The Scandinavian Studies’ Competence Network – A Model for the Use of New Media to Achieve Transnational Concentration of Competence

Scandinavian studies is a subject covering a wide range of topics with just a small amount of resources – from both the staff and the financial points of view. At the universities of Basel, Freiburg, Strasbourg and Tübingen there is only one chair at each of the universities where the subject is taught. In order to ensure diverse and high-quality courses of study which meet the challenges set by the Bologna Process, it will be necessary to concentrate the available resources. At the same time, it makes sense to continue to teach the subject at as many universities as possible since it often provides a decisive impetus and contributions to interdisciplinary research and, in the context of the emergence of a European labour market, offers important additional skills particularly for students of other subjects and in other faculties. The departments of Scandinavian studies at the universities of Basel, Freiburg, Strasbourg and Tübingen have, for this reason, committed themselves to a transnational network of expertise based on a contractual agreement and designed for sustainability in order to concentrate and diversify the expertise at the individual universities. The members of the network regularly share teaching content by means of various e-Learning scenarios. These elements have been integrated into the curriculum. Special attention is paid to studies at master’s or PhD level as here, in particular, a broad range of teaching is, on the one hand, especially important and, on the other hand, e-Learning scenarios geared to self-regulated learning make particular sense at this level. In a deliberate move, the teaching models developed are to dispense with elaborate multi-media presentations so that they can also be easily adapted to new, topical contents after the funding period has ended.

25.02.2007 | Thomas MOHNIKE (Freiburg)