Virtual Mobility in Higher Education. The UNED Campus Net Program

• Published in: Open Praxis
• Main Authors: Teresa Aguado, Fernando Monge, Alicia Del Olmo
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE) 2014-07-01
• Subjects: blended learning; distance learning; higher education; international students; intercultural learning; virtual mobility
• Online Access: https://openpraxis.org/articles/303
• ISSN: 1369-9997; 2304-070X

<p>We present the UNED Virtual Mobility Campus Net Program, implemented since 2012 in collaboration with European and Latin American universities. Program’s objectives, participating institutions, procedures, and evaluation are exposed. Virtual mobility is understood as a meaningful strategy for intercultural learning by studying an undergraduate or postgraduate degree program at the local, national or international level, in relation to the student’s own studies, utilizing virtual or distance methodology; virtual mobility is also the possibility of studying specific topics or a determinate number of credits or courses. The equality of opportunity is a priority objective for UNED. The diversity of students’ personal situations necessitates formulas that, along with traditional in-person mobility (e.g., Erasmus Program), utilize virtual resources to guarantee for all the students the intercultural experience of living in an academic environment different than one’s own. We hope that the UNED Campus Net Program is of interest to readers and that we can incorporate new partners into the project over the next few years.</p><p>The article deals with three main dimensions of the UNED Campus Net: objectives, implementation process and participants´ evaluation. We aspire to discuss and improve this experience in cooperation with other institutions interested in implementing virtual mobility in higher education.</p>