I'm B8 Ike and I'm the Pro Rector at Aarhus University and have the pleasure and privilege to welcome you all to this webinar. It is a personal pleasure because today we are having two of my favorite organizations together. Both the Guild and Chef work to advance and acknowledge the value of higher education. And Søren, if you put on the slides please, then I'll just take we take slide number two, say a few words about the Guild. It was founded in 2016. It is a network made up of 21 research intensive European universities. You can see the names here on the slide with the mission of pursuing excellence in both research and education. And it is blessed with a very good office run by General Secretary Jan Perlmovsk and a good team among whom Iwana would just agree that you are supporting or we're supporting the creation and dissemination of the paper remaking research led higher education in the digital age. That is the paper that is on the agenda of today's webinar. This paper was written in collaboration between four Guild members. Some of you already heard that Jo Angori from University of Warwick was the writer and our navigator from University of Tatu, Karin Amos from University of Tübingen and myself supported with inputs of various kinds. We are all for here today. But a paper is not worth much if it is not read, criticized and taken further, like any other academic contribution. So I'm therefore very, very grateful that Chef at the School of Education at Orwell's University immediately volunteered to host today's seminar. That is the second seminar following the launch of the paper. And if you will take the next slide, soon Chef is something very special to me and to Orwell's University. My first thought when describing Chef is that it is like participating or becoming a member of a big family. Those of you who came in early, I think got that feeling. But more officially, Chef is the acronym for Center of Higher Education Futures. It is a Center for Research on Higher Education and University's Future and importantly also for a dialogue between both national and international researchers and policymakers. And if you allow me to use that analogy of the family, then the co-director Cern, Benson and Sue Wright are the very proficient parents. Sorry for that, but I couldn't help it. But Cern and Sue, you can describe yourself in the sense that it's much better because now I am happy to leave the floor to Cern, who will cherish through the next couple of hours. Cern, the floor is yours. Yeah, thanks a lot. It's a great pleasure for Chef to collaborate with you and the Guild and we look very much forward to the discussion today. And just to add to your very generous introduction that Chef is a research center at the Danish School of Education and you can read more on our website here about the different events that we organize each semester, the different projects that we lead on and that we co-lead or part of. So and you can become a member also by signing up. So you're very much welcome. Let me just say a few words about the program. And the first speaker is co-director also of Chef Professor Sue Wright, so shortly she will give a talk on educational challenges in relation to today's topic. And after Sue's talk, there will be time for a couple of questions. So if you come to think of anything, let me know in the chat and I can just put in an X and I can see who wants to say something, ask a question or have a comment and I'll bring you in.  And after Beard's presentation, there will be another opportunity for a brief discussion. Then we'll have a break. And after the break, we'll try really to engage in a community building because that's so important from the Guild, which is very inspiring for us as well. So Sue will start us off by introducing the framing questions and the framing ideas behind that exercise. And then we'll divide you into breakout rooms. So you can discuss with colleagues here today. And there will be a pattern as well, where you can write and insert some of your notes. So we have them for later. And then we'll ask each group to just give a brief summary. I'll tell you more about later on. And we'll end with a few suggestions for how to take this further. Some ideas and initiatives for further collaboration together, because we really want to hope to build on this event and maybe to work on the same theme, but in other formats or in follow-up webinars. And around four o'clock, no later, Beard will say goodbye again. So I think it's over to you now, Sue, actually, for your presentation. Professor Susan Wright, co-director of SHIF over to you, Sue. Okay. And you'll do the slides. Great. Thank you. So I've spent a very enjoyable time reading the Guild's report, reimagining research-led education in a digital age. And they set out a number of educational challenges, which we've discussed within SHIF. And so this is really the highlights of that discussion. Go to the next slide. The first one is the broadening mandate of universities. From about 2000, with the Lisbon strategy, the mandate of universities was really narrowed down to the idea that they were supporters or drivers of a global knowledge economy. And education also became heavily linked to the notion of employability. But now, increasingly, there is a widening of that mandate with the crises that face Europe and the globe, the climate change, the global inequalities, the massive population movements that are happening around the world, and the threat to democracy and, of course, the pandemics. So the idea is that the university should have a broader mandate and students should be equipped to handle all those challenges of the future. The Guild paper says that this requires providing students with, and I like this phrase, analytical skills for complex inquiry. And they identify three things there. One is students should be engaged in actual research projects, working collaboratively with academics. And this is something I've spent my life trying to develop. So much of university education is research-informed education. But how do we actually develop educational programs where students are active researchers, active members of a research community? The second point then is the issue about translating disciplinary knowledge into interdisciplinary context. Of course, this is a very vexed discussion, whether we should focus on disciplines, whether we should start students off with interdisciplinary or multi-disciplinary approaches. I still am old-fashioned enough to think that having a disciplinary base is a good start, but it's really important they don't get siloed into one discipline. How do they work across disciplines? The third point is then, and I think this is crucially important too. Students' learning depends on a lot of time to reflect and think about what they're taking and what they want to do with that knowledge, how they can use it creatively. But also, there's an emphasis on education addressing and acting on real problems. And there's a tension between the time needed for reflection and the urgency of action. So that raised a question for us, how to work flexibly, adapting to emergent issues within this broadband date, and abide by nationally accredited, delivered and regulated educational models, and sustain international standards of quality and comparability? And this is where the notion of standards begins to come in. Are those standards helping us or are they hindering us? Can we go to the next slide? The second challenge is that of mobility. The EU, in its recent educational strategy, says that we should aim for 50% of students having an experience of studying abroad by 2025. At the moment, it's much less than that. The pandemic, of course, has prevented actual mobility, but it's also provided experience, some of it good and some of it not so good, of virtual mobility and of internationalization at home. So both the EU and also the Guild paper is arguing that more diversified mobility experiences are needed, not least for students from underprivileged backgrounds who are underrepresented in the traditional mobility models and in the Erasmus program at the moment. So that raises the question, how do we develop educational programs that combine virtual mobility, internationalization at home, and actual mobility? Or do we go for one or the other? How can students' experiences of mobility be evaluated in all that in those different ways? And then there's a second one, which especially affects us in Denmark. How can universities handle the tensions when international and national missions are pointing in different directions? For example, national priorities are to ration resources on international education and focus resources instead on the local labour market and the local language. So there's a lot of issues there, and of course standards and criteria tend to push us in one direction or another. Can we go to the next slide, Sun? Oh, just before we do, that little snail comes from a report we did here at Chef on early stage researchers' experiences of mobility who were part of the EU ITN projects. And we've had this fantastic quote from one of the participants. Obviously there was great excitement about the opportunities of mobility, but she says, I'm like a snail, I just have to have my whole home on my back. So the effect of mobility actually on students' lives is another issue that needs to be taken into account. Now we can go to the next slide. Yeah, and this is the third challenge that we've picked up, which is how to generate collaboration across boundaries. If you think of university research, we've long been involved in collaboration between academics across institutional boundaries and across national boundaries, and we hardly think about it. The EU strategy for European universities, I think it's called European University Alliances at the moment, envisages similar networks of academics and students teaching and learning across institutional and national boundaries. And that's a different mindset for education. So the question then is raised, how do we move on from the Bologna process, which provided tools for comparability of education across Europe, and instead build tools for collaboration between institutions across Europe. They were the three things that I wanted to raise, the three challenges that I feel are really important. And we could open it up for questions now, if you like. Yes, let's definitely do that. And maybe just to add one tiny thing, when you talk about mobility, so we have also discussed the dialogues and translations across different institutional levels within one university. So when we talk about standards on a leadership level or strategic level, how does that translate into teaching and learning practices? And how does that translate back again, perhaps, and those sort of dialogues within each context, which I think Beard would also mention a little bit more after this discussion. Yeah, I think that's an important point. And I think the Guild report has some kind of phrasing about standards are often perceived or experienced as top down in positions and time consuming and meaningless. And I think today what we're trying to do is open up the space to think about how could we develop standards that work for students and academics, and obviously, leaders and decision makers across. And that's why we're talking about creating a community. Definitely. Let's see if we can kickstart the sort of discussion now, or do you just, if someone has a comment or question they would like to share with us, maybe an example from their own institutional context. Yes, thank you. Thank you for the start, opening up all these topics that are really, really interesting in the paper. And I just wanted to, I mean, to give a kick to the discussion and looking at your last slide about