Aurora can serve its member universities specifically in the context of innovation of teaching & learning, which is understood widely to include developments in digitalisation of education as well as innovation in the content and the balance of subject-related, general cognitive and personal learning outcomes.
The aim of the focus in Aurora on Innovation of Teaching and Learning is twofold. Primarily to exchange innovations in pedagogy and tools amongst the partners and to implement promising ones in each of our programs. Secondly, ITL aims to develop shared resources and joint educational modules on key themes of the Aurora Universities Network such as Sustainability, Health and Life Sciences etcetera. Since the UGA chair of the group has retired and the Vice Rectors Education have formed their own Aurora platform, it is now considered that the vice-rectors will assume responsibility for the ITL theme as well. The Vice Rectors Education has asked for new activities connected to the shared aspiration which they identified. The current project(s):
Summary of recent activities
After successful submissions and presentations at the Technology Enhanced Assessment Conference (TEA2018, 10-11 December 2018 in Amsterdam), this group keeps on working together. Further collaboration is expected on innovative support of students’ writing processes, using text analysis tools developed at the University of Antwerp (Inputlog). UAntwerp is in the lead. Within the new VU Network for Teaching & Learning, a further start-up by setting up experiments is expected.
About the e-Assesment tool
The University of Antwerp and the University Duisburg-Essen have taken the lead on this topic. The e-Assessment tool JACK, developed by UDE, has been shared with UAntwerp. The purpose is to combine the strengths of the UDE Jack and Antwerp’s AlephQ: a first pilot has started with 500 economy students in UAntwerp who will make assessments with both programmes. Amsterdam is leading in research dissemination as it organises the Technology Enhanced Assessment Conference (TEA2018), 10-11 December 2018 in Amsterdam (http://www.teaconference.org/). The paper submitted jointly by Amsterdam, Antwerpen and Duisburg-Essen for the TEA2018 has been accepted. Further collaboration is expected with innovation in supporting the writing processes of students with specific text analysis tools that were developed at the University of Antwerp (Inputlog).
Summary of recent activities
The project group conducted a series of webinars “Open educational resources as an enabler for building an inclusive university community”. The first two webinars on “National and international initiatives concerning OER” and “Supporting structures and teaching scenarios for Open Educational Resources at the University Duisburg-Essen (UDE)” already took place in February and April 2019. Next webinars will be planned in Grenoble. UDE is in the lead. The event-webpage and project webpage.
About Open Educational Resources
Since May 2018, the Aurora working group on Open Educational Resources (OER) has been working on different topics concerning, e.g., technical, organizational and strategic aspects. The working group is a collaboration between students, teachers, researchers and staff of the University of Antwerp, the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the University of Duisburg-Essen, the University of Gothenburg and the University of East Anglia. Particularly, the library directors of the Aurora network support this OER initiative. OER stimulates collaboration between teachers by reusing and remixing open materials. Students can participate in developing new and open educational resources. The Aurora website has a dedicated Aurora open educational resources portal.
Summary of recent activities
On June 5th, VU Amsterdam kicked off the series with a lecture on SDG 17: ‘Strengthing the means of implementation and revitalise the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development’ given by Professor of Transnational Environmental Governance and Policy and Director of the Amsterdam Sustainability Institute (ASI).
About Aurora Sustainability Lecture Series
This series will showcase to the broader university community the expertise available around sustainability challenges that affect all of us, framed using the UN SDGs. We want to invite all students and staff, both academic and non-academic, and the public to join the conversation during 18 events hosted in nine European countries. We will hold 18 events around the nine institutions over the next 18 months. Each institution will host two events over three periods (June 2019 – phase I; Nov-Dec 2019 – phase II; Feb-Mar 2020 – phase III) never hosting more than one in each period. The host institution will be at liberty to choose the format of the event (talk, panel, debate, etcetera.).
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