Lemmens The Virtual Challenge to International Cooperation in Higher Education Bernd Wächter (ed.) Aca papers on International Cooperation in Education The V irtual Challenge to International Cooperation in Higher Education

Virtual Mobility
The term with the lowest number of search findings (beyond “educational
mobility” and “higher education cooperation”, which are not combinations of
“virtual”) was “virtual mobility”. Does this mean it is a non-existing phenome-
non? Not at all: where there is cross-national educational practice, some sort
of virtual mobility always occurs, with relations and transactions inter-
mediated by digital media and information and communication technologies.
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Virtual mobility could be perceived as social and transactional relations
without face-to-face contact, independent of time and place, and interme-
diated by electronic media and communication technologies.

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In other parts of society, with more developed and structured international
cooperation, virtual mobility definitely exists. In the business world, people
work together on the same tasks across three time zones, and deliver value-
added services to their clients. And in research, groups of researchers often
work successfully together across national and cultural boundaries to
accomplish common objectives and solve common problems on the basis of
jointly developed workplans, milestones and budgets. It is in these areas that
the expression “communities of interests” and “communities of professions”
have gained most of their meaning.
This seems to be more difficult in higher education, where there are fewer
common objectives and tasks to be solved, and where few collaborative pro-
grammes exists. The sector is very heterogeneous and dispersed, with a
number of microcultures and formal regimes and constrains which prevent
people and institutions from working together. In Europe, the Bologna pro-
cess, with the implementation of a common European degree structure,
modularised and credit-based educational programmes as well the introduc-
tion of common denominators like ECTS, could help to overcome some con-
straints, boosting international educational cooperation and thus virtual
mobility, e.g. in ways that could offer students the possibility to choose
courses and learning modules as well as tutoring and assessment provided
by another institution, and have it recognised and accredited by her or his
home institution.
I worked for the Education Directorate General of the European Commission
between 1997 and 1999. This was during the preparation of a new genera-
tion of Community action programmes in the area of education and training
referred to as Socrates II and Leonardo II. Despite many discussions on vir-
tual mobility in the preparatory phase, the “new” programmes became more
or less replicas of the old ones, with only few specific measures to promote
virtual mobility as such, except for the generic focus on the potential of using
ICT and new technology in education and training. The reason why no speci-
fic “virtual mobility actions” were launched as part of these programmes
could be a lack of creativity inside the European Commission, or Member-
State conservatism, or the fact that the concept and the models of virtual
mobility were still not mature enough to be implemented in these large-scale
schemes. But in the next phase, things might change. Indeed, the recent EU
“e-learning initiative” and some calls for proposals which focus on virtual
education in the university sector are perhaps early signs of a more deter-
mined policy in the future.
It is obvious that we need a more precise perception of and a more focused
attention to virtual mobility, and better methods, tools and incentives to facili-
tate it. And we need a more holistic view on virtual mobility, in order to reach
the end of strengthening international education cooperation and fostering
cross-national educational practice and collaboration. Organisations such as
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the Academic Cooperation Association and its member could play an impor-
tant role in defining meaningful ways of virtual mobility and other forms of
cooperation, and incorporating it into existing and future mobility and coope-
ration programmes.