Report on VETNET activities in 2006 by the chair

What has been reached?

• Increasing attendance for the conferences in Hamburg (03), Crete(04), Dublin (05) and Geneve (06)
• Active involvement of programme chairs (Patiniotis (04); Nyhan (05) and Stalder (06))
• rising interest from abroad: Canada, Australia etc.
• double blind review system well established
• Quality of the proposals has improved
• Wide spectrum of contributions on different levels: environment, systems, learning processes and professional developments
• Establishment of two regular joint plenary sessions: opening colloquium and VETNET forum
• Equipping the Homepage with detailed programme abstracts and list of authors (as during the last years)
• Over 550 people have been registered on the page

What can be improved for the future?

• electronic support for the review process while handling 200 reviews
• conference proceedings needed (last one Hamburg)
• Electronic VETNET newsletter
• four parallel sessions is a problem
• continuing homepage service
• number of applications by participants may be reduced to one instead of two contributions
• nine symposia may be a too many
• strengthen the European dimension on some of the papers
• widening publication channels: international journal

Election of the new Board for the period 2006 - 2008

VETNET members leaving the Board

• Nick Borham
• Alan Brown
• Theresa Oliviera
• Sabine Manning
• Pekka Kämäräinen
• Jittie Brandsma

Thanks to the Board members for their engagement and support!!

Commentary of Graham Attwell

• Developing VETNET
• Slow Progress in developing some procedures
• Board – Elected by the assembly, should be active
• Thanks to Ludger Deitmer for his work in the last 3 years.

Election of the board

The number of applications was higher than the posts in the board.

There was No adequate procedure to decide.

Two procedures to choose from:

• Elect 6 of 7
• Temporarily 13 member in the board

The assembly passes the resolution to extend temporarily the board to 13 members

Introduction of the nominees

• Magda Balica, Institute of Educational Sciences, IES, Rumania
• David Guile, Institute of Education, University of London, England
• Johanna Lasonen, Jyväskylä, Institute of Educational Research, IER, Finland
• Marja-Leena Stenström, Jyväskylä, Institute of Educational Research, IER, Finland
• Fernando Marhuenda, University of Valencia, UV, Spain
• Philipp Grollmann (Institute Technology and Education, University of Bremen, Germany)
• Lorenz Lasnigg, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria
• Magdolna Benke, Budapest, NFI-National Institute of Adult Education, Hungary

Confirmation of all nominees by the assembly.

VETNET Memorandum

Proposal from Pekka Kämäräinen

The assembly should decide about the start of the process and nominate somebody who is in charge of the coordination of the process. The nominee should be member of the board. Goal – produce a document in the time of one year. Proposal will be uploaded on the computer system.

Founding or an initiative group. Members outside the board: Claudia Dondi, Bologna, Italy

The discussion in the VETNET Forum (The role of European Qualification Framework for European VET Research) should be contributed as an input for this process. The progress of the publication will be reported later when necessary.

Comments:

The group may report to the next Board Meeting in 2007.

Future activities

• Next ECER will take place in September 2007 in Gent, Belgium.
• 2007 marks a decade of presence of the VETNET. A good opportunity to look back and see what can be learned from these ten years.

Downloadable version of the report:

[Word version] Minutes of the 2006 VETNET Assembly in Geneva

Preview Info - Protokoll VETNET Assembly ECER 2006.doc - 40.00 Kb

This is a microsoft Word version of the minutes of the 2006 VETNET Assembly in Geneva