Yesterday, the ICDE-Conference started in Maastricht (The Netherlands). Fully, it is called the 23rd ICDE World Conference on Open Learning and Distance Education. Many dignitaries were present. Perhaps the most prominent academic was Manuel Castells who gave a talk on 'The university: from theology to technology'.

Today, two of us were honoured to present a paper based on our project: Introducing students and Erasmus coordinators to Virtual Mobility; two courses and a Cultural Survival Kit developed as an EU-Lifelong Learning project. Case study in promotion of Virtual Mobility (H.M.J. van den Bosch & W.P.C. van Zanten (Open University of the Netherlands).

Of course, there is no substitute for participating to the conference. Let us just share with you the conclusion of the paper:

Once students and staff are used to taking VM-courses, bountiful new opportunities will arise, through either planning or the market. Students may proactively decide to start taking courses from institutions in another country, forcing institutions to make good on the Erasmus- and Lisbon-promises. We are fully prepared to facilitate this future development.

(1) Honouring the traditions of European projects, the main results of the MoreVM-project will be made available to all interested parties, shortly after the project has concluded. Even now, some results are freely accessible. This means that any institution in higher education could decide to become a provider of one or both of our introductory VM-courses.
(2) Of course, not all parties may be willing to make the necessary investments (website, registration, tutoring capacity). Therefore, we are considering making room for the students and coordinators from other institutions, when we as MoreVM-partners will again offer these courses.