Establishing a videoconferencing infrastructure in republic of Macedonia as an engineering educational service

This paper presents the sustainability and educational approach used in the ViCES (Video Conferencing Educational Services) project learning environment. The three-year ViCES Project was launched by the University of Florence (Italy) and the Ss Cyril and Methodius University (Republic of Macedonia) and it was financed by the European Commission within the TEMPUS (Trans-European Mobility Scheme for University Studies) programme for the period 2009-2012. The project is made up by consortium member institutions from Belgium, Hungary, Italy, Republic of Macedonia, Republic of Serbia and Albania. With the tutorial and expertise of the consortium member Universities in the European Union and in Western Balkans, the TEMPUS VICES project will provide different university sites in Republic of Macedonia with a technological videoconferencing infrastructure and an innovative self sustainable learning environment that eases student and academic access to wide and novel educational services. The adopted approach will also represent an interesting good practice which might be introduced in other educational contexts (e.g. consortium universities in Republic of Serbia and Albania) to increase co-operation and internationalisation opportunities among different institutions. The project will also support the process of harmonization of different curricula at national and international level among higher education institutions. The educational services offered via this environment will be designed to be adoptable to multicultural and multilingual environments.