The 8th eLearning Africa conference will be held from May 29th to 31st at the Safari Conference Centre, Windhoek, Namibia.
The key networking event for developing eLearning capacities in Africa, eLearning Africa 2013 will be hosted by Namibia's Ministry of Education in conjunction with the Ministry of ICT.
Tradition, change and innovation
eLearning Africa 2013 will focus on tradition, change and innovation, and the call for proposals is now open!
New technologies combined with a pioneering spirit to improve lives are already changing the way we learn, work, and play. How are African youth shaping their identities and navigating different learning spaces with these technologies? Are new technologies fundamentally disruptive to tradition or do they open up space for the digitisation of tradition? How is innovation in Africa shaping the Continent's learning landscape?
These are some of the key questions that will guide our conversations at eLearning Africa 2013; let us know what you think! We encourage all practitioners, experts and academics engaged in an African context to submit a proposal and be a part of Africa's largest annual conference on ICT for development, education and training. For more information on this year's themes, deadline and how to submit a proposal, please click here.
eLearning Africa at a glance

• The key networking event for ICT-enhanced education and training in Africa
• A must for those who want to develop multinational and cross-industry contacts and partnerships, as well as enhance their knowledge, expertise and abilities
• The hub for first-hand information and real-life examples of how ICT advances the cause of education for all in Africa
• Over 1,500 decision makers and practitioners from the education, business and government sectors, with 80% coming from Africa
• Accompanied by an extensive exhibition and demonstration area

Stay up to date
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CONAHEC 15th North American Higher Education Conference: Towards a Sustainable Future - The Role of International Education. May 1-3, 2013, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
About the Conference
As stakeholders in international higher education we face a major challenge: how do we contribute through our daily activities to building a more sustainable future and moreover, how sustainable is our approach towards international education in a rapidly changing global environment?
Sustainability – meeting current needs without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987) - is a concept that is extremely meaningful not only at a societal level, but also at institutional and personal levels. It is also a concept that is very applicable to the work being done in international education. Any strategy or policy aimed at creating sustainable communities implicitly or explicitly includes the establishment and strengthening of education systems. Leaders and practitioners in education and, more specifically, in international higher education must dedicate more attention to better connecting their work with the overall goal of building sustainable societies.
As we reach the end of the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (2005-2014), what role has international higher education adopted in sustainability? In which ways do efforts aimed at internationalizing our campuses, academic offerings, research, public service, and, ultimately, our students, meaningfully contribute to building a better and ultimately sustainable future? At the same time it is worth asking ourselves whether or not traditional practices in international education are sustainable in the future or if it is time to rethink and reimplement our approach towards the internationalization of higher education.
Join leaders and practitioners of higher education, business, government and students in one of Canada’s greenest cities for CONAHEC’s 15th North American Higher Education Conference! "Towards a Sustainable Future: The Role of International Education" will take place from May 1-3, 2013 on campus at our host institution MacEwan University with additional events at the University of Alberta, our co-host for this exciting event. This meeting will focus on how higher education institutions can better pool their strengths and resources and improve our international collaboration in order to empower our societies to become more actively engaged in preparing the citizens that a sustainable and more equitable future will require.
Edmonton, Canada, has long been known as the capital of Canada’s oil-rich province of Alberta. This metropolis combines urban excellence and an unrivalled arts scene with a perfect dose of small-town friendliness. The City of Festivals, it is home to more than 30 celebrations every year. It also boasts North America’s largest entertainment and shopping centre, the West Edmonton Mall.
A lesser-known fact is that Edmonton is one of Canada’s greenest cities. Edmonton was characterized as the second most sustainable mid-sized city in Canada by the 2011 Corporate Knights Magazine based on its environmental footprint and commitment to creating a healthy, thriving population. It boasts North America’s largest urban parkland (the Edmonton river valley) running right through the center of the city - a green space 22 times larger than New York’s Central Park. The city is also on the cutting edge regarding adoption of green technologies. As an example, carbon capture technology will soon be used in the region to store 4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide underground annually by 2015.
Our host institutions, provide excellent examples of how state of the art technology can be applied to the creation of environmentally friendly and sustainable campuses and how innovative strategies towards international education are being implemented.
In addition to our typical audience, composed of institutional leaders and directors of international education from higher education institutions, on this occasion, CONAHEC extends a special invitation to experts in sustainable development and international education as they think about the role international education can play in working towards a sustainable future. In addition, CONAHEC is especially interested in inviting the participation of scholars representing Canadian First Nations, Native Americans and indigenous peoples from other countries as well as scholars specializing in issues related to the role of international higher education in building sustainable, inclusive and equitable societies.
The 15th North American Higher Education Conference is organized by the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration. CONAHEC links higher education institutions from Canada, the U.S. and Mexico, and from the rest of the world through collaboration and cooperation.

