Implementing Sustainable E-Learning at Berlin’s Universities
E-Learning has its tradition at Berlin’s universities. Led by the Technical University’s Prof. Wilfried Hendricks and Dr. Nicolas Apostolopoulos from the Free University, some of the latest projects will be presented in a workshop. The OEB news team has asked the experts what participants can expect from the full-day event.
OEB News: Which projects are in the focus of this year’s workshop?
Dr. Nicolas Apostolopoulos & Prof. Wilfried Hendricks: The overall topic of the workshop is the area-wide and sustainable implementation of e-learning at universities. This will be presented and discussed on the basis of the experiences of five Berlin schools that differ not only in size and academic orientation, but also in the way they implement e-learning and in the main goals of the process. Noteworthy is that each of these universities has been rewarded for its efforts with a grant from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), which is dedicated to the institutional embedding of e-learning in lectures as well as in the organisation as a whole.
The universities and their e-learning projects presented are:
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The Charité Hospital’s University Medical Department: ELWIS-MED (E-Learning in the teaching of medical science)
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The University of Applied Sciences for Technology and Economics: PALOMITA (IT-based Process Integration in Teaching, Organisation and Marketing )
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The Free University: FUeL (FU e-Learning)
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The Humboldt University: e-KoKon (E-competence in Context)
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The Technical University: Nemesis (New Media Support and Infrastructure)
In the workshop, each university or project will make two presentations. The first will introduce the university’s general e-learning strategy and the implementation plan for this strategy. The second presentation is dedicated to one outstanding e-learning effort by the university’s faculty.
OEB NEWS: What’s new this year?
A & H: The workshop is mainly focused on the organisational aspects of the implementation of e-learning in the various institutions. Good practice examples from work by teachers will illustrate the success of the e-learning strategy in each university.
In a similar workshop last year, we presented the work done before the start of the projects FUeL (Free University) and Nemesis (Technical University) and the project plans. Now we are able to show first results of both the technical and the organisational aspects as well as being able to provide a number of examples from teaching. Another innovation in comparison to last year is that we included three more institutions. While the Humboldt University – like the Free University and the Technical University - is a large institution, the Charité Hospital’s University Medical Department and the University for Applied Sciences are much smaller and specialise in a few academic topics. The smaller institutions not only have different preconditions; they also have different goals and different strategies for the implementation of e-learning.
OEB News: Who should attend the workshop and what can participants expect?
A & H: The target audience of the workshop is people involved in the development and implementation of an e-learning strategy for a university. This includes presidents and provosts of universities, deans, department heads, as well as managers and staff of e-learning projects. Teachers who have an interest in institutional aspects of the implementation of e-learning are also welcomed.
The audience will learn from the leaders of institutional e-learning projects at Berlin’s universities how they plan and implement sustainable e-learning structures in a traditional university environment. Besides the presentations of the project leaders and the teachers, an appreciable amount of time is being reserved for discussion. Thus participants will have the opportunity to talk about the situation at their institutions and to exchange ideas with the speakers and other participants.
About the workshop leaders:
Prof. Wilfried Hendricks
Dr. Nicolas Apostolopoulos
IBI, Technische Universität Berlin www.ibi.tu-berlin.de
CeDiS, Freie Universität Berlin http://www.cedis.fu-berlin.de/plain.php?cont=37
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