On February 12, the Yerevan State University (YSU) held the kick-off meeting of "Fostering Socially Distanced and Inclusive on-Campus Education in Armenian HEIs" (elCAMPUS) project, which aims at enhancing the quality of online teaching, learning and assessment (TLA) in Armenian (AM) HEIs.
The project focuses on the following:
- promotion of the teaching staff’s digital skills and competencies;
- adoption of internal quality assurance (QA) mechanisms for digital TLA.
Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, the YSU’s rector, welcomed the meeting participants, after which the project’s goals, objectives and expected outcomes were presented. The next part of the meeting featured presentations from Armenian and international partners.
Varduhi Gyulazyan, head of ANQA’s Institutional and Programme Accreditation Division, provided an overview of ANQA's 16 years of activities and achievements, supported by key numerical data. Ms. Gyulazyan highlighted ANQA’s active engagement in international platforms, the availability of ANQA-granted accreditation results in the DEQAR database and the implementation of joint accreditations enabling the HEIs to receive dual international accreditation.
The project objectives are as follows:
- creation of Digital Competence Framework (DCF) of TLA for the AM HE sector (DIGIcomp) aimed at determining and regulating the obligatory skills and competencies for the teaching staff engaged in digital TLA;
- establishment of a National Certificate Programmed (NCP) in digital TLA (DIGIcert) aimed at training and continuous professional development of the teaching staff;
- elaboration of internal quality assurance system for digital TLA in AM HEIs (IQAsys) to ensure quality and standards in online education;
- development of benchmark standards for e-learning multimedia platforms and provisions for smart classroom models for AM HEIs (SMARTclass),
- development of a regulatory framework for part-time studies in AM HE sector and provisions for common online course registration and student progression e-platform (COURSreg) to enhance accessibility of HE, especially for the students with special needs.
The project partners are:
- Yerevan State University (YSU);
- Khachatur Abovian Armenian State Pedagogical University (ASPU);
- Yerevan State Medical University after Mkhitar Heratsi (YSMU);
- Northern University (NU);
- Institute for Informatics and Automation Problems of the NAS of the RA (IIAP NAS);
- National Center for Professional Education Quality Assurance foundation (ANQA);
- Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport of the RA (MESCS);
- Autonomous University of Madrid (UAM), Spain;
- University of Lisbon (ULISBOA), Portugal;
- University of Genoa (UNIGE), Italy;
- KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden.
The ECAMPUS Erasmus+ project is co-funded by the EU.