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Swiss (Inter-)National Learning Object Repository
Date: March 20, 2008
Time: 10:00 a.m. - 11:15 a.m. EST
Target Audience: Higher Education Faculty/Staff, Technology Specialists
How to Participate:
- Interactive Videoconference Site: Must be a MAGPI member and have H.323 videoconference capabilities Registration is required and space is limited.
- Watch the webstream! See instructions on the right. Registration is not required for this option
Description:
This presentation was first made at the European University Information Systems, (EUNIS) Conference in Grenoble, France in July 2007. The EC has experienced social and political pressures that have led to advanced uses of the network for online learning between universities in all the member nations. This presentation will be most beneficial to higher educational institutions in the United States with collaborative or inter-campus E-Learning programs.
Swiss (Inter) National Learning Object Repository
During the years 2000-2007 the Swiss national program, “Swiss Virtual Campus,” promoted learning over the Internet with Swiss institutions of higher education. In the initial phase from 2000-2003, significant funding was provided to establish and promote the development of expertise in the use of online learning units with the goals of using faculty and students from multiple universities, compatibilities with the European Credit Transfer System, being multi-lingual where appropriate, and supporting aspects leading towards continuing education.The national research and education network, SWITCH, was empowered with the responsibility to evaluate both proprietary and open source content management programs which lead to phase 2 of the project. It was deemed necessary to provide mechanisms whereby the online material was housed centrally and made accessible to higher education across Switzerland, older courses were updated, and new ones added. It was also important to establish competence centers to ensure technically correct and proper use of the courseware
In the final stages of this program, SWITCH has established prototypes whereby content is stored locally, but the metadata harvesting and distributed search provide a mechanism to retrieve learning objects as if they were stored in a centralized system.
About Dr. Martin Sutter
Martin Sutter joined SWITCH, the Swiss Education and Research Network, in December 2002 as head of the business unit NetServices. The strategic goals of this business unit are the development and provisioning of innovative applications and services for the support of cooperative work in education and research.
Prior to joining SWITCH Dr. Sutter was professor of computer science during ten years and head of the institute of computer science at the University of Applied Sciences of Northwestern Switzerland. Martin Sutter graduated from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich in 1977 in the field of electrical engineering, where he also received his Ph.D. in the field of biomedical engineering and medical informatics. Martin Sutter also holds a Master of Applied Sciences of the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.