Aligning IT infrastructures for digital learning amongst the European university alliance Unite! - The Unite! digital campus framework and requirements

The European university alliance "Unite!" has embarked on a mission to bring together their higher education landscape. As part of this ambitious endeavour, the Erasmus+ Work Package 2, called“Community 2 Digital Campus” or "Cm.2" for short, was established to shape and implement a cutting-edge digital campus framework within the alliance. The purpose of the present requirement analysis is to collect and list all the key technological, organizational, and legal needs and requirements for an up-to-date European digital campus. This analysis is built upon desk research, utilizing additional methods such as an online survey and stakeholder discussions within the entireUnite! alliance. The requirements analysis results are provided against the background of a short introduction (chapter 1), an overview of platforms for learning management in European university alliances (chapter 2), and a description of the analysis’ procedures, which are the development of descriptions of digital learning and teaching infrastructures of all partners, a survey of the status quo concerning European Student Card Initiative, a survey amongst e-learning support teams, an interactive event for stakeholders and literature and projects desk research (chapter 3). Chapter 4introduces the federated infrastructures of the Unite! alliance, especially the Metacampus as a federated learning management system based on Moodle. Chapter 5 provides detailed descriptions (including visualizations) of all partners’ digital infrastructures for learning and teaching. Chapter 6 then shares the status quo of the European Student Card Initiative implementation by all partners. Chapter 7 presents five core requirements identified through the analysis, which are the requirements of (a) interoperability between the digital infrastructures of partners and with European standards, (b) the implementation of decision-making concerning IT infrastructure for the digital campus: the Technical Commission, (c) the strategic support for the effective utilization of existing IT systems, especially the Metacampus, (d) clarifying future(learning) scenarios, mobility, and other issues relating to development of the IT infrastructure, and(e) budgetary considerations for the development and maintenance of federated systems. Finally, chapter 8 sketches the next steps and the future of Community 2 Digital Campus and its tasks, and presents (a) the work plan and organisational structure for Community 2 Digital Campus, (b) further development of Metacampus support and resources (T2.3), (c) update of Metacampus and organisational development of support requests, (d) ESCI: improvement of service, (e) eduGAIN maintenance and further development (T2.6), (f) piloting of LTI and integration of MOOCs (T2.6),(g) implementation of meta-data standards for course description (T2.5, T2.6), and (h) support of openness and innovation (T2.1)

The digital platform for the Unite! Alliance: The Metacampus

[EN] Nine European technology universities constitute the Unite! Alliance, a network that creates a new model for a virtual and physical European inter-university campus through close cooperation, physical and virtual mobility of members, joint programmes, communities that support teaching innovation, and open and entrepreneurial innovation networks. The Metacampus virtual campus platform is an important aspect of this framework. All participants in the Unite! Community can join at the Metacampus, which coexists alongside other universities' virtual campuses. It must become a valuable and useful tool for a wide range of users who are used to very different tools and processes, which is only one of the many difficulties it faces. The Moodle platform was chosen as the base for the work, and it was decided to maximise its features while minimising the amount of new innovations required to achieve the goals. After four years, the number of users who have registered and taken part in the activities that have been suggested enables us to draw the conclusion that the path is the right one for handling a challenge like the design and execution of a multi-university virtual campus.This work has been supported by the Unite! alliance that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 101017408, and Co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union.Alcober, J.; Haji Mohammadali, F. (2023). The digital platform for the Unite! Alliance: The Metacampus. Editorial Universitat Politècnica de València. 161-169. https://doi.org/10.4995/HEAd23.2023.1626516116

Examining IT Infrastructures for Learning and Teaching in the European University Alliance Unite!

Publisher Copyright: © 2025, EasyChair. All rights reserved.In the digital era, European University Alliances like "Unite!" work to reshape tertiary education by bridging nine prominent universities to champion regional integration, technology transfer, and quality science and engineering education. This paper delineates the methodologies used to harmonize varied IT infrastructures visualizations and descriptions across partner institutions, fostering knowledge sharing and facilitating standardized IT landscape comparisons. The absence of a general universal approach in representing teaching-related IT systems in higher education propelled the development of a unique, synchronized representation methodology. The paper offers a look at TU Graz's digital infrastructure as an illustrative example. Through iterative collaboration, the alliance will develop a comprehensive IT infrastructure report, aiming to serve as a valuable blueprint for other educational entities.Peer reviewe

Effectiveness of the MULTIPAP Plus intervention in youngest-old patients with multimorbidity and polypharmacy aimed at improving prescribing practices in primary care: study protocol of a cluster randomized trial

Abstract Background The progressive ageing of the population is leading to an increase in multimorbidity and polypharmacy, which in turn may increase the risk of hospitalization and mortality. The enhancement of care with information and communications technology (ICT) can facilitate the use of prescription evaluation tools and support system for decision-making (DSS) with the potential of optimizing the healthcare delivery process. Objective To assess the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of the complex intervention MULTIPAP Plus, compared to usual care, in improving prescriptions for young-old patients (65-74 years old) with multimorbidity and polypharmacy in primary care. Methods/design This is a pragmatic cluster-randomized clinical trial with a follow-up of 18 months in health centres of the Spanish National Health System. Unit of randomization: family physician. Unit of analysis: patient. Population Patients aged 65–74 years with multimorbidity (≥ 3 chronic diseases) and polypharmacy (≥ 5 drugs) during the previous 3 months were included. Sample size n = 1148 patients (574 per study arm). Intervention Complex intervention based on the ARIADNE principles with three components: (1) family physician (FP) training, (2) FP-patient interview, and (3) decision-making support system. Outcomes The primary outcome is a composite endpoint of hospital admission or death during the observation period measured as a binary outcome, and the secondary outcomes are number of hospital admission, all-cause mortality, use of health services, quality of life (EQ-5D-5L), functionality (WHODAS), falls, hip fractures, prescriptions and adherence to treatment. Clinical and sociodemographic factors will be explanatory variables. Statistical analysis The main result is the difference in percentages in the final composite endpoint variable at 18 months, with its corresponding 95% CI. Adjustments by the main confounding and prognostic factors will be performed through a multilevel analysis. All analyses will be carried out in accordance to the intention-to-treat principle. Discussion It is important to prevent the cascade of negative health and health care impacts attributable to the multimorbidity-polypharmacy binomial. ICT-enhanced routine clinical practice could improve the prescription process in patient care. Trial registration ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04147130. Registered on 22 October 2019 </jats:sec