The Jovital Project: Capacity Building for Virtual Innovative Teaching and Learning in Jordan

This qualitative paper presents the preliminary findings of an ongoing education-focused project JOVITAL an international cooperation project co-funded by the Erasmus + Capacity Building in HE programme of the European Union during the period October 2017 - 2020 involving four European institutions and five Jordanian universities1. Our paper outlines how new and emerging technologies are being innovatively used in institutions around the world and on this basis, how they are being adapted and implemented in Jordan as part of JOVITAL. Regulations and instructions on an institutional and national level have been continuously changing over the years, with the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research (MOHESR) approving the blended model within 25% of programmes, placing a cap on the amount of online learning that take place within a HE programme. However, an alliance of three or more Jordanian universities can establish a fully online programme as well. That being said, MOHESR has expressed some constraints regarding quality assurance including the way exams are conducted, how learning outcomes are measured and how course funding and cultural perceptions are considered. Challenges in the open education methodology, therefore, still exist in the academic medium in Jordan, where three main issues are of particular note: the governmental policies instructed by Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research; the alignment of these policies with regulations published by Jordanian accreditation institutes; and the cultural acceptability of open education and distance learning in general. The ideas we present here include applications of technology for domestic online learning, as well as global partnerships that support the development of intercultural competencies through the use of Virtual Collaborative Learning (VCL) or Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL). This paper presents the activities and the findings of our project work to date and provides a snapshot of the JOVITAL project during its delivery.