Virtual Mobility in the context of Open Education: re-establishing the boundaries

Virtual Mobility (VM) stands for a set of ICT supported activities that realize or facilitate international, collaborative experiences in a context of teaching and/or learning. Virtual Mobility aligns with the key concept of physical mobility, one of the cornerstones in the European Commission’s educational strategy through the flagship of Erasmus Exchange programme for students in HE. Students and teachers participating in mobility actions gain various competences and skills, ranging from professional skills to organisation skills and language and intercultural skills. Virtual Mobility has been seen as an effective method of extending the benefits of mobility to include more people, who might otherwise not have access to these life-changing experiences. In recent years, the options for such extension of learning opportunities for more inclusion have increased, most notably through the advent of Massive Open Online Courses and the use of Open Educational Resources, Open Credentials and Open Educational Policies. Within the context of the openVM Erasmus+ project, a Group Concept Mapping (GCM) study will look at the relationship between Virtual Mobility and other forms of Open Educational policies to propose relevant support and accreditation measures. This proposal for an Action Lab forms the fourth phase of the GCM methodology: an interpretation workshop where participants will be asked to reflect on the outcomes of online brainstorm over the topic by different stakeholders.