The pandemic COVID-19 significantly influenced education all around the world. It is also the case of tertiary education. The established practices in education were challenged and were altered in many ways. The bans on international travel and internal pandemic restriction significantly impacted the international mobility of students and internationalization in general. Under such circumstances, COVID-19, however, opened the “opportunity window” for innovations (novelties) in higher education practices. Nevertheless, every novelty takes some time to become established practice, if it happens at all. To become a part of “business as usual” the innovations necessitate not only appropriate technologies but also social acceptance. The last means not to create new barriers. This project uses such “opportunity window”. Its main object is through setting up a forum of cooperating universities to use the synergy of such network to reflect the transition towards new forms of on-line learning among university staff and students. The project also aims at using such forum to support the inclusiveness students and university staff to cope with the transition to on-line education and to be ready for the future situation necessitating intensive use of on-line educational and on-line supportive activities. Such a goal also involves the issue of virtual mobility of students and staff within international space. It means the project finally aims at testing various elements of virtual mobility within the real international joint programme of participating universities. The cooperation of the universities operating within different national contexts is intended to make such transition easier. It will support students and staff from 9 universities in Central and Eastern Europe (incl. countries outside EU but with significant contribution to the task of the project due to their specificity) focusing on life sciences and related disciplines (incl. social sciences) to use on-line education and virtual mobility in the situation when it is appropriate and needed (when on-campus activities must be substituted by on-line activities). The project utilizes desktop research of higher education reactions to the pandemic in term of their education. Based on such research it will prepare a set of various scenarios implemented in different national contexts. These scenarios will be a sort of menu indicating what measures and activities might be implemented by a university under various contexts caused by restrictions towards pandemic (but it might happen also when facing other far-reaching natural disasters disabling physical face-to-face education). Similarly to the scenarios showing the ways how the universities should act under various circumstances disabling their normal activities (a sort of crisis management scenarios), the manual of the best practices of the transition towards on-line education during COVID-19 pandemic in tertiary education sector will be. Based on the menu of scenarios and compendium of best practices the universities will elaborate learning and training materials for the staff and students facilitating their involvement in on-line education. All these activities (scenarios, compendium and training) will result into preparing the virtual mobility tools (using virtual mobility) to be utilized inside participating universities but also outside because the network of the universities involved in this project manages joint degree programme (The DanubeAgriFood /DAFM/ master programme is embedded in the CASEE /Central and South Eastern European/ network of life science universities). This study programme will be a sort of laboratory to test virtual mobility and training practices. As such it will echo a concept of living labs coined by EU. Such result will be achieved through desktop research and inventory research (scenarios, manual); examples of good (and bad) practices (scenarios, manual); developing learning and training materials observing methodological principles of on-line materials, training the staff and students towards better acceptance of on-line education without compromising the requirements towards the knowledge, skills and competencies in higher education, and testing the new practices of on-line education through virtual mobility implemented in virtual reality, including the documentation of their impacts for staff and students. The project will generate the materials which might be used whenever the universities are faced by similar restrictions as it is in the case of COVID-19 pandemics. As such they do not only reflect the experience but will provide certain guidelines also in the future, especially in term of life sciences with a traditionally large focus on presence type of education.
The project’s main objective was to reflect and learn from the transition towards new forms of online education among university staff and students by developing a manual of best practices and reactions to the pandemic in tertiary education. We wanted to use the synergy of the university network and develop supportive measures for the acceptance of innovative online forms of education among students and staff, who both were considered the main target groups. The project aimed to cope with the transition to online education in general, to better understand the concept of virtual mobility in particular and to support the inclusiveness of the students and university staff. The goal was to help the target groups to be ready for the future situation necessitating intensive use of online educational and online supportive activities. A vital point of such project objectives involved the issue of virtual mobility of students and staff within international space since mobility, as was known before the outbreak of the pandemic, was ruined. The cooperation of the universities operating within different national contexts intended to make such a transition easier, thanks to the possibility of sharing the experience.
Our consortium decided to apply for the project to address the current needs of online education and the restrictions aligned with it. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly influenced education all around the world. It has also been the case in tertiary education. The established practices in education were challenged and altered in many ways. The bans on international travel and internal pandemic restrictions significantly influenced the international mobility of students and internationalization in general. Under such circumstances, COVID-19, however, opened the “opportunity window” for innovations in higher education practices. Nevertheless, every novelty takes some time to become established practice, if it happens at all.