VIRQUAL
Network for integrating Virtual Mobility and European Qualification Framework in HE and CE Institutions

Who is who?

Ahidoba de Franchi Mandscheff obtained a Licence of Arts in Sociology from the University of Geneva in 1998 and a Master of Sciences in Statistics from the University of Neuchâtel in 2000.
Since 2002, she has been working for the University of Geneva, Continuing Education Centre. There, she has gained expertise in the university continuing education field and also in e-learning. She provides coaching and advice for directors and coordinators for setting up continuing education programmes: budget, regulations, adult teaching and learning, marketing. She is also in charge of the quality improvement for the Continuing Education Centre in developing quality tools for the continuing education programmes.
Alfredo Soeiro was born in 1954 in Porto, Portugal. He received the degree in Civil Engineering from FEUP in 1976 and the doctorate from the University of Florida in 1989 (Ph.D.). He was Director of the degree in Civil Engineering of FEUP and vice president of the department of Civil Engineering (2003/7). He was Pro-Rector of the University of Porto for Continuing Education between 1998 and 2003. He was founder of EUCEN (European University Continuing Education Network ,1992 - www.eucen.eu); RECLA (Network of Continuing Education in Latin American, 1996 - www.recla.org) and of AUPEC (Association of the Portuguese Universities for Continuing Education,1999 - www.up.pt/aupec). He was vice president of EUCEN (1992/8) and SEFI, Société Européenne pour la Formation des Ingénieurs (2002/3 - www.sefi.be); president of IACEE, International Association of Continuing Engineering Education (2001/4 - www.iacee.org); president of AUPEC (2001/5); president of SEFI (2003/5). He is associate professor of FEUP. He is member of the editorial board of the journals European Journal of Engineering Education (1998 -...) and of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement (2001-2007). He was member of international advisory board of the Journal of Engineering Education (2002-2008). He received medal of 800 th Anniversary of U. Sorbonne (1998), the International Hall of Fame of Adult and Continuing Education title (2006) and the EDEN Fellow award (2008). He was Visiting Fellow of the Institute of Higher Education of the University of Georgia (2006). Representative of Portuguese engineers association in FEANI CPD Committee. Leader of WP10 of EURACE Spread “Provisions for accreditation for CEE” (2009).
Ana Dias is head of the e-learning Centre of Minho University Continuous Training Office. Ana’s main responsibilities are the promotion of e-learning pedagogy and technologies within the on-campus and off-campus communities; the provision of continuous education services and consultancy based on e-learning; the development of multimedia technologies and information systems to support e-learning and innovation management, and the organisation of studies on e-learning, m-learning and information systems matters. She was appointed by University of Minho as representative of the University at the European Universities Continuing Education Network (EUCEN).
António Teixeira (Lisbon, 1965) is a Professor at Universidade Aberta, the Portuguese Open University (Department of Education and Distance Learning), since 1991, and the Vice-President of EDEN – European Distance and E-learning Network.
He received his training in Philosophy at the University of Lisbon (MPhil - 1994, PhD - 2003) and in online education at the University of Turku (2004). From 2006 to 2009, he was Pro-rector for innovation in Distance Learning at Universidade Aberta. In that capacity, he conceived the strategy and managed the university’s successful and speedy transition process from a print-based distance learning institution to a fully online one. He was also responsible for the design and initial implementation of the university’s research lab on distance education (LEaD) and the university’s open access scientific repository (Repositório Aberto).
From 2007 to 2009, he was member of the Academic and Administration boards of Asia’s International Open University (UAIA) and of the Portuguese Rectors Council (CRUP) specialized committees on Scientific Research and Knowledge Transfer, and Evaluation, Quality and Innovation. He’s also the Vice-president of the Ad Lucem Association (University of Lisbon) and is on the scientific board of a number of international journals in education:
- European Journal on Online and Distance Learning - Eurodl, edited by EDEN;
- Revista de Universidad y Sociedad del Conocimiento - RUSC, edited by the Open University of Catalonia – UOC (he’s also a member of the editorial board);
- Revista de Enseñanza y Learning, edited by the University of Salamanca;
- Co-Learn, edited by the Open University (UK);
- Formamente - International Research Journal on Digital Future, edited by the Guide Association.
Over the year he has participated in over a dozen international research projects. He’s a member also of the e-ASEM network (Asia-Europe Meeting), since 2008, and of the Expert’s Board of the Horizon Report for Iberoamerica (2010).
Barbara Class obtained a Licence es lettres from the University of Lausanne in 1996 and a Masters degree in educational technologies from TECFA, Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Geneva in 2000.
In August 2009, she obtained her PhD from TECFA, Faculty of Psychology and Education, University of Geneva. The dissertation's title: A blended socio-constructivist course with an activity-based, collaborative learning environment intended for trainers of conference interpreters.
She has been lecturer at ETI since 2004. Apart from teaching in continuing education programs at ETI, she acts as instructional designer and pedagogical advisor.
From 2000 to 2004, she was a research assistant at TECFA.
