Humanities: The Pedagogy of Virtual Mobility - 1994

Table of Contents

Introduction.................................................................................. 5

Background and History of HUMANITIES....................... 9
A. Background ........................................................................................9
B. History ...................................................................................................... 11

ODL, ICT and the HUMANITIES model .........................17
A. Aims and objectives ........................................................................17
B. ODL and ICT backgrounds ............................................................... 19
B. 1.
Open and Distance Learning...................................................... 19
B. 2.
The Open University example.................................................... 19
B. 3.
Shift of educational paradigms ................................................... 20
B. 4.
Dual mode and mixed mode universities ................................. 21
B. 5.
Trans-national networking .......................................................... 22
B. 6.
Information and Communications Technologies.................... 23
C. Experiences within HUMANITIES.............................................24
C. 1. Actors in HUMANITIES ........................................................... 27
C. 2. General overview of experiences and outcomes ..................... 28

The Pedagogy of Virtual Mobility .........................................35
A. The Pedagogy of Virtual Mobility................................................. 35
B. The Learning Context..................................................................... 36
C. The “Pedagogical” Use of Technologies in HUMANITIES
Project...............................................................................................38
D. The Teacher’s Role in ODL .......................................................... 42
E. The Tutor’s Role in ODL ..............................................................44
F. The Learner’s Role in ODL........................................................... 45
G. The Organisation of Universities in ODL................................... 46
G. 1. Pedagogical support and services............................................... 47
G. 2. Motivation and orientation ......................................................... 47
G. 3. Communication and information technology & pedagogical
aspects – courses ..................................................................................... 48
G. 4. Technical Support and Facilities ................................................ 48
G. 5. Organisational support ................................................................ 49
H. Conclusions on ODL Pedagogy ...................................................49

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The Role of Resource and Study Centre..............................55
A. Strategy of the University...............................................................56
A. 1. Minor Changes.............................................................................. 56
A. 2. Major Changes .............................................................................. 57
B. Teacher view on the RSC............................................................... 60
B. 1. Point of the View of the Students ............................................. 62
C. How to Establish the Resource and Study Centre ..................... 63
C. 1. Technical Support ........................................................................ 64
C. 2. Pedagogical Support..................................................................... 64
C. 3. Research and Development........................................................ 65
C. 4. Administrative Support ............................................................... 65
C. 5. Communicating with the Site Campuses, Study Centres and
Individual Distances Learners ............................................................... 65
D. Conclusions......................................................................................65

Interculturality and European citizenship through ODL
at university level ........................................................................69
A. The influence of culture on knowledge shaping and transfer... 70
A. 1. Cultural Diversity in Europe and European citizenship......... 72
A. 2. Factors Influencing Virtual Instruction .................................... 74
A. 3. Courseware Design for Trans-European Virtual Instruction 76
B. Language in Virtual Instruction..................................................... 78
B. 1. Language Policy versus Language Management...................... 78
B. 2. Indications for Language Management in Virtual Instruction
Networks .................................................................................................. 80

An Economic Analysis of Virtual Mobility..........................87
A. The purpose of this contribution.................................................. 87
B. Costing Virtual Mobility.................................................................88
C. Benefits .............................................................................................91
D. How to make decisions ........................................................................ 93
D. 1.
Stakeholders’ views and weighting principles........................... 93
D. 2.
Context analysis ............................................................................ 93
D. 3.
University strategy and key benefits .......................................... 94
D. 4.
A three-step approach to decision making ............................... 95
E. Conclusions......................................................................................96

Conclusions, recommendations and strategic options ....99
Concluding statements..........................................................................99

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Introduction

This work contains a synthesis of thinking and practice on ODL-
supported flexible learning in traditional European universities as
developed in a number of European projects. These projects have a
hybrid model of face to face teaching and distance teaching and learning
in common, the so-called HUMANITIES model, which has been
applied in different subject areas and in various university settings.
The project partners have the feeling that the accumulated experience
had become broad and deep enough to make an attempt at synthesising
for wider dissemination. This in order to assist newly interested persons
and parties in partner and other universities to make a start with
provision of HUMANITIES type flexible learning without inventing the
wheel again.

The HUMANITIES III project, supported by the European
Commission DG XXII under Socrates ODL, aimed at the following
ways to disseminate summaries of results: a Dissemination Conference
(held 13 October 1998, Long Term Strategy for ODL in University
Environments and Virtual Mobility1), preparation of a book containing
the results of the synthesis studies (the present work), and production of
a practical guide, to be published almost at the same time as this work.

The present work is composed of a number of separately written
contributions.
Four detailed overviews of research findings and practical experiences
with HUMANITIES-model ICT and ODL form the core of the work,
each one based on the outcome of a Special Interest Group in the
HUMANITIES III project:

Pedagogy of Virtual Mobility (SIG 1)
with attention to a detailed description of the concept and the
HUMANITIES model, the conditions for application, benefits and
experienced and/or expected results;

1
A brochure with a synthesis of HUMANITIES III may be obtained
from the Coimbra Group office; e-mail: delaere@coimbra-group.be

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Co-ordinator: Dr. Maya Eisner (EuroMedia Link, Milano).
Participants: Prof. Jørgen Bang (Aarhus University), Mrs. Irene Hein
(TechNet Finland), Mr. Jorma Rinta-Kanto (Turku University), Prof.
Carmen Martín Robledo (Salamanca University), Mr. Søren Pold (Aarhus
University).

HUMANITIES Resource and Study Centres (SIG 4)
a discussion of their function and main roles within and outside the
university, including the inter-university network as a necessary condition
for functioning, and of organisational and economical aspects in view of
their acting users;
Co-ordinator: Mrs. Irene Hein (Helsinki University).
Participants: Dr. Suzanne Weber (University of Göttingen), Dr. Frank
Austermuhl (University of Mainz/Germersheim), Dr. Peter Floor
(Coimbra Group), Mr. Xavier Bonete (Univisjon, Bergen).

Interculturality and European Citizenship at University Level (SIG 3)
with overview of the various concepts behind the terms, their
consequences for education in general and their influence on virtual
instruction in particular, and with specific attention to the language
factor;
Co-ordinator: Mr. Jef Van den Branden (EuroPACE 2000, Leuven).
Participants: Prof. Jean Wood (University of Edinburgh), Prof. Valerio
Grementieri (Siena University), Dr. Domingo Sánchez-Mesa (Granada
University), Dr. Claudio Dondi (Scienter, Bologna).

Costs and Benefits of Virtual Mobility (SIG 2)
with a multi-perspective view to the economic analysis of the model and
suggestions for the university management decision making process.
Co-ordinator: Dr. Claudio Dondi (Scienter, Bologna).
Participants: Prof. Nicolás Pérez de la Blanca (University of Granada), Dr.
Maya Eisner (EuroMedia Link, Milano), Prof. Knut Midttun (University
of Bergen), Dr. Christel Claeys (University of Leuven), Dr. Alexia
Boninsegna (Scienter, Bologna).

The four core-contributions are preceded by a summary of the
background and history of HUMANITIES and an introductory
contribution on ODL and ICT in education and the kind of virtual
mobility we have implemented.
At the end of this work we present some general conclusions,
recommendations and strategic options.

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Whereas this work should provide a better understanding of the virtual
mobility model as developed by the HUMANITIES projects, probably
its most practical outcome is the set of guidelines produced as a
reflection on the findings and experiences reported here.

The contributions in this work have been written in such a way that each
one can be read and used independently as well. Therefore, a limited
amount of overlap in the texts had to be accepted.
It was decided that the task of the editor would be a relatively light one,
the responsibility for the contributions remaining with their authors.

With this work and the Guidelines the series of HUMANITIES projects
initiated in 1994 comes to an end. We shall continue working along the
lines of HUMANITIES in a variety of other ways and projects.

We are grateful to all those who have enabled us to develop
HUMANITIES. We appreciate to mention many supportive persons in
DG XXII, DG XII and DG XIII, European Commission. We are
greatly indebted to our university and non-university partners, especially
all persons who involved themselves enthusiastically in the actual
distance learning projects.
Many valuable suggestions have been received from and contributions
made by Dr. Claudio Dondi from Scienter, Bologna. The dedicated and
thoughtful support by officers at the Coimbra Group office, Mrs.
Véronique Maes, Mrs. Cliona Cunningham (until April 1998) and Ms.
Alejandra Roig, and by their colleagues in other partner organisations has
been indispensable for the completion of our projects.
Finally we are most thankful to all those who contributed with their
suggestions, critical comments, and well considered feedback to the
sharpening of our minds.

HUMANITIES is a good example of what can be reached in a
motivating collective effort.

