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The ViCaDiS (Virtual Campus for Digital Students) EU LifeLongLearning Erasmus Virtual Campus Project supports the development of an innovative virtual campus for digital students.
It is a project initiated by the Multimedia Centre & Regional Distance Education Centre - CSID of the "Politehnica" University of Timisoara, Romania.
Partners
Background
In ViCaDiS (Virtual Campus for Digital Students) a wide range of ODL actors from EU and CEE countries focus on developing an innovative approach for enhancing international eLearning by moving the strength from the institutional learning environment to the personal learning environment (PLE) which focuses on students. It produces an instructional or pedagogical shift inside universities eLearning moving the focus from the education materials and technology to the user-student, to user generated content.
Digital students are defined here as young adult students who have grown up with an everyday use of technology and who are accustomed to using technology. As a result of their 'digitalness', they will enjoy enhanced interactivity and connectivity with others, and expect to learn in groups which may be physical or virtual. They learn for the pleasure and benefit of discovery. The digital students want to be able to choose what to do and when and they are demanding it 'now'. They simply 'think differently'.
Objective
The main objective is to build a virtual campus for digital students aimed at providing open educational resources and tools available and accessible for all students and to ensure the interoperability between the different eLearning environments used in the partner universities.
Aims
The goal of ViCaDiS is to create an attractive environment for all students within the Member States, using already existing tools which will be enhanced with new tools wanted by the new generation of students. An innovative multilingual ICT-based environment unique in Europe (as an international virtual campus), it will incorporate several open educational resources (library, glossary, external links, student projects, course activities), open educational tools (wiki, blog, forum, calendar, podcasting, instant messaging communication, audio-video conferencing over IP, RSS, mobile text messaging, mobile accessibility to ViCaDiS) and will promote social networking as an instructional method.
Activities
The project workpackages are:
WP1 - RES - Developing and testing of the ViCaDiS scenario WP2 - ViCaDiS tools design and implementation WP3 - Piloting/testing and evaluation of ViCaDiS WP4 - Evaluation and elaboration of the Set of Guidelines WP5 - Exploitation of ViCaDiS WP6 - Dissemination and Awareness raising of ViCaDiS WP7 - Project management of ViCaDiS

Outcomes
The main outcomes of the project are:
- open personal learning environment methodology
- ViCaDiS scenarios
- ViCaDiS multilingual virtual campus: online and mobile environment based on Open Educational Resources
- Multilingual web portal
- Multilingual Set of Guidelines (on paper, CD and online)
- ViCaDiS evaluation
- Promotional and multiplication materials
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