KnowledgeWeb Education Area Meeting Minutes (Manchester, 27/09/2004)
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Participants: L3S, OU, FUB, FUBerlin, UKARL, USCD, UTn

- WP 3.1: VISWE foundation
  1) copyright issues: e.g., what about open source resources (FUB: important)?
    -> may be a problem wrt non-profit character of VISWE foundation
    -> must be verified
  2) what are the main benefits of VISWE members? (incentives?)
     --> very important!
  3) formal details ...
    - help from FU Berlin (have experience in founding German associations)
      - hint: use persons as founding members instead of institutions
        --> avoid quite some problems

  - OU: replace summer school by 'portfolio of educational events, 
        e.g., summer school, industry courses,...)
  - USCD: also founding member
  - L3S: add cooperation with ARIADNE to the slides 

--> basic consensus: founding a VISWE association is ok

- WP 3.3: Advanced learning platform (presentation Martin Dzbor)
  - introduction to MAGPIE
  - discussion FUB + OU: what is the semantic part in MAGPIE?
    - taken offline...
  - L3S: Personalization and profiles?
    - user identity and lexicon customization in MAGPIE
    - menus created dynamically depending on ontology
  - idea: provide semantic web services using MAGPIE
    - use this as benefit for VISWE members?
  - FUB: how to easily make semantic annotations and share them (CSCW like)
    - todo for MAGPIE
  - community features (Buddyspace)

- WP 3.2: European Master (FUB)
  1) double degree (nicest)
     - O(n**2) bilateral agreements
       - exchange students
     - ERASMUS mundus
     - basically: create a new degree from scratch
       - use modules of courses
       --> need to agree on the modules, but not on each individual course
     - example: computational logics
     - first year: same modules, 2nd year: do whatever you want
  (1a) The 'UniTn' approach: very generic Informatics master
     - 1st year: local constraints
     - 2nd year: specialization for each 
  + very attractive for the students
  + stamp of the ERASMUS mundus program
    --> currently only 19 approved (all computer science subjects)
  2) Diploma (1 year one place, 1 year another place)
  - only one degree from one university --> no negotiations on degree
    --> negotiations on recognition of exams
  - example: Computational linguistics (Uni Saarbr"ucken)
  + lots of stamps on the paper --> important for advertisements
  --> can 'upgrade'  to Erasmus mundus
  3) some credits (weaker Diploma), more or less meaningless 
  - example: (UniTrento, Innsbruck)

- start with Diploma, go for double degree next year
- important ERASMUS mundus deadline: 31/10/2005 -> for academic year 2006/07!
- Erasmus mundus: important to build on top of existing agreements
  - higher chance of being accepted
- Partners: need probably quite many (new) courses
-> Core partners: KnowledgeWeb / REWERSE: 
 - OU? (difficult in practice, UK not part of Bologna...)

- important for the administrative paperwork:
  - 'no cost' committment (equal exchange over three years)
  - committe: deciding about course recognition
    - list of exams / modules
    - meets twice a year
  -> pass recommendations to faculties!!
  --> important: keep the autonomy of faculty / administration!!
--> administrative paperwork: lightweight agreement

Important question: what partners for shared master?
- two extremes?: 
  1) 2/3/4 up to ~five partners --> go for Erasmus mundus
     - probably two from KWeb and 3 from REWERSE?
  2) low profile 
--> make this clear soon, adapt next JPA
- coordinator: Enrico Franconi
- need 'strong' partners: must have power in their faculties
  --> adding courses
- UKARL, Innsbr(?), BIT (treat as unique university), FUBerlin (difficult)
  - UniAmsterdam?
--> discuss this (action point)

TODO: 
1) find the core consortium (determine within the next 2 month, adapt JPA)
    --> political drive (FUB)
    -> ask people who are interested 
    -> agreement no later than March to have students starting in October
2) Need a semantic web master course catalogue
  -  what are the topics students should know at the end of one year?
     --> induce topics from courses 
     --> generate a draft curriculum (L3S)

- Further discussion: 
  - full master feasible?
  - Title of the master?
    - L3S: Internet Technologies and Semantic Web
    - VUB: Ontology, Knowledge Acquisition?
    - more...?

- next phone conference: 18/10/2004, 12:00 (L3S will schedule one)
- send email to J"org (diederich@l3s.de) if you are interested in participating

WP 3.2:
- what courses will be uploaded into EducaNext:
  - FUB: Comput. Logics + Concept. Design
  - UniTn: send me an email next week
  - VUB(Meersman): Conceptual data modelling (send me an email)
  - VUA: not in the meeting
  - UKARL: Intelligente Systems
  - OU: five tutorials
  - USFD, CERTH, UniLiv: not in the meeting --> notify by email

Miscellaneous:
- SemWeb Ontology: OU develops one
  - not classification system
  - FUB: create bootstrap ontology from list of 'important publications' 
    - using text analysis, help of Uni Rome --> InterOp NoE