Valerio Grementieri
Peter Floor

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Background and History of HUMANITIES

Peter Floor2
Coimbra Group, Leiden University

A. Background
Plans for HUMANITIES originated in the Coimbra Group in the
course of 1993.
The Coimbra Group is an association by charter of mostly old and
traditional universities, the vast majority of them situated within the
European Union.
The group was created in 1985 on the initiative of Mr. Simon-Pierre
Nothomb, then at the Université Catholique de Louvain. The definitive
decision to establish the group was taken in 1986 in Coimbra, hence the
name Coimbra Group.

Conscious of the fact that traditional universities have a specific
mission within the whole of higher education and that collaboration and
pursuit of common value added could be of great importance to the
members of the group, the founders decided to apply certain criteria to
membership and to keep the number of members limited.
Thus, at present the Coimbra Group has 33 members, all complete,
traditional universities, most of them relatively old and situated in small
to medium-sized towns where the academies and their students have a
direct and visible impact on town-life itself.
Mid-1998, members of the Coimbra Group are: Aarhus (DK), Barcelona
(E), Bergen (N), Bologna (I), Bristol (GB), Budapest (H), Cambridge
(GB), Coimbra (P), Dublin-Trinity (IRL), Edinburgh (GB), Galway
(IRL), Göttingen (D), Granada (E), Graz (A), Groningen (NL),
Heidelberg (D), Jena (D), Kraków (PL), Leiden (NL), Leuven (B),
2
With constructive critisism and active contributions from Véronique
Maes, Project Director Coimbra Group office, Jef Van den Branden,
EuroPACE 2000, Claudio Dondi, Scienter, Bologna and Valerio
Grementieri, Università di Siena.

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Louvain (B), Montpellier (F), Oxford (GB), Padova (I), Pavia (I), Poitiers
(F), Praha (CZ), Salamanca (E), Siena (I), Thessaloniki (GR), Turku/Åbo
(FIN), Uppsala (S), Würzburg (D).
Grossly stated, the Coimbra Group aims at collaboration in the main
areas of academic concern, teaching and research, and also at fostering
the cultural diversity in Europe through university cultural events.

The history of the group has shown that, indeed, actions could be
undertaken and results realised that individual member universities could
hardly bring about.
Some examples:
• Having an integrated network of contact persons in place, the group
was in an excellent position to embrace the ERASMUS and, later,
TEMPUS and Med Campus programmes of the European
Communities. Not only were the members capable of realising a
strong participation in the programmes, they could also exchange
information, discuss best practices and assist each other by solving
problems.

• Having shown that it was capable to deliver, the group got a contract
from the European Commission to test an idea of Mr. Nothomb that
Latin-American alumni of European universities and post-graduate
courses would be eager to organise themselves in ‘Círculos Europeos’
to strengthen ties with Europe and its cultures, learn about
backgrounds and practicalities of integration processes, also under
way in Latin America, and exchange expertise in favour of higher
quality, more effective relations between universities and society, etc.
At present 18 such Círculos Europeos exist, in Buenos Aires/La Plata
(Argentina), La Paz (Bolivia), Florianópolis, Niterói, Pelotas, Recife,
Río de Janeiro, São Paulo (Brasil), Santiago (Chile), Bogotá
(Colombia), San José (Costa Rica), Quito (Ecuador), Ciudad de
México (México), Asunción (Paraguay), Lima (Perú), Montevideo
(Uruguay), Caracas, Mérida (Venezuela).

• University representatives active in the group realised themselves that
the rapid advances in information and communication technologies
would deeply affect all sectors of society and would have an immense
impact on Higher Education. They also noticed a certain reluctance in
their institutions as a whole to play a vanguard role on the electronic
highway, notwithstanding impressive achievements in certain
academic subject areas within their institutions. On the contrary, to a

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certain extent it was felt as if the institutions considered it their duty
to avoid overengagement in new technologies that might put high
traditional academic values (and therefore also personal and
institutional interests) at risk.
With the increasing capacity and user-friendliness of the new
technologies new applications came within reach, enabling hybrid
models of university teaching and ICT-supported (tele-)learning. It
became possible to engage members of the Coimbra Group and other
universities in pilot experiments with such a hybrid model and this
gave rise to HUMANITIES, subject of this work.

• In 1997, the Coimbra Group decided to intensify collaboration by
paving the way for strategic co-operation arrangements among those
members that are interested in and ready for strong commitments on
one or more areas of academic interest. It is expected that such an
arrangement for the strategic implementation of new technologies will
be one of them, in association with the VirtUE (Virtual University in
Europe) project. More about this later in this contribution.

B. History
The initiative for HUMANITIES has been taken in 1993 by
Professor Valerio Grementieri of the University of Siena. Professor
Grementieri, member of the Steering Committee of the Coimbra Group
for many years, felt a double concern: on the one hand he feared that
traditional universities would fail to familiarise themselves with the
technologies in times of increasing competition in Higher Education, on
the other he noted that traditional universities produce great numbers of
alumni in the humanities with relatively weak perspectives on a labour
market that looks more and more for professionally specialised
graduates.

The first HUMANITIES (Historic Universities MultimediA
Network for InnovaTion In Education Systems) project was granted by
the European Commission in 1994. Its objectives, clearly reflecting the
concerns mentioned above, read as follows:
• introduce ODL in top-level European universities, improve
appreciation of Open and Distance Learning in universities, explore
benefits of internationalisation of curricula, give wide access to
international study experiences.

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• prove that virtual mobility can work effectively at European scale,
create a usable model for a Virtual Classroom.
• Introduce HUMANITIES in an academic environment that so far:
− had been reluctant to use new technologies and Open and
Distance Learning;
− had experienced problems with employment of its graduates
(often from the humanities) that would benefit from
curricular reform and a European dimension.

The project brought together the Coimbra Group, technology
providers, experts in the area of teleteaching, multimedia use, technology
implementation and educational research, and the network of university
enterprise training partnerships.
Through the Coimbra Group, universities inside and outside the
membership of the group were found interested in pilot projects, run -
organised and co-ordinated by the group - in the subject areas of Law,
Communication Science and Literature.

In preparation of the pilots a (hybrid) pedagogical model was
developed, called the HUMANITIES model, comprising a common
distance module inserted in the normal face to face courses of the
participating universities.

University course

face to face module distance module face to face module
16 hours 16 hours 16 hours

preparation for distance distance learning tasks
learning www

Specialists from the partners, in subject area organising committees,
decided on the themes and the concrete contents of the three distance
modules. They also assigned senior students/young staff as tutors who
got a special training in the project context (ODL methodologies and

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technologies used). The technologies to be used were also debated and
decided upon, with assistance of the experts participating in the projects.

After thorough technological and pedagogical preparation in all
the universities the distance module courses took place in five or six 3-
hour sessions per subject area. Multilateral question/answer plus
discussion sessions followed presentations by teachers, each time from a
different locality.
A practical placement in a firm or organisation abroad would conclude
the learning experience of HUMANITIES I.

Local arrangements had been made for assessing the students’
progress in the distance modules.

We have exposed the essentials of HUMANITIES I at some
length in this historical chapter since it dynamised teachers to the extent
that they started projects based on the HUMANITIES model on their
own initiative, resulting - together with further developments in the
HUMANITIES itself - in a whole “family” of HUMANITIES-based
projects, all supported by the European Commission (DG XII, DG
XIII, DG XXII and DG I):

HUMANITIES I, II, III Calibernet
Transcult Giotto
Pegasus Etica
Euroliterature Patagonia

Only part of these projects focussed on actual teaching/learning,
others, not necessarily co-ordinated by the Coimbra Group, elaborated
on experiences gained, included HUMANITIES experiences in a wider
context, or involved HUMANITIES partner universities in data
collection or research.
The early projects offering distance modules led to a further evolution
and a greater variety of curricular integration models, all within the
hybrid context characteristic of HUMANITIES.
Because of its HUMANITIES experience the Coimbra Group was
invited to join the VirtUE project, co-ordinated by EuroPACE 2000,
and is now also getting involved in follow-up projects of VirtUE.

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Between 1994 and 1998 the following universities engaged
themselves actively or passively in HUMANITIES projects:
Aarhus, Åbo Akademi, Bergen, Bologna, Coimbra, Edinburgh, Galway,
Genève, Göttingen, Granada, Groningen, Heidelberg, Kraków, Leiden,
Leuven, Louvain, Montpellier, Pavia, Poitiers, Reykjavik, Salamanca,
Siena, Thessaloniki, Turku, Uppsala, Wien.