Her research interests include using technology for pedagogical purposes; tutoring support, active learning; the complementarity of individual and collaborative learning and portal based learning.
See publications
Carme Royo is Executive Secretary at EUCEN.
Ene Koitla (born September 10, 1964); graduated from the Faculty of Economics at the University of Tartu. I am the Head of the Estonian e-Learning Development Centre where I started working in June 2003. There are 6 people in my team. Estonian Development Centre managers the two consortiums – Estonian e-University and e-VET.
Estonian e-University was founded February 16, 2003. There are 7 universities. Estonian e-VET was founded February 16, 2005. There are 30 vocational schools and 6 applied universities in the Estonian e-Vet consortium. The main goal of the consortiums is to cooperate in the following areas:
- e-Learning content development;
- Staff training (teachers, educational technologists);
- Staff support (educational technologists);
- Infrastructure;
- e-Learning studies;
- Coordination of the e-Learning programs.
I have participated in several working groups within the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research and contributed to preparation and writing of the new strategy for Estonian higher education. I take active part in the work of several different international e-learning organizations (EFQUEL; EIfEL; EDEN).
Gottfried S. Csanyi has a Ph.D. educational sciences (1985) from the University of Vienna. He specialized in staff development and curriculum development in higher education, and since 1995 in technology enhanced teaching and learning. Dr. Csanyi worked as expert for didactics in two EU-funded e-learning projects: FACILE (1998-2000), CUBER (2000- 02, workpackage leader dissemination) and ODLAC (2004-06) as well as in several national e-learning projects like IMMENSE/MEETMATH (2002-03; http://www.aec.at/meetmath), PlaNet ET (2003-05; http://www.planet-et.at) or “Open Access in Distant Studies (Offener Hochschulzugang im Fernstudium; 2004-06; http://www.sbp.jku.at).
Jüri Lõssenko graduated from the Faculty of Philology at the Tallinn University and is employed as project manager at the Estonian Information Technology Foundation since 2003. Prior to that, he was a coordinator in the Look at the World Foundation’s Internet training project where 100 000 Estonian citizens were trained in basic computer skills. He has experience with several higher education and ICT projects on both national and international level. He has been involved in national projects financed by the European Social Funds and several Community programme projects including Leonardo da Vinci, eLearning programme, Erasmus Mundus and Socrates Minerva.
Jutta Jerlich has been successfully working on several EU funded research projects in innovation in teaching. She has extensive expertise in online / teaching at several universities and has worked with industry, supplying a unique approach to innovative projects by knowing how to fulfil the needs and requirements of industry and academia. She has been working in the area of Innovation and Business Development as well as International Marketing and Dissemination for more than 10 years. As a consultant she supported SME and educational organisations in implementing e-learning and knowledge management systems in the function of a project coach and in leading positions. She holds a MBA in Technology Marketing from the Vienna University of Business and Economics and is specialised on innovation technology enhancing learning processes in industry, higher education and lifelong learning.
Education: Master Degree in Economics and International Trade at the Business University of Vienna, Technology in Education Courses at the University of California.
Expertise: Online Learning and Teaching, Development of online applications, Implementation of knowledge management system, R&D, European Project Funding, Expert in Innovation and Business Development, International Marketing, Project Development and Coaching.
László Komáromi is a Professor and head of Distance Education Centre of the Dennis Gabor Applied University He managed several national and international projects e.g. Leonardo, Socrates-Grundtvig, Erasmus, Minerva a.s.o. and he has relevant experience on project monitoring. He is member of European Distance Educational Network and Hungarian Society for Quality.
Rita Falcão has a degree in Microbiology from Portuguese Catholic University. A Master on Multimedia Technology from University of Porto, with a dissertation in “E-learning: a proposal for the evaluation of Learning Objects”, under the supervision of Professor Doutor Alfredo Soeiro. Rita Falcão is an invited assistant professor, responsible for the course “Multimedia and Education” from the degree in Journalism and Communication at Universidade do Porto. It is also Head of the Unit of New Technologies in Education, at UPorto. This unit is responsible for implementing the strategy for eLearning and associated technologies at the university.
Sevgi Ozkan received her BA and her MA in Engineering - Electrical and Information Sciences from the University of Cambridge, UK and her MSc in Business Information Systems from the University of London, UK. She has a PhD in the area of Information Systems Evaluation, with a particular focus on assessing success and effectiveness of information systems. Between January 2007 and November 2008, she was a lecturer at Brunel University, UK; where she is currently an Associate Research Fellow. She is a Fellow of the UK Higher Education. She is currently the Associate Director of the Informatics Institute and a full-time faculty member of the department of Information Systems, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey. Dr. Ozkan has over 70 publications in the areas of information systems evaluation, e-learning evaluation, technology acceptance, and information and communication technology management in the public sector. She is on the Executive Board of the European and Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems (EMCIS) and the International Symposium on Health Informatics and Bioinformatics, Turkey (HIBIT). She has recently completed a project under the United Nations Development Programme on an assistance study for telemedicine in rural areas in Turkey. She has received several research grants from the Scientific and Research Council of Turkey, TUBITAK.