these tools for collaboration. I think it's very intriguing. It's really the question of what are the things that across Europe we need in order to better collaborate. And if we're looking at our European University Alliance, then one of the main tools is connecting digital information of the universities and studies. I mean, so that the students can easily be virtually mobile and registered to the courses of the other universities in the Alliance. And this is where exactly I see the standards are coming in, because as soon as we start digitally collaborate, we need standards because otherwise in the real world, everybody can collaborate in a little bit different way. And it's okay. But as soon as we start digitally collaborating, we push standards and I see, I mean, it's difficult because academics and universities are different, our countries are different, and academics are so different than they are used to have their freedom. But at the same time, I see this as an opportunity to introduce new ways of thinking. And in this collaboration positive new ways of or innovative new ways of from the other countries. But what I foresee is this is a difficult place where the tools for collaboration introduce standards that everybody is not sort of eager to admit maybe. Just a comment that even if you feel the same or if you can respond, it's very nice. Thank you. Thank you. Brilliant. Let's see if Sue has a comment and maybe... No, I think you're raising a really important point there. And I think even if you're, I mean, I've just been trying to set up some co-teaching between Denmark and Australia, apart from the time scheduling, which is dreadful. But just what is a course? What is a module? Everything's different. So it's a really fundamental thing to start thinking of education across borders. Yeah, I agree with you. And we definitely, I recall that we had some of these discussions as well when we prepared the webinar that on the one hand, standards act as a bridge and a common language and its way of connecting, it's actually a hook into another context that might be difficult to understand. So we create a common ground. But at the same time, it's detaching. And it's sort of making this sort of neutral, not really real space, decontextualizing. So that's a really, really difficult balance, I think. Bia, do we want to come in as well? Well, no, I also completely agree. And I think it's a great issue today, because somehow where do we find the right balance between actually being on the same spot and using the same language? And what are the minimal standards we need? And how do we also find the necessary flexibility? We have another comment, and then we can see if there are others, or we move on to be it after. They are coming from the guild, it just says. Oh, sorry, sorry, I need to change my name. I'm sorry. My name is Jan Pamoski. I'm at the guild. So thank you, first of all, Susan, for this really wonderful thought-provoking opening. And there's so many things I'd love to come back on. But I was particularly struck by so specific in a general context. So the specific comment was really about mobility, and this question about is mobility a good thing? What is mobility? And when we think about the 50% clearly, and it goes back to the paper, as you mentioned, we need to think about connecting different ways of being mobile and being present. And I would argue, and I hope we can also think about connecting mobility, not just to the institution, but also to the local environment. And then, I mean, you also raised this question of measurement. And one of the things I really wanted is how do we, what do different forms of mobility actually mean? What is the value that they actually add? And how much about this do we know? Because if I have Algebra 101 at Aarhus University, what is the value of that versus Algebra 101 that you could teach with your Australian partner? Is there? I have no idea. And so there is something really about measurement and about us being much clearer about articulating the value add in any given circumstance. And then bring that also into the national conversation that we're in so that we actually also find ways then to connect these different kind of abilities to the local value add that also our politicians, in some ways, quite rightly also demand. And the more general comment that I have is that this is one example of the many things where we are, it seems to me we're in quite an experimental space. The societal need for what we do that you mentioned, the opening up. And so I wonder how we can get, you know, I'm one of those people, I totally recognize what you said about quality assurance being something done to me as an academic. I mean, oh, and it's about feeling informed, etc. So how can we move towards an enabling framework? If we think about all the things that we don't know right now, how can we find ways to maybe start kind of in a broad way? Because we don't know. And then slowly building up an experience to find more common ways, if you see what I mean. So maybe starting in a more trust based way. I don't know. Just, Jan, you're absolutely, I mean, this is what we want to do in the group work towards the end of this session. So you've set the scene beautifully. I mean, that is exactly what we want to do is open up that experimental space, look for value instead of numbers. And how we can actually look at the contextualized experience of education rather than some kind of currency that has enables us to move students around like ECTS. You know, we can say that's worth three or that's worth five, but it doesn't actually mean anything in terms of educational quality. And it raises what you've been saying raises an even bigger problem, which is there are no standards for educational quality. There are no measures for educational quality. In all of the auditing systems and performance indicator systems, there are only proxies. So I think when you say it opens up a big space, I think it opens up an enormous space. Thanks a lot, Jan and Sue. I can't see any further questions at this point. So maybe let's move on and see if there are more up here. So it's a very great pleasure to hand it on out to pro-director of August University at ICA. And I will see if I can get into my slide again here. Thank you, sir. And thank you, Sue. I think I want to go further on your question about what the time is ready now to move from comparability to collaboration. In these webinars, we dig further into and expand on some of the issues of the paper. And today I have asked about mobility and standards. How do we find the balance? Because we never question internationalization when it's about research. I think research is by the nature, doesn't respect borders and crosses borders. But when it comes to education, it's a bit different. And we expand on the paper of some of those tensions between local versus global. Education follows national regulations. Educational quality is largely something that we have national accreditation bodies, all our own quality assurance at and funding is largely a national business. And at the same time, we all acknowledge the enormous benefits of explosion students teach to other students, teachers and teaching in other countries. And I think it's not a coincidence that Erasmus is often described as the most successful EU activity. But recognition of study elements acquired at another university depends largely on having a mutual understanding of the value of that study element. And that's exactly what I want to try to dig into. Standards have therefore become into come in their currency necessary for getting merits. And I will say that personal having worked with education at all university for more than 20 years, this comes up again and again. Our academics really, really worry what their students get the necessary merits when they go abroad. So what I will also present later standards comes with pros and cons, and therefore is a balancing act to work with. We take the next slide. In the paper, we say a little about quality standards we have looked also on everyday life, where we rely heavily on standards. I mean, without standards, we could not, in example, trust taking prescribed medicine. What about the vaccines? We all waited for the FDA, EMA, and our national bodies to approve that safety standards were met. So in the world, business standardization is associated with something positive. And lack of standards are just a hybrid car. And the lack of standards for charging electrical car is certainly associated with extra costs and frustration, I would say, when I run around trying to find the right charger. Therefore, demand for standards when it comes to products is often a driver for innovation. But will you take the next slide, Søren? When it comes to educational quality and SUE, you already mentioned this, it's very difficult, different, and it's much harder if at all possible to apply standards and innovation. Because quality, I usually say that quality, educational qualities, make very simple and all kinds of elaborate definitions. But it is all about relationships between subject matter, lectures, teachers, and students. And I think the big question today is how do we apply standards and which standards do we apply to advance educational quality? I would like to address our current use of standards, Søren has already mentioned the ECTS, and maybe Søren, if you will take the next slide, because in the extension of the Bologna process, we got a number of standards, all with the aim of making mobility smooth and easy. You mentioned the European credit transfer system that measures workloads of students, where one full time study here equals 60 ECTS credits. We also have the qualification framework with eight reference levels described in terms of learning outcomes for the comparison again between courses, and also with the purpose of supporting cross-border mobility of students. And when it comes to quality, well, it's very interesting. There it's explicitly said in the European standards guideline that this is not standards quality. I think they acknowledged that that was not possible, but still it is a way of trying to make comparison easier. And on top of that, we have a number of national and institutional criteria for mobility and the mutual recognition. Would you take the next slide, please? So that's one can say that structurally, we are aligned with ECTS and EQF. We should be able to compare, but are we also aligned when it comes to practice? I want to dig into when we students study at another university, and I think this is even within the same country, what academic marriage does a student get, and what other marriage, non-academic marriage, are acquired. If you will take the next, please. So if we go on when you spend a semester or shorter or longer exchange, that's not the university. What I often have experienced is that the question, do students come home with sufficient academic marriage? Interestingly, few are worried about if they come home with more, but very often you can even see that the same course elicits two different numbers of ECTS. In our administrative bilateral dialogues, we use ECTS to look for equivalence among courses, as was already mentioned. And if you click, please, then I have just tried to illustrate this by taking, you can have 10 ECTS courses, I just chose one. Example could be in education. Philosophy are two different universities, but they come with different content, different formats, and maybe even different workloads. Some courses are easy to compare, often because the learning goals are describing at a very general level, or if they are electives, usually academics care less, if it's exactly equivalent. But there are other courses, especially at professional programs, as medicine or law, that have