Federal lead project Virtual University of Applied Sciences
In 1997, the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) issued a nationwide call for tenders for the promotion and use of Internet and multimedia for innovative training and further education offers at universities of applied sciences. As part of the following ideas competition, the Virtual University of Applied Sciences (VFH) project was funded with over 21 million euros under grant number 21B8184. The project management agency "Innovations in Education and Training" (PT IAW) at the Federal Institute for Vocational Education and Training (BiBB) provided technical and administrative support for the lead project.
background
The globalization of the economy and the rapid development in the field of information and communication technologies, in particular the potential opened up by the innovative use of the Internet, prompted the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) to submit a call for tenders in 1997 as part of its key project strategy Subject area "Use of globally available knowledge for training and further education and innovation processes".
The BMBF wanted to use the emerging possibilities of multimedia and internet for learning and access to information and knowledge for the German university landscape and to bundle the activities in the use of the new media so that the international connection to the other industrial nations was not lost .
The key projects were selected in a 2-stage process. First of all, sketches of ideas on the topic were advertised. From the more than 250 submitted project proposals, 15 were selected by an independent jury, who were asked to formulate their sketch into a detailed project proposal. The jury finally selected 5 lead projects from these 15 lead project proposals that were proposed for implementation.
This included the “Virtual University of Applied Sciences for Technology, Computer Science and Economics (VFH)”. The project was approved at the end of 1998, the project duration was 5 years, the project budget was 21.6 million euros, which was financed in full by the BMBF. The project duration, initially approved until the end of 2003, was then extended to the end of 2004 on a medium-neutral basis.
Project duration: September 1, 1999 to December 31, 2004
Project participants
The Lübeck University of Applied Sciences was in charge of the project consortium under the project management of Rolf Granow .
Project partner:
- FH Lübeck ,
- Technical University of Brandenburg ,
- FH Northeast Lower Saxony ,
- Stralsund University ,
- TFH Berlin ,
- University of Applied Sciences Braunschweig / Wolfenbüttel ,
- FH Ostfriesland ,
- FH West Coast ,
- FH Gelsenkirchen ,
- HS Bremerhaven ,
- University of Lübeck ,
- IMIS , University of Lübeck,
- Helmut Schmidt University / University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg ,
- North Academy
Goal / task of the project
The federal lead project VFH successfully designed and developed two bachelor / master online courses within the project period, but also implemented them sustainably in regular study operations at universities of the VFH association. It should be particularly emphasized that this is the first time that uniform study and examination regulations have been introduced across national borders for joint studies.
In 2001, the University Association Virtual University of Applied Sciences was founded to ensure the sustainable operation of courses at universities . The association is responsible for the implementation and quality assurance of teaching.
After the end of the project, oncampus GmbH , a subsidiary of the Lübeck University of Applied Sciences, took over the technical system operation of online courses for the affiliated universities. The respective university is responsible for updating the online modules. For the FH Lübeck this is done by the E-Learning @ FH Lübeck division under the direction of Rolf Granow , who has been developing various e-learning projects for 10 years.
The offer of the Virtual University of Applied Sciences opens up new target groups for university education and in particular enables in-service training and further education. The proportion of part-time students predominates at 65%. In 2009, 2,300 students took up the offer in the entire university network.