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INVEST Digital Solutions for Seamless Collaboration and Learning

Since 2019, the European Commission has funded European University initiatives to strengthen the competitiveness of European higher education. Currently there are 64 European University alliances connecting more than 560 higher education institutions across Europe. All these alliances share common goals, such as increasing mobility for students and staff, and creating and implementing joint study programs. To support these efforts, many alliances have developed various digital solutions to streamline the collaboration.

Karelia University of Applied Sciences is one of seven universities in the INVEST European University Alliance. One of the INVEST’s key objectives is the creation of the INVEST Virtual Campus, designed to support the alliance’s wide range of activities.

INVEST Digitalization Conference in Athens: Workshop on INVEST Digital platforms

A five-member delegation from Karelia participated in a three-day event in Athens focused on the developed INVEST digital platforms. The event brought together project and administrative staff, as well as educators from alliance universities, to explore the functionality and use of these platforms. The University of Thessaly, one of the INVEST partners and the institution leading platform development, hosted the conference. The following presentations of the platforms are based on the workshop presentations and activities.

Participants from Karelia UAS at INVEST Digitalization Conference: Minna Puujalka, Jarmo Väisänen, Riina Korhonen, Katriina Korhonen and Auli Karjalainen

INVEST Virtual Campus – streamlining the collaboration

The INVEST Virtual Campus is a comprehensive digital ecosystem designed to facilitate learning and administrative processes across the alliance. It features several modules tailored to different user groups, aiming to enable efficient collaboration.
 
In the INVEST Virtual Campus:

  • Public users can explore general information about the universities and available study programs.
  • Students can explore study programs and apply for admission, access learning resources, view grades, use in-app tools, and network.
  • Teachers can manage courses, grading, and communicate with students.

Administrative staff can manage enrolment, scheduling, and maintain student records.

• Platform management: Administrative area • Workspace: collaboration area where users can share documents, discuss and increase productivity • Calendar: schedule appointments and events • Notifications: stay tuned with everything that happens on VC network • Task scheduler: make lists of work that needs to get done, assign items, set due dates, and discuss • Email services: daily email reports, direct email messaging • Study Registrations: online process for review and admission • Gradings • Online Repository: area for documents upload along with EOSC services integration • Openld Services: provide identity verification to external services based on local identity system • Support Tickets mechanism: capture service requests and incidents from users
Virtual Campus integrates several built-in modules. Image: INVEST website

Additionally, the Virtual Campus serves as a gateway to other platforms used within the alliance, such as the INVEST learning environment (Moodle), the newly developed Micro-credential Platform, and the EDU8EU tool, eliminating the need for separate logins.

Micro-credential Platform and EDUC8EU

The alliance is also developing micro-credentials, for which a dedicated platform, the Micro-credential Platform, has recently been created. Through this platform, INVEST students, alumni, and public users can browse, enrol in, and participate in courses. In the future, the platform will provide learners with access to a wide selection of courses focused mainly on the focal areas of INVEST. Students’ achievements will be recognized with verified digital badges, which can be shared to showcase skills and accomplishments. Through the INVEST Virtual Campus, students can also access the EDU8EU system, which provides personalized study recommendations based on their academic history and preferences. It utilizes AI to match students with suitable study programs and pathways.

Screenshot from INVEST Micro-credential Platform

Next Steps

The INVEST Virtual Campus has been under development since the beginning of the alliance, and its implementation is now becoming timely. Karelia UAS is currently piloting the platform by managing the registration for the Winter School 2025 through it. Following this, the platform is expected to be operational for other INVEST studies as well. The development of all the digital solutions within the alliance continues. Existing platforms are being further enhanced, and new platforms and tools are in the planning stages. For example, the upcoming Mobility Journal platform will support the alliance’s ambitious mobility goals by monitoring and managing student and staff mobilities within INVEST activities.

Author:
Riina Korhonen, Project Specialist, Karelia UAS


References:
European Comission. “European Universities Initiative.” 2024. Homepage. https://education.ec.europa.eu/education-levels/higher-education/european-universities-initiative

INVEST European University Alliance. 2024. Homepage. https://invest-alliance.eu/

INVEST Alliance Grant Agreement

INVEST Digitalization Conference 2024. Presentations and workshop materials.   

Cover photo: INVEST Digitalization Conference in Athens. (INVEST website)

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