very, very specific learning goals. And that is much more difficult to handle when it comes to marriage. And that's also where I personally have experienced as being a medical doctor and having worked for medical programs. You wouldn't believe how much marriage depends on almost identical course elements. So although ECTS is a mutually accepted currency for workload, it also, and that's also where it comes in some of the problems, it does differ from country to country. In some countries, one ECTS equals a workload of 25 hours, and others 30 hours. And as we all know, some people need less hours than others to complete a task. So that was sort of trying to problematize one way of comparison, and if you take the next slide please. Then I think there's another very interesting also question to ask, do we really count what matters? So we might be concerned about the academic payoff when students go abroad, but I found it very interesting looking into different home pages of international centers. And you know, they sell them, describe the academic outputs, but much more reasons for encouraging students to study abroad than at the universities. And the arguments are almost much more on all of the benefits associated with an exchange. Maybe because we assume that academic standards are secured by the ECTS. I have here tried to list just some of the non-academic merits that are associated with internationalization, the curriculum. And if you ask students, they will come home, they could come home and say, well, I got a new network, got to learn new students, teachers, I got to, I looked in, I learned different ways of teaching, I became better at French, I was able to access and get courses I would not otherwise have gotten, I had to change and be more adaptable to my way of learning, becoming more independent. Something that almost is always mentioned, if you talk to students returning, they will talk about the cultural awareness with all its assets. And I think one of the discussions we had to prepare this, one very important point was raised, namely that often we are very focused on what the students get with him or her home, but we forget that they also might and should make a difference themselves being an ambassador of their country or will be. So I really think that we have a number of standards, especially ECTS that have proven valuable for making mobility and collaboration possible by allowing for mutual recognition. So in other words, ECTS is the currency we use for the sake of mobility, but as I just said, we have at least two different challenges. First, ECTS measuring workload is a proxy for the academic outcome at best. Secondly, we value the non-academic outcomes of mobility, but we don't acknowledge them systematically or give merits. So if you take the next slide, please, these challenges are not limited to educational mobility. It also comes with other occurrences. And if I should say polimically, one can ask if we also need a Big Mac index that takes better into account the real goods that you get when you spend an ECTS. But let's soon move because I know this would be provoking to ask something like this to the next. And I think last slide, I want to stress that the ECTS system has allowed us to mutually recognize study elements with all its back sides. We can have our international offices arrange exchanges exactly because we have ECTS. However, in the leadership paper we're presenting today, we asked if time has come to move towards more valid measures than workload. And this is cited from the paper, we write approaching educational achievement from the perspective of competences can provide ways to engage content in a fresh and liberating way and constitute a second step in mutual recognition of educational achievement. Of course, there could be other ways than competences, but has the time come to move forward. And the very last I think the point here is that rather than looking at our spend and the curriculum, we could look at the competences achieved. In other words, acknowledge that many roads lead to Rome. And I'll be ready to take that. Next and last, please. So competences, but one suggestion. And in the following session, we want to hear you voices on the pros and cons of standards and maybe come up with good solutions for how we can do move from comparison to collaboration. Thank you. Brilliant. Excellent. Thanks a lot. And I can see there are a few questions in the chat. Just before that, just to ask, because I really personally like your point about being an ambassador, we usually think about what we get to our institution, what we receive when students return, what they bring back to their own education, the further academic trajectories and to our institution. But what do they give to others? So that's sort of gift giving or generosity. How do we prepare them? How do we send them out? That's very rarely addressed, at least in my own experience. So sort of turning the tables around and think about giving something instead of only receiving in this perspective is very important, I think. And of course, the tension between the formal curriculum and the informal curriculum as you started out mentioning is super interesting, too. Let's hear what people have to say. We still have some time for a little bit of discussion before we move on. Aune, is this a new comment from you? Yes, it's a new comment. Thank you, Berit. And I think you're totally right that in case of mobility, then the academic merits are maybe not at all the most important topic, but it's the generic skills and not so directly academic merits are the most important. And I think it was actually the initial idea, at least what I have understood, that the initial idea of promoting this Europeanness or European identity and intercultural competencies is the main idea of this. It's not about learning better math in another country. But I was just wondering about your point. You said that, I don't know, maybe I coached not directly, but that more and more academic people are asking about the value of mobility. Would that mean that these side effects or the non-academic merits are not so valuable? Because what I see in Estonia is that the mobility is stressed mainly and mostly because of these, that we understand that when you are staying in one university, we don't have very good tools in promoting in students, let's say the future skills or generic skills, because I think they just obtain these skills so much better when putting themselves in the new situations, like being mobile or creating their enterprise or going to do some practical work in the community. So applying their knowledge, what they have learned in the auditoria. So I was just wondering that do you see the hesitation towards the mobility like a wider question and how do you interpret that? Well then I'm sorry if I was unclear. I don't see that mobility as such a question. I actually think there's a great acknowledgement of the benefits, but maybe more on the non-academic benefits of which I mentioned some, but especially if you have a curriculum with very specific outcomes, I have and that I have done for at least the last 20 years met academics who are very worried if there are some specific special skills in algebra or something else that are the prerequisite for taking something more advanced that the students do not acquire. So it's not a trend of moving towards, it has nothing I think to do with less acknowledgement of internationalization, but more some of the back sides, but this is my personal experience. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for daring to let me speak because you happen to be hitting something that I'm riding on right now which is always a danger, but I'm thinking about these things about the competences because I'm challenging Beard a bit here because this automatic assumption that mobility brings cultural awareness, we're actually currently looking into intercultural competences as something that well perhaps actually is not supported by mobility where we sometimes find students returning with stereotypes rather than an enhanced intercultural awareness. So we're now looking into well actually as we call it see where do students develop these competences and I think we should be careful about automatically assuming that physical mobility is necessary as we are increasingly seeing other means perhaps doing the same thing better and closer to home for instance bringing students into parts of their hometowns that they don't necessarily frequent because these parts happen to be populated by say a segment of society that university students do not necessarily meet a lot. So I'm just challenging the automatic assumption of what competence we're actually associated with mobility because I think this idea that it automatically brings intercultural competences has been exaggerated and I think we need to carefully look into that and I'll stop there sorry. No but thank you and it's great that you are doing research on this I was just quoting what I read and what I hear and I think you're absolutely right that it's not a guarantee I think especially if the international students live by themselves which is often the case in many places and what you're describing about using the community just around you is a great idea and especially a low cu2 still I don't think we should discard international exchanges but it's good that it doesn't come automatically that was not my point either. Sue you have a reply as well are you still muted Sue you need to unmute I can just back up what Hannah has been saying that we've had a master student here who did a research on American students in Denmark and the way in which they represented themselves and what they think they learned during their stay abroad and it was very much about putting pictures of expensive food or iconic tourist sites on Instagram and generating themselves a simplified but it was very much creating a CV that would be sellable and I think David Greenwood is here he's done a fantastic piece of work with the study abroad program in Sevilla and written a special issue of the journal lattice on this where they rebuilt the whole study abroad program so that it became much more ethnographic and much more learning about the society they're in rather than just a superficial stereotypical type of experience so I think Hannah has pointed to another topic which probably we can't cope with today but the ways in which the study abroad programs and mobilities are organized I think is also needs exploring in some detail well I just a short comment this is not about mobility or not mobility but it's like everything else we do to do it well yeah how we do it yeah right we have two more comments or questions and then maybe we should have a break and then we have a little extra time perhaps for the group work group discussion so Ronald Meyer you're the first one up thank you very much and I really enjoyed these talks and I would like to to get your opinion on on the triangle of a Europe the concept of a European University the concept of international competencies or cultural awareness and the concept of digitalization meaning in my view that with the concept of a European University we might approach a time in which the whole study program is actually taking place internationally by digital experiences some call it collaborative online international learning but you know there's all kinds of you know possibilities and opportunities that many students engage for themselves for each change with people from other countries whether they are living inside their own countries or in the other countries digitally it doesn't matter anymore so I was wondering you know whether you could share your opinion about you know what this means towards you know the general expectations that we