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Finnish Virtual UniversityTHE CASE OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE
Presentation to the delegation from the Plekhanov RussianAcademy of Economics
University of Tampere 19th Dec 2001
Ms. Pirjo Rauhala, CoordinatorVirtual University Project at the Unversity of Tampere
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Finnish Virtual University
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Growing Interest in ICT in Higher Education
•internationally
•nationally
•at the local universities
•at schools, polytechnics, businesses…
•What’s new?LEARNING, LEARNER SUPPORT, SOFTWARE
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National Project (1)
•virtual campus of all universities in Finland
•21 universities working together as a network
•the aim is to provide services for university students,teachers, researchers and other staff
•included in the Information Strategy of the Ministry ofEducation for the years 2000-2004
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National Project (2): GOALS
•new opportunities for study through the Net
•digital learning materials
•access to digital learning environments
•new working methods for teachers and researchers
•flexible learning opportunities
•access to courses organized online in any Finnishuniversity
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National Project (3): LIMITATIONS
•Finnish Virtual University does not grant degrees
•the degrees are granted from the students´ ownuniversities
•to be able to study at the FVU you have to be astudent in one of the Finnish universities
•funded by The Ministry until the end of 2003, 9 millioneuro per year
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National Project (4): HISTORY
•1998 Minister of Education Olli-Pekka Heinonen,supported the idea
•1998 Rector Paavo Uronen, set up a group at theHelsinki University of Technology, to carry outenquiry on an online university
•the ideas were included in The Strategy
•the project started in 2001, ready by the end of 2004
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The Participants (1): ORGANIZATIONS
•universities
•disciplinary or interdisciplinary networks
•projects or networks producing supporting services,e.g. learner support and student counselling,enhancing the use of learning technology
•regional projects
•businesses
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The Participants (2): PEOPLE
•teachers learning to use ICT and maintaining thehigh-quality in higher education
•people working in supporting tasks
•students getting ready to or already experiencing theresults of these efforts
•people trying to envision the effects of the virtualeducation e.g. to student administration
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The Case of the University of Tampere
•virtual university project at the University of Tamperestarted also in January 2001
•with ICT courses for teachers
•by allocating funds to projects which will producevirtual courses
•an increasing interest in research in e-learning, e.g.learning environments or platforms
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Departments already awake
•online or partly online courses have been put up
•courses are mainly in Finnish
•Institute for Extension Studies, a forerunner indistance learning
•political science and international relations,audiovisual mediaculture, nursing science, socialpolicy, sociology, information studies etc.
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Using WebCT
•not the software teachers have to use, but the one forwhich there are supporting services
•there are also few Finnish software on the market
•universities seem to be interested in developing ownsoftware into online learning
•an example from UTA: research project of TAOLab,Collaborating in the Web for Group Learning,http://www.cs.uta.fi/research/hci/research.html
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Using The Web
•teachers using web pages to deliver material or togive information about the courses
•web based services for students: virtual courseenrolment service and the examination results on theWeb
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Some Figures and Notes
•over 300 teachers will be taking courses in learningtechnology in 2001
•it seems to be difficult for the teachers to arrangetime to attend courses
•over 50 WebCT courses, and there are also courseswhich have been put up with other web tools (mailinglists, intranet)
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An Example
•Using Web Resources For Teaching and Research /John Hopkinshttp://www.uta.fi/FAST/PP3D/WEBTEACH/Foundations in Area Studies for Translators
•a workshop put up with basic software that areavailable free of charge
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Contact Information
Ms Pirjo Rauhala
Coordinator
Virtual University Project
Department of Academic and International Affairs
FIN-33014 UNIVERSITY OF TAMPERE
pirjo.rauhala@uta.fi
URL’s in this presentation cited Dec 18th 2001. The URL of this presentation ishttp://www.uta.fi/virtuaaliyliopisto/aineistot_1/virtual_university_case_tampere_plekhanov.pps