About Evolve

About EVOLVE

Objectives and activities

EVOLVE (Evidence-Validated Online Learning through Virtual Exchange) was conducted as a project to mainstream Virtual Exchange (VE) as an innovative form of collaborative international learning across disciplines in Higher Education (HE) institutions in Europe and beyond.

VE is a form of computer-mediated learning whereby students from geographically remote classes work together online (in pairs or small groups) on learning tasks developed by teachers or educational facilitators (for a full description, see What is Virtual Exchange).

There is an increasing interest in implementing VE for innovating and internationalising HE programmes, but the feasibility and effectiveness of this form of collaborative online learning at institutional level have yet to be demonstrated to university leaders and policy makers in Europe. The EVOLVE project was set up to achieve just that.

EVOLVE has promoted the awareness and implementation of VE by:

  • Implementing online collaborative training and accreditation for educators to support their continuous professional development;
  • Conducting state-of-the art research to measure impact at student, educator and institution level to educators,  policy and decision makers in HE;
  • Engaging with policy and decision makers at institutional, national and European level to demonstrate good practices of VE and present research results demonstrating its impact at student, educator and institution level.

KA3 Project

EVOLVE was funded as a Forward-Looking Cooperation Project under Erasmus+ Key Action 3: Support for policy reform,  Priority 5 – Achieving the aims of the renewed EU strategy for higher education (EACEA 41/2016).

Forward-Looking Cooperation Projects (FLCPs) are described by the EU as: “transnational co-operation projects aiming to identify, test, develop or assess innovative policy approaches that have the potential of becoming mainstreamed and giving input for improving education and training systems.” (EACEA KA3 FLCP homepage)

EVOLVE was awarded a maximum amount of funding of €463.804. The project runs from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2020.  It was coordinated by the University of Groningen, The Netherlands.

Contact

For questions about EVOLVE, please contact: evolve@rug.nl.

We will keep this email address and maintain this website up to 5 years after closing the project.

 

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