have towards international experiences that our students are engaging thank you thanks very much Ronald I'd like to ask my collaborators into I think that the alliance is open for something that is maybe very very important namely trust building that you can lower the barriers both for how we do things and how we compare things and also including more types of of mobility we just heard a good example from Hannah about doing cultural awareness at home it's also I think the whole virtual mobility as I see it it's really we are at a step where we can do something differently but I should like to to ask to some of my Joe and Arun and Karin as well I'm very happy to jump in and entirely I'm sort of trying to actually stay out particularly when we actually said let's go towards a break but it is really to me how we can try something different how we can actually get into the point of keep what what we do well but also bring bring this this this sort of transformational effect that we want to this experiences we're providing our students to have and and and I very much agree with buried what we're trying to actually show with the paper is that it's basically moving beyond this binaries of home abroad online offline sort of here there is basically really trying to think a portfolio of experiences that are made available to the students in different times and and buried I really love the the Big Mac index I think it's actually really thinking in a different way what is the vision and and and and Susan I think you actually see you're really put it with the with the challenges right so we actually are giving ourselves ourselves a challenge to to redesign the architecture of when this opportunity is made available to the students and in order to do that we of course need some standards but we also know that we also we need to think how we can actually build on relationships of trust and how we actually can create some spaces when we can risk a new designs because otherwise if we can't risk new designs we will continue going around the same round about and and and we also need to engage what with what's what the experiences our students have when they they go abroad and we know that it's it's it's very different as you said and the example Hannah you gave and and that does happen and the question to me is not that one is better than the other the question is when things happen what what are the outcomes for the student how can students actually be engaging in experiences that they also I have some stuck ability they can they can build on they can take whatever they do in a co-curricular into the curricler and vice versa there is a lot of rigidity which is not synchronized with the with the world of our students our students live in a much more dynamic environment and and and and we provide quite a lot of that in in in their curriculum but I think we can actually do much more and we have an opportunity that's how I would like to see the current moment as an opportunity to think with partners in in different ways and if today collectively we cannot make decisions of changing things then then then how can we actually move things and bring some change into the system I think that's that that's what I would like to see as as an outcome to actually go beyond this program is better for that but to actually say these are all the programs we have we know what they do we need to articulate what we use them for and what we think we we get students to do when they engage with those programs and create a different portfolio a more diverse portfolio of opportunity for the students. Thanks a lot Joe and we have one more comment but just to add to that I would really like also to discuss in in the session after the break how that looks what you mentioned here Joe in practice when we move to the student level that trust how does that look when students go out and they come back because I it's super sympathetic ideas which work definitely on a strategic level but yeah do they also work in practice and how how is trust sort of supported or scaffolded and institutionally on a practice level but Jan you have a you have a final comment here before the break. Just a very brief comment about something that Barrett mentioned that I think really is so so fundamental which is this yeah this mistrust by many academic colleagues when somebody goes abroad that they they might have a good experience but they won't learn x or they won't learn do y and I mean in in my experience there's something really you know and so therefore we emphasize very often the kind of the added value of the intercultural competence but I I would still really want to make a strong argument for also for never losing the academic value out of our science because I mean in my own experience having worked in degrees where there's been a compulsory year abroad you know if you send a student from Germany to England or from England to France there are completely different ways of crafting an argument of doing an analysis in social science and humanities probably different maths and and and the ways in which students are stretched this is academic but it's also deeply cultural because there's something really deeply cultural going on about why this is the case and if the students are able to to to master this and then come back that's an extraordinarily intellectual gain and and and I and I don't think we've ever really been particularly good at articulating that and grasping that or at least to my knowledge I'm sure I'm sure that the presidency will will will have will have been able to but as I certainly haven't seen it it's like do we have a final come back to that from beard or suit before we have a break no we leave that as a concluding comment for now let's thanks a lot everyone really great discussion so far and we look forward to starting up more sort of in-depth group discussion after the break so let's meet up again at three o'clock sharp and then we'll introduce to the group exercise okay enjoy your break all back I hope you enjoyed your break and now we look forward to engage in further community building and discussion across different contexts to some nationally as well curricula or disciplinary probably as well and I'll start by handing it over to you again to sort of set the frame and introduce to the focus and the questions and then I can explain more about the breakout rooms after or to you soon yeah thank you so when we were thinking about how to to set up a group work on rethinking this space that we've so well described in the earlier sessions today and we were thinking that standards are maybe a step too far maybe the way to start is thinking about indicators because an indicator can be pointing in the direction pointing to the kinds of things that we're interested in without necessarily trying to jump to creating a standardized process that all in one go so the little picture here is meant to indicate that if we're going to start working up some new ways of thinking about how we create ways of collaborating it has to be built on a strong foundation of the students in the academics way of of working and then the house can be built on top of that so let me just try and introduce the idea of community indicators um if we think of the university as a community um we've got students academic staff I should also add in there administrative staff because quite often I'm hearing that the administrative staff are where students often refer and they've got problems or tensions they should perhaps be added in but students academic staff university leaders and policymakers but they all have different interests um they're if you like different life worlds so one of the issues we've picked up from from the report the guilds report was the way in which standards are sometimes experienced as top down as separate from the context of teaching and learning and of academic work and um a name here might be to try and think about how do we recreate a community create a common ground between these different life words worlds so that's one challenge I think in rethinking standards how do we work them so that they have meaning for students they have meaning for academic staff they have meaning for the university leaders where they're different interests in the way they would use them and policymakers so if we move on to thinking about what indicators are they're they indicate what matters for people at the core of an activity so the core of an activity I would say in terms of teaching and learning is the students and the academics understanding of what makes good educational experience and I suggest that we focus um because that's enormous we focus it down onto education experience of studying abroad or mobility um and then the second step would be to identify things that indicate those experiences of a good education they would need to be things which are tangible or measurable but yet are embedded in their context one the problems with standards is they've been decontextualised disembedded from context if they if we could come up with some indicators that are embedded in context then students and academic staff can use them creatively to think about how we improve our practices or how we engage with new practices in the challenges that we've identified today so we're not looking things for things that are top down and countable but meaningless we're looking for things that are embedded and improve practices but yet are tangible and countable because the third thing is they need to be translatable between the between the life worlds so if students and academics would use them to discuss and improve academic practices managers would need to use them in a different way they've got other work to do with them and policy makers would use them in a different way but the question is how can they be used by each group to talk with the others so as they move let me just move to the next slide we're thinking of we were focusing on ECTS in this discussion but let's think about indicators of mobility we've got nested contexts here of students academic staff institutional leaders and policy makers if we were to start with trying to find some indicators of valuable educational experiences from mobility amongst academic staff and students those indicators would need to be used by institutional leaders and they'd use them in a different way and policy makers would use them in a different way but then the policy would come back to the academic students and staff and the point would be that we need to have something that will travel between those contexts both up them and down them so that when they come back to us as teachers or students we can recognize them and still use use them so that's the third point about them being translatable between the life worlds how can they be used by managers and policy makers in their work and used by each group to talk with the others not that they are hard to recognize when they come back to academic staff and students again so this is what we were trying to think how do we if we're moving away from standards in with the critiques that we've developed today and we're trying to think of alternative ways of creating some kind of indicators that might lead to standards but some indicators that would show what we're trying to achieve in this new space with these new challenges that are facing us how do we set about it so those were the three things that we were thinking were important to start with what matters for the core of the activity identify things that are tangible and point to what matters and that are translatable between the life worlds so what we'd like you to do is to have a group discussion and think about what matters in terms of educational experiences of studying abroad or mobility we've we've we've moved the discussion today has moved