February 21 – 24, 2013. Hosted by the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque
- Meet with hundreds of other student leaders, administrators, faculty, AmeriCorps members, and nonprofit leaders from across the nation
- Exchange ideas and best practices
- Get reinspired and recharged
- Gain insights to make your efforts more effective
- Learn about resources and opportunities.
This event, hosted by the University of New Mexico, is historically the largest annual conference focused on the civic engagement of college students in community service, service-learning, community-based research, advocacy and other forms of social action. The event was founded in 1984 by the Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL), one of the first national organizations to promote and support college student involvement.
Through this Conference, hundreds of students, administrators, faculty, AmeriCorps members, and nonprofit leaders from across the nation have the opportunity to meet and get together to learn and share effective practices, improve personal skills and organizational strategies, discover opportunities and resources, exchange stories, and be inspired and challenged to sustain the proposed efforts.
The IMPACT Conference is historically the largest annual conference focused on the civic engagement of college students in community service, service-learning, community-based research, advocacy and other forms of social action. Building on the rich 28-year tradition of the COOL Conference and the Idealist Campus Conference, IMPACT is the one time during the year when students, administrators, faculty, AmeriCorps members and VISTAs, and nonprofit professionals gather together to learn and share effective practices, improve personal skills and organizational strategies, discover opportunities and resources, exchange stories, be inspired and challenged to sustain our efforts.

Encuentro Universitario de Sostenibilización Curricular Universidad Europea - Diseñando la Educación para una Sociedad Sostenible
El Vicerrectorado de Calidad e Innovación Académica de la Universidad Europea de Madrid junto con la CADEP y la CRUE les dan la bienvenida al I Encuentro Universitario de Sostenibilización Curricular, que tendrá lugar en Villaviciosa de Odón (Madrid) los días 24 y 25 de enero de 2013.
En las últimas décadas, el con­cepto de sostenibilidad ha evolucionado y se ha ex­pandido a otros ámbitos desde que comenzara a hablarse del respeto al medio ambiente y el consu­mo responsable de los recursos en la Cumbre de la Tierra en Río de Janeiro en el año 92.
A su vez, la entrada de la Universidad Española en Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior ha brindado la posibilidad de incorporar contenidos interactivos e integrales, que requieren que el profesorado integre los nuevos retos de la sociedad, en su enseñanza, como la sosteni­bilidad. Aparece funda­mental, hoy más que nunca, crear compromiso y sensibilidad, desde la Universidad, hacia la sostenibilidad socio-cultural, medioambiental y económica de nuestra sociedad. Es un reto que, entre todos, nos proponemos asumir. En este primer Encuentro Universitario, cuyo coste de participación es patrocinado, buscamos lograr:

• Reflexionar sobre la incorporación de la sostenibilidad al entorno universitario en el ámbito de la Universidad española
• Concienciar y sensibilizar la comunidad universitaria sobre la importancia del enfoque sostenible (social, económica y medioambientalmente) y su necesaria relación con el ámbito universitario.
• Visibilizar la sostenibilidad curricular y sus buenas prácticas.
• Involucrar a estudiantes y profesores de la importancia del concepto de la sostenibilidad para la universidad del presente / futuro.
• Generar un punto de partida de Networking: Impulsar contactos entre centros o progra­mas de sostenibilización curricular para crear una red útil de trabajo común.

