1. vmcolab.eu
vmcolab.eu
SUCCESS FACTORS FOR
VIRTUAL MOBILITY EXCHANGE ON
“OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES”
Airina Volungevičienė, Estela Daukšienė,
Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania,
Elena Caldirola, University of Pavia, Italy,
Ignacio J. Blanco, University of Granada, Spain

2. vmcolab.eu
Virtual mobility
“set of information and communications
technology supported activities,
organized at institutional level, that
realize or facilitate international,
collaborative experiences in a context of
teaching and/or learning”
European Commission Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL
establishing "ERASMUS FOR ALL". The Union Programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sport (2011). Brussels.
Accessed on April 10, 2013 at http://ec.europa.eu/education/erasmus-for-all/doc/legal_en.pdf

3. vmcolab.eu
Virtual mobility: involved actors
• Higher education institutions (2+)
• Teachers in student VM (2+, organizing VM
academic exchange)
• Students in VM (student groups in 2+
countries)
• Teachers in VM (professional development in
2+ institutions (research, academic teaching,
socio-cultural exchange))

4. vmcolab.eu
Virtual mobility (not to replace, but to enrich and
enhance physical student mobility)

5. vmcolab.eu
RQ
• virtual mobility has become a way for
international and intercultural collaboration
of institutions, teachers and students,
when the development of key
competences and transversal skills are at
focus
• are the institutions aware of the
successful ways of virtual mobility
implementation?

6. vmcolab.eu
The aim of this research is to identify
success factors for
virtual mobility implementation

7. vmcolab.eu
VMCOLAB.EU

8. vmcolab.eu
• 8 international teachers and 2 experts from 6 European
countries (4 universities and 1 international association)
• Curriculum design for international student virtual mobility
exchange - 3 ECTS course “Open Educational Resources” on
the basis of the follow competences:
– Having successfully completed the course, the participants will
be able to:
– define OER, list their categories and compare types and models
of OER,
– characterize the quality and explain the purpose of use of
selected OER,
– analyse the issues of OER development and use in education,
– design use or reuse of OER and construct next steps in OER
development.
VM exchange on
“Open Educational Resources”

9. vmcolab.eu
VM exchange on
“Open Educational Resources”
• Coordinator - Vytautas Magnus University,
Lithuania – 3 teachers
• Consortium
– University of Granada, Spain – 3 teachers
– EFQUEL, Belgium - 2 consultants
– Outside consortium institutions involved
– University of Pavia, Italy – 1 teacher
– University of Jyvaskyla, Finland – 1 teacher

10. vmcolab.eu
VM participants - 18
• Consortium
– University of Granada, Spain - 3
– University of Porto, Portugal - 3
– Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania (6)
• Invited from outside consortium
– University of Pavia, Italy - 3
– University of Florence, Italy - 2
– Trento University, Italy (representative of China) -
1

11. vmcolab.eu
Pilot characteristics in brief
• Topic focused/short time (6 weeks)
• Trusted network
• International
• Mixed target groups
• Tools used for high engagement level
• Pedagogy - high level of interaction/action
• Learner centered
• No final exam, certification based on
competences acquired

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Session records

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Outcomes
• 3 ECTS for free credits (to use in consortium
University, where and if recognized)
• http://www.teacamp.eu/moodle2 - open, CC
license
• Curriculum – as OER under creative commons
license
• Curriculum based on learning outcomes
• Experience and lessons learnt
• Certificates (for participants and teachers)
• Feedback
• Testimonies (videos @ virtual4me.org )

15. vmcolab.eu

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Feedback and lessons learnt - 1
• Factors that had influence on the pilot
– there was interest provided by 10 teachers,
however not all of them were really active
during 5-week course
– learners felt teachers‘ lack of time/attention
dedicated for the course, as well as feedback
to their group work results
• This was one of the most critical remark
from the learners

17. vmcolab.eu
Lesson 1
• Discuss clear roles of participating
teachers and reach either oral or
written agreement on these roles
• If experts are invited, discuss their role
well in advance, do not rely last minute
agreement or joining in, clarify their
roles and present clear information on
these roles to participants

