Evaluation of the Swiss Virtual Campus - Schweizerische ...

SVC Final Evaluation. Background Report Lepori and Probst
contributed to the expected wider diffusion of elearning, beyond the few projects of the impulse
phase.
Our analysis shows that all Swiss higher education institutions managed to establish a centre of
competence in the SVC programme. However, a more in-depth analysis shows that there are
quite wide differences concerning the role and structure of these centres and their future
perspectives.
Roughly speaking, we can distinguish between three types of situation:
• The centres which have found a stable organizational position and are nowadays largely
recognized as the support unit for elearning, meaning also that their services are used by a
large share of teachers (for example a large share of courses is hosted by the learning
management system (LMS) offered by the CCSP). Normally, behind these centres there is
also a clear strategy of the university and explicit support by the rectorates. This includes
Zurich, Basel, Sankt Gallen, the USI-SUPSI joint CCSP, Fribourg, the Federal Institutes of
Technology (even if they didn’t receive SVC funding), Lausanne, the Hochschule Luzern
and the Haute Ecole Spécialisée de Suisse occidentale.
• A number of centres that possess some basic structure and funding, but are less firmly
established than the previous ones. Even if the distinction with the previous category is not
clear-cut, this list could include two universities where the development of a CCSP has
been made difficult by conflicting interests, namely Geneva and Bern, where the decision to
continue was taken just at the end of 2007. The list could also include the Zürcher
Fachhochschule and the Berner Fachhochschule, where the situation is made more difficult
because of the lack of a central strategy on elearning.
• Finally, there are some difficult cases where the existence of a centre cannot now be
ensured: the University of Neuchâtel where a decision on continuation and funding has yet
to be taken, Lucerne where the centre has been outsourced to the pedagogical school the
Fachhochschule Nordwestschweiz, where the existing centre will be closed and elearning
will be decentralised in the departments, and the Fachhochschule Ostschweiz, where the
situation is unclear due to the lack of a central structure in the UAS.
From interviews, it emerges that the SVC, through its funding but also the monitoring, has been
a strong promoting force to establish university competence centres; this was especially the
case where these structures did not exist before, like in Southern Switzerland, and for some
universities where federal intervention forced competing actors to find a form of cooperation to
establish a single network with some central coordinating unit.
Moreover, in a number of cases the SVC projects acted as gatekeeper to introduce for the first
time sizeable elearning activities in the institution and thus to raise the rectorates’ awareness of
the importance of the issue. Some interviewed people remarked that the large number of these
projects and the sheer size and visibility of the SVC programme as a whole acted as a strong
incentive to university directorates to take some action in this field. In some cases,
competences developed in projects have also become the basis for the establishment of CCSP.
The following table provides a short overview of the organization of the different CCSPs. For
more detailed descriptions see the tables in the annex.
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