Vytauto Didziojo Universitetas – VMU
Who are we?
Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) is a public institution engaged in providing education at the university level, conducting research, and developing applied research and arts activities.
Established in 1922 and ranked as the TOP 1000 university in the world (QS World University Rankings), Vytautas Magnus University is one of the most liberal and modern academic institutions in Lithuania, boasting an exciting history, nurturing and continuing deep-rooted traditions, playing a leading role in not just Lithuanian, but also the entire Baltic and European intellectual and cultural sphere. The academic community of VMU is united by the idea of artes liberales, i.e. the classical university of liberal arts. Vytautas Magnus University, with about 7000 Bachelor and 2000 Master degree students, is one of the most liberal and modern academic institutions in Lithuania.
Aside from 26 BA and MA full-time degree programmes in English, together VMU offers over 100 degree programmes, as well as integrated studies of law and postgraduate and doctoral programmes. The university offers doctoral studies in 18 diverse fields of Humanities, Social, Physical and Biomedical Sciences.
VMU is currently conducting about 180 projects in the fields of education, sociology, philosophy, biotechnology, biophysics, technology law, computational linguistics, language acquisition and bilingualism, creative industries, and others. Researchers of VMU have been engaged as a partners and coordinators in various Horizon 2020, Jean Monnet, COST, Erasmus+ and NordPlus programmes, as well as research projects within the Global Grant and Smart Specialisation programmes conducted by the Research Council of Lithuania and the European Structural Fund.
Institute of Innovative Studies (ISI) is a university unit working with different faculties on curriculum re-development for online and virtual studies and experimentation of innovations in HE. The goal of the Institute is to develop online studies at VMU for the whole university program portfolio and to establish virtual mobility, open education resources and practices, as well as openstudies.vdu.lt to be available for all digital and network society members. ISI
- assists University teachers to design, implement and organise online studies;
- promotes online studies and e-learning;
- is responsible for continuous professional staff development, especially regarding competences to design, implement and organise technology enhanced learning and studies;
- strives to meet quality requirements and to get them assessed and accredited at institutional and national levels;
- promotes social and professional networking among academics and education specialists; and
- performs research in TEL.
Institute of Innovative Studies is leading open education initiative in Lithuania and helps numerous institutions to implement this initiative in practice.
Why we are participating in the project
Vytautas Magnus University as a Higher Education Institution is interested in innovative education solutions and the more increasing demand in the validation and recognition of digital credentials.
Credential as a formalised qualification, skill or competence is a very relevant theme in higher education and can help bridging the gap between all the stakeholders. VMU is particularly interested in making the process of credential recognition more efficient and quicker yet upheld to the required quality standards. Also the greater transparency in credential recognition is an important sphere for VMU, which is already active in offering and recognising open education virtual mobility courses. We see this project as an immensely important opportunity in standardisation, recognition and quality assurance of education.
Our role in the project
VMU main responsibilities include:
- Leading the team in establishing a set of quality criteria that can determine what a ‘quality credential’ looks like.
- Analysing relevant institutional practices of documentation of credentials to foster their efficient recognition.
- Sharing expertise of Higher Education Institution practices in the credential recognition field.
- Taking the responsibility to lead the quality management and assurance processes of ECCOE and conducting periodical assessments of project progress, labour and communication efficiency, and overall partner satisfaction.
- Disseminate the project results.
Our Team
Prof. Dr. Airina Volungevičienė
Prof. dr. Airina Volungevičienė has been working among leading researchers, methodology specialists and education policy makers in the area of technology enhanced learning (TEL) development in Europe and Lithuania since 1997. Having established the national network for distance and e-learning in the country, then Lithuanian Distance and e-Learning association (2010), she continued as a leader in research and project work to promote the development of TEL in Lithuania and Europe, introducing many innovations in different education organizations from school, VET, adult learning and higher education sectors. She is involved in EDEN Governance since 2009, as the Board member, Vice President for Research (2016-2019) and the President (2016-2019).
Prof. Margarita Teresevičienė
Personal research area: adult learning, recognition of prior learning, technology enhanced learning. She supervised ten doctoral theses on adult learning and teaches in the study programmes of Andragogy. She has been trainer in variety in-service training programmes of adult educators. Has acted as expert in the field of adult education at the Ministry of Education and Science Republic of Lithuania; expert for Research Council of Lithuania. She is also a member of a board of Lithuania Distance and eLearning Association.
Mykolė Lukošienė
Mykolė Lukošienė holds a BA degree in Public Administration and MA degree in Social anthropology from the Vytautas Magnus University and is currently a doctoral student in Sociology, VMU. From 2020 Mykolė Lukošienė is a director at the Studies Department at Vytautas Magnus University.
Danutė Pranckutė
Danute Pranckute has acquired Bachelor degree of Informatics in 2009 and Master degree of Business Informatics at Vytautas Magnum University in 2011 and works as Moodle administrator at VMU from 2009. Her main responsibilities are extending university Moodle system by analyzing teacher needs, contributing in Moodle community by translating it into Lithuanian language, preparing Moodle user guides in Lithuanian language.
