Leonardo Project EIT

EIT Project Meeting 3, Nicosia

Sept 20-21, 2007

Date: Sept 20-21, 2007

Participants:

Emilios Solomou (University of Nicosia/Intercollege, Cyprus)

Phillipos Pouyioutas (University of Nicosia/Intercollege, Cyprus)

Victoria Kalogerou (University of Nicosia/Intercollege, Cyprus)

Alina Ivanovaite (VBC, Lithuania)

Andrzej Raczkovski (VBC, Lithuania)

Ieva Stasiunaite (Vilnius University, Lithuania)

Eva Gil (Forida, Spain)

Christian Petter (IFS, Austria)

Thursday 20September 2007

Mr. Emilios Solomou(Cyprus) gave a welcome speech to the participants of the project meeting.Alina (VBC) thanked the Cypriot partner for organising the meeting and also all the participants for joining the meeting. Elwira (the Polish partner) and Viltė (VBC) couldn’t take part because of the tight schedules.

Agenda of the meeting was presented.

09.40 Changes in the partnership – Alina (VBC)

The Danish partner decided to withdraw from participation in the project.

New potential partners were introduced:

VBC has got a preliminary reply from StowCollegefrom Glasgow, Scotland ( Still waiting for their final decision to become a project partner.
2 partner institutions in Finlandhave also contacted. VBC is still waiting for their reply.
A new silent partner – ISMA (Information System Management Institute, They have a target group, so would like to be involved in testing, dissemination activities and the actual use of the product. The contract is planned to be signed at the beginning of October.

As the Danish partner was involved in collecting authentic materials for the EIT course, the new partner will take over this task. At the moment all the partners have to continue collecting materials, but they will have to contact this new partner in order to cross-check the materials they collect to avoid the same materials.

Financial and administrative issues - Alina (VBC)

The requirements for the interim report and documents to be provided by the project partners were presented. The underlying principle for the project activities is that requirements by the national agency must be fulfilled by all the partners, though their experience with other projects might be different.

The following issues were not fully clear and therefore need further clarification from the National Agency.

25%/-75% ratio is applied for all the budget or are partners flexible within their budget and may use 100% grant on certain costs and then 50% on other costs?
Are travelling costs covered 100% by the grant?
Salary bank payment statements in some partner institutions are not available for just EIT project; what could substitute these payment statements?
No special employee contract for EIT project are signed in some partner institutions; What other documents should be provided instead?
Arepayments bound to the exchange rate of the date when the payment was received from the Contractor or the date when the actual payment was made? This needs clear answer as this varies in different projects.
Is subcontracting covered 100% by the grant?
As from Sept 12 the Intercollege changed its name to the University of Nicosia clarification from the national Agency is needed whether a different name of the same institution implies an official amendment of the project

It was agreed that the issues above will be clarified with the National Agency and forwarded to all the partners by 28 Sept. VBC is responsible for this.

Also, it was agreed that VBC will prepare templates for official documents to be received from all the partners for the interim report (e.g. official letters from the institution stating about their VAT status, official letters stating what employees are involved in EIT project, employees’ daily rate for EIT project, official letter stating whether the national currency is bound to the euro or not) and will forward them to the partners.

As not all the partners have provided formal requests for the 2nd project payment it was agreed that the requestsfor money transfer will be sentby all the partners by Sept 26.

Templates were shown for:

A checklist for the interim report.
Activity report template.
Dissemination report template.
Time sheets.

It was agreed by all the partners that the deadline for sending all the necessary reports and documents for the interim report is 31st Oct 2007.

The EIT website presentation – Alina (VBC)

Information about the project in partner languageswas added to the website. Navigation buttons have to be translated by all the partners and sent to the VBC by Sept 28.

VBC proposed to add link/resource bank (links to online dictionaries, e-learning materials, links to websites providing the latest information on IT, etc.) to the website. The partners agreed that this would be a useful tool for both the elementary/post elementary learners of English as well as for learners with more advanced levels of English. Thus learners with different levels of English as well as teachers working with different learners will find the EIT website useful. Also, it was suggested to organise the links under separate headings (etc. links to e-learning, links to e-dictionaries, etc.) The suggested organisation will be sent to all the partners for approval.

The following issues were presented for discussion: Do we need to add extra information about what’s going on in the project: latest news, meeting minutes, activities, calendars, templates, reports, publications, dissemination activities, etc? Would partners find that useful?

