The EFQUEL annual conference and forum was held September 8-10 in Lisbon, Portugal. The three day seminar attracted more than 100 experts who together sketched a clearer blueprint for digital learning quality in Europe. 

The European Foundation for Quality in eLearning was established in Brussels, Belgium in 2005 and it is the world’s largest e-learning quality organization. It has more than 80 member organizations from 20 countries. Its members are mainly European universities, research institutions and e-learning centers. Taiwan joined in October, 2008. The organization’s annual meeting was held at the same time as the forum, members discussing and voting on various issues of importance.
 
1. Work contents
As well as taking part in the pre- forum workshops, the official forum, we also took part in EFQUEL’s annual general meeting.

(1) EFQUEL pre-forum workshop, September 8
EEFQUEL had three pre-forum workshops
Workshop1：” How can open educational practices contribute to better inclusion, innovation and excellence in education?”OPAL and CONCEDE programs; Workshop2：Can self-evaluation help to promote organizational learning, inclusion, innovation and excellence in the Vocational Education and Training Sector (SEVAQ); Workshop 3：”Games in school education - a serious matter to consider for excellent classrooms (Engage Program).

The Quality Service Center took part in the “Games in school education - a serious matter to consider for excellent classrooms” workshop
The moderators:
    Gina Souto (Independent expert, Portugal)
    Sébastien Reinders (TechnoFuturTIC, Belgium)
    Rolf Reinhardt (EFQUEL, Belgium)

1. ENGAGE
Games have been used in education in Europe and North America for quite a while and the research direction is forward-looking. EFQUEL has a game-based learning program called “ENGAGE” European Network for Growing Activity in Game-Based Learning in Education(http://www.engagelearning.eu/,) a community for educational application of games-based learning made up mainly of European countries.
ENGAGE is a sub-program of the “Lifelong Learning” sponsored by the European Commission’s Education and Culture working group. EFQUEL is one of the important organizations participating in ENGAGE and helping promote games-based learning. The main objectives of ENGAGE are:
 Create a European Game-Based Learning portal website:a resources center for people interested in leaning games and using in course teaching. A  Web2.0 (forums,wiki, blogs, podcasts and cyber space) portal site can provide:
  Compile games based learning development and implementation methods to implementers, developers and other people related to the learning community.
   A window for European dialogue：positioning the role of games, education and training game based learning, focus on local and cultural topics
  Dissemination of existing e-learning results and the ongoing Game-based Learning Program 
 Hold workshops and create a future for Game-Based Learning using the following methods:
  Give educators support in developing predictive games  
  Assist related people use learning games in teaching to arouse student interest
   Develop new educational products with game designers and developers
 Increase game-based learning learner motivation and fun by strengthening support for teaching and learning
2. Issues Discussed
 Social networking tools (like Facebook, twitter, plurk, MSN)
The main topic of this group was the situation faced when social networking tools are used in education. For example, such tools can be a channel for communication between teachers and students and between students and their peers, allowing these tools to not just be used for one-way communication, allowing information to be sent between different parties, making the spread of information smoother.
 Mobile learning devices
Using such devices, like cell phones and PDA for learning is the current trend. In particular, with the strong sales of iPhones and iPads, which have good picture definition and allow easy picture change and have up to 36G capacity, application program developers have sensed that the more downloads there are the more money they will make. Many language learning courses make use of iTunes for downloading and sales. However, the group included serving teachers who pointed out the dangers of using mobile devise in schools. There have been cases of students using a cell phone to film a teacher scolding a student and then posting it online, causing a stir, or students play with their cell phones during class, affecting their studies. These and other problems were discussed during the workshop that day.
  Augmented Reality and QR Code
Virtual reality, which we are so familiar with, has a very wide range of applications. It has been extended so that the virtual world and real world’s elements interact, producing a visual effect and information display method called Augmented Reality. The biggest difference between Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality is that the former combines with the real world. Virtual Reality uses a complex calculation program to simulate a certain situation, allowing the user to create 3D images which are accompanied by sound and light effects. The movements in the virtual scene are simulated.
Another new technology was QR Code which seen more and more often these days. Taipei Flora Expo also uses QR Code allowing smart phone users to read venue sign. QR Code is short for Quick Response Code. If an 3G phone user downloads the QR Code software, they can use the phone lens as a scanner which will allow them to view information or go to the website.
In this workshop Sébastien Reinders also showed a film clip showing  the use of augmented reality for teaching chemistry, showing the molecules in 3D to allow students to understand their structure, using a 3G phone and QR Code  to directly so workshop attendees cold view it on the website.
 
(2) EFQUEL INNOVATION FORUM 2010 was held September 8-10
This year’s EFQUEL INNOVATION FORUM 2010 was divided into four sessions：
 Session 1：How can open educational practices contribute to better inclusion, innovation and excellence in education?
 Session 2：How to value User Generated Content to promote inclusion, innovation and excellence in higher education?
 Session 3：Can self-evaluation help to promote organizational learning, inclusion, innovation and excellence in the Vocational Education and Training Sector?
 Session 4：How to set a new and critical research agenda for Technology Enhanced Learning that leads in inclusion, innovation and excellence?

This year we attended sub-meeting 1. This year the EFQUEL format was pretty much the same as last year, with a discussion method mainly used. One interesting feature this year was that three UN University staff provided Graphic Facilitation, expressing the main two-day meeting in illustrations and text; also, in the sub-meetings graphic facilitators described the meeting process and resolutions in illustrations and text.
Participants attended the four sub-meetings on the first day according to personal interest. Each sub-meeting produced five open learning suggestions through discussions in the area of research, specialization and implementation and policy setting. On day two the attendees were again divided into four different groups and each group voted for the most important suggestion. The suggestions that were chosen became EFQUEL’s conclusion about the application of open resources in education for this year.  
 
The conclusions of this year’s forum:
 Create a unique set of quality standards, recommendations and methodologies around open educational practices.
  We recommend strong leadership which is initiating, promoting and sustaining open educational practices in educational institutions.
  Evolve through sharing open pedagogic experiences, principles and practices in networks and in communities with different stakeholders.(learners, teachers and leaders)