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