ANNUAL REPORT APRIL 2015 – MAY 2016
Approved by the Groningen Declaration Network’s (GDN) Executive Committee (EC) at its meeting on 17 May 2016, Cape Town, South Africa and read out by the Executive Secretary at the GDN Annual Meeting on Thursday, 18 May 2016.
INTRODUCTION
This Third Annual Report of the Groningen Declaration Network covers the period from the close of the Fourth Annual GDN meeting to the running up to the Fifth Annual Network Meeting. An important milestone, one that calls for a next stage. More on that later.
From 17 to 19 May, we will welcome over 90 experts from all over the globe, to discuss and showcase how the vision of the Groningen Declaration comes to life with ever increasing enthusiasm, involving more and more sectors and transcending mazes and sectors along the way. And all of this is happening as part of a weeklong celebration of the twentieth anniversary of our gracious host SAQA – the South African Qualifications Authority, who are purposely staging our annual event in close connection with two other main SAQA events.
This year’s motto, “A Digital World for All: Making Skills Mobile” accurately reflects the ambitions and potential of the Groningen Declaration Network. Skills, being a person’s attainments in terms of academic training, professional experience, or otherwise, are digitally articulated and exchanged and should be accepted as a person’s ”digital legal skills tender”. That would make skills truly mobile.
Promoting genuine qualifications and the use of bona fide digital student data will be the common denominator running through this meeting. It will also be the common denominator that runs through the founding meeting of AQVN, the African Qualifications Verification Network a day ahead of the GDN meeting. Our host, the South African Qualifications Authority SAQA expressly juxtaposed these two meeting as part of its one week long 20th anniversary celebrations.
At the end of this annual meeting, we hope that you can say that you did experienced some rich cross-pollination between the two meetings.
THIS YEAR’s MAJOR ISSUE: LEGAL ENTITY TO MAKE GDN SUSTAINABLE
So far, the GDN has been run as a virtual network, benefitting from voluntary substantial contributions in terms of kind and money from our participants, and a substantial investment from DUO by offering funding for a full time employee to act as the GDN Executive Secretary.
From the outset, DUO has made it clear that this funding would be available only for a limited time – three years – and that the funding would then have to come in from other sources. By the end of this year, DUO is no longer in a position to keep on funding, but is prepared to keep the Executive Secretary available to continue his work on condition of external funding. This can best be done by establishing a legal entity so as to be traceable and acceptable to external funders and sponsors. In the Dutch government context, establishing a legal personality for the GDN means that DUO has to dissociate itself from the Executive Committee and that the Executive Secretary may no longer be part of the Executive Committee. This scenario dominated the agenda of the Executive Committee over the last year, and may lead to the decision to actually establish a legal entity, pending a final decision by the EC and upon consultation of the participants.
NEXT YEAR’s CHALLENGES: FURTHER DEVELOPING THE GDN
If it would be allowed to go by the assumption that a legal entity will be established, this means that the Network will, first of all, have to have a foundation or association established by a notary public, who will have to draft Statutes and Bylaws – for which the current Statutes and Bylaws might hopefully serve as useful input. Furthermore, it means that an administrative seat has to be chosen.
At the moment of writing, a number of options are already being considered. The secretariat will also have to have a proper bookkeeping and financial department.
Apart from that, it is envisaged that the GDN will survey its communication strategies. And with an eye to the 2017 annual meeting, a new Sponsorship strategy will be developed.
All of the above challenges may extend well into the next year, so it may be assumed that the GDN’s next phase will start off with a year that will be primarily dominated by administrative and organizational new departures.
LANDMARKS IN THE PERIOD MAY 2015 – MAY 2016
2015
May
· 4-6, Annual GD Meeting, Málaga, Spain.
Calling this one the best so far would do injustice to the previous ones, so why not label it “a hat-trick”. This was a very well attended annual meeting, attracting many new stakeholders, keynote speakers from both the OECD and the European Commission, and more.
· 14-15, BFUG Ministerial Meeting, Yerevan, Armenia.
In the running up to the GDN 2015 meeting, the Executive Secretary of the BFUG Ministerial Meeting’s secretariat had announced that she would attend the GDN, but subsequently had to retract. Nevertheless, the GDN got invited to Yerevan, where 500 delegates representing 47 national ministerial delegations from all over the EHEA assembled. This opened up contacts with the highest political and administrative levels within the EHEA, and created new possibilities. The next BFUG Ministerial meeting is to be held in 2018, in Paris, and the Secretariat is working on securing a place in that program, if only as invited observers again.
