VENUS Previous Seminar Experiences Survey:
VENUS Partner
Technical University, Faculty of Electrical Engineering and
Informatics, Department of Computers and Informatics
Name of the
Seminar (series)
Utilisation of eEDUSER Portal Environment for Training
Purposes
Institutions
involved
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Content
FernUniversitaet Hagen, Germany
FASE, Formacia Asesores en Selecci� Empleo S.L.,
Zaragoza, Spain
Turku Polytechnic, Telecommunication and e-Business,
Finland
IDEC S.A., Piraeus, Greece
elfa, s.r.o., Kosice, Slovakia
Faculty of Electrical Eng. and Informatics, Technical
University of Ko?ice, Slovakia
Faculty of Management Science and Informatics, University
of Zilina, Slovakia
Slovak University of Technology, Bratislava, Slovakia
Secondary Vocational Electrotechnical School, Michalovce,
Slovakia
Practical training of eEDUSER portal utilisation in daily teaching
practice. The course was based on a series of 5 virtual meetings to
show:
 performance of portal,
 administration functionality, and
 portal utilisation for training purposes).
The emphasis was puted especially at detailed verification of portal
functions from view of utilisation of various types of on-line
education resources:
 multipoint videoconference,
 IP video streaming.
with special attention to:
 practical solution of technical problems,
 methodology of resources utilisation for education purposes,
optimisation of portal functionality (based on obtained
experience from pilot operation).
Structure of
Seminar Series
- Didactic Model
The series of virtual (remote) sessions was organised in 2 parts:
1) three virtual meetings were devoted to explanation of portal
functionality and on-line communication technology
(videoconference, IP video streamings),
2) two virtual meetings were devoted to show practical utilisation
of portal. Two lectures - presentations from field of el.
engineering fundamentals were chosen that was supported by
interactive e-learning materials (outputs of a Leonardo da Vinci
project INETELE: www.tuke.sk/inetele).
Seminars topics, given by experts from CNL:
1. Development of Course and Virtual Class Organisation (Grilli)
2. IP Video Streaming Technology and Organisation of Live IP
Streamings Transmission (Michalko)
3. VRVS and Communicator Functionality (Kapová)
4. Power Semiconductor Devices – Fundamentals (Dudrík)
5. Electrical DC and AC Drives – Fundamentals (Fedák)
Each seminar lasts about 1.5 hour. All seminars were disseminated
to all project partners by VRVS videoconference technology and IP
videostreaming technology on line.
The discussions were moderated by the same moderators at each
session.
Supporting activities (before and after activities, if any)
Student Support
Prerequisities - The course participant has:
 to be familiar with project goals,
 to be familiar with portal functionality,
 to be registered in the portal in role of a student,
 to know Help Document for the Portal.
 to be familiar with VRVS (www.vrvs.org),
 to be familiar with IP streamings technology
(http://videoserver.cnl.tuke.sk).
Course material was also available to the students in the form of
printed materials, ppt presentations and electronic version through
eeduser LMS environment and GWT (virtual classroom,
www.eeduser.com). Full study materials are published and was
available to the students in the form of a books too.
Based on the data about the course participant a virtual class was
created by the course administrator.
Course participants were received details on technical conditions
dealing with virtual meetings organisation before course starting.
Supported the teaching materials were announced to the course
participants at least a week before the virtual meeting starts.
Staff Support
Technical support
Target group
The speakers at the lectures and the moderators do not receive any
specific training before the videoconference lectures.
Administration support: Iveta Zamecnikova (zamecnikova@elfa.sk)
–course administration
Frantisek Jakab (jakab@elfa.sk) – course organizer (part 1)
Viliam Fedák (viliam.fedak@tuke.sk) – course organizer (part 2)
Full technical support was provide by CNL staff (5 person).
Project eeduser partners (10 training institutions).
Trainers and teachers intending to utilise portal functions, and esp.
on-line video communication.
Each partner selected at least one course participant for the course.
The seminar series could also be followed as ‘free student’ and by
other interested people from the general public.
For administration and management of the pilot course there was
utilised eEDUSER portal environment. The course organisation
methodology was developed by the course team. The course utilised
the following training resources:
 ppt presentations,
 on-line meetings (VRVS – www.vrvs.ort and IP video
streaming – http://videoserver.cnl.tuke.sk),
 html modules.
Technologies used
Requirements for course participants:
 multimedia PC (microphone, speakers, web cam, MS
Windows 2000 and higher),
 access to the internet (min. ADSL),
Each virtual meeting wasl utilised both VRVS and IP streaming
technologies. If the partner was not able to ensure communication
using VRVS (e.g. a weak connection to the internet) than he/she was
surely able to utilise the IP streamings (with restriction that only
chat features for the feedback - questions to the course instructor
could be utilised).
Examination
Evaluation of participants’ knowledge was performed at the end of
the course through on-line testing (taking into consideration contents
from the first three meetings).
Accreditation
Course is not acredited
Evaluation
Evaluation report was performed by course participants and
comprehensive report by course leader.
 There were registered many students but only few of them
participated in all virtual meetings.
 Many of them did not master by the basic communication
tools and this was reason that the allocated time for the
lecture was not effectively utilised.
 The used communcation tools inside the virtual classroom
are very suitable and valuable for organising of the traninig.
 Using of simultaneous combination of videoconference and
IP streaming presents an extreme educationaô tool (if one of
them fails then the second one can be used) provided that the
users have basic knowledge with using these tools).
The course organisation through portal is very effective and at
present the staff of the DCI FEEI is starting to utilis regularly the
portal for training puproses (full time study)
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Problems reported
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The partners were not fully prepared to the organisation of
videoconferencing transinssion. We spent a lot of time with
maintenance
of communication equipment, esp. with voice quality
The participants did not connect hemselves the time of
transmittions.
They connected themselves during the lecture and there was
missing information what to do after connection into the virtual
classroom.
The learners required getting presentation available before the
lecture.
The learners did not utilise all possibilities offered by the virtual
classroom feature (communication and collaboration tools)
There was missing detailed information about the resources and
environments to be utilised during the lecture
Name of the person who completes this form: Frantisek Jakab, Frantisek.jakab@tuke.sk