Evaluation of the Swiss Virtual Campus - Schweizerische ...

SVC Final Evaluation. Background Report Lepori and Probst
3 Institutional strategies and their implementation
In this chapter, we present the state of development of centres of competence and support
(CCSP) in the Swiss higher education institutions, focusing on the contribution of the SVC
programme to their establishment and on the situation after the end of the programme.
The information is based on the SVC monitoring carried out in 2007 and on a series of
interviews with rectors of Swiss HEIs and CCSP leaders done at the end of 2007 and at the
beginning of 2008 (see the annex for the list of interviewed persons).
3.1 Strategies and commitment of Higher Education Institutions
The development of elearning in Swiss HEI has to be put in the context of the organisation of
the Swiss higher education system which comprises three different types of institutions (Lepori
2007):
• the ten Cantonal universities are under the sovereignty of their respective Canton and cofunded
by the Confederation and the other cantons. These are educational and research
institutions delivering undergraduate degrees as well as doctorates; seven of them are
generalist universities covering most scientific domains (except engineering and, in some
cases, medicine), while the Universities of Lugano, Lucerne and Sankt Gallen concentrate
on a more limited range of domains.
• the two Federal Institutes of Technologies, in Zurich (ETHZ) and in Lausanne (EPFL), are
under the direct sovereignty of the Confederation and almost entirely financed by it; they
have a similar degree structure to the Cantonal universities, but are almost entirely
concentrated on engineering and natural sciences.
• the seven Universities of Applied Sciences were created in 1997 through the merger of
existing Cantonal professional schools at the tertiary level; they offer three-years
professional Bachelor degrees, as well as continuing education and, from 2008, Master
degrees. As a result of their origin, most UAS have a complex structure with geographically
dispersed establishments in different Cantons; central strategies and structures are welldeveloped
in some of them, but less in others (Lepori and Attar 2006). This organisation
has a strong impact on the development of elearning support structures.
As a consequence, not only the different HEIs are subject to different rules, but also federal
intervention is based on three different acts – the University Act, the FIT Act and the UAS Act –
and channelled through different organizations (SUC for Cantonal Universities with SER
funding, FIT board for the two FIT and OPET for UAS), which explains the complex organisation
of funding of the SVC programme. This environment has to be taken into account to understand
correctly the information presented in this chapter.
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