iCAMP - Innovative, Inclusive, Interactive & Intercultural Learning Campus
iCamp will create an infrastructure for collaboration and networking across systems, countries and disciplines, pedagogically based on constructivist learning theories.
- Strategic objective: Strengthening the Integration of the ICT research effort in an Enlarged Europe
- Project type: Specific targeted research project (STREP)
- Start date: 1 October 2005
- Duration: 39 months
- EU funding: € 2 698 000
- Number of partners: 11
- Project coordinator: ZSI/Universität für Bodenkultur, Vienna, Austria
- Contact: Mrs. Barbara Kieslinger
iCamp has the vision to become the educational web for higher education in the enlarged Europe of 25+. It will provide an infrastructure - the iCamp Space - for collaboration and social networking across systems, countries and disciplines. The iCamp Space will build on existing interfaces and integrate shared community features. Interoperability amongst different open source learning systems and tools is the key to sustainability of iCamp.
The content for this collaboration within social communities is provided via distributed networked repositories including content brokerage platforms, online libraries, learning object databases, etc. Here, the Simple Query Interface (SQI), a quasi-standard developed in previous projects, will serve as the basis for further development and improvements with regard to system interoperability.
The driving principle behind the technical challenges is the innovative pedagogical model of iCamp which is based on constructivist learning theories. iCamp creates an environment for a new way of social instruction that puts more emphasis on self-organised learning and social networking and the role of the educator changes. The flexible pedagogical models will be validated during the trials. iCamp aims to perform two small-scale and one large-scale trial involving students and educators from the consortium and external partners for three different topics: basic research methods, international relations and management of international projects.
The project aims at strengthening the educational landscape in Europe and at offering a sustainable infrastructure. Since iCamp is not creating an additional e-learning system, but facilitates interoperability, a main advantage is that universities can continue to use and further develop their systems, while at the same time connect to other systems and offer a wide collaboration space for their users. iCamp will provide guidelines as well as a software toolkit to ease integration into the iCamp Space.