Other organisations participating were/are:
Scienter (I) and through Scienter: ATENA, DTI, FUNDETEC, CESI;
COMNET (B) and through COMNET: Amitié, AUESA, CARIF
Formatante, UETP Danube, DEUS Consortium, EUROTEAM,
FORBITEC, HIBERNIA, INTERCOM, MACEDONIA, UETP
Randstad, UETP Toscana, AUEF Wallonie-Bruxelles, Western Norway,
Western Sweden; EuroMedia Link (I); CNED (F); BAOL (GB); CLS
(GB); Associazione Campo (I); British Telecom Italy; Noesis (S);
TechNet Finland (FI); EuroPACE 2000 (B); Univisjon (N).

At the present stage of developments, having gained sufficient
experiences to evaluate and generalise with a view at enabling others to
follow without having to invent the wheel again (the reason for
proposing HUMANITIES III and the writing of this work as one of its
deliverables), it seems appropriate to conclude the historical introduction
with a short look into the future.

It is beyond doubt that ODL supported flexible learning will
develop increasingly in European traditional universities. Important
elements are:
• it leads to dual mode activities (see next contribution);
• it leads to economies of scale and cost effectiveness for universities
having regional spreading of their campuses;
• it stimulates co-operation between universities, nationally and
especially trans-nationally.

We are therefore certain that our members are going to propose
new projects and we shall encourage them to aim at continuous
improvement, for instance by involving more or other universities, more
subject areas, more students than before, increase the international
integration of these students, to experiment with a greater variety of
curriculum integration models (within HUMANITIES, i.e., maintaining a
well-considered combination of traditional teaching and distance learning
elements), and to make major efforts at the production of re-useable

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courseware, if possible not only for repeated use by the universities
participating in the first round, but also for more general circulation to
other interested universities, with teacher/tutor/assessment time
included. It will be clear that new users will have to pay a reasonable
price for such products and that, correspondingly, methodologies will
have to be developed for costing and marketing.
Such developments need well-targeted research and development and
our research partners and researchers in our member universities will
certainly seize opportunities that offer themselves.
It is also clear that wider and more elaborate involvement in distance
learning and implementation of new technologies will create an
increasing need for all kinds of support, and also for finding the most
effective way to provide such support, avoiding overlaps and securing
gradual accumulation and dissemination of experience gained.
The Virtual University in Europe (VirtUE) project line, co-ordinated by
Leuven-based EuroPACE 2000, will operationalise a networked
structure of courses and service provision, aiming at sustainable running
of this complex organisation involving many partners (like
HUMANITIES: universities, technology and specialised services
providers), with the aim of making the wealth of knowledge and
experience in mainstream universities available for students at home or
elsewhere and new learners, from the professions and society at large.

We expect that several major universities, ready for a strategic
adaptation of their daily practices with overall implementation of the
new technologies, among them members of the Coimbra Group, will
play a major part in this VirtUE development: interface in a world of
interoperable tools, services and contents.

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ODL, ICT and the HUMANITIES model

Jef Van den Branden
Educational Director EuroPACE 2000
Jørgen Bang
Associate Professor Aarhus University

Aims and objectives
HUMANITIES is a series of European projects within traditional
universities which aimed at the development and introduction in the
human science faculties of a virtual mobility structure, using open and
distance learning (ODL) which is information and communication
technologies (ICT)-based. The project aimed in other words at
innovation in education and training, focusing on three main
components:
• Research for the development of the methodology;
• ICT as the communication and interaction tools;
• ODL for the format of the education.
These components were taken along the entire project, and were used to
constitute the skeleton of the Humanities model for virtual mobility.

More specifically the objectives of HUMANITIES as it developed,
were the following:
1) to develop Open and Distance Learning as a method to complement
and/or provide alternatives to traditional student mobility schemes;
2) to develop and test models of ODL in traditional university
frameworks;
3) to examine and quantify the benefits and role of ICT in university
ODL systems;
4) to apply accepted best practice to the models of ODL used;
5) to establish connection and synergy between key networks involved
in higher education, ODL and university-enterprise collaboration;

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6) to build on opportunities provided by existing ODL products,
particularly those produced in previous European Union
programmes;
7) to undertake research on a number of unexplored areas of ODL
implementation.

For HUMANITIES' Project Partners (universities involved through
the University Network partners, as well as the non-university partners)
this implied:
• to experiment with innovative methods of ODL implementation
within an educational environment;
• to work together between and with universities to achieve a coherent
pedagogical approach through the use of new technologies;
• to make the European academic world aware of the added value and
benefits of ODL in a traditional environment.

More in particular, the HUMANITIES' Universities wanted through
the experimentation:
• to achieve innovation through the introduction of new technologies;
• to experiment with new methods and inter cultural elements;
• to improve competitive positions;
• to change the attitude of staff.

In view of improving and adding an international component to
mainstream higher education, the project aimed at the introduction of
ICT and ODL components in conventional degree courses for full-time students.
The choice was made to use an evolutionary strategy for this
introduction: starting with a limited number of subjects and universities,
the project wanted to gradually attract more humanities disciplines and
faculties within the already involved universities, as well as welcome
more (new) universities.

Consequently, HUMANITIES is as such not an end in itself, its
purpose for universities was and is to experiment and stimulate, to show
the possibilities available to the university world through ICT and ODL
and to guide universities in their strategic implementation on a
widespread and long term scale. A consensus-building process within
partner institutions and dissemination of results to interested parties in
the European academic world and ODL communities at large, is
therefore regarded as an essential part of this strategy.

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ODL and ICT backgrounds

B. 1. Open and Distance Learning

Distance Education at university level is to be situated in Europe
in the late sixties, in the context of the "democratisation" of higher
education. It was found that the severe criteria which regulated (and still
today sometimes regulate) entrance to university, disfavoured those
youngsters who could rely on the necessary capacities but missed an
academic tradition in their families. The cultural and motivational
background of these youngsters, notably to be found in labour class,
influenced their vocational choice, by orienting them towards vocational
training rather than to higher education in general and university
education in particular. Studies revealed that even if these youngsters
followed a secondary education stream, which typically prepares for
university studies, it influenced negatively their success rates, with as a
consequence insufficient results to be admitted at university level, or
unfinished university education.

With a gross national product relying increasingly on products that
demand for sophisticated know how (in production or services), the
Western European countries had to mobilise "brains", which implied
that each citizen should have the opportunity to be educated as far as
possible. Sir John Daniels even believes that, apart from its economic
benefits, educating the mind is an imperative for world security (Daniels,
1996). Offering a "second chance" to adults to catch up (and study as
mature students at the university) fitted perfectly in their national
endeavours. However, it implied the need of (1) an "open" admission
policy for those who were not responding to the "normal" formal
entrance requirements, and (2) a study environment that enabled the
combination of study and professional activity.

B. 2. The Open University example
The British Open University (OU), as the first example of ODL in
Western Europe, adapted therefore the characteristics of correspondence
education to the requirements and modalities of the (British) tertiary
educational system. It used a combination of paper based instructional
materials, audio-visual support materials (the famous OU-lectures on the

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BBC) and home experimenting kits (including the popular "BBC
computer", a PC specially developed by Acorn for the purposes of the
OU study) to replace lectures and labs of conventional university
education. Two further characteristics of British University education
also got their adaptation:
1) reading as an essential element in the British University education
became enabled by the production of special readers to replace
library visits;
2) written assignments (with feedback from tutors) in combination with
a limited number of group tutorials (eventually organised as audio
conferences) came in place of the conventional tutoring of on
campus students.
Finally, a number of residential summer schools at regular university
campuses gave OU-students at least once a year the flavour of being real
university students.

This British model was later copied by other European "Open
Universities" (such as the Spanish UNED, the Portuguese Universidade
Aberta, the Dutch Open Universiteit); be it with changes and
modifications, to adapt the system to local (national) requirements of the
specific instructional system and university culture.

All these open universities were and are independent institutions,
offering their education only in a distance teaching mode. They mostly
started up with emphasis on openness (as an essential condition for
democratisation of tertiary education); the distance teaching mode being
instrumental to realise this primary goal rather than being the ultimate
objective. In recent years however, access restrictions to higher
education have become less severe in many countries, and the degree of
participation to tertiary education of traditionally underrepresented social
strata increased considerably. The need for openness, and with it its
centrality in open university schemes consequently became less
important. In its place came a centrality of educational innovation
through distance education, as a consequence of the considerable
expertise (research and experience) which was gained by these Open
Universities with respect to teaching and learning at a distance.