it to a wider concept of mobility and here are just some examples what do students and academic staff considered to be the components of a student's good study abroad experience what would point and then the second thing is what would indicate a good or a bad educational experience of studying abroad choose specific things that matter now these indicators can be wacky and imaginative but they must also be tangible and measurable because they've got to move between between layers so how can students and academic staff use them to think about the design a study of broad experiences and how we how we use them in education but also how can leaders and policymakers use them so that's the challenge for the group work coming up now does that set the scene soon or do you want to pick up in a different way that's great so thanks a lot no I think it's excellent to me it's clear maybe because also we've talked about it so the point is that we created four groups with five six people in each group and we'd ask you to reply to two questions and there's also a patlet link in the chat so you can use the patlet for so keeping your notes and we also have your notes after the event but also so you can remember what you discussed and then after the discussion we'll give you 25 minutes and then we'll call you back and hear from each group so I suggested you start by maybe introducing yourself around the table as it were and then maybe agree on who will be the note taker who will give a brief summary and then see if you can if you have time to discuss both questions that could be super helpful and we look very much forward to that so I'll send you out into your breakout rooms now I'll stay in the main room here if there is anything you can you can get back and ask but otherwise we'll see you again in 35 minutes so have fun all right welcome back everyone I hope you had some good discussion at least the patlet seems to indicate that there was a lot of things going on so I look forward to hear about that we have around 15 minutes time or so to hear back from the groups and so I'd like you to sort of invite you to keep just a brief recap or summary of some of the most important points in each group and of course you're welcome also to comment on what the other groups say but so let's hear back and then so the first group were Guru Ran, Radu, Ronald, Sue and Soos maybe you would give a short summary one of you right so I'm going to do that hello for the rest of the meeting my name is Radu from the Babish Boy University in Romania so in group one we noted that we didn't have any students so we didn't really get a bilateral discussion between or get feedback from the student part but we agree that contents are really the first thing that matters and it counts towards the degree some people would say this is not entirely rewarding contents come with a component of cultural institutional culture so it's not that you have knowledge learn to use that knowledge but you're using something about culture but not the culture of the country in general but institutional cultures other ways to do science to learn science to generate arguments and then speaking of the cultural experience we thought that you could get this organized somehow in say a sort of diary and if you look at the padlet there is a list of other things one can try or components that can be incorporated into that diary and then so your systemized account of your experience could perhaps be counted as extra work that you do so you get your ECTS credits for inorganic chemistry or whatever you did in class but then you're doing some extra work besides just posting your expensive food on instagram if you do that compared to the students who stay at home perhaps it might be worth to receive a credit or at least to know that this credit can be offered to you in perhaps some sort of optional way back at your university we pointed that that there are these programs that also really take you by the hand and immerse you more deeply into the culture the respective culture that you're visiting such as the civil program that engages you in conversations with the host family so you have to stay with that one family and then of course really enhance your cultural exchange that way excellent anything that might be too much speaking for this so perhaps let's hear from the other groups so that linkage between content and culture and the linkage again between work you say work that's sort of formal informal linkage and the host families just to hear a little bit more about the host family so what role do they play in or what role does that play in in relation to what did you talk about in relation to that if you can elaborate a little bit further well there was a mention that there is a program but i didn't make that mention so perhaps if the person who did that could just see there is such a program civil they called it or civil right i was referring to david greenwood's work with the study abroad program in civil and and there they um they have a series of questions or or challenges that they give the students so for example they they live with a family in in the town and they have a certain number of things to discuss with that family and then write about that and to work with community organizations and learn about the part of the town they're living in and write about that and then we expanded that by suggestions of actually writing about the learning culture in the university they're visiting and we picked up jan's point about arguments being constructed in different ways so you could set the a series of questions for a student to to work on as an absolute exercise whilst they're doing study abroad we also picked up hannah's point that they we could get students to do this at home as well and then we were thinking that that would then need rewarding it could be examined like a qualitative piece of examination with a grade and rewarded with ects thanks a lot radoon and sue and the first group um let's make sure that we um go through the entire round so i want to invite um spokesperson from group two and the group two were aune christine david giorgi ivana and jenny would one of you like to say a few words yeah i i have to do that i wanted very much david doing that because i think he has a most inspiring input in our group but i can try to do and ask colleagues to to add uh so first uh what to measure we were discussing or our discussion was around uh three aspects actually about mobility one was this content certainly which is of course important content of that of the experience and secondly we content academic content i mean and then we talked told about the generic competencies mostly we were talking about language competence actually and that is also maybe easy to measure and then finally we told about meta knowledge on on learning and teaching uh actually the same that was mentioned in the first group so this is maybe something that the students are not so much intending to do but they what happens if they if they experience other other academic culture so these three aspects and if talking about how to measure these then uh then i think this is something that is coming from the idea that david was introducing that that sort of i would call them structured interviews before and after maybe also in the middle but let's say before and after mobility experience and before it could be about discussing what kind of aims what kind of what competence is the student want to obtain during the mobility but and maybe convincing also it's not just about asking what you want to obtain what or what you intend to obtain but maybe also convincing on pushing towards some some directions and then afterwards it could be asking basically the same questions so what happened and and to see whether they intended and and obtained experiences were the same and and i mean as a as a psychologist i would like to also measure some of these i mean i think it's quite easy to measure language development how how well your language developed during the experience but it's maybe more difficult with some of the generic competencies but i would say that's not impossible and but i found interesting in our discussion was that regarding the content knowledge we a lot talk about quality and if we talk about quality we mean that it should be the same that it's taught in our university so if it's exactly the same then it's of good quality but our georgian colleague actually stressed that the good quality is new knowledge so something that you can't obtain in our university so so it's also interesting that i think the discussion so whether you go go there to learn something that is impossible at home or you want to replace everything but is taught at home so this was our discussion but if anybody wants to add i'm very welcome if you can do so thanks a lot and that was excellent i i'm just talking a little bit about the the measuring thing because that's a sort of the real unique to measure but and at the same time there's a miscope maybe reducing or um sort of stereotyping some experiences or when you make them generic who who wants to measure did you talk about that who what what actor is it who wants to to do the measuring in your discussion did you have an implicit sort of measure a role and when in your discussion oh you're muted now on it you're muted i think we are we shortly discussed it and because i think from the sort of academics or faculty point of view it's if you if you i mean if you measure the the content you measure in ects but the generic skills i think uh it's also important uh learning outcome i think of most programs but it's very hard to to to grasp or to exactly say which course is developing which uh competencies so i think there is an interesting from interest from the university point of view to see whether the generic competence is developing i think from the student point of view it's also useful because the generic competencies tend to be invisible maybe i mean i think if i improve my language then i notice myself but if i if i become more culturally competent or or maybe maybe i even don't i mean maybe i don't know and maybe i don't present it to the employer after us that that was the value and that is something that i know now better than the other students do and from the politicians point of view i think if you think about that's european money and i think the main aim to put money into this like a rasmus program is to to increase this kind of cultural awareness and if we can show that which aspects are developing developing better than then maybe it's like a value for money or i mean it's uh i mean maybe maybe the finances are more eager to finance if we can show that these are improving definitely so different motivations for measuring and different maybe interpretations of the ideal purpose behind measuring across the different levels that the actors that you talked about yeah that's that's really fascinating thanks a lot right thanks group two let's get back from the group three and group three are b8 joe julian quen and ramona do we have a are you happy to start and then i can pick up the second part yeah thank you i think we have a linguist in our groups but we have five five colleagues and we talk about transformational and transformative impact so there's slight difference between the two terms so i'm sure that joe and ed but some transformation relating to transformation and change in a long run and we're talking about um tangible any tangible change because some changes and some achievement may only show after a certain period of time so that is one of the but transformative is also one of the element that indicating the the power to change thing for example student come home and they will look at teaching at home in in different view point in different perspectives