Are you a doctoral candidate with an interest in Technology Enhanced Learning? If so, do you know that there is an exchange programme in place? You may be able to get funding to visit another research institute!

What is STELLAR?
The STELLAR Network of Excellence, supported by the European Commission, is about strengthening networks and building research capacity in Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL).

What is the Doctoral Mobility Programme?
The mobility programme aims to foster dialogue and collaboration between doctoral and researchers within the field of Technology Enhance Learning. The programme includes a two-month visit to a host site to conduct research which is clearly linked to the STELLAR Grand Challenges and the associated research questions.

Funding
A Scholarship of up to €1,000 will be granted to 10 top-ranked applicants to support travel and accommodation expenses. In addition, one Excellence Award of €800 will be given based on evaluation of the merit of the participant’s work.

Procedure and Time tables
Visit the following STELLAR web page for more details and application forms: http://www.stellarnet.eu/instruments/doctoral_consortium/mobility_programme

Publication of 1st call: 08/12/2009
Deadline for submission of applications: 15/01/2010
An evaluation stage, including possible interview with hosts, will take place during January. Acceptance will be announced by the beginning of February.

The fourth time in a row, CELSTEC organizes the JTEL Winter School in Innsbruck. The JTEL Winter School is part of the “Doctoral School” activities within the “Building next generation research capacity” theme of the Stellar Network of Excellence.

The JTEL Winter School brings interdisciplinary doctoral researchers together in order to provide intense research training and to foster cross-domain collaboration. The event will engage participants in high-level courses and workshops with leading scientists. These workshops and lectures focus on theoretical, methodological, educational, and technological issues of relevance to TEL research, providing space for interaction, group work, and informal discussions. Doctoral students will also be expected to present their own research for constructive feedback from other participants of the Winter School.

The purpose of the STELLAR Doctoral School is both to induct TEL doctoral students into the STELLAR research community and provide research training for doctoral students, particularly within the early and mid stages of their doctoral research. The STELLAR Doctoral School will engage doctoral students in high-level courses, workshops with leading scientists and as an integrated part of the research teams from all the participating research units, they will be exposed to a very rich learning environment. The workshops and lectures organized during the doctoral school will focus on theoretical, methodological and technological issues of relevance to TEL research (for example activity theory, embodied cognition, individual, social & organisational learning processes, and the work of TEN Competence).

Doctoral students will also be expected to present their own research for constructive feedback from other participants in the Doctoral School. Workshops will also be offered on: writing research papers; communicating TEL research to policy makers, industry and practitioners. The workshops constitute a useful platform to enable the community to engage in the scientific work being carried out in WP1, 2 and 3. Another important goal of the Doctoral School is to recruit participants from beyond STELLAR core partners as a means of offering doctoral training to the worldwide TEL community. This would establish the Doctoral School as a cornerstone for sustaining the STELLAR initiative.

Interested doctoral students are invited to submit their application until 14 December 2009.

More information on the JTEL Winter School can be found at
http://www.teleurope.eu/pg/groups/43

Some impressions from last year are available here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrYcL2nTwUo

The coordinator of STELLAR, Peter Scott, accepted the invitation to give a keynote at next year’s International Conference on Hybrid Learning (ICHL), held from August 16 to 18, 2010, in Beijing. Hybrid learning refers to combining virtual and physical resources to provide enriched teaching and learning experiences. The call for papers is still open till Januar 30, 2010. Selected papers will appear in Lecture Notes in Computer Science (LNCS) and in the International Journal of Interactive Technology and Smart Education. See here for more information.

In the 4th edition of the Novática Award for the best paper published by the journal in 2008, the jury has selected the article of Daniel Livingstone from the University of the West of Scotland and Jeremy Kemp from San José State University on “Integrando entornos de aprendizaje basados en Web y 3D: Second Life y Moodle se encuentran” (“Integrating Web-Based and 3D Learning Environments: Second Life Meets Moodle”).

The article was published in the issue #193 of Novática (May-June 2008), within the monograph “El futuro de la tecnología educativa” (“Technology-Enhanced Learning”). It appeared as a spanish translation of the English special issue appearing simultaneously in UPGRADE. The editors of the monograph have been Carlos Delgado-Kloos from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid and Fridolin Wild from the Open University of the UK.

The Award, consisting of a diploma, will presented in Madrid, November 13th, 2009, Friday morning, within the frame of a Software Quality event organized by the Spanish Ministry of Industry and ATI, the Spanish a IT association that publishes Novática.

The Jury was composed by the Editors of the Technical Sections of Novática, the Chief Editor of our journal and a representative of the Board of ATI (Asociación de Técnicos de Informática), the publisher of Novática.

Now available are design guidelines and files for the creation of content for the STELLAR project.

Design guidelines (PDF)

Logo files (ZIP archive)

Logotype files (ZIP archive)

MS Word template (ZIP archive)

MS Powerpoint templates (ZIP archive)

Keynote templates, and business card design, to follow shortly.

If there are any other templates or branded elements that you need, please get in touch.

ECTEL'09

STELLAR is preparing for its first year General Assembly, which will be held at the  European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning (EC-TEL’09) on September 30. The assembly includes a meeting of the project’s executive board, the main formal body for the management and monitoring of the project, progressing its operability, preparing of decisions and their execution. The board is composed of one member representing each consortium partner.

David Lammy

Mr Lammy, the Member of Parliament for Tottenham, was promoted from Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills to his current position as Minister of State in October 2008. He is very interested in understanding the role of the UK in international online education, and in looking more generally at the Open University’s leadership role in elearning practice and research.

This visit came on the same day as the formal kick off meeting (also in KMi) of the STELLAR Network, which is being coordinated by the Open University and which represents a significant milestone in connecting the UK into European excellence in Technology Enhanced Learning. Peter Scott spent some time briefing the Minister about STELLAR’s aim to connect to policy makers and to the government decision-makers all over Europe; so this was a very auspicious start to this work.