Las conclusiones obtenidas se publicarán posteriormente al evento y la investigación permanecerá activa para todos aquellos que deseen contribuir a este reto que consiste en la asimilación e implementación de la sostenibilidad curricular.
Confiamos en que las Jornadas sean un excelente foro de intercambio de experiencias, espacio de reflexión para todos los miembros de la educación universitaria, llegando a la generación del conocimiento colectivo, que nos permitirá ir dando pasos hacia la sostenibilidad en los planes de estudios.

• Punto de Partida del I Encuentro de sostenibilización curricular
• Programa
• Comité Científico y Organizador
• Sede e Información alojamientos.

More information about this event.

The initiative has been executed with the valuable contribution of 15 African universities

The objective is to address key issues and stimulate in-depth dialogue about the challenges and benefits of universities engaging with their external communities.
University Affairs, Canada's most authoritative source of information about and for Canada's higher education, will be introducing a new blog on community-university engagement called Taking the Plunge.The blog aims to deepen the discourse about community engagement and create a new kind of interdependence between post-secondary institutions and the communities they interact with, whether these are local or global.
The blog is written by Dr. Margo Fryer, founding director of the University of British Columbia Learning Exchange and UBC-Community Learning Initiative.
For more information follow this link.

Issue n. 10 of the ECVET Magazine was prepared by the ECVET Support Team which coordinates the ECVET Network. Download ECVET Magazine n.10.
It contains:
- An Editorial by Mr Antonio Silva Mendes, European Commisson, Director - Lifelong Learning: Policies and programme
- An article on 'Quality Assurance in ECVET mobility: A basis for trust';
- An article on 'EQAVET- promoting a culture of quality assurance in VET';
- An article on 'Quality Assurance and ECVET: The results from pilot projects';
- An article on 'Joint activities between ECVET – EQAVET – EQF and higher Education';
- The ECVET calendar of activities 2012;
- A report about 'The annual ECVET forum - An ECVET Community of Practice: what does it mean?';
- An article about a step by step sectoral approach – 'ECVET in the shipbuilding industry';
- An introduction of the Hungarian Team of ECVET experts;
- An article on the CREDCHEM example 'From “trying ECVET” to “putting ECVET into practice”.
By Daniela Ulicna, ICF GHK. Quality Assurance and ECVET - The results from pilot projects
The ECVET Recommendation invites Member States to apply quality assurance when using ECVET. However, when you ask ECVET pilot project promoters how they address the issue of ECVET and quality assurance, the answer is often vague. Many speak about the quality assurance of their project rather than quality assurance of the processes implied by the ECVET technical specifications. This shows that the understanding of what aspects of ECVET need to be quality assured, and how this could be done, is not yet clear for most of those involved in pilot projects.
Nevertheless, when you investigate the work of the projects, it becomes clear that pilot project promoters see the ECVET technical specifi cations as containing elements of quality assurance. Although they do not use the vocabulary of quality assurance or use the four stages of the European Quality Assurance in Vocational Education and Training (EQAVET) cycle, they put in place quality assurance processes. Sometimes it is not always easy to distinguish between what the technical specifications require and what is quality assurance. Tools such as a Memorandum of Understanding or a Learning Agreement are elements to ECVET implementation and they are also key instruments for quality assurance.
It is possible to consider the activities and processes used by the ECVET pilot projects in relation to the EQAVET quality circle of planning-implementation evaluation and review. This is particularly relevant when thinking about the use of ECVET to support the geographical mobility of learners in a partnership framework. If we look at each of the four stages of the EQAVET quality circle, there are many activities within a mobility programme that contribute to quality assurance. The following analysis looks at the quality assurance processes used by the pilot projects:
Planning
When planning mobility, project organisers:
• identifi ed the learning outcomes that the learners were expected to achieve abroad (all projects);
• discussed learning outcomes with a partner institution to ensure there is a common understanding between the partners (all projects had discussions about the defi nition of learning outcomes with their partners);
• described learning outcomes in a Learning Agreement which is signed by the learner who becomes aware of the expectations placed on them (all those projects that tested ECVET through real mobility did this);
• clarified how unit(s) based on learning outcomes would be validated and recognised and under what conditions (e.g. the CREDCHEM project discussed how units could be validated in the context of qualifications that are not based on units. The Be-TWIN project developed a methodology which validated ECVET and units in relation to higher education and ECTS);
