University of Essex

Virtual Campus for SMEs in a Multicultural Milieu (ERASMUS)

Project description

The project was put together by Budapest Business School, University Paris X-Nanterre, University of Essex (SEB), and Hochschule Wismar (German University). Budapest Business School will be leading this project.

The consortium/partnership intends to elaborate a method allowing developing four equivalent Master diplomas (a joint diploma), nonetheless keeping the local languages for the teaching procedure. A co-developer system by subjects is proposed to be set up and these co-responsible experts – 4 by subjects – are supposed to work together in an electronic environment.

The curricula – broken down into 17 modules are expected to have a 4-country comparative character. The partnership/consortium sets the ambitious target to develop a modularly variable ICT based curriculum system in a quadrilingual milieu. The 4 member developer teams will fit the new module to the existing curriculum system and will give a comparative character to the subject. All the partners will co-operate with SME federations (from each country) who are expected to feed back on the relevance of the curricula.

The participants of the 4-member module developer teams will analyse the possibility of deepening their subject with the long term objective of creating doctoral level courses focusing on SMEs. The project is an essential step towards a whole cycle (Bachelor, Master, PhD) virtual European SME campus, focusing on the online development of Master level modules. The four sided accreditation of the degrees and certificates and the harmonised on line development will help the cross registration of students, the real functioning of the multi country virtual/digital campus.

Outputs and outcomes

• Traditional curricula of a Master M1 and M2 entitled “Master of SME Management” in four languages at the end of the first year of the project;
• A curriculum development method ensuring the equivalence of four diplomas in four languages that is a joint diploma by the end of the first year of the project to be accredited in the 4 countries afterwards;
• 17 modules of the pedagogical content developed; and will be available by the end of the project;
• A virtual university with the SME Master and with a variety of non degree courses combined from the modules for different target groups;
• The curricula will be web based, developed in the electronic environment used by the partners.

Diary of events

1st Project meeting in Nanterre 19 – 20 Nov 2007
2nd Project meeting in Essex 28-28 Mar 2008
3rd Project meeting in Wismar 19-20 Sep 2008

• Primary Project Website
• First Project Newsletter