It was decided to upload this info onto the website and do that continually throughout project phase in order to keep the partners involved in the project up to date. As some project information (minutes of the meetings, agendas, reports) is classified it was decided to have restricted access to this information. User name with passwords will be sent to all the partners after the changes above are implemented.

A few websites were presented by partners to demonstrate how EIT website can be modified to acquire a more interactive and informative look:

An example was given by the Cypriot partner:

The Austrian partner provided another example:

Also, it was agreed by all the partners that the materials we create and sample lessons also need to be uploaded onto the EIT website.

The partners suggested that the fonts in the website should be changed, pictures, hyperlinked words should be added to make the website more attractive.The home page should be shorter, as now there is too much info and people might lose interest in the website. VBC will arrange a meeting with the website programmer to implement the suggestions made by the partners.

Dissemination – Ewa (Spain)

Ewa presented a template for dissemination activities.

The definition of the term “valorisation” was provided.Different stages of valorisation (ex-ante, ex-post) were explained.

The valorisation strategy for Florida (work package 6) was introduced.

Sept 12, 2008 was suggested as the preliminary date for the closing conference in Spain. This date has to be confirmed by the Spanish partner.

Best practice of e-learning materials in the partner countries.

Presentations were done by:

Andrej (Lithuania)

Eva (Spain)

Christian (Austria)

Philippos (Cyprus)

Andrej(VBC) provided an example of e-learning material in Lithuania -

a website of English for Finance (

The structure of the learning process in this website was illustrated:

Internet resources (links to specific websites, not specific articles) were included in the website so that people could explore more about a particular topic discussed in a module.

Eva (Spain) talked about two types of objectives - overall ad pedagogical - and provided other examples of e-learning materials.

Learning activity 1: ICT-SUSTOUR

2 stages in the project
Different sessions (introduction, online communication, report writing, oral presentation, video conference) and different activities for each session.

Learning activity 2: SKYPE

Learning activity 3: FORUM (the field of Commercial Management)

Christian (Austria): the advantages of screen cards were described, an online example was given.

Phillipos (Cyprus):theuse of Intranet at the University of Nicosia was shown and an interactive lesson for Visual Basic was illustrated.

Product Overview

Andrej (VBC)The initial organisation of the learning process in our website of English for IT - linear and flexible – was illustrated.

Linear study plan

This is basically designed for teacher-led classes.

Week 1:

Day 1: a set of activities with up to 3 tasks (focus on certain skills) + general vocabulary, IT vocabulary, grammar

Day 2, 3, 4, 5

Day 6: Week revision

Day 7: The exit test must be completed successfully to start Week 2.

Week 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10… Week N.

But the participants of the project say that to ask people to do all exit tests (e.g. 9 tests to start week 10) might be a bit discouraging therefore this point will have to be reconsidered.

Flexible study mode

This mode is basically designed for self-study to make the learning process more motivating.

In this mode you can find all the contents of Day 1, 2… etc. grouped into:

Choose an individual area you want to explore today, e.g.:

General vocabulary

IT vocabulary

Grammar

Communication skills (listening, speaking, reading, writing, functions), Learning to learn

Useful links

Podcasts

Get involved/Meeting point (e.g. chat via Skype, forum, blogs, keypal meeting spot)

Then EIT course map and a sample lesson were presented.

All the partners were encouraged to express their ideas how to improve the organisation of the learning process.

Friday 21September 2007

Invitation to a conference - Alina (VBC)

Alina extended an invitation to the International Conference “Innovative Information Technologies 2007” organized by VilniusBusinessCollege on 8-10 November. A template for abstracts has already been sent by email.

Work plan for September-January – Alina (VBC)

EIT project activities to be undertaken by the partnership were overviewed once again and deadlines for the tasks to be completed were agreed upon. The EIT activities schedule for Sept-Jan is attached to the minutes.

Dates of Meeting 4

The meeting 4 will be held in Innsbruck. The suggested dates are24-25 January. All the details about participants, arrivals, departures, hotel requests have to be sent to Christian before 20 December.

Copyright issues

In sending materials partners must not forget to include the source of the material. Also, it would be very useful to add a comment to the materials how this material can be applied (e.g. for a case study, for reading/listening activities, etc.).