evaluation

Partners from 22 different countries got together in Utrecht this week to launch the new EUScreenXL project. Over the past 4 years, its predecessor, the EUscreen project has put more than 40,000 televisual items online in an act to make historical audiovisual content widely accessible.  EUscreenXL, will invest even more in the online accessibility of European Television Heritage.EUscreenXL will extend the core collection with another 20,000 high quality TV items and will make more than 1,000,000 metadata sets of the consortium's 22 content partners' collections searchable and accessible on Europeana. ATiT is a partner in this new project where staff will be involved in the evaluation of the revised portal.

The MEDEA Awards 2012: 212 entries from 31 countries, and 95 judges from 29 countries… this is a nice snapshot of the media and learning community. Judges are ploughing through the entries. Looking at games and apps, but also at traditional media such as DVDs or online videos. Are there trends already to be seen? Hard to say when we have not been able to see all entries yet, but in one way it seems that there is somewhat less pure linear content, but that process and context is coming more and more to the front stage. Quality is certainly at least on a par with what we have seen last year, and remarkable is the creative power of many end users who generate their own media materials. One more week of judging to go, and then nominations will be announced. The Awards will be handed out during the Media and Learning Conference at the Ministry of Education in Brussels on 14th of November.

The countdown to the deadline for the MEDEA Awards, the 17th September 2012, has begun! As ATiT is managing the MEDEA Secretariat, we have the scoop on some excellent examples of media-based teaching and learning and are keen to see even more. Help us find the best in Europe and further afield by inviting people in your network to submit their educational media to the MEDEA Awards via the website before 17 September.

There is an award for user-generated educational media and one for professionally produced educational media, as well as special prizes for entries encouraging active ageing and intergenerational learning, or entries resulting from European collaboration. Entry to this competition is free, all finalists will be invited to take part in the awards ceremony taking place during the Media & Learning Conference 2012, where the final winners will be announced.

Mathy Vanbuel from ATiT led two capacity development workshops in Jordan on 18-19 May for the Jordanian Higher Council for Science and Technology. The workshops were on Guidelines on Proposal Evaluation, Selection Procedures of FP7 projects and Individual Evaluation of FP7 proposals.

These workshops were organised in the context of the Program for Capacity Development for the Jordan Research Community funded by SRSF, the Scientific Research Support Fund at the Ministry of Higher Education.

On 12 October 2011, ATiT attended the eCulture Forum 2011 in Yverdon-les-Bains, Switzerland, where the RURALeNTER project, in which we are partner which has been building capacity through ICT in rural areas for 2 years now,  received much attention and was included in the programme with a presentation called "Socio-digital inclusion in Europe". Project partners of "RUeNTER", presented their activities such as the research of citizens' ICT needs in rural areas in Austria, Greece, Romania, Spain and Switzerland and the blended learning trainings on the topic of public services and ICT services (with localised content), and the online portal where the training resources are freely accessible to those interested.

The RUeNTER project is funded by the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning Programme and a final partner meeting was also held on 13 October in the modern building of the School of Business and Engineering (HEIG-VD, St Roche) in Yverdon-les-Bains. As ATiT is the leader of the Quality Assurance and Evaluation workpackage, we presented the progress in our evaluation work, which followed a methodology including a peer review process of the project’s deliverables and the deployment of several online questionnaires to receive feedback from different RUeNTER actors throughout the project.

You can visit the project website and the training portal. If you would like to receive the project's final online newsletter, please send us an e-mail with your details.

ATiT staff recently met in Spain with partners of RURALeNTER, a project funded by the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning Programme. "RUeNTER", as it is also known, is analysing the needs regarding public services and ICT services of citizens of four rural areas in Austria, Greece, Romania and Spain. The identified user needs will be addressed through training workshops taking place in the first half of 2011 and a supporting online portal with training support materials and social network functionalities.

During this second partner meeting, which took place on the sunny and beautiful premises of the University of Barcelona Spain, all partners discussed their progress and planning for the next stage of the project. ATiT is the leader of the Quality Assurance and Evaluation workpackage and we presented our evaluation methodology during this meeting which includes a peer review process of the project’s deliverables and the deployment of several online questionnaires to receive feedback from different RUeNTER actors throughout the project.

To find out more about the project, visit the project website. If you would like to receive the project's six-monthly online newsletter, please send us an e-mail with your details.

RURALeNTER is an initiative which will review the types of ICT services available in rural communities in Greece, Austria, Romania and Spain with a view to finding out just how much rural citizens know about the value such services can have.

It will also develop and deliver a generic training curriculum in these countries focusing on how to prepare rural adults to use and exploit ICT services, by means of blended learning models.

This initiative is partially supported under the Lifelong Learning Programme and will create a set of policy recommendations to policy makers and regional authorities about the ways in which rural citizens can take advantage of ICT services.  ATiT staff are involved in the evauation of this initiative. Find out more from the RURALeNTER website.

Mathy Vanbuel described his experience in the provision of educational services to remote schools in Europe in a keynote presentation given on 15th May during an International Conference held in Athens. This conference called "Bridging the Digital Divide in Rural Communities; Practical Solutions and Policies'' brought together project leaders of several pioneering projects many of which are using the latest developments in satellite technology to provide solutions for remote and rural school communities in Europe and elsewhere. Organised in the Ellinogermaniki School in Pallini, this event brought together policy makers, academics and field practitioners from Europe and beyond who share an interest in promoting the use of ICT by rural citizens of all ages. See the Conference web site for more information.