Savonia developing the quality of virtual studies

Savonia has recevived EU funding for a 2,5 year Erasmus project aiming to develop the quality of virtual studies.

The Quality of Virtual Studies project identifies good practices in e-learning at national and international level, develops teachers’ digital skills, makes recommendations for quality e-learning, and pilots e-learning recommendations in pilot courses. The teaching environment for the pilot courses is Moodle. The main goal is to help teachers design an online course whose pedagogical solutions support learning and maintain student motivation. The project also brings together information on the prevention of plagiarism in e-learning, the accessibility of e-learning and the processing of personal data in e-learning.

When planning and developing Information and Communication Technology (ICT) based teaching/learning studies, the preparation of content must be based on a certain methodology and theoretical provisions that would help to ensure the quality of studies and address the issues of effective teaching/learning organisation. Preparation of the content of the study subject adapted to the remote work, organisation of the teaching process and ensuring academic integrity are becoming vital teacher competencies.

Teachers today face challenges in selecting the most appropriate technologies and the application of unused tools. However, even the best-designed learning course will not work if the learner does not seek for progress, so learner’s self-control and motivation, which he/she often lacks, are essential while learning in virtual learning environment (VLE). Therefore, it is important that in VLE the teacher is able to select the most appropriate study and assessment methods (ensuring academic integrity), provide the necessary support system that would allow steering learning to the right direction. Thus, there is a need for methodology, based on which teachers could effectively choose the appropriate tools and methods for virtual studies, provide information in an inclusive and understandable way. To date, there is no generalized methodology to ensure the quality of the virtual course and conduct studies in an engaging and motivating way. There is also no confidence in the fairness and reliability of the assessments received.

This project will attempt to solve the problems presented above by improving the quality of virtual studies, creating teaching/learning methodology, and implementing technological and pedagogical innovations (teachers’ didactic, digital competencies, gamification of the study process), which will increase study accessibility and learners’ motivation.

Project partners

The persons involved in the project at Savonia UAS are lecturer Aija Hietanen, multiform pedagogical specialist Anuliina Savolainen and and International Coordinator Solja Ryhänen.