The EUNIS Dørup E-learning Award is given for the outstanding and innovative application of information technology (IT) in an educational setting. It was founded in commemoration of former member of the EUNIS Board of Directors, Jens Dørup.
The award was handed out for the first time at EUNIS 2008. This first award session and ceremony took place at the University of Aarhus: very appropriately the workplace of the late Jens Dørup for more than 25 years.
The award contest is organised by the EUNIS Learning and Teaching Special Interest Group in collaboration with the current award chairperson and the President of EUNIS.
The award is given for an innovative way of using existing or new information technologies to enhance learning. The project must combine innovation, pedagogy and technology as key factors for creating more effective and engaging learning. Evidence to show the benefits will be essential.
An implementation of the project must have taken place and the ways in which it is innovative and different from other e-earning implementations should be described.
The project must clearly demonstrate the involvement of a pedagogical idea or educational objectives. The pedagogical foundation must be presented as well as how the technology-enhanced learning activities are aligned with or connected to other learning activities.
The information technology/technologies used can be proprietary, open source, a web 2.0/social software application or self-developed but the choice of technology must be explained in terms of how this technology gives added value to the specific teaching and learning activities.
Applicants must submit some form of evidence of the benefits. Benefits might include improvements in following areas (although other types of benefits will be considered): Recruitment and Retention; Skills and Employability; Student Achievement; Widening Participation and Social Justice; Support for students with Special Needs. Types of evidence to show the benefits have been achieved might include: case studies; exam results; internal and external evaluations; student feedback and focus groups; system logs or other statistics and anecdotal evidence from both students and staff.
The submitter’s organisation must be a member of EUNIS. The submitter or a member of the team involved must be able to participate in the annual EUNIS Congress. You should only resubmit a project that has been entered in previous years if there have been significant developments since your last paper.
Current members of the EUNIS board cannot apply for the Dørup Award. An individual can only win the Dørup Award once but teams and collaborations can win any time.
A full paper submission for EUNIS Congress (within the call for papers) is requested. Details of the Award deadlines are published on the web pages for each year’s annual congress.
The winner of the award will receive a special certificate and a framed print of a painting by Danish artist Maj Dørup (daughter of Jens Dørup).
The judges will find it helpful if you structure your abstract and paper so that the judging criteria are clearly addressed. Your abstract should use the criteria as headings.
We are particularly interested in the use of technology to support active engagement of learners. If your paper concerns a learning object or learning platform you should specify the types of activities developed around this.
We are interested in the innovative use of technology. You may enter a paper about a well-established technology so long as you are using it in an innovative way.