so that was the the highlight of our discussion in term of what matter we also looking at flexibility a different modality and it's not a specific point in time in your life in your semester and which year that you have to travel in that and we also ask a question of matter to whom because even if it were a student travel or start travel that we also have a personal experience but also we were given a list of tick box that we need to tick various boxes for institution or kind of um so so the the what matters that matter to whom it's also important and then we talk about the indicators um we have um lady moruna or she is actually erasmus coordinators and she talked about um the heavy workloads in some of paperwork in term of application system so um in order to make erasmus um mobility or any kind of mobility in the future we need to build to develop new packages and certainly less paperwork we also talk about um um trust and trust and and because um at individual level as well as this faculty levels and and institutional level um in order to build collaboration and partnership often it come from a personal relationship and also that bonding would probably last for a long time um that what we we would like to have indicated that not only numerical quantifications uh and we just um I mean we discussed a lot of points but um uh this is just a just something that I can I can actually talk more about and we we start start to talking about values fake culture instead of standards measure culture super interesting thanks a lot Quinn and group three are there any things to add from from other good members I think you haven't covered a lot I think the um and we don't need to go in too much detail I think what we actually um added a bit uh is was the the need to actually what matters is very individual it's a very individual experience and and we need to actually uh go beyond the systems that we have which is a bit of an one size fits all uh but in order to be able to do that that also um we took a bit the challenge that you gave assurance to actually think what it means in practice so to think of the uh academic year more holistically instead of things that happen in particular blocks and then how um how there can be uh more ways to bring one experience into the other to actually have this uh that I refer to as stackability or sort of as an opportunity to take something and then build on it and continue um so I think the current the what matters at the moment is not reflected in what what we have but is also related then to the indicators and I think the relationship of trust we elaborated a lot on we have seen best practice really coming where uh we we trust the the the partner and and we trust that there is a relationship between the individuals involved in terms of the individual academics the teams involved that create those sort of environment where students have the space and the opportunity to engage and then we trust the systems in place that are in the other institution which at the moment uh we don't do so uh we actually use very narrow indicators uh that a don't capture the experience but also actually really are missing the bigger picture of the point of how we're trying to use uh deep partnerships for the benefit of the students well thanks a lot and that notion of trust is really interesting that sort of keeps coming coming back I really like that I I'm I'm struck by you mentioned power as well and I think that's the first time we talk about power today and also you mentioned the power to change and the idea of mobility or standards can be empowering because often we feel they are making us power less or at least I think students and sometimes academics do as well that we are sort of we lose power when we start but but maybe not maybe it also a form of empowering so yeah I definitely like that as well brilliant there's a lot of stuff to to discuss further time is running so let's hear back from the final group before we have to draw the event to a close and that's Henne, Jan, Metzi, Paula, Sergei and Simon. Hi so I will be reporting for this group and we started with what matters and suddenly it's the access to ways of learning or knowledge that would not be available at home or in the home institution but also flexibility to choose what a person is curious about but at the same time there can be some big challenges if for example in a new institution person who is a student in the first year of medicine chooses for fourth third fourth fifth courses which they cannot follow because they don't have the pre-existing knowledge it can results in a lot of trouble there is important the support that we get it's very important to to know what we can expect as students who going somewhere but under the expectations also match the reality and here is a big role of international coordinators ideally this process Hannah mentioned should begin before the mobility then do be you know the experience abroad is something that where you actually experiencing something that you've been preparing for and then later you you you reflect on it but there is a lot of challenges and very difficult measurements first thing that I came up with what can you measure is the number of erasmus babies born from marriages of people who met during their erasmus mobility that's I've heard something about a million babies being born from that but then there are also questions what can we measure I've heard from I wanna that it's easy to measure language then I heard from Hannah Tang this is actually not easy or even possible to measure language capacity and then I wonder if I come back from a from mobility do I want to be assessed with 150 tests which I try to capture my cultural capacities and intercultural communication skills um Jan mentioned that students come changed and transformed and it's not only the half a year or year that they would transform in while if they were would be so following a course at home that they come home as a more mature stronger personalities but the question how that maturity could be could be tested or how could we assess that people overcame a lot of challenges personal or academic on during their study abroad is is a question how how to measure how to come with indicators the last thing that Hannah mentioned is that sometimes people even come back with more simplistic stereotypes or diminished intercultural competence which we never take into account that it might might happen we are all usually focusing that it is a positive change but it actually could be a negative change and we should be open to to that possibility as well is there anything that you would like to add super important points perhaps we should add just one thing because what is very important if you're trying to do something that's pan European is that you explicated what requirements are there for students taking courses and the example I gave was actually undergraduate free moving exchange being put into a specialized masterclass in philosophy the philosophy teacher was very nice about it in the interview but I think those kind of situations are simply not working so there's got you got to enroll you need to get the international office you need to get study administration involved in this so you actually make it absolutely clear what courses are specialized and what courses are open because otherwise everybody ends up being unhappy thanks a lot Hannah and Mattie and group four and this definitely the maturity curiosity formation or building how to measure that how to test that and at the same time that's also an inscribed logic you say it's often a sort of an expectation that there is a formation that there is a maturation maybe there isn't maybe something happens during that process that actually leaves a person less mature in a sense perhaps I think that's that logic that you point to is interesting as well that we seem to take for granted okay so time is actually thanks a lot everyone time is really up now I just want to say very few words and then I'll hand it back to be it again we definitely want to follow up if it's possible in some way and if the guild wants to to follow up as well we in chef we'd be happy to support that so how to follow up on this there are different ideas and we will write you an email as well and ask what you would like to be interested in participating in how much time you have what role you see yourself having it could be follow-up webinars on the suitability or more suitable standards in universities and further discussion in those webinars across levels as Sue mentioned that would be very interesting a conference symposium perhaps taking the discussion into a more formal academic space early was this year so that will not be until two years but it could be so it could be another conference joining in a symposium across different universities and members of the guilds for example doing a special issue on edited volume on the issue of standards could be interesting as well maybe some of these things will develop over time as we collaborate further but just to mention this and we don't have time to talk more about these with you now but we will follow up with an email and I think it's just left for me to say thank you very much everyone on behalf of chef at least I think Sue agrees that it's been a true pleasure being part of this event and this discussion and we look forward to further collaborations so be it the final word is yours yeah and that will be great thank you sir and your magician when it comes to cheering sue thank you for your fantastic clever thoughtful provoking points and good answers and to everybody thank you for the contributions I think this was really what we dreamt about the critical views on our preconceptions of things and then I hope you will join us for the next two webinars Auna you are still there the next one will be hosted by University of Tartu do you have a topic and you can tell us and it will be available at the girls page yeah I would like to invite everybody to the next Guild seminar on the on the same paper the topic will be about about how to say that what is the what are the strategies national and university strategies to towards incoming students I mean I don't mean mobile students but mainly the degree students from international degree students and what are the national and university strategies to engage them to the local labor market and and what are the activities I felt I mean starting from language teaching but also and I mean all the issues around these whether international students should stay or leave after after the graduation and and what the universities and countries are doing in this regard we don't have the date yet but it will be in the second half of November and as spirit said yes it will be on the homepage of the girls and we'll I'm sure we can distribute otherwise too but thank you for a great afternoon it's most valued and take care thanks so much thank you everyone bye bye