B. 3. Shift of educational paradigms
This shift of objectives goes along with a shift of educational
paradigms. The original concept of the ODL materials as developed by

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the British OU was devoting much attention to didactics that were
inspired by behaviourist design principles. Behaviourism considers
learning to be the (more or less automatic) consequence of an efficiently
organised learning environment (stimuli), arranged in such a way that an
adapted behaviour (reaction) of the learner is provoked and anchored
through reinforcement. Hence the need for relatively small learning
units, frequent tests and immediate feedback. Today however,
constructivism got acceptance by the majority of instructional
psychologists as a valid learning theory. It considers learning as a process
of construction of meaning and knowledge, performed by the learner
while using learning resources. In other words, this shift of educational
paradigms moved the locus of control of the learning process, and with
it the focus of education, from the teacher to the learner. Whilst the first
paradigm lays emphasis on "didactic" arrangements from the teacher's
side to enable the transfer of information from teacher or learning
materials to the student, the second paradigm considers teaching as a
support device to the student's learning, by stimulating the student's
activity, motivating him/her to use successful learning strategies, helping
him/her to find, select and process at a level of deep understanding a
variety of (appropriate) learning resources, etc (for further elaboration,
see Dillemans et al., 1998).

With this shift from openness to distance learning, and the
complementing shift from teaching to learning, the term "ODL"
received a more generic interpretation. It is no longer referring to the
genuine open and distance teaching (and learning) with all its connected
connotations, but indicating all formats of innovative education that can
be defined as “supported self instruction” (Confederation of European
Union Rectors’ Conferences, 1998). Some people therefore plead to use
the term "flexible learning" as the generic term, as various types of self
instruction may be situated on a continuum between fixed and flexible
formats (see the reference made by B. Collis about her work in the
Telescopia project, in: Scienter, 1998). In this volume, however, we
conform ourselves to the recommendation of the Confederation of
European Union Rectors' Conferences, to use the term ODL in its all-
inclusive designation.

B. 4. Dual mode and mixed mode universities
As a consequence of this shift in meaning of the term ODL,
distance teaching can no longer be considered as the privilege of Open

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Universities, but became also introduced on campus in traditional
universities (not least while the instructional materials of Open
Universities also found their way into regular universities). In institutions
where kinds of ODL were introduced in a systematic way, often in an
attempt to attract new audiences to compensate for decreasing
governmental subsidies, "dual mode" or "mixed mode" instructions were
implemented.

Dual mode institutions provide the same education in a
conventional on campus (face-to-face) and in an off campus (ODL)
mode, while mixed mode applications provide education partly in
conventional and partly in ODL modes of teaching and learning.
Although dual and mixed modes may be offered in single institutions,
the approach is often used in the framework of consortia of regular
universities, joining forces for the purpose. Such approach laid the basis
for e.g. the Associations of Distance Education, as existing in the
Scandinavian countries, or the Open Learning Foundation in Britain.

B. 5. Trans-national networking
The examples of collaboration, given in the preceding section, are
situated in one single country. This national approach has clearly
demonstrated its value, in responding to various national needs: e.g.
bridging the physical distances between the place were people live
and/or work and the location of the nearest-by university; rationalising
higher education by the creation of larger universities by merging
spatially dispersed entities; creating critical masses for the study of highly
specialised (and by consequence scarcely populated) study domains; etc.
This national approach bypassed however the challenge of incorporating
an international dimension. In a unifying Europe, this dimension may
not only offer an added value to education in contributing towards the
creation of a European citizenship, but might become even a necessary
condition to respond adequately to the internationalisation of the
European economy (European Commission, 1996).

Internationalisation implies trans-national networking. It has been
a policy for many years of the European Community, and afterwards the
European Union, to stimulate such trans-national networking within
Europe in all sectors of society. The policy was not only initiated for
economic reasons, but also social and political reasons have triggered it:
the European politicians wanted to avoid a Europe with different speeds.

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Also in training and education, trans-national networking through
ODL has been advocated: many reports of either the Commission or
Working Groups initiated or supported by the Commission have taken
up the issue. See e.g. the various White papers, Green papers, IRDAC
report, CCAM studies, BEACON reports etc.

Not only in subject domains with a clear European dimension (e.g.
European history, European policy, European law, etc.), but in every
domain and level of education and training the European Commission
initiated programmes to fund projects that aim at such networked ODL.

This is maybe one of the main differences of the European ODL
approach in comparison with existing examples in other parts of the
world. The resemblance of ODL schemes and materials may be great
(similar subjects, similar design and production methodologies, similar
delivery and support strategies and techniques, similar materials, tools
and resources, etc.), but in most parts of the world ODL is being used
for practical reasons and to respond to local, regional or national
objectives. Probably only in Europe a well conceived trans-national
policy which involved so many nations and countries, was inserted in the
moulding of ODL.

B. 6. Information and Communications Technologies
Co-operation between universities (be it regional, national or trans-
national) is one of the answers to the contemporary challenges of
universities, as described by the CRE report (CRE, 1996) and guide
(CRE, 1998).

These challenges are specified in the report as reduced funding, the
call by governments and society for greater accountability, demands for
increased relevance, competition within the higher education sector as
well as with other organisations, and the impact and opportunities of
new technologies. It is argued that more than ever before, the role of the
universities in knowledge creation and maintenance, as well as their
contribution to cultural and societal development gets affected by the
information and communication technologies. It therefore pleads that
university strategies for technology should be based in learning, and not
(only) be market or competitiveness driven. Implementation of ICT
supported education (ODL in the largest meaning of the term), has in

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other words to be a strategic decision in response to the university's
contemporary needs.

This approach fits perfectly in what the aims and objectives of the
HUMANITIES project put forward. The HUMANITIES model was
intended to provide universities with the opportunity to introduce ODL
on an experimental basis in their learning approaches, to contribute
substantially to the diffusion of learner-based education and develop
student skills such as initiative, self-confidence and self-assessment; thus
enhancing as well the quality of tertiary education.

ICT based or supported ODL can service various utilisation
models. Three models can functionally and conceptually be
distinguished, although in the reality of practical applications a number
of overlaps and synergies will be noticed.

• Virtual class and campus
This model is based on communication between universities: it
creates virtual universities by giving remote access to teaching (virtual
class) and (virtual campus), other academic activities (e.g. library
visits, research activities and communication) to staff and students
from other universities.

• Flexible and open learning
In this model (off campus) students remain at their workplace, at
home or in local study centres. This model is traditionally taken up
by Open Universities, and is becoming popular in traditional
universities for continuing education and professional postgraduate
programmes.

• Learning on demand
This model may be considered as a specific format of the flexible
and open learning, tailored to the specific needs of individuals or
small and well defined user groups.

C. Experiences within HUMANITIES
HUMANITIES chose for a specific activity within the first model
which was described above: virtual mobility at advanced undergraduate
level of students in humanities faculties of European universities

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(members of Coimbra Group as well as others, invited to join the project
for the purpose). Since HUMANITIES provided only parts of a normal
university curriculum, it utilised a "hybrid" model of virtual mobility.
This means that some components of distance education
(videoconferencing based lectures and seminars, computer conferencing
and e-mail based ongoing communication, assignments using web
resources, video and text based resources or multimedia) were integrated
within a traditional classroom based course.

The choice for this model of virtual mobility was made as it
integrates a number of advantages:
• a greater number of students can be involved than in trans-national
mobility schemes;
• a greater possibility exists of introducing new contents in the
curricula and of activating new courses;
• possibility of achieving the results at lower costs;
• possibility of combining trans-national experience with the use of
new technologies;
• bringing the practice and educational innovation to the teachers.

By using this combination of ODL and traditional teaching, both
teachers and students could benefit at least partly through the virtual
mobility of the experience of conventional (physical) mobility: access to
other teachers, to learning materials taught in "foreign" universities, to
other cultures and environments. Furthermore, it allowed both teachers
and students access to new technology and shaped and directed the use
of this technology within a pedagogical environment. Finally, it
encouraged economic rationalisation through the saving of energy with
the perspective that on the longer term also money can be saved.

As such, the HUMANITIES model provided an effective
response to the Socrates objectives: meeting both the educational and
technological demands of today, improving the quality and relevance of
the education offered, and promoting European co-operation and
identity. Also its motivation to improve the quality of traditional
education through the use of ICT addressed one of the main objectives
of the Socrates programme.

Though virtual mobility can be realised within one institution, e.g.
to connect scattered campuses of that same institution and thus enabling
staff to give the lecture only once, the HUMANITIES model is basically

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a network model. The network connects the partners and provides the
opportunity to have an integrated approach and care, in which all actors
are interactively involved. A number of (mostly) Coimbra Group
universities, supported by training organisations and research institutes
were united in a network for the very purpose.

Such networked model of virtual class is essentially different from
ODL in which conventional lectures are transmitted either by ICT to an
audience that is not present in the lecture hall, or taped to provide (on
and off campus) students with the recorded version. Both types of ODL
became extremely popular in the USA, where "university extension"
programmes use often these techniques (eventually in combination with
more traditional ODL materials in paper-based format and/or
conventional computer assisted instruction).