18. vmcolab.eu
Feedback and lessons learnt - 2
• The duration of the pilot was rather
short (intense) and the engaged
learners wanted more topics and more
practical tasks
• Time was also indicated as one of the
challenges and there were less active
participants in the last task than in the
first one

19. vmcolab.eu
Lesson 2
• if the course is of longer duration
– there might be more dropouts/passive
students at the end
– but also more experience and time for getting
participants to know each other, improve
intercultural competence, and strengthen their
connections is necessary

20. vmcolab.eu
Feedback and lessons learnt - 3
• International learner groups were
planned to be composed of 5 students
• However, immediate solutions were
found during the very first online
synchronous meeting, which required
changes in group composition
• as 2 students did not show up, one
group composition was different,
having only 3 members in the group

21. vmcolab.eu
Lesson 3
• Recommendation can be drawn not to
compose smaller groups than having 4-
5 members in the group, in order to
maintain internationalization and
intercultural communication
characteristics

22. vmcolab.eu
Success factors (summarized)
• There was a strong leadership and coordination that enabled the
organization and successful finalization of the pilot (learners’ PoV)
• Motivation of the participants: there were real challenges for student
groups which had some passive students (lurkers), however groups
managed to focus on the task, were highly motivated and dedicated
(organizers’ PoV)
• Thorough preparation, coordination and planning of the pilot, coherent
information for the participants was prepared and PoV)
• Attractive topic was selected as most learners were interested in
learning about OER (learners’ PoV)
• Prior experience and dedicated collaborators who communicated,
participated and supported the pilot from the very beginning till the end,
our consortium partners and associated partners (organizers’ PoV)

23. vmcolab.eu
Recommendations for VM
• plan the VM pilot coherently discussing curriculum designing
and VM organization with peer institutions and teachers,
• clarify all the roles of all participants in advance
• prepare and implement technical testing sessions
• provide as much information for the learners, as possible
• agree on the best suitable time for all participating countries for
synchronous meetings
• assess the time scale and scope for the pilot
• try to select really motivated participants
• Ensure a local tutor or coordinator
• organize engaging group activities that address the topic from
different national perspectives
• provide time and activities to get to know each other and the
country
• Communicate and provide feedback as much as possible for
your online international groups and individuals!

24. Lifelong Learning Programme
Erasmus Multilateral Projects
UbiCamp: Integrated Solution to Virtual Mobility Barriers
Project ID: 526843-LLP-1-2012-ES-ERASMUS-ESMO

25. o International Relationship Offices (IRO) need:
Specific call, clearly differentiated from current Erasmus call
o The recognition of a set of ECTS credits requires:
The official curriculum from any HEI can accept the recognition
of that, through other equivalent subjects
o The Institutions must validate the adequacy of
contents to be recognized in these subjects

26. vmcolab.eu
Subjects offered in UbiCamp pilot
Academic
year
2014/15
Kaunas university of technology
(LT)
Project Management
Management
University of Southampton (UK)
Web Science: How the web is changing the world
Learning in a connected world
Universidad Autonoma de Madrid
(ES)
Introduction to Programming in C and Linux Operating System
Introduction to Videogames programming
Multimedia Educations Resources
University of Oviedo (ES)
Corporate Social Responsibility
Introduction to Economics
Innovation and Project in primary education
Software Architecture
Vytautas Magnus University (LT)
Digital graphics programming
Information Technologies in Education
Open Educational Resources
Collaborative learning
Yasar University (TK)
EU Education Programs and Project Management
EU-Turkey Relations
Pegaso Università Telematica (IT) lnternational Business Communication

27. vmcolab.eu

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Trusted networks
If you are a member of a trusted network:
-you benefit from cases and practices
-you share your way – and get early feedback
-you validate your results and get suggestions for improvements
-- you live among ideas, people and feel a social human being – we need that – and
ICT create these opportunites

29. vmcolab.eu
From pilots – to formal VM
exchange

30. vmcolab.eu
Estela, Airina, Ignacio, Elena

31. vmcolab.eu
vmcolab.eu
SUCCESS FACTORS FOR
VIRTUAL MOBILITY EXCHANGE ON
“OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES”
Airina Volungevičienė, Estela Daukšienė,
Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania,
Elena Caldirola, University of Pavia, Italy,
Ignacio J. Blanco, University of Granada, Spain