Evaluation of the Swiss Virtual Campus - Schweizerische ...

SVC Final Evaluation. Background Report Lepori and Probst
5 Coordination, support services and mandates
In this section of the report, we look at the overall management of the SVC programme, at the
functioning of the coordination unit and at support services which have been developed at
national level, like the national content server and some support mandates.
The information presented is taken from the on-line questionnaire to the SVC projects, from the
interviews with CCSP leaders and rectorates and finally from documents and discussions with
people involved in the SVC programme.
5.1 Coordination and organisation of the programme
The main tasks of the programme itself included:
• the strategic management and the decisions concerning the of funding projects, mandates
and CCSP;
• the operational management of the programme;
• the organisation of monitoring and financial reporting; and
• the organisation of different networking activities, including SVC days and other events.
5.1.1 Organisation and activities of the Steering Committee SVC-SC
Throughout the whole programme, the SVC-SC has been its main organ, in charge of almost all
strategic and funding decisions (even if, de jure, the final competence on funding decisions was
at the SUC).
The SVC-SC was composed of 10 people, including people from Swiss HEIs, representatives of
the commercial sector and experts from abroad. At the beginning of the consolidation phase,
the SVC-SC underwent quite significant changes in composition, with the inclusion of new
members, including a second representative of UAS, and a new president taking over in 2005.
Accordingly, it seems that the SVC-SC required, at the beginning of the consolidation phase,
some time to achieve a stable way of working and decision-making.
The SVC-SC met regularly about 5 times per year, mostly in half-day or full-day meetings; its
main duties have been the following:
• the organisation of the evaluation of project proposals and the selection of the projects,
including not only the 3 rd and 4 th series projects, but also the decision on maintenance of
ongoing projects. Most of this work was done in 2004/2005, but maintenance decisions
were taken until the end of 2006;
• the decision concerning mandates and their follow-up and discussion of results, especially
for the mandates with a broader implication for the future of the whole programme;
• the strategy and decisions concerning the national content server;
• the decision concerning different activities including monitoring and SVC days; and finally
• especially during 2006, the discussion on the future of the programme and the preparation
of the corresponding propositions to the CRUS.
The project selection process was managed professionally, with external experts attributing
grades to the projects according to a set of criteria and the SVC-SC taking decisions based
almost exclusively on these rankings.
We notice that besides participating in the SVC-SC meetings and other activities, its members
have been also heavily involved in the programme monitoring as experts.
5.1.2 Coordination unit
The coordination unit was fully reorganised at the beginning of the consolidation phase, with its
transfer to the CRUS and the nomination of a new coordinator. Retrospectively, it seems that
this change has been well managed and the coordination unit was quite stable during the whole
Consolidation Programme in personnel terms. This makes a strong difference with the Impulse
Programme which had three programme coordinators in four years.
Overall, the coordination unit consisted of just four persons (3 FTE), including a secretary and a
person specialising in the handling of financial reports. Since the Summer of 2005, the
coordination unit also assumed the management and reporting of UAS projects and CCSPs (to
this aim the coordination was reinforced with 0.5 FTE funded by the OPET).
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