The network model as a trans-national model, is not only
promoted by the European Union, but is even an essential condition to
project funding from the European Commission. In this way it
contributes to education towards European identity and European
citizenship, and supports the development of Europe's economy (better
training of the workforce, preparation for European mobility).

The HUMANITIES project should be situated at this background.
It has been, and still is an emanation of the Coimbra Group's interest in
stimulation of educational innovation within its member universities, by:
• making universities and their staff aware of the potential of ODL
(and ICT);
• offering them models which are validated by research to realise this
potential;
• training them in optimal use for the ODL design, production and
delivery (including user support), thus contributing to enhancement
of availability and quality of ODL media and resources;
• encouraging the recognition of qualifications obtained through ODL
in an inter-university co-operation on a European scale;
• supporting universities in the development of strategic plans for
innovation.

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C. 1. Actors in HUMANITIES
All in all, 26 universities from 19 countries have been involved in
the preparation and execution of three subject areas - (European) Law,
Communication Science and Literature, and in later strategic
development and research/dissemination projects.

The participating universities were all of a European and traditional
nature and shared three main characteristics:
• a long tradition in the humanities;
• limited experience in the field of ODL;
• member of/or associated with the Coimbra Group, and open
and accustomed to trans-national experiences (ERASMUS,
LINGUA, TEMPUS, etc).

Naturally, the education and training systems were different in
each country thereby giving a wide range of differences which further
enriched the project and tested its applicability and effectiveness on a
European scale:
• linguistic differences;
• cultural differences;
• differences of structure and organisational processes;
• differences in the level of autonomy;
• differences in course content, level and structure.

Other partners were training and research organisations, involved
in the project to support either ICT or/and ODL methodology
implementation.

The project contributed in the following way to beneficiaries:
Universities
• innovation by introducing new technologies, new methods and
inter-cultural elements;
• improvement of competitive positions;
• change in attitudes of staff.

Professors
• familiarisation with ICT;
• new approaches to teaching;

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• international outreach;
• pulling resources for sharing knowledge and experience.

Tutors
• professional updating;
• career development;
• international outreach.

Students
• improvement of curricula through an international environment;
• increase of "employability"
• familiarisation with ICT
• confrontation of ideas with other European students

European Commission
• innovation in education systems
• development of new knowledge
• European added value of curricula
• enhancing mobility of human resources
• development and test of a Europe-wide virtual mobility scheme

C. 2. General overview of experiences and outcomes
Universities have become more and more aware, thanks to
projects such as HUMANITIES, that ODL can increase both the
competitiveness and quality of their learning systems whilst providing an
effective response to student expectations and demand.

This awareness is however not shared by all universities, nor by all
actors within the universities. A number of university teachers and
students remain rather reluctant, as ODL systems dramatically change
the actors' roles: teachers have to become facilitators and supporters of
students' learning and can no longer "perform" while teaching; students
have to take a far larger responsibility for their own learning than in a
conventional teaching setting.

Changing the physical contact between teachers and students on
the one hand, and between students on the other into a virtual
interaction through the use of ICT, is considered by some actors as a

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dehumanisation of the interaction; some even fear that the "normal"
interaction in conventional settings will drop or be lost at all. Outcomes
of projects and experiences like HUMANITIES prove the contrary, at
least when technology is used in a proper way.

A most important condition to optimally use ICT and ODL is the
training of actors. Not only teachers and students, but also tutors,
administrators and even technicians within the universities must learn
how to use ICT and ODL. It is not an easy task to develop and provide
such training, nor to motivate all these actors in taking it. As long as
research recognition is predominantly influencing academic careers,
investment in teaching and learner support will remain less attractive for
teachers. Innovation of education implies a greater involvement of
administrators and technicians in the development and provision of
education, which is sometimes rejected by teachers as they expect to lose
control over the instructional situation by it, and sometimes unwillingly
welcomed by administrators and technicians as this affects the working
time, and creates responsibilities and task contents for which they were
originally not engaged.

With respect to ICT based ODL in general and with the virtual
mobility model in particular, the following conditions can additionally be
mentioned as essential:
• availability of technology;
• internationalisation of curricula;
• academic recognition and integration in the curriculum, implying
acceptance by the own university and institutional support;
• provision of a network of universities as a support structure for the
interaction;
• limited number of participating sites in the interaction, to enable
good communication;
• cost sharing and reduction of telecommunication expenses;
• language skills (computer languages/natural languages).

Hence the need for the universities to accept ODL and ICT as a
strategic issue for future development; a decision which has to be taken
at top management level of the university but supported at the mid level
of faculties and departments and accepted by individual academics (for a
more elaborated argumentation, see CRE, 1998).

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Part of this strategic decision concerns the development of an
appropriate pedagogic and didactic approach to learning in a virtual
environment where teachers and students are scattered over several
institutions in different countries but exchanging ideas and collaborating
to explore themes of common interest (I). Another part of this strategic
decision is the willingness to invest in the infrastructure and personnel
that the new technologies and their use imply (II).

Ad I
In the classic lecture hall model, still used in many conventional
universities, transference of knowledge is viewed as a dissemination
process in which the lecturer pours knowledge into the heads of the
students based on the logic of the content. A similar concept lies behind
the correspondence model for distance education, but has in the large-
scale open university model been modified. Now course materials are
organised to support the individual learning process and often face-to-
face tutorials in which the students may ask questions and receive
comments on their assignments, has become an integrated part of this
educational set-up. Over the last decade the tradition for producing
learner-oriented educational material has expanded further by adding an
interactive dimension, e.g. Computer Based Training (CBT)
programmes, CD-ROM based learning material and WWW distributed
courses. A different understanding of the learning process is expressed
within the problem-oriented concept of learning. Here the assumption is
that truly meaningful learning arises from the students' active
engagement in shared learning experiences directly related to praxis -
practical work or problem solving analysis of identified social,
environmental or physical problems. Group-work is an essential aspect
of this learning concept both within the school system and at university
level.

The virtual environment model applied in the HUMANITIES
project - also named the virtual mobility model - tries to develop an
understanding of learning between these two positions. On the one
hand, transfer of knowledge is accomplished by presenting the learner
with prepared learning materials and even lectures, which are able to
encourage active participation. On the other hand, the acquired
information has to be integrated with the already existing knowledge in
the brain of the learner to fulfil the learning process. Meaning is
produced and knowledge is constructed through an active process of

124

negotiation in which new information is integrated and absorbed into
our existing understanding of the world.

To achieve this the virtual environment model is an effective
vehicle since dialogue and collaboration are adequate tools to enhance
the integration (negotiation) of new information with existing knowledge
through expression of meaning (points of view) in discussion with fellow
learners. Through the incorporation of modern educational technologies
such as satellite television, video and audio conferences, WWW, e-mail
and computer conferencing, distance is no longer an obstacle and in
some cases even time has been overcome. Nevertheless, the most
important achievement is probably the learner-centred approach which
encouraged trans-national and inter-institutional collaboration both
among students/learners and among teachers/content providers.

The experiences from the HUMANITIES project show that the
teachers appreciate its potential of sharing resources. Not only efforts for
development are shared (with all the benefits of receiving the multiple of
the own investment, e.g. a full course for actively contributing to a part
of it) but co-operation contributes clearly to the overall quality of the
end product. Trans-national collaboration also acts as eye opener to new
possibilities, approaches, examples of good practice, or helps to avoid
mistakes during implementation.

Ad II
An ODL resource and support centre in each university has to be
considered an appropriate and positive step, as it offers both a
permanent structure and a strongly needed co-ordinated organisation of
services within the university. This centre should not (necessarily) be
limited to certain subject areas but have links with all faculties and
departments.

At the trans-national level, a network is needed to support the
participating universities. As was investigated in the VirtUE (Virtual
University for Europe) project, this network could take the format of (1)
a joint academic network for content provision, and (2) a central service
provision network for technology and methodology provision and
support.

The joint academic network might be organised in clusters of co-
operating universities, either composed around subjects for which ODL

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is jointly developed and provided ("Thematic clusters") or brought
together to service the education and training needs of a region
("Regional clusters").

The central service provision network develops services of various
kinds: provision of ICT (hardware and software, with emphasis on the
network support: conferencing bridges, satellite capacity and uplink, web
environments, authoring tools, etc.) and standards (e.g. for basic
requirements of equipment, for access to resources, for language
management), support for network development (varying from partner
recruitment to support for academic recognition), interface between the
joint academic activities and technology providers.

