The project aims at raising awareness about the beneficial impact of the pedagogically sound implementation of new educational technologies that enhance international networking and collaboration for an institution, its staff, and its students. By spreading know-how in those educational technologies from successful Minerva and other Socrates projects that boost international cooperation and by providing a theoretical background as well as practical models and hands-on experience, Sputnic seeks to stimulate teaching staff to engage in initiatives on international mobility and international cooperation.

How to best prepare students and teachers for the use of social software to enhance international collaboration, the reasons for engaging in virtual mobility schemes, and ways to get started will be the main focus of discussion. This one-day forum brings together experts and practitioners in an attempt to answer these and other questions.

The event will be a mix of presentation and discussion formats, combining case examples and practical experience with discussions and brain-storming exercises in an effort to come up with clear advice and good practice that others can use in their own educational context. It is aimed at those managers, teachers, and administrators who wish to set up collaboration schemes themselves and who are looking for both potential partners as well as practical information about setting up virtual mobility, social software, streaming video, or videoconferencing opportunities for students.

As a good practice example, the VENUS Project will organise a half-day session within the forum on how to organise international and virtual seminars. Within the VENUS Project, strategies on how to extend a seminar series and summer school to a virtual, international, and lifelong-learning level were tested and investigated.

The purpose of the SPUTNIC forum is to draw together check-lists, tips, and useful information for inclusion in the interactive SPUTNIC website and publications made by the SPUTNIC project team, supported under the European Commission's Socrates Project, which is organising this event.

Registration for this pre-conference event is free and includes coffee and lunch.