· 24-29, NAFSA Annual Conference, Boston, USA.
NAFSA is the biggest annual conference in international higher education. This year’s conference attracted in excess of 10,000 delegates. The GDN was presented in a well-attended session presented by the GDN (Executive Secretary), AACRAO (Executive Director) and CHESICC (Deputy Director-General).
June
· 9-12, EUNIS Conference, Dundee, Scotland
The DUO e-Enrolment piloting efforts were showcased at the EUNIS annual conference in Glasgow, zooming in especially on DUO’s Agile development method. It was the perfect moment to reengage with RS3G and to seek out new partners..
· 18-19, HO Link Conference, Noordwijkerhout, Netherlands
The last out of this series of 5 conference attendances over a 6 week period. The HO-Link brings together SIS-developers and users and is the biggest conference of its kind in the Netherlands. The GDN was presented by the President and Executive Secretary, as were sessions on Open Badges and Europass, and one on the EMREX pilot.
September
· 15-18, 27th Annual EAIE Conference, Glasgow, Scotland
Having been intermittently involved in EAIE since 1993 till 2005 and from 2006 onwards continuously, as chair of one of EAIE’s Expert Communities, the Executive Secretary was singled out by EAIE’s President Laura Howard as recipient for its President’s Award; also, two sessions were presented, one on the changing landscape of verifications – going form paper to paperless; and the other on Open Badges, the rise of stacked degrees and the contribution of the GDN.
· 22 – Data4Policy High Level workshop, Brussels
One day workshop with intense discussions on the prospects and pitfalls of Big Data research, with 40 senior representatives of the European Commission and 40 thought leaders (including the GDN Executive Secretary) from various sectors and industries.
· 24 Compostela Group of Universities General Council, Compostela, Spain.
The President was invited to explain the GDN to the CGU General Council as part of the move on behalf of the CGU to sign the GD.
· September 29 – October 3 – NACAC Conference, San Diego, USA
Session on authenticity, digitization and combating credential fraud in both the paper world and the paperless world.
October
· 14-16, PESC Fall Data Summit, Washington DC, USA.
The GDN President was invited to present about the GDN to PESC and the board offered a non-paying membership to the GDN represented, for voting, either by the President or the Executive Secretary.
· 16-17, Glavexpertcentr Conference “Fair recognition: best practices and innovative approaches in Moscow”.
Due to the heavy conference schedules over the previous months for both the GDN President and Executive Secretary, neither could make it to this conference but not without bending over backwards to maximize possibilities that some other GDN Executive Committee member might perhaps contribute.
2016
January
· 12-15 Visits to European Commission, DG EAC (Education and Culture), DG CONNECT and Big Data Networking Days, Brussels, Belgium.
The contacts that were established with the European Commission’s Directorate General Communications Networks, Content & Technology (DG CONNECT) at the 2015 GDN meeting served as an introduction to visit DG CONNECT in Brussels which subsequently led to an invitation for a second visit, this time to the DG CONNECT Headquarters in Luxembourg. Discussions were also held with DG Education and Culture (EAC), about the contribution of the GDN to student mobility. Digitizing the Diploma Supplement was mentioned as being high on the agenda. One of the things DG EAC and DG CONNECT both stressed was the need for the GDN to establish legal entity so as to enable GDN participation in future EC funded projects.
February
· 22, DG CONNECT, Luxembourg.
Discussions on Big Data research but also on nascent plans for the establishment of a EU wide Personal Information Management system, which are very pertinent to the GDN. DG CONNECT announced to keep the secretariat posted.
April
· 13-15, PESC Spring Data Summit 2016, Washington, D.C.
Both the President and Executive Secretary were invited to participate in the event. A panel was held about the GDN past, present and future, conducted by David Moldoff with Victoriano Giralt, Rick Torres, Mike Reilly, Herman de Leeuw and Tom Black as panelists. This generated a good level of interest from the audience.
CONCLUSION
With this, I'd like to complete the annual report for 2015-2016. It has been wonderful to see the GDN still making more waves, and I am confident that we will continue to do so in the years to come. And on that note, let me now pass on the microphone back to our day time chair, Peter van der Hijden.