• put measures in place to ensure that when the learner returns their unit(s) would be validated and if possible (depending on national rules) recognised (e.g. ECVET ASSET or M.O.T.O).
Implementation
When implementing the mobility projects, organisers:
• ensured that the learning activities are ongoing and that learners took part in activities which related to the agreed learning outcomes (e.g. in the Finland-Iceland exchange in the M.O.T.O project, a teacher from a partner institution kept in touch with the employer who hosted the mobile learner);
• ensured that the assessment is carried out abroad (e.g. the ECVET ASSET and OPIR projects used assessment grids to support this);
• on the learners’ return, received documentation about each learner’s assessment (transcript of record). These were then reviewed and the organisers verified that the conditions that enabled them to validate credit had been met.
Evaluation
On the learners’ return, the project organisers:
• gathered information of whether each learner’s credit had been validated and recognised;
• identified, if this had not happened, the reasons why;
• collected feedback from learners, teachers and partner organisations on what had worked and what had not worked in relation to the instruments and methods they had developed (e.g. Aerovet and OPIR collected feedback from teachers).
Review
The pilot projects were designed to test ECVET. For many projects, the review phase was used to reflect on their experiences and to provide conclusions and recommendations for the future use of ECVET. When ECVET is implemented, the review phase should be used to improve future mobility exchanges.
In addition to aspects of quality assurance that can be organised in relation to the EQAVET quality cycle, it is possible to think of quality assurance from the perspective of ‘ECVET functions’. For each function the outcomes need to be quality assured e.g. most projects made sure that descriptions of learning outcomes covered the knowledge, skills and competences that are relevant for the professions involved in the mobility project. They involved experts in the process (such as the chamber of commerce) or included a validation stage where experts reviewed the descriptions of learning outcomes.
To ensure the host organisation provided appropriate learning opportunities and could deliver the unit to the required quality, the MOTO project provided guidance to the host institution from the sending organisation about the expected learning outcomes. Teachers in the host institution then made sure that the local host enterprise was able to prepare the student to meet the expected learning outcomes.
To ensure assessment in the host organisation was comparable to assessment by the home institution, some projects developed common assessment grids to record students’ results e.g. in the OPIR project, descriptions of a unit’s learning outcomes were accompanied by a description of the assessment criteria and indicators which supported the assessment process.
The way projects consider quality assurance is still a ‘work in progress’. However we know that the expectations and requirements for quality assurance are likely to differ depending on whether conversations are with a certification body or a training centre. The requirements also differ when credit transfer relates to organised mobility of students compared to another form of mobility. Some quality assurance measures are likely to appear too onerous for a short-term mobility project.
In conclusion, based on the work from the pilot projects, it is clear that there isn’t a common understanding of what is important for quality assurance when using ECVET. More work will be needed to develop this common understanding. In this context, it is worthwhile noting that the updated version of ECVET’s Guide on Mobility, adopted by the ECVET Users’ Group and due to be published by the European Commission, will identify quality assurance issues that support geographical mobility. This should start the process of building a common understanding. Download ECVET Magazine n.10.
See also: ECVET Magazine n. 9, ECVET Magazine n. 8, ECVET Magazine n. 7, ECVET Magazine n. 6, ECVET Magazine n. 5, Issue 4, April 2011, Issue 3, January 2011, Issue 2, November 2010, Issue 1, June 2010, Issue 4, April 2010, Issue 3, November 2009, Issue 2, July 2009, Issue 1, April 2009.

On 10-11 December in Berlin, European ministers discuss new ways of cooperation in vocational education and training. The focus is on dual-education models, which have attracted the attention of several Member States. Cedefop Director Christian Lettmayr has been invited to be the keynote speaker at the conference.
Much of the economic and industrial success of Europe can be traced to the advanced skills of its workers. Several countries, like Germany, have established successful vocational training models that combine theoretical studies with working in a company; several more are now interested in exploring similar policy options.
The issue is not to copy another country’s system, but to see how the essential features of dual-education models - such as the close fit between qualifications and jobs, and the involvement of social partners - can be developed within another system.   
Ministers responsible for vocational training from several Member States will be debating this question on 10-11 December in Berlin at a meeting on "Vocational Training in Europe: Perspectives for the young generation".