Good morning. I'm Sebastian Kugler. I work for Blue Systems and I've been a KDE developer for 11 years Yeah so today There will be an announcement and it will be about a KDE software store and we We gave the subtitle Rethinking Software Distribution because that's That is really what we are What we're aiming to start with this project? Let's take it's let's take a few steps back So 15 years ago Frank Kaliczek was over there raise your head stand up. Yeah, he's hiding now because he's a really shy guy started open desktop which is was a site to distribute add-on content for KDE applications and the Desktop as it was called back then nowadays, of course plasma add-ons are for example wallpapers additional scripts themes, so all kinds of contents that enrich your desktop and That would lead to you being able to customize your desktop And applications a lot more. You can also think of add-ons for different applications For example maps in marble that kind of stuff. So pretty much everything but applications themselves applications themselves were a bit problematic since There are 200 different distributions and they all have different Formants they all have different versions. So you get a really complex matrix of binaries and That's just not very practical to distribute more about that later unfortunately Frank has a Pretty cool new hobby actually. I Don't think it's hobby. It's really a hobby anymore, but Frank had other things to do so there wasn't a lot of maintenance of open desktop. It would it still worked It was integrated It was running but it wasn't really Developed it was very innovative when it launched but after a few years different services popped up and it Was superseded in terms of functionality features user experience by things like Google's Google Play Apple's App Store and and similar services One of the cool things about open desktop is that it Uses an open API to talk to the server. So there's a well-defined way to get at all this Get at all this content. It's an it's a respace API XML in there and This API is used for example in plasma to allow add-on Installation you can think of being able to install additional wallpapers Also from a KDE point of view these sites were run by a third party and Something which has been bugging a lot of people was that this service was always proprietary. There were some Some attempts to make it free software, but it it never really worked out for different for various reasons So what happened this year Blue systems acquired Open desktop the sites and Put it into a sister company called pling the goal was to open source This technology and make it available and bring it back to life and you know restart development because we think it's a really important part of of the first of all a few user experience on the desktop and It can solve a pretty pretty big problem with Respect to software installation add-ons installation And we also wanted to have some some cooler features So what happened is that we turned to Katie look and Katie fights and all these I think about 60 satellite sites into a KDE branded store kept these things alive and Make the and we made the associated data available to Katie So there was a migration happening in the background and that happened So this big problem of Katie's reliance on a proprietary third-party store has now been solved and you probably didn't really notice it But it was it was replaced pretty much transparently In the background so the back end for the for the service was replaced with a more modern scalable code base The content was was cleaned up during migrations So all these things that didn't work for example when people were uploading open susan 7.2 rpm packages That just wouldn't work on almost any machine the content was Was cleaned up so all the all the links went Away so the things that are on there. They should actually work if they don't let us know and we'll clean that up There were some minor mishaps because we remapped categories But aside from that it all went smoothly and we didn't really have a lot of a lot of complaints and I Never noticed it that it that it didn't work The service is maintained by plane as I said, that's a sister company of blue systems and What's the really important thing is we signed a an agreement with KTV because we do not just want to make the source code Available we want KTV to be able to continue the service. That's a really important thing With respect to independence free software gives you independence, but we all know that if there's a web service title tied to it You can have the software, but if you don't have all the content Then you pretty much start from scratch and a lot of a lot of the value goes away. So the continuity From from for the past has been taken care of and the continuity into the future is now guaranteed Also, and that is something I really like No ads on the website There are no fees for for using it so you can try it out. There's no no financial risk whatsoever, you can get donations and a hundred percent of these donations that reach you through the site are for you. So there's no 20% fee for the big brother so a bit more about the service as I said, it's a it's a new code base we actually imported this new code base under a new license into Katie's get repositories and It's now licensed on a VA GPL, which is very suitable for web services It is also actively developed under the Katie Umbrella, so we got some new community members in there who worked on the code base Previously and will continue to do so and The whole project has been incubated into Katie as a Katie project because it's a really Vital part to many Katie applications. So the best place from a logical point of view is to do it in Katie But Katie is also a very suitable organization for hosting a free software project So what can we do with it? Our first focus was on Migrating to the new service cleaning it up and basically Doing the homework that hasn't really been happening in the past years. So it's cleaned up and the features that were there previously an installation of themes wallpapers icons, chasers, plasmoids, so all the Non-compiled content that is still there. What's also pretty cool is you can receive donations through the site now because we Want to make it worthwhile for people to work on these things and maybe this can generate a bit of a stream of income For people that encourages more people to take part. So we got more content. We create a richer ecosystem. We get a better Better product and we get happier users One thing about open open desktop is it wasn't just KDE focused, but there were sites for Xfce for For GNOME not as tightly integrated into their software But still valuable and they were there and they're still there and they're running and they're actually better now So for example the Wallpapers you would upload a wallpaper for KDE, but then it wasn't offered in GNOME So now I can upload a wallpaper and the GNOME users see it as well The same for Xfce and that's even Trinity look and what I just discovered That's really cool. There's a Historical look and it has like KDE to screenshots and all that So if you had a few drinks and want to be melancholic about the past then you should definitely go there we also said together and When we thought okay, yeah, we can actually solve the actual problems But how can we make it cooler? What do we want to do with it? What do we want to achieve and Given it's now free software and and we're working on it and the backlog of homework has been done There's a few things which we want to get going in the in the future What I don't really like in Plasma we spend so much time on polishing the product and then someone uploads a really bad wallpaper and The default is that the newest content gets shown first and You know you basically do I mean try So here this is Coming from the new store really Okay, I Thought I learned a few years ago that live demos are not a good idea Yeah, I am connected But hey this time I'm prepared Okay Eat that Murphy So we got wallpapers there and of course of course the wallpapers I did which you can see in there They're let's say decent quality what someone might upload a Picture of this crony dog Really nice for one person not necessarily lift the first thing I want to see in one of the really prominent features for a plasma desktop That's why we Want to have vetted content. We want to have some review process. We still want to be able for everybody to Let me just get back to the presentation. We still want everybody to Yes, we still want everybody to upload their content So we don't want any kind of censorship or that kind of stuff. So that's just not in our spirit But we want to make our product look really polished So vetted content some kind of review process is nice. And this is also a really good way To involve more people to rope them into Working with us because this doesn't need developer skills And there's a lot of artists around that don't really They do have a free software heart But they don't really know where to put things and there's no central place to reach all the free software users. So They get quickly get into yeah, which desktop do I actually want to support where they really don't care So Review processes are going to make our products look better then some of things can actually be executed on the on the client machine Even if it's just a plasmoid written in QML you can Do some nasty things with it. So at some point we want to be able to assign Assets because if you review it, but you're not sure if it's actually coming from certain developers Signing has certain Advantages we also want more social features. So I Maybe don't trust random people. But if I'm but says well, that's a really cool wallpaper or really cool plasmoid or whatever That's more valuable to me than random users. So social features that are pretty common in other app stores Are something on the roadmaps? Well, um, of course one of the big goals is to Actually want to see that slide, right? One of the goals is to also grow the ecosystem. So we want to grow it by combining but we also want to grow it by making it more interesting and Combining it means bigger market a larger audience. So it's more interesting for people to contribute and then one of the That's probably not an elephant in the room, but it's a very very hot topic right now our containerized Applications so far as they said this More or less only add-ons on there But we see containerized applications such as Snaps Flatpacks app images becoming more and more popular and they have very definitive Advantages so for application developers for for example right now, they Really don't have a way to ensure that users are getting bug fixes that users are getting the latest Version and the chain is just too long Even if I as an application developer ship an update and and release it then it's still up to about 200 distributions to actually ship it to the users. So being able to shortcut that and distribute apps directly through through containers reduces the complexity and shortens the the time to market for For applications. I think that is a big advantage and it's actually Missing and it's rightfully identified as one of the sore points of the Linux ecosystem. So the Plans for the store are and those are already an experimental phase Is to offer containerized apps and you can think of that like You start discover and you can't just Do distribution updates through your package manager, but you also get a list of containerized apps nice with metadata and screenshots and all that and You can use These applications on your system and the cool thing of course about containerized apps is it removes the complexity of the distribution in between so you don't have to do I don't know 200 builds times Six versions which is pretty much unmanageable for normal human beings So this actually allows application developers to get their software out to be clear. It's not there yet But it it should happen it's a big topic and we should work on that and we also looked a bit about West that gap that we have to solve now won't go over All these points, but I think this provides a pretty decent overview where the software distribution meant software distributions a Mechanism of most of the current Linux distributions Fall short It's pretty neat technically. It's I think really awesome that you can update your whole Distribution and and all the applications just in one go It's actually really fast if you compare it for example to Windows update Also less rebooting and less annoyance and total but There's not really a way for Developers to get feedback. How many how many users does my app have? I