The Memorandum of Understanding

on the establishment and functioning
of the European ODL Liaison Committee

The undersigned representatives of the following organisations:

Association of European Correspondence Schools (AECS),
Coimbra Group,
EuroPACE 2000,
European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU),
European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN),
European Federation for Open and Distance Learning (E.F.ODL),
European Universities Continuing Education Network (EUCEN),
International Council for Open and Distance Education - Europe (ICDE-Europe),
Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP)

agreed as follows:

Preamble

European organisations and institutions in the field of open and distance learning have been developing and extending their activities and created networks to fully benefit from the European dimension potential in their activities and to respond to an increasing demand in this area. Each individual network is based on criteria for membership that enable a recognisable and constructive common operation, in the meantime networks have identified that they also have many interests in common.

The representatives of the European ODL organisations at their meeting of 25 June 1998 in Bologna agreed to establish the European ODL Liaison Committee in order to meet on a regular basis and to create a common platform that would be an added value for the networks. Thus, the dialogue between the different networks promoting ODL should improve, as should communication between these networks and the European Commission. The Liaison Committee at their first formal meeting of 20 October 1998 decided to launch a “Memorandum of Understanding”, to establish a jointly agreed basis for the co-operation.

Aims

The present agreement forms on behalf of the organisations represented in the Liaison Committee part of their European strategy, which strategies involve the co-operation with other relevant European and international institutions and networks in the field of open and distance learning.

The European ODL Liaison Committee brings together a sufficient number of members to be considered as representative for the area and for the countries of the European Union and, increasingly, for countries of Central and Eastern Europe. It has a structure that enables to mobilise opinions and expressions of needs.
It is understood by the participating networks that the aim of the Liaison Committee is to create a forum for the exchange of views in the field of open and distance learning, express common opinions and goals of the European ODL organisations and improve communication between the networks. It is intended to facilitate the engineering of Europe-wide projects, promoting partnerships in this field in conjunction with other European initiatives and to give recommendations to the European Commission and Member States and assist in defining and implementing action plans and programmes in order to enhance the integration of ICT in learning.

In the framework of the Liaison Committee, co-operation between the participating networks should be developed in order to promote and enrich the activities of each organisation and through this to enhance the development of open and distance learning. The basis for the co-operation is joint benefit and multilateral reciprocity.

Members of the Liaison Committee

The founder members of the Liaison Committee are the Association of European Correspondence Schools (AECS), the Coimbra Group, EuroPACE 2000, the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU), the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN), the European Federation for Open and Distance Learning (E.F.ODL), the European Universities Continuing Education Network (EUCEN), the International Council for Open and Distance Education - Europe (ICDE-Europe) and the Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP).

The Committee is open towards involving further organisations. New members may be invited to the Liaison Committee on the basis of unanimous agreement of the member organisations.

Observers from the European Union, the Association of European Universities (CRE), the Council of Europe, and other relevant European or international bodies may be invited to attend meetings of the Liaison Committee and to participate in activities resulting from these meetings.

The relevant services of the Commission will be formally invited to the meetings, DG XXII, Education, Training and Youth agreed to act as the contact and co-ordinating entity on behalf of Commission services.

General Mandate and principles of functioning

The signatories of this agreement welcome and endorse the opportunity for co-operation through the European ODL Liaison Committee.

They give their representatives in the Liaison Committee mandate to participate in its meetings and speak and decide on behalf of their organisations, observing the following principles:

• Standpoints and decisions of the Liaison Committee will be taken on the basis of consensus.
• Proposals for more than incidental decisions should be circulated at least two weeks before Liaison Committee meetings in order to allow representatives consultation of their governing bodies before the meetings
• Representatives of member organisations have the right to ask for agreement with a draft decision of the Liaison Committee by the governing bodies of their organisations before the decision is made public.

The Liaison Committee works as a voluntary agreement for co-ordination and stronger co-operation, in a light framework.

The Liaison Committee shall meet at least twice a year. Meetings otherwise may be held according to demands of issues to be discussed. Chairmanship of the Liaison Committee will rotate between the members.

The Liaison Committee may agree upon the provision of organisational support for the functioning of the Committee, offered by a volunteering member organisation of the Committee.

This Memorandum of Understanding shall come into force on the date when it is signed by all the organisations represented. Any organisation may withdraw by giving three month’s notice.

Done at Brussels, on 21 January, 1999.

Signed by:

the Association of European Correspondence Schools (AECS)

the Coimbra Group

EuroPACE 2000,

the European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU)

the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN),

the European Federation for Open and Distance Learning (E.F.ODL),

the European Universities Continuing Education Network (EUCEN),

the International Council for Open and Distance Education (ICDE),

the Network of Academics and Professionals (NAP)

Position Paper 2001

Review of Position and Future Functioning
of the European ODL Liaison Committee

Paper elaborated on basis of discussion at the Liaison Committee meetings held in Paris on 23 November 2000 and in Brussels on 26 January 2001

