Minutes of the board of Directors
26th June 2007, Grenoble, France

Present: Jean-Francois Desnos (Chair), Yves Epelboin, Markku Kuula, Jan Madey, Viljan Mahnic, Martin Price, Ligia Ribeiro, Andrew Rothery, Kristel Sarlin, Hans Dieter Weckmann and Ivan Vrana.

Apologies: Bas Cordewener, Andres Salu.

1. EUNIS2007 – last minute issues.

Jean-Francois Desnos reported there were 370 registrations (compared to approximately 150 for the earlier EUNIS Conference at Grenoble in 1997). Two important last-minute changes to the Conference Programme would be made. Unfortunately the Presidents of Université Joseph Fourier, Grenoble and Université Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris were unable to speak because they had been called to urgent meetings with the French Government.

Nevertheless, Jean-Francois Desnos and Yves Epelboin were congratulated on preparing an excellent Programme for EUNIS2007.

2. New members joined since 13 November 2006.

The following were formally admitted to EUNIS membership by the Board:

University of Zagreb (Croatia)

University of Cyprus (Cyprus)

Danish Technical University, Lyngby (Denmark)

University of Duisberg-Essen (Germany)

Consorzio AlmaLaurea (Italy)

Vytautas Magnus University  (Lithuania)

University of Groningen (Netherlands)

Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun (Poland)

Pavol Jozef Safarik University in Kosice (Slovakia)

University of Almeria (Spain)

Umea University (Sweden)

SWITCH (Switzerland)

Institute of Education, University of London (UK)

Lancaster University (UK)

University of Loughborough (UK)

University of Ulster (UK)

Corporate members have decreased by 3; Microsoft and Oracle had not renewed membership and Gartner is not counted as a Corporate member.

Total: Full – 111; Corresponding – 3; Corporate – 7

Full membership had increased by 32% since June 2006.

3. Status of members outside Europe.

The Board discussed the request from a university in Kazakhstan to become a Full (Regular) member of EUNIS. It was noted that the EUNIS Statutes clearly state that “Regular Members are either Higher Education or Research Institutions or National Educational Organisations within Europe”, and that the Corresponding member category is available for non-European institutions. There were currently three Corresponding members –  one university in Israel and two in the USA. It was also noted that a small part of Kazakhstan is west of the Ural Mountains and therefore might be considered to be within Europe geographically. But, politically, the country is not regarded as European.

The Board agreed the current Statutes would not allow a Kazakh university to become a Full member and ejected the request, but hoped the university in question would become a Corresponding member.

4. Elections
a. to Council from General Assembly

There was one possibility of a ballot. Sweden now had 4 institutional members. For the institutional ‘chambers’ in Bulgaria, Germany, and Lithuania there were 2 members, and the members would be invited to choose between themselves without a formal ballot. In the institutional ‘chambers’ in Cyprus, Malta, Croatia, Georgia, Italy Serbia, and the national organisation ‘chambers’ in Spain and Switzerland there was only one member so no election would be required.

b. to Board from Council

The Board noted there would be 3 three-year positions to be filled to replace Bas Cordewener, Ivan Vrana, and Hans-Dieter Weckmann whose terms of office come to an end. All were elected members of Council and eligible for re-election, but Bas and Ivan had indicated they did not wish to stand again.

5. Finance
a. Statement of Accounts 2006-7

The Board approved the Treasurer’s Statement of Accounts for 2006-7. This would be forwarded for ratification by the General Assembly.

b. Budget 2006-7

The Board approved the proposed Budget for 2007-8. There was some discussion about how to spend the accumulating funds in the EUNIS accounts. Several ideas were put forward, including:-

    • Providing financial support for an annual meeting of Council members
    • Supporting events arranged by EUNIS members for EUNIS attendees
    • Paying translation costs for useful documents to be shared by EUNIS members

The General Assembly and Council would be asked for ideas at their meetings later in the Conference.

6. Proposed changes to EUNIS Statutes

The Board discussed the proposed changes to EUNIS Statutes circulated by Jean-Francois Desnos and the comments emailed by Ivan Vrana on 22 June 2007.  It was agreed that the present 3-tier hierarchy of General Assembly, Council and Board was too complicated and did not work effectively.  One option to streamline the organisation would be to abolish Council and increase the size of the Board (possibly to 12 elected members?). The Board agreed it was very important to retain EUNIS’s close relationship with national organisations. It would also be necessary in a new organisational structure to ensure that EUNIS committees continued to represent its broad membership.

The President would invite members of the General Assembly and Council to discuss various options for changing the organisational structure of EUNIS at their meetings later in the week.

7. EUNIS Elite Award for Excellence

There were only 2 entries for the Elite Award for Excellence in 2007. They were both of excellent quality and would each be a worthy winner, but the judges were unanimous in agreeing that the Award should go to MUCI of Poland. The winner will be announced at the final session of EUNIS2007. SAP had kindly agreed to sponsor the prize of €2000 again.  The Board deferred discussion about whether the Elite Award for Excellence should continue in 2008.

8. Proposal for Jens Dørup Award

The Board agreed the proposed terms for the award in memory of Jens Dørup which would be named the “EUNIS Jens Dørup Award for E-Learning”. Competition would take place in 2007-8 with the first winner being announced at EUNIS2008 in Århus.

The objective of the Award will be to recognise innovative use of technology in teaching to enhance learning. There will be no limitations on the type of project eligible for consideration. Competitors will be invited to submit presentations of their proposals through the usual Call for Papers procedure. A shortlist of 5 will be invited to give their presentations in a special stream at EUNIS2008, with the winner announced and the Award presented in the closing plenary session.

Members of the panel of judges will be proposed by the leader of the E-Learning Task Force and ratified by the Board.

9. EUNIS2008

The Board confirmed that EUNIS2008 will be held in Århus, Denmark from 24 to 27 June 2008. It was agreed that the Board should visit Århus to meet Tom Ladrup-Peterson and colleagues on 5-6 October 2007.

There would be a presentation to advertise EUNIS2008 during the closing session of the Conference in Grenoble.

10. Summary of EUNIS activities 2006-7

The Board discussed the contents of the Powerpoint slides to be presented to the General Assembly by the Executive Secretary. It was agreed that reference to the proposed ECAR survey by Richard Katz and Ted Dodds should be deleted from the presentation because final arrangements for the survey had not been decided.

11. Proposed changes to Gartner Agreement

Yves Epelboin and Ivan Vrana reported that they were still unable to agree changes to the Agreement proposed by Gartner. They would continue to discuss possibilities with colleagues at Gartner. In the meantime the existing Agreement continues to be available.

12. Top Concerns survey

The Board noted that Iain Stinson of Liverpool University (UK) would be presenting the results of UCISA’s latest Top Concerns survey during EUNIS2007. Iain had conducted the earlier EUNIS Top Concerns survey in 2005 and would be willing to re-run the exercise for EUNIS. The Board agreed it would be good to do the survey again, but decided it should not take place until the ECAR survey had been completed. It would be counter-productive to run two surveys simultaneously.

 

Martin Price

EUNIS Executive Secretary

10.9.2007

 

Martin Price , EUNIS Executive Secretary 28.7.2008