As general outcomes of experiences, it can be noted that ICT
based trans-national ODL is appreciated specifically by students for its:
• quick and accurate retrieval of information;
• availability of demonstrations and applications as learning resources;
• access to lectures on topics or approaches of topics that are not
available in the own university;
• (on-line/off-line) communication with persons which otherwise
would be inaccessible, or hardly to be approached;
• the European dimension (with the enrichment of cultural diversity)
for a course.

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Bibliography
Daniels, J.S. (1996). Mega-Universities and Knowledge Media.
Technology strategies for Higher Education. London, Kogan Page
Dillemans,R., Lowyck, J., Van der Perre, G., Claeys, C. & Elen, J.
(1998). New Technologies for Learning: contribution of ICT to
innovation in education. Leuven, Leuven University Press.
CRE (1996). Restructuring the University. Universities and the
Challenge of New Technologies. Geneva, Association of European
Universities.
CRE (1998). Restructuring the University. New Technologies for
Teaching and Learning. Guidance to Universities on Strategy. Geneva,
Association of European Universities.
Confederation of European Union Rectors' Conferences. Working
group on open and distance learning (1998). Trends in Open and
Distance Education. A Review and Recommendations. Lisbon,
Universidade Aberta.
European Commission (1996). Teaching and Learning. Towards
the Learning Society. White Paper. Luxembourg, Office for Official
Publications of the European Communities.
Scienter (1998). Research perspectives on Open Distance
Learning. Collection of research papers from the four projects supported
by the EU Joint Action on Open Distance Learning. Bologna, Scienter.

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The Pedagogy of Virtual Mobility

Maya Eisner – Co-ordinator
Roberta Paulin – Assistant
EuroMedia Link

Many thanks to our SIG 1 «Virtual Team», that with great energy and constant co-
operation contributed to the accomplishment of this chapter.

A. The Pedagogy of Virtual Mobility
The idea behind HUMANITIES Project is to develop and
consolidate a structure of Virtual Mobility such as to enable, in the
medium term, the vast majority of European students to make use of the
opportunity to increase the quality of their education and, thus, to open
up better training and professional qualifications as well as employment
opportunities for the young citizens of Europe.

HUMANITIES is based on integration of ODL elements
(modules, technologies) in traditional classroom lessons, on a learning
model which, without abandoning the classic lesson of the single
teachers, adds value to the students activities and the collaborative
learning.
It is important to underline, first of all, that what has been developed in
HUMANITIES is a teaching/learning model, which could be perceived
at the same time as a product (intangible) or as a set of services.

Planning and organisation of a Distance Learning course, as well as
roles, characteristics and responsibilities of the key players in ODL
(teachers, tutors and learners) are quite different from the ones typical of
a traditional classroom environment, in which all the learners are located
in a well-defined space with a Teacher providing a face-to-face lesson.

Looking at the HUMANITIES Project experience, it has been
possible to point out and to analyse all the substantial changes, which
occurred.

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What is important to highlight is that often ODL Projects run with two
different speeds. On one hand, there are “the theories” of how ODL
“should be”, while, on the other hand, there are (and it is completely
understandable) specific problems belonging to each specific university,
to each specific attitude or resistance, and so on.
Therefore, besides theories, it is important to be able to “listen” to the
experience coming from each university and try to understand where the
real problems are (is it a matter of organisation, budget, culture,
technology, knowhow?).
Only then, a real “tailor made” ODL project is feasible.

As for HUMANITIES experience, a gradual and context-based
implementation is giving a more positive feedback than a pure ODL
scheme. This hybridisation can be defined as a methodological approach in
which part of the teaching is delivered in the traditional face-to-face
method and part through the ODL strategy by using channels such as
Internet and technology media such as satellite broadcast, video
production, web pages, audio and videoconference.
This possible solution should be better than a complete virtual class. In
fact, people need people. The human contact is necessary and interaction
makes people feeling part of the same common project.

The HUMANITIES model, by dealing with the innovation of the
learning approaches in traditional environments through ODL and new
technologies, is in some way assisting the traditional European
universities to face and fulfil the new changes and needs.

The overall goal of HUMANITIES (Historic Universities
Multimedia Network for Innovation in Education Systems) is to
contribute to give a European dimension to the learning process by
utilising the means already available, thanks to previous European
Programmes. The Project is aimed at experimenting an integrated
solution from an educational, social and economic point of view.

B. The Learning Context
Basically the HUMANITIES Project is an educational innovation
project, joining together a model for virtual mobility with a virtual
seminar model - understood as an educational setting in which the
learners exchange ideas, discuss controversial issues related to the chosen

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subject, and use each other as resources for gathering of information in
relation to assignments and exam essays.

In ODL, knowledge is no more poured into the heads of the
students based on the logic of the content, but often learners may ask
questions and receive comments on their assignments in the face-to-face
tutorials, which are an integrated part of this educational set up.

A different understanding of the learning process is expressed
within the new ODL context. On the one hand, transfer of knowledge is
accomplished by presenting the learner well-prepared learning materials
and even lectures that are able to encourage active participation. On the
other hand, the acquired information has to be integrated with the
already existing knowledge in the brain of the learner to fulfil the
learning process.

When learning is brought out of the classroom and the “built in”
possibilities of dialogue, the processes of conceptualisation, textualisation
and mediation become essential. The message has to pass through
encoding and decoding, both of which are heavily dependent on the
cultural environment in which they proceed. Even when decoding is
accomplished and information transformed into new knowledge by the
receiver, there is no guarantee that this knowledge is equivalent to the
knowledge of the sender. The dissemination of knowledge is in fact
dependent on the culture in which it is produced and reproduced during
decoding and reception.

In an Open and Distance Learning context, knowledge might be
transferred if the two following conditions are achieved:
• The receiver belongs to a culture/society in which the codes –
language, text-formats, genres and media-conventions – used during
encoding are shared and understood;
• The learning material or the educational setting is able to establish a
“space” of reflection and contemplation in which the Learner may
decode the information and negotiate its relevance in relation to
existing knowledge and world views.

The virtual seminar model is an effective vehicle to reach these
two conditions since dialogue and collaboration are adequate tools to
enhance the integration and negotiation of new information with existing

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knowledge through expression of meaning and points of view in
discussion with fellow learners.

Although the virtual seminar model, in principle, is an excellent
tool to promote trans-national knowledge transfer and dissemination of
information in a way that enhances a European dimension to the
national curricula, the educational set up of the operation has to be
carefully planned from a didactic perspective.
Collaboration with colleagues and learners from different European
universities involves a technical infrastructure, a learning support
structure and a planning horizon, which are quite different from the ones
needed in the home-university-based courses.

C. The “Pedagogical” Use of Technologies in HUMANITIES Project

As technologies are an integrated component of the
HUMANITIES ODL hybrid solution, more and more attention has been
given to them. Frequently, each of the media is considered as just a
medium for transmitting information. However, each medium has
characteristics that differentiate it from the other. Therefore teachers
using them should have a clear idea of which form they should transmit
the information in.

Multimedia support is not a neutral tool that can be used without
considerations in order to increase the efficiency of learning.
Technologies are something that changes curricula, giving new
competencies to people using them. Therefore, the creation of a synergy
between the technical side and the human and didactic one is of the
greatest importance.
Technology should not become a goal in itself and the education should
not be constructed around the media, because the role of technology in
the ODL educational set up is that of a learning facilitator. The real
challenge is not which technology works best but which models are best
suited to the individual learner and his/her learning needs.
That is the reason why the HUMANITIES Project aimed to experiment
with ways of introducing telematic technologies in classical European
university settings, in order to develop concepts of ODL as opposed to
simply delivering courses top-down.

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As far as the choice of the channels of interaction is concerned, it
is to consider which pedagogical strategy could be used for each channel.
Moreover, each channel should be introduced with presentations,
examples, exercises, because pedagogy is not independent from its
supporting tools.
Satellite transmission, video and audio-conference on one side, Internet,
e-mail, mailing lists on the other, lead to an increase in motivation of
students (as happened in HUMANITIES Project).

Through all these contacts with other Universities working at the
same field, students feel themselves part of a common project aiming at
a common goal.
Moreover, technologically mediated distance education gives the chance
to improve discussions among students. To succeed on a university level
with ODL, it could be fruitful to use the remote control as a tool to
open local forums and simultaneously use local forums to subvert the
power of the remote control. It is necessary that both the local and the
global setting change, without cancelling either, in order to gain both
global insight and local critical integrity.

In order to give an example of how HUMANITIES I and
HUMANITIES II were developed between the participating universities,
the following experience in the subject area of Literature will be
presented, even if in other parts of the Projects different solutions were
found and implemented.

