E-xcellence.ch supplies universities with the needed tools, processes and network to achieve a high quality in eLearning. It provides support to the responsibles and to teaching and non-teaching staff of Swiss higher education institutions in quality-management of eLearning. Development of (OER) tools and benchmarking procedures for e-learning offers and services as well as setup and establishment of a community of expertise have been key issues.

(See also extension E-xcellence.ch OPEN)

Results

E-xcellence.ch allows to assess and improve quality in e-Learning: Users will see what kind of improvements in their e-Learning should be done and how they can do it.

The QualiScan tool with its expert recommended questions (30 questions in 60 items) allows to integrate stakeholders and experts of the involved e-Learning course and to perform group-evaluations. Different meanings of people involved can be shown graphically.
E-xcellence.ch supports all processes before, while and after the evaluation - with QualiScan, through an information website and a Community of Practice providing best practice, expert contacts and all kind of assistance.
Webinars about E-xcellence.ch and its use will be provided on demand (can be language-specific) and on a regular basis about two times a year.

All Swiss higher education institutions can use E-xcellence.ch - its free of charge and available in English, German, French and Italian.

The project team plans an extension that allows to open the QualiScan tool for other kind of questions and to enable improvement/editing of existing questions. It would also integrate a new set of questions devoted to the domain of tablet learning.

Project Description

E-xcellence.ch is based on the experience of the European Project E-xcellence+ (within the LLL- Program), and is based on the assumption that there should be developed tools and structures which allow supporting and facilitating the realisation of quality management arrangements for eLearning offers, products and services of Higher Education in Switzerland. This project deals not mainly with labelling quality, but with approaches of quality management in connection with mutually defined standards and criteria between the project partners.

Goals

1. Development of tools with free access as Open Educational Resources OER (Open Educational Resources).
   Evaluation, integration and development of new tools for evaluation and support of eLearning quality management. In the foreground there will be solutions in relation to the objectives of the partner institutions of the project and the integration in already existing quality management procedures. The tools which will be developed should refer to existing, well known and accepted e-learning standards and criteria as well as existing knowledge from tools like those from E- xcellence+ (like the Quick-Scan self assessment-tool) and others which will be compared. Flexible tools will be made available in an online repository.


2. Development and operation of a benchmarking procedure for e-learning offers and services, based on established standards and criteria.
   Definition of a benchmarking process that leads to the identification of strengths and weaknesses and especially achievement potential of eLearning offers and services.


3. Setup and establishment a community of expertise resp. of a pool of experts.
   Creation of an exemplary counselling concept. Seminars and workshops will complement this activities. To learn from each other and to have access to a pool of experts which are part of a "Community of Practice for eLearning Quality Management" Experts will be nominated on the basis of their experiences and research.

Benefits

The project helps to tackle the problem of quality of eLearning which will stay/become a key issue, as the community is supplied with a practical tool and existing community structures are being used and strengthened and as the project can build on/ adapt tested software from an EU-project, the project is highly efficient.
The results of the project lay a good basis for further quality development initiatives in the future: it strengthens the existing community in the area of quality development, the OS-implementation is open to further development of the tool and related tools and processes, the definition of criteria and quality development processes may encourage further projects.
Involving ongoing activities: European project as basis that will be further developed and adapted to Swiss needs and peculiarities, experience from SVC and monitoring of ETH Zurich is being integrated.