have absolutely no idea the Distributions do a really good way to shield me from my users which on the one hand I welcome because The last time I spent on Triaging trivial bug reports that are really a user problem the more time I can spend coding or diving or eating chocolate or Netflix or stuff like that um And we also provide a Channel for donations without anyone taking a slice of it. So that again makes it I think a lot more interesting for people To spend time on that, you know, if it just gets in a few hundred bucks every year That's still pretty nice. And I think I would feel more valued if people donated for the content I put up I Think a warning is in place You shouldn't probably not donate to my content if you want me to work on Katie because I likely just spend it on Going diving so Donate to someone else not to me so Conclusion more freedom to Katie products really central part of the offer software is now free software 15 euro bug solved Good stuff revenue model for your creations Without anyone taking a slice for this no one to rope you into because it's They earn money with that. This is something for you and a hundred percent for you. It's a really interesting option for application Distributions by all means please help with that The more hands we get on it the better It will be and also the sooner it will be It's in your hands now Playing a still in the game will keep developing it But we want to develop it openly. We want to develop it collaboratively And I think that's it and I'm pretty sure there are questions So hello. Yeah What's the rule? Hey, sir, what's the rule of distributions with this because you've talked about software a Software store, but we've classically got stuff of software from distributions. They've the ones who've handled updates They've to handle all of the packaging whatnot. How do you plan to play along with them not to play? What exactly? How does this work out? So first of all We haven't Flashed it out in detail But I can give my personal view on how these things could work in the future so what matters to me are Maybe three four applications, I definitely want to run a Absolute rock-stable version of my email client. I want to use the latest stable version Of my code editor K develop and then a few other things that don't really matter But I probably use about 20 30 applications regularly so an image viewer Um Image viewers of two years ago are really good enough for me. I don't care much about it. I don't want to spend any extra time I'll just go with it with the default whatever my distribution offers. So How I see it distributions Should offer the base System should take off care of security updates and all that but the applications I care most about I want to use in the latest version and those are probably the ones I will Install from a containerized format How does it how does it in? Sorry? No, it's it's the applications that are Absolutely critical for my workflow that I need tighter control On you know, maybe the I'm running. No, I'm the neo Nautilus Sucks for me and I'm doing file management all the time I would like to be able to you know pick a certain version for example from that So the way I see it is that distributions provide the base system security support and and all that user support But for for a few applications I want to have the latest version and how does it look like to the user We have discover which is a basically a client for package management software installation and all that and It will integrate on the UI side So there we actually have plans to integrate containerized apps in Discover so you get a you get a nice UI you can click an install button and it will also show You updates and allow to install these updates other questions At some point you mentioned it vetting contents that are not according to the policies like it's easy to imagine Not allowing a pornographical paper or such But what about malicious software putting there to have an reviewing process for actual code We don't have any reviewing process yet at all. So no and I don't think there should be a central entity reviewing content because What I would what I can imagine is that we have a few Designers who know a bit about the artwork concepts we use in Katie So these designers would add some kind of tag to certain wallpapers. They say yeah, these work really well They don't provide enough contrast. They're well done If it's photography, it's technically sound piece of work that kind of stuff. So they would For example add a visual design group approved stamp to it But that and we would use that tag or stamp in the plasma is wallpaper installation dialogue to put these wallpapers first and then you'd have to click a button or something or choose a different option To see all the content. So that's how I imagine that for for reviews If you get the software from the sauce You actually have a pretty decent chance that it's better quality. I've seen I've seen distributions patching applications To death and that's something I do not want and then we have the signing Signing process. So there's the entry point to ensuring that the software you're running will be what actually be, you know authentic or safe or sound but Yes, there are risks with installing software from third parties, but just in the same way I doubt that even Debian reviews all of Plasma's code base and they're still shipping it So there's a certain level of trust involved with that I just wanted to add one thing If I wanted I could add malicious key Militia thing to Quinn which would run on every system and nobody would notice so and no distribution would notice no user would notice So just because the code is open is no risk We're so lucky Martin is not evil Okay, you know, how is distortion the size of blink how you's actually doing this out of Ios there and there's kind of possibility for revision of the files You mean revision of the fights to exchange something that's on there Well at some level of course if you're sitting you can just remove it there I Haven't I haven't looked at the code There is a content delivery Network thing involved. I don't know. Maybe Alexander can I can explain how that works or we discuss it afterwards because it's really detailed question To make it short There are three repositories First is OCS web server Which is basically the front end then we have OCS CDN which basically is a content delivery network part that is Doing all the images screenshots and stuff like that and there's OCS file server So the file server is really much more advanced than the original file server Which only allowed one real file and the other side to be links So now the file server is on a separate server It allows multiple files version history. It can create even torrents for larger files. If that is necessary So those are the three Git repositories and they are all Can be found and get KDE And can be reviewed. So we really welcome because of course no no softwares Perfect, you always find some security issues or some bugs. So anyone Who likes to have a look and help? Yeah, I can do that and it's also listed on fabricator. So if you find some bugs on the UI or Yeah, you can just Report it on fabricator and we will have a look So you you can see that I can upload different files per product We'll have time for one last question sevens will be around I'm sure the blue systems people will be around just ask them a Question about the distribution of apps and containerized formats So several people have done analysis of what images are hosted on Docker hub And what kind of problems are there and the number one problem is not malicious code But just outdated code where you have outdated dependencies packaged within the apps So I'm pretty sure that this also will be the problem of Distributing what whatever kind of software we distribute on the KD software store So my question is do you have any thoughts about how to make sure that the things which are on the KD software store I actually secure for the user Let's put it the other way around. I know that people don't update their Linux systems either that in many cases we don't even get to ship bug fix or security updates So just yesterday I was discussing with Martin how we can get Serious of really important bug fixes not security problems, but functional Problems out to the user of a long-term support distribution and they don't even ship our bug fix updates So I think it's a This problem is bigger Than this topic and we need to ask ourselves how we can how we can solve it Okay, we're out of time. Sorry. I'm sorry Frank, please


Updates like gray laminate floors, barn doors, and subway tile are cheap fixes to make a space feel more modern. But since not a lot of new housing is being built, the bones of your new home could still be old. Some landlords and house flippers cut corners and chasing profits, and this can lead to some major problems. It's cheap and easy to replace a regular door with a barn door, but it's time consuming and expensive to rewire a house, or to put a new roof on, or to install a new heating and cooling system. So if you're buying a house, you should never waive an inspection. And if you're renting, be sure to inspect the space with your landlord before you sign your lease.


The Tall Volcano initially erupted on January 12th. The Tall Volcano is located 70 kilometers south of Manila. Since then, it has continued to actively erupt. We've had over 800 volcanic earthquakes that have been recorded by the Philippine Volcanology and Seismology Institute. Hazard level raised by the government remains at four, which means that there is a potential for an imminent massive eruption at any given time. The government is actively evacuating those that live within the 14 kilometer danger zone that has been set by the government of the Philippines. So right now the government's response is very focused on evacuation and ensuring that people do not return to the danger zone that has been set by the government. Currently within the 14 kilometer danger zone that's been set by the government, there are approximately a half a million people living. We know that of those that have evacuated, over 100,000 are in evacuation centers that are set up throughout the Batangas province. There are more than 300 evacuation centers set up right now housing over 100,000 people. The Philippine government is leading the Tall Volcano emergency response. They're doing an excellent job first in evacuating people and second in also getting information out there to the people. Right now it's critical that people do not return to that danger zone within the 14 kilometer radius. The evacuation centers are being very well managed by the local government units. There's been an outpouring of assistance to these evacuation centers with food, non-food items, clothing, water. We have to continue to ensure that these evacuation centers are well-equipped and have the sufficient resources that they need to function. We're potentially looking at a very long-term situation. We just don't know with the volcanoes whether there will be an imminent eruption or the eruption will happen in the future. So these evacuation centers, we need to continue to pay attention to them and ensure that they have a sufficient amount of food, water, electricity, and supplies, sleeping mats, clothes for those that are within the centers. The resilience of the Filipino people continue to amaze us all. For example, rather than just taking the volcanic ash and brushing it aside, they've actually created bricks out of a combination of volcanic ash, the plastic and other trash that they have had problems with disposing of. So they've really done an amazing job of being very resourceful in taking this volcanic ash and doing something useful and environmentally sustainable out of it.