In this particular case, the communication technologies were:
• satellite transmission
• video ISDN (high (384 KB) and low (128 KB) quality
• telephone (conference + one to one)
• Internet
• WWW-homepage:
http://www.dipoli.hut.fi/org/TechNet/org/humanities/
lite/index.html
• news groups/mailing lists:
http://www.dipoli.hut.fi/org/TechNet/org/humanities/lite/
dgroup.html
• Internet Relay Chat
• Fax
• Mail (for texts, evaluation reports, etc.)

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The main activity in the common project was five satellite sessions
with lectures and discussions.
For this, a combination was used of satellite transmission, video ISDN,
telephone, and email collected in the studio, Univisjon in Bergen. In the
studio, the various signals were combined and edited into one signal that
was up-linked to the satellite (Intelsat 707) to be received throughout
Europe. Some of the sessions were moderated from Bergen and had
gathered professors in Bergen, which allowed for very high, satellite
quality, image and sound. But as there was not the intention to centralise
the course delivering and bring everybody to Bergen, the Bergen studio
also functioned as a hub combining remote sites, using high quality video
ISDN (384 KB) or lower quality (128 KB), though the low quality can be
problematic for longer interactions.

For example, there was a session mediated by task force chairman
Daniel Apollon and with the cybertext professor Espen Aarseth in the
studio discussing with the hypertext professor George P. Landow and
professor Enric Bou at Brown University using high quality ISDN video.

Afterwards and during the session students from all over Europe
interacted with questions and comments using low quality ISDN,
telephone or email. - Another session with professor Siegfried Schmidt
was mediated from a remote site in Münster (Germany) by task force
member Barend van Heusden. This session included professor Jenaro
Talens at yet another remote site (Granada, Spain) mediated by task
force member Domingo Sanchez-Mesa. Both these remote sites used
video ISDN to transmit the signals to Bergen and up-linked to the
satellite from there.

The discussions and interactions among the students played a large
role in the HUMANITIES Project, though one should not confuse
telematically mediated discussions with local ones. These discussions
started during the satellite sessions.
They were beforehand structured into 3-4 topics, which the students
were asked to relate their questions to, in order not to get to a
fragmented discussion, as sometimes happened in HUMANITIES I.

This planning definitely improved discussions: preparation,
structuring, and mediation are definitely necessary, as discussions can
very easily become fragmented, formal, and stiff because of the

133

technology, the foreign languages, and the many distant listeners’
thought.

They had also organised two audio-conferences (using telephone
bridges) among the students. However, it proved to be difficult to get
always a good result from this technology. There was noise from the
many connected partners and it was a rather straining experience that
should not exceed one hour and should also be firmly mediated.
However, it is in other ways less stiff and formal than the video
discussions and it helps tremendously in creating a common forum
among the students. They hear each other (mainly mediated through
their local tutor) and each other's points of views, and it slowly develops
into an understanding of the different positions.

The last technology used for discussion was the Internet through
mailing lists and mirroring news groups. There were four news groups
and mailing lists for the literature project. These could be reached from a
web site with reading lists, schedule, technical information, help, and
with links to relevant material for the course provided by the lecturers
and local student groups.

At the time of the project in the autumn of 1996, Students in
comparative literature were still reluctant to use the Internet and enter
the discussions. A way to further discussions was to have some collective
work behind one’s contribution, to make that contributions to the
discussion lists reflect local discussions. The telephone conferences and
the satellite sessions often generated such collective questions and
statements, and helped create a feeling of community. However, it is also
important to mediate Internet discussions to secure that students'
comments do not just echo out in empty cyberspace, and to avoid
harassment of cultural differences.

To conclude on the discussions and the media used in the
HUMANITIES Literature Project, they clearly functioned at different
levels and each medium definitely had limits too.
The best result was made when we succeeded in combining the
discussion media to make them support each other. Thereby one
channel animates discussions in other channels that, on the other hand,
follow up on what is left out by the former. In general, the 'higher',
synchronous technologies helped to create a sense of a forum for
discussion through the fact that they let only one speaker speak at a time,

134

gives the speaker a somewhat prestigious platform and therefore create a
stronger sense of a unified forum with a unified discussion. The Internet
afterwards had plenty of space for the different threads in the
discussions combined with the still very important discussions in the
local classrooms.

D. The Teacher’s Role in ODL
Whether a teacher is teaching a live, interactive course, his/her role
is different in many ways from the traditional teacher in the classroom.
The distance requires the teacher to relate with students in a new and
different way and to become, to a degree, reliant on individuals other
than himself/herself for the delivery of services to students.
Student-centred distance learning modifies the roles and jobs of the
teacher. It is a cultural change, and resistance to it is a natural
phenomenon. The role of the teacher does not lose its significance:
however, he/she is no more an omniscient lecturer but a guide on the
path of the learning process.

The changes in teaching approach may not be as extreme. The
teacher necessitates all of the understandings, experience and skills of a
live classroom teacher and even more, since a virtual teacher should also
be prepared to take advantage of the potential of the technology and to
understand the technical and human implication of the new delivery.
He/she needs to rethink and adapt the learning material and his/her
learning style and methods to technologies. The teacher also needs to
understand the new components needed for a telecourse and how study
guide, textbook and telecourse lessons fit together. He/she needs to be
trained to develop other material, which may be needed for clarification
or enhancement of the pre-produced material.

It is essential for the teacher to use effective interaction and
feedback strategies in order to involve his/her students. The teacher
“can see” all the students even when they do not happen to be physically
in the same room. Classroom teachers rely on a number of visual and
unobtrusive cues from their students to enhance their delivery of
instructional content. In contrast, the distant teacher has few, if any,
visual cues. Those cues that do exist are filtered through technological
devices such as video monitors. It is difficult to carry on a stimulating

135

teacher-class discussion, when spontaneity is altered by technical
requirements and by distance.

Separation by distance also affects the general rapport of the class.
Living in different communities, geographical regions, or even states
deprives the teacher and students of a common community link.
This is the reason why the teacher in a distance learning setting has to
encourage critical thinking and informed participation on the part of all
learners, to use an on-site tutor in order to stimulate interaction (when
distant students are hesitant to ask questions or participate), to call on
individual students, to ensure that all participants have ample
opportunity to interact, to make detailed comments on written
assignments, referring to additional sources for supplementary
information.

They need to give feedback and support to students though
distance. Teleteachers manage their class so that the students at each site
are equally involved.

Another important aspect, which is typical of distance education, is
the teacher’s psychological attitude towards the distance course.
Teachers have to prepare themselves ahead of time to be psychologically
up and energetic.
They have to visualise themselves, seeing themselves as dynamic
presenters who are making contact with the audience and presenting the
material successfully. Their facial expressions, their gestures, even their
clothes, are powerful tools for persuasion and effective communication.
They moreover need to consider space conditions, which are important
in order to avoid “static video lecturers”.

The HUMANITIES teachers play a number of roles: they are
involved with the delivery of the face-to-face modules; they select the
tutor, whose task is to monitor the activities of the students, and
facilitate their assessment of results.

The active collaboration of the teacher with the on-site tutors, the
support staff, the administrators and, last but not least, the learners, is
very important. Teams and division of labour is often needed. Changes
must be made in the usual organisation of teaching activities. This should
be not easy and simple since several new skills (management, team work,
budgeting etc.), that may be strange for many academics, are needed.

136

This new orientation could be very rewarding both to young and
creative people who are interested in teaching and learning in the future
and even to the best and experienced teachers, who need professional
development and support in designing new courses.

E. The Tutor’s Role in ODL
The role of the tutor in Open and Distance Learning is beneficial
for the general balance of a distance course.
The tutor acts as a bridge between the students and the teacher. To be
effective, a tutor must understand the student’s needs and the teacher’s
expectations.

It is definitely necessary to integrate the technical aspects of the
course with the content. But tutors should not function as a filter
between these two aspects, since it is important to develop professional
and content-related perspectives on the technologies, in order to make it
work sufficiently and develop way to apply technology to a professional
academic setting.
Instead they should function as animators for the students, pushing them
into interacting with each other and the other Thematic Study Groups all
over Europe.

The role of the tutor could be to facilitate the discussion (going on
the Internet and the other various media, and over great cultural and
geographic distances) acting as mediator (summoning up, being the first
to raise questions, etc.), and taking care that discussion do not get out of
hand (quarrelling over linguistic and cultural differences, etc.)

The tutor, who can be an advanced student, interested in the
content and the technological aspect of the course, should be an expert
in the subject that learners are studying. He/she needs to know how to
help learners in gaining their sense of the subject. He/she also needs to
know about the kinds of difficulties learners may have, and the kind of
approach learners might find helpful from tutors, assisting with training
and other activities in the classroom as necessary.

