Evaluation of the Swiss Virtual Campus - Schweizerische ...

SVC Final Evaluation. Background Report Lepori and Probst
N=80, multiple answers possible
There are several possibilities for creating income with the developed projects, and some
projects already use them in order to ensure financial sustainability. The possibility that is seen
as feasible by the highest number of projects, and already implemented in 17 cases, is the use
of the products in continuous education. Generating research projects is another option that 13
projects have already applied, 2 see as certain and 23 as possible. Selling the whole course is
seen as impossible or having only a slight chance by a majority of the projects, the same holds
true for selling parts of the course or services. Thus, it seems that generating income is rather
likely to be done by options in which the project developers remain the main users of the
project, than by handing it over to others. This might be a sign of the high people dependency of
the projects, which puts them also at risk as soon as there are changes in the team or project
leaders.
4.5.3 Future curricular integration of courses
Regarding future use and curricular integration of ongoing projects, the expected or already
happened integration in the leading house seems rather good. In 51 cases, the project is
already used at the leading house – with a high share also of 4 th series projects -, other 14
projects foresee this to happen, 4 think it is likely and 10 see only a marginal chance in the use
of the whole project at the leading house (none of them is a 4 th series project).
The expected future use of all products by the partner institutions, on the other hand, is clearly
lower. The whole project is already used in 32 cases, in 20 cases it is foreseen. 13 projects
expect this to be likely, while 14 see only a marginal chance for this. In this question, also 4 th
series projects are less optimistic: while for the use of the whole project at the leading house, 26
stated that this was happening already or was foreseen, here this number is reduced to 19. 1 st
and 2 nd series projects, on the other hand, have only slightly less optimistic estimations
regarding the use of the whole project at the partner institutions, compared to the leading
house.
The use of parts of the project by partner institutions is, however, estimated more optimistically:
in 48 cases this happens already, for 14 projects it is foreseen, for 8 it is likely. 2 projects from
the 1 st , 2 from the 3 rd and 4 from the 4 th series see only a marginal chance in this kind of use.
Thus, we can see that the use of the whole project is mostly expected to happen or already
happening at the leading house, while partial use of it is frequent both at the leading house and
at partner institutions.
Most projects seem to be designed for a use as parts of already existing courses. Only in 16
cases, they exist already as standalone course, and this option is foreseen for 13 and likely for
12, while 38 projects reject this possibility. The integration of the products in courses, on the
other hand, is already happening in 53 cases, foreseen in 15, likely in 8 and has a only marginal
chance only in 3 projects – one from the 1 st and two from the 4 th series. No clear patterns
regarding project series or status emerge.
4.5.4 Risk for close-down of the projects
We have asked the ongoing projects to which extent the following risk factors could be
responsible for a close-down of their projects: financial reasons, a lack of curricular integration,
retirement of key people and partners who are no longer interested in the project. As Figure 13
shows, financial reasons and the retirement of key people are seen as the most important risk
factors, while missing interest of partners or missing integration in curricula are not estimated as
likely to create the close-down of projects.
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