1. To create the Liaison Committee proved to be a valuable idea. In the Committee, the coverage of the ICT/ODL education field is impressive. The Memorandum of Understanding signed in January 1999 had defined properly the main aims.
2. The intention of the member organisations is to vitalise and reencourage the process of activities of the Liaison Committee. There has been an agreement about the necessity of efficient continuation.
   The target is to create mutual trust with internal confidence in the Committee, which would result a benefit for all the networks and where individual interests, potential conflicts can be discussed and feasible balance reached.
3. The Liaison Committee as such has not yet developed a productive interaction. The areas of interest of the composing networks may be in some cases too far from each other. All networks are acting according to the interests of their members, therefore in the Committee shared views can be formulated for those common things which networks can agree upon and for which joint actions can be drawn up. As the networks have different missions, the main achievement would not necessarily be to find full consensus in most issues but to act as roundtable and to exploit extensively the networks' rich experience. In line with that, the concrete situations should define how far member networks should co-operate and to what extent will they follow individual interests.
4. The Liaison Committee should function as a roundtable of existing networks who liaise with each other and try to find (common) views and where appropriate, synergies which may be communicated to policy makers. A stable multilateral relation approach is relevant which should focus on what is going on in the field of distance education, eLearning and ODL related activities.
   There should be a two level communication in the Liaison Committee: a platform where we invite people to present their standpoints, plans, projects, etc for discussion by the Committee and a roundtable forum, where ODL networks' views should be collected in order to be presented to policy makers.
5. The Liaison Committee should set its agenda itself, to be active on its own, have an open discussion about the topics on the agenda and afterwards communicate and discuss the opinion of the networks to policy partners.
   In cases where it is viable to elaborate common standpoint, the approach should not be too formal and members can agree case by case about issues where the Committee could speak with one voice. Meetings should have a dedicated part in which the Networks talk among themselves. For this purpose targetted discussions will be necessary.
6. As the Liaison Committee is acting on behalf of a very comprehensive circle of institutions involved in open and distance learning, the Committee understands its role and tasks as being a political group which aims at developing synergies and common views in this context. It is essential to identify the appropriate levels of partnership and communication with European policy partners in accordance with this approach. In order to be informed about the ideas and opportunities offered by the European programmes and those of other international institutions, the Liaison should invite representatives of such appropriate organisations to future meetings.
7. Concerning relationship with the European Commission and other European partners, history shows that the work of the Liaison Committee has actively been encouraged by persons from the Commission. There has been no specific attitude on behalf of the Commission expressed in the past and it was probably intentional from their side not to delegate one representative to the Liaison Committee, thus good professional relationship with more colleagues from the Commission was not formalised. The Liaison has hardly reacted with a common position on major issues tabled by the European Commission. In the opinion of members it would be necessary to redefine this relationship

Position Paper 2004

Approved at the 2004 May meeting of the Liaison Committee held in Brussels

At the meetings of the European ODL Liaison Committee held in November 2003 and May 2004 in Brussels, the members present have reviewed the position and activities of the Committee and agreed about recommendations for the future.

It was found that to create the Liaison Committee in 1998 was a valuable idea: its establishment and functioning is an important asset, creating a collaboration which is unique in the field. The Liaison Committee is acting on behalf of a very comprehensive set of institutions involved in open, distance and increasingly e-learning, thus the Committee understands its role and tasks as being of a political nature when developing synergies and common views in this context.

The Liaison Committee policy paper “Framework for European Commission Programme Funding” in 2002 has been a momentous output of the Committee, however did not create respective response from the European Commission.

The field of open, distance and e-learning has been very much in movement during the years of functioning of the Liaison Committee, with interesting developments in the public and corporate sectors and in the approach European Commission. The activities and positions of the organisations in the Liaison Committee to certain extent have also changed during the last couple of years.

In 2002-2003, for a number of reasons, most of which were rather of organisational nature, the Liaison Committee has not shown considerable activity.

There was now an agreement between the European ODL networks that the interest is present and the of effective continuation to revitalise the Liaison Committee is desirable.

It was recommended to adjust the activities of the Liaison Committee to the new needs. A critical and systematical survey of aims, tasks and operation, the clarification of the profile of the Committee and an effective clearing up of the agenda for the future would be relevant. The need for concrete activities to achieve tangible results was emphasized, however the Liaison Committee is nor foreseen to function on a high profile.

The Committee could play a role and have impact on the agenda of ODL and e-Learning in Europe but this needs more concrete and concerted actions and an improved involvement of networks.

It was confirmed, in accordance with the previous standpoint of the Liaison Committee, that it should function as:

• A platform where participants are invited to present their standpoints, plans, projects, etc for common discussion and possible joining of others in common action or activities;
• A roundtable forum, where ODL networks' views are collected and elaborated in order to be presented to policy makers.

The Committee should take a profile of a “resonance group”, reflecting upon significant developments and initiatives. It is essential to identify the appropriate levels of partnership and communication with European policy partners.

The Committee has found that there is a serious necessity to formulate a new line in the European e-Learning strategy. A severe concern emerges about the policy implementation in the distance/e-Learning field. ODL and e-learning seems not having at all the appropriate emphasis in the recent EU policy documents. The Liaison thinks meanwhile that for a number of evident reasons these fields needs to be positioned according to the merits they have deserved.

It was decided by the Liaison Committee, that a new policy paper should be prepared and disseminated by October 2004, about the position of e-learning in Europe, in the light of the Lisbon process of the European Commission. The document, when approved by the networks and validated in public debates, should be forwarded to the new European Commission members, and the new European Parliament.

The European ODL Liaison Committee has elected in November 2003 Peter Floor as next Chair of the Committee.