VCSE Guidebook/How to promote the VCSE-model/On-site workshops: Difference between revisions

On-site workshops in the context of the VCSE dissemination strategy are face-to-face meetings at location. The location being a European university (faculty, department, centre) not yet involved in the VCSE or similar virtual campus initiatives. The on-site workshops were proposed in the VCSE project description as an innovative and potentially highly effective means to disseminate the VCSE-model. The underlying idea was to involve local staff with (positive) experience in international e-learning, invite not only educational staff but also relevant senior-level decision makers (e.g. dean, vice-rector, head of department, director), and to create opportunities for hands-on ‘test-it-yourself’ experience. Furthermore, persons that became interested during the workshop were to be offered a ‘free trial period’ of access to the virtual campus and its e-learning courses as an observer. Establishing contacts and organizing the on-site workshops was the responsibility of the individual VCSE-partners. The leader of the relevant VCSE work package (OUNL) developed a PowerPoint presentation of the VCSE-project specifically for use in on-site workshops, with a focus on the educational, organisational and technological aspects of the virtual campus and the advantages of this type of virtual mobility (''‘Virtual Mobility': The VCSE Approach’'', made available - including accompanying text - to all VCSE-partners in the VCSE E-Library). Given the ambition to create a hands-on experience in the on-site workshops, a ‘live visit’ to the on-going courses at the virtual campus was foreseen as an important component of a workshop. However, the first experiences with on-site workshops showed that due to the dispersed activity pattern in the courses, ‘live visits’ were neither very exciting nor informative. As an alternative, ‘virtual tours’ of the current VCSE e-learning courses were developed by each partner for use at on-site presentations. Other materials for use at on-site workshops are presentation hand-outs and the VCSE-project flyer.

The ''Open University of the Netherlands (OUNL)'' organized two VCSE on-site workshops at the University of Santiago de Compostella (USC, Spain) in collaboration with prof. Urbano Fra Paleo: one at the School of Law and one at the Lugo-campus. The target groups were educational staff active in the field of sustainable development, educational staff active in other domains with an interest in virtual campus initiatives and university decision makers. The workshops were centred around the VCSE PowerPoint presentation (''‘Virtual Mobility: The VCSE Approach’''). Both workshops were well advertised and publicized, including four pre- and post-workshop articles in the university journal and on the university news bulletin board. The workshops resulted in an expression of interest from a professor of chemical engineering to join the VCSE with an e-learning course and support from the vice-chancellor for active participation in the VCSE initiative by USC staff.  

There are broadly three target groups for on-site VCSE workshops at European universities: educational staff working in the field of sustainable development, educational staff working in other interdisciplinary, internationally-oriented fields and senior-level decision-makers at there universities. As the local contact persons involved in the organization of the on-site workshop were usually educational staff members working in the field of sustainable development, the first target group used to be well-represented. It turned out to be more difficult however, to get the other two target groups in substantial numbers on-board. Senior-level decision-makers – even when supportive - often feel they lack the time to attend such a workshop, and educational staff from other domains have to be well-motivated to cross so many bridges at the same time: to another domain (often another school or faculty as well), to international student mobility, and to e-learning. It is probably better to follow a very targeted approach, with on-site workshops tailored to specific target groups and more narrowly defined objectives (see also Conclusions and discussion).  

* The original idea was to visit the on-going VCSE courses ‘live’ during on-site workshops to give participants a better impression of how courses are implemented in the virtual learning environment. We quickly learned that a ‘live visit’ is not a very efficient way of demonstrating the courses and instead we included a series of screen dumps in the PowerPoint presentation prepared for on-site visits, showing various aspects of the courses in VCSE’s virtual learning environment. Subsequently, ‘virtual tours’ of each VCSE course were developed which are even a better alternative to the ‘live visits’ during on-site workshops. By also including the ‘virtual tours’ in the public part of the VCSE website any interested visitor can now be informed about ‘how the courses work’.  Currently, the five ‘virtual course tours’ have been implemented in quite different ways, which makes it difficult for the audience to note the commonalities and specifics of each course. Thus, a future challenge is to devise and implement a common, attractive format for the ‘virtual tours’.  

Outcomes of on-site workshops with regards to the stated objectives have not been formally evaluated, but it is plausible that the workshops themselves and the publicity generated before and/or after the workshops have contributed to a raised awareness of the benefits of a virtual campus model and an enlarged basis of support for virtual campus initiatives, such as the VCSE, at European universities. With regard to the third objective of dissemination, motivating the target groups to become involved in the VCSE or to start a similar virtual campus in another domain, the results are mixed. The workshops did (thus far) not result in the start-up of virtual campus initiatives in other fields following the VCSE-model and/or making use of the open-source VCSE virtual campus software. The workshops were more effective in raising interest in the involvement in the VCSE, and resulted for example in attendance of a Central Demonstration Workshop (CDW) or an explicit expression of interest to join the VCSE in the near future. None of the workshop participants interested in the VCSE made use of the offer of a ‘free trial period’ (i.e., access to the on-going courses as an ‘observer’). It seems that active follow-up is needed, either in the form of CDW or regular contacts, and that on-site workshops alone will not result in new members joining the VCSE. This supports our active approach to enlargement as described in Chapter 4.