In fact, one of the most important tasks of the tutor is to make the
learner still feeling part of a “traditional” class and not being in an

137

individual environment, communicating with the others only through
telematics.

Often face-to-face tutorials, in which the students may ask
questions and receive comments on their assignments, are an integrated
part of the Distance Learning educational set up.

Tutors are usually young teachers or advanced students, who wish
to participate. The tutor also provides counselling services to the distant
learners; he/she is the manager of classroom activities at the far distant
site, the first resource when the students have academic difficulties, or
even personal difficulties that affect their studies.

The role of the tutor should be concerned more with pedagogical
issues, such as methodologies and learners’ support, than with technical
problems, which are pertaining to the facilitator and to the Resource &
Study Centre.

F. The Learner’s Role in ODL
In this new methodological approach, the primary role of the
student is “to learn”, or, better to say, “to learn how to learn”.

From being teacher centred the learning process becomes a learner
oriented one in ODL. In this environment, new kind of learning skills
are required.

The new role of the learner is a daunting task, requiring
motivation, planning and an ability to analyse and apply the instructional
content being taught. The level of responsibility changes, the learner is
more aware and responsible of his/her own choices. She/He is now
engaged in the whole learning process, self-conscious, ready to negotiate
the concepts and ideas presented in the learning material, and to reflect
and test the new knowledge – alone or interacting with others in work
group sessions.

One of the precious tools the learner has to interact in the ODL
context is dialogue. Also in the traditional teaching environment dialogue
exists and is an important resource for interaction, but in the new ODL
situation the objective and the dimension of dialogue change. The

138

possibilities for dialogue between learner and tutor/teacher and/or
between learners themselves turn ‘closed’ learning situations based on
stored material into ‘open’ settings in which the learner in collaboration
with a tutor/teacher or fellows learners may explore dimensions not
already embedded in the learning material.

With a distant teacher authority, learning is, in some way, less
idiosyncratic and authoritative, and students can more easily form critical
and independent approaches towards the lectures. In the local classroom,
learners can react more freely to the lecture and discuss it afterwards
with the local teacher/tutor.
With the implementation of both live discussion and written
contribution (via both Internet’s news groups and personal E-mail) the
discussion has a variety of channels adjusted to different needs and
passions.

The ODL system does not develop independent learners
automatically. However, these skills can be acquired and students can
become independent learners who will succeed in lifelong learning, if a
learning environment and a strong student support have been carefully
designed.

G. The Organisation of Universities in ODL
Student centred (distance) learning modifies the role and jobs of
teachers and students. On the one hand, they have to integrate their
methodological and learning abilities with new ODL oriented skills. On
the other, as ODL is supported by new technological teaching tools, they
should also be familiar with the advantages and disadvantages of each
tool, as well as with the language in which each tool transmits
information and with the way of working each tool has.

These modifications highlight the need for a reform in universities
organisation. In order to train and facilitate both teachers and learners,
giving them in this way a pedagogical and technological support, the
presence of a Resource & Study Centre could be of the greatest usefulness.
It could be realised inside and outside the university, or shared in a
networking set up. Then there would be a team of experts who are
responsible for organising the services already available and planning

139

what would be needed. A Resource & Study Centre should provide
pedagogical and technical support, facilities and an organisational help.

G. 1. Pedagogical support and services
What is important to remember is that there are many factors,
which could hinder or delay the strategic development of the use of
technology. Part of these relates to the teacher him/herself, part to the
general conditions and climate at the university, for which the university
leaders have to take care. For instance, it will be very hard to motivate
teachers to involve themselves in the implementation of new
technologies if there is no reward for such activities in career
perspectives or/and salary structures. At present, the opposite is not
rarely the case.

Other factors which could be mentioned are:
- motivation of teachers;
- available competence;
- experience;
- lack of pedagogical and didactic models;
- the professional roles and expectations of teachers.

So what ever is the concept of the Resource and Study Centre
there should be a strong emphasis on the in-service training of teachers
(and students).

G. 2. Motivation and orientation
Resource & Study Centres should have the task of supporting
university in motivating the staff to move towards the ODL through:
- discussion between teachers who have already applied distance
education and those who would like to start distance education. These
meetings should not only show the best cases, but also make all the
participants to talk about problems related to their ODL activities and
possible new orientation;
- inviting experts to speak about various aspects of ODL - of course,
these events can be kept face-to-face or at distance;
- the organisation of study visits to other universities.

140

G. 3. Communication and information technology &
pedagogical aspects – courses
A Resource & Study Centre should offer a teacher a set of in-
service courses in which the modern pedagogy is applied.

In the course(s), teachers should have the opportunity to analyse
their own teaching and the background thoughts. In planning these
courses, the Centre should consider:
- teachers own expertise and experience;
- the importance of a teamwork supporting teachers;
- teacher’s own developmental project (for example a course or seminar
that he/she wants to deliver through distance).

The Centre should also provide:
a) courses on how to use different communication and
information technologies. These courses could be very practical and the
aim should be to teach the teacher to use different technologies, without
continuous support.
b) courses on how to write and design the digital study material.

As a further support, the Resource & Study Centre could have an
helpdesk for teachers working with their courses, materials or
technology.

I. G. 4. Technical Support and Facilities
The Resource & Study Centre should also provide a kind of
technical co-ordination. Besides the support of the tutor, which is related
to pedagogical issues, teachers and learners also need a constantly
available technological support, supplied by the facilitator.

The support staff or, better to say, the facilitators are the silent
heroes of the Distance Education enterprise and ensure that the myriad
details required for program success are dealt with effectively. They are
able to face the technological aspects of the Project, troubleshooting if
the classroom has a technical fault.

141

Facilitators are directly responsible for certain tasks involved with
the daily operation of the two-way system. They are moreover
responsible for:
- monitoring students’ behaviour in remote sites;
- supervising distribution of texts and other proprietary materials;
- checking the classroom periodically during the school day for technical
problems;
- managing the classroom when unusual situations outside the regular
interactive class occur.

The Resource & Study Centre should also give advice on the
standardisation of hardware and software, on different technologies and
their use related with different contexts and necessities, or on Quality-
Price ratio, supporting universities in choosing each tool, knowing its
economic value and weighting its use as a medium of transmission.

G. 5. Organisational support

At the level of a general co-ordination, the Centre should take care
of the development of prior working outlines, decided upon early
enough so that all the members can follow the scheme in a unified way.
The working outline could be sent to all the tutors via E-mail. Likewise,
it could be useful to present an outline where the procedure to be
followed is established, when Distance Communication Media such as
Audio and Video conferencing, are used. This outline should include, for
example:
- the name of the co-ordinator of the activity at an international level,
who will be in charge at all times and is the one who will call on each of
the participants following a previously drawn up outline;
- the order of participation (including the name of participants, university
and country they represent);
- maximum speaking time;
- the topics to be dealt with by each member;
- a final time for questions and general conclusions.

H. Conclusions on ODL Pedagogy
Undoubtedly the exponential development of information
technologies is leading universities to profound transformation in their
role of teaching provider.

142

The experience arising from HUMANITIES Universities has
shown how the process of introducing technologies in a traditional
learning context leads to important changes in the role of teachers and
learners as well as in the university organisation.

Among the potential changes identified one of the most
challenging is the modification of the educational mission with the
transition from the traditional “instruction” to the provision of methods
for personal learning and individual growth. Moreover the increasing
role of technology in communication process and in knowledge
acquisition offers to learners and teachers new opportunities for their
careers not only as information technologies users but also as partner in
their future development and choice.

The natural resistance of the traditional universities towards ODL
technologies needs to be overcome by a combination of encouragement,
appropriate training, and development of successful models to be
adopted.

In this innovative process teachers play a very important role
providing to their students a service of multidimensional character. In
the meanwhile their role is becoming more difficult and multi-faceted
because it incorporates cultural, educational and technological
dimensions.
Teaching is not following any more a subject disciplinary logic, although
many teachers are not yet prepared to cope with this greatly extended
role. It is clear that they should benefit from high quality training courses
and from the organisational and financial faculty supports.

The learner needs to be able to process complex information, to
solve problems, to make decisions related to the changing situations.
However, since the ODL environment could appear unstructured,
learners will need intensive help for knowledge management. They
should be prepared for independent learning which will in any case
demand a lot of personal effort.
Learners are learning how to draw knowledge from new and varied
sources and to exchange this knowledge with others. In order to avoid
risk of isolation ODL should offer opportunities for collaborative
learning and make available, for the learners, human or remote tutors to
interact with.

143

HUMANITIES Universities have accepted the challenge of
experimenting a new way of creating and disseminating knowledge, this
new experience had a profound impact on their way of teaching and
learning.

144

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