Surveys of European Universities Skills in ICT for Staff and Students

At the present time Information and Communication Technology (ICT) skills in the population are of great concern to all governments, and hence to those who act to provide ICT skills to their constituencies. In the graduate arena, universities are seeking effective methods to inculcate ICT skills and appropriate skills sets to strive towards in the future.

Seusiss is a collaborative project between 8 partners: the Universities of, Abo, Bergen, Edinburgh (lead), Groningen, Pavia, Poitiers & Salamanca and the Coimbra Group. We are looking at the ICT experience, skills, confidence and attitudes of students and academic staff at the partner universities. Senior management are being approached to ascertain the ICT skills that they expect their graduates to have, and the procedures and mechanisms which they apply to achieve these. Skills profiles for graduates over the next 5 and 10 years will be developed and the issues involved to achieve these identified. We will also work with major and local employers of the graduates of these universities to establish their current and changing needs with respect to ICT skills profiles in new recruits.

Survey instruments (paper and web questionnaires, interview proformas) in each language have been developed to achieve these aims. A seminar is being planned which will take place in Leuven on 18th April 2002, to engage invited interested parties in discussion of the preliminary findings. A final public report will be produced at the end of the project in late 2002.