European Journal 01 Engineering Education~ Vol. 18~No. 2~ 1993 129

Running a TEMPUS Project: First Experiences

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KAI JAKOBS, CLAUDIA POPIEN, ULRICH QUERNHEIM &RÜDIGER VERMäHLEN

/'SUMMARY This paper describes the experiences gathered at Aachen University's computer

science department while running one of the first TEMPUS projects. An outline of the historicalbackground isfollowed by abrief introduction to the TEMPUS programme as such. The aimsand goals of our project, BASGULE, are then described in more detail. Finally, we discuss thelessons we have learned.

1. History and Introduction

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Establishing and extending contacts to universities and research institutions of EasternEurope hag für a considerable time been (and continues to be) a matter of cancern fürthe Computer Science Department of Aachen University. In particular, contacts to theDistributed Systems Lab of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences date back to the tale1970s, and contacts to researchers from Bratislava, of both the Slovak TechnicalUniversity (STU) and the Institute für Applied Cybernetics, were established in 1986.These connections originated from personal contacts, mainly emerging from theattendance of researchers and teachers from Aachen at conferences held in Bratislava

and Sofia respectively.With the new political situation in Eastern Europe, everything became much easier.

Hence, it was no surprise that some teachers from STU Bratislava came up with theidea of proposing a TEMPUS project in the field of telecommunications at the end of1990. We decided to include additionally the Sofia Academy of Sciences because of thealready existing good contacts mentioned above. Cooperation with the ComputerScience Department of the University of Kent bad already been established within theframework of an ERASMUS project (the CEC's European student exchange pro-gramme). Hence, it was a natural choice to include this university as well.

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2. TEMPUS: ABrief Introduction

2.1 The Overall Goals

The TEMPUS (Trans-European Mobility Scheme für University Studies) programmewas adopted by the Council of Ministers of the European Communities in May 1990.The programme forms part of PHARE, the Community's overall programme tosupport economic reconstruction of CentrallEastern European countrles. Training andhigher education have been identified as major points für cooperation.

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The main goals ofTEMPUS are [1]:

(1) to promote the quality and support the development of the higher educationsystems in the countries of Central/Eastern Europe designated as eligible füreconomic aid;

(2) to encourage their growing interaction wirb partners in the European Commu-nity through joint activities and relevant mobility.

2.2 Who May Apply

For the time being, the programme is scheduled für a time period of 5 years, wirb aninitial 3-year pilot phase having beeil started in 1990.

While in the beginning only Poland and Hungary were accepted, Albania, Bulgaria,Croatia, Czechoslovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovenia are nowalso included in the programme.

For the Western European side, prospective partners may be located in Olle of the12 member stares of the CEC. Additionally, partners from Olle of the other G24countries (Austria, Australia, Canada, Switzerland, Iceland, Japan, Norway, NewZealand, Sweden, Finland, Turkey and the USA) mayaiso apply für funding.

A broad variety of organizations may be financed, including all categories of highereducation institutions as well as enterprises of all sizes, local and public authorities,professional bodies and associations.

In 1991, the overall PHARE budget was about 800 M ECU with approximately 70M ECU available für TEMPUS.

2.3 What May Be Funded

Three categories of actions are funded within the TEMPUS framework:

2.3.1 Action 1: Joint European Projects (JEPs). Within this framework, cooperationbetween institutions as well as structural development of higher education in the

eligible countries may be funded. Regarding für instance computer science, this mayinclude financial support für the installation of new communication systems such aslocal area networks.

Financial support may be granted für improvement of the higher education in theeligible countries. To propose a project, at least Olle university of an eligible country,a university of Olle Western European country plus another university or an enterprisefrom another Western country are required.

Considering new applications, particular emphasis will be laid on projects focusingon international cooperation.

2.3.2 Action 2: Mobility grants for staff and students. This is an action on its own, burpriority will be given to mobilities carried out within the framework of a JEP. Grants areavailable für both teaching and administrative staff. They cover training assignmentsandJor practical placements. Student mobilities will mainly be awarded für graduatestudents whose foreign studies will be recognized towards their horne degree.

It is important to stare that no research activities will be granted unless they forman integral part of the study, für instance work on a PhD thesis.

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2.3.3 Action 3: Complementary activities. This covers support für activities such aspublications or surveys.

3. BASCULE: The Project

The original abstract of our proposal was as follows [2]:

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The importance of proper communication networks für anational economy isundeniable. For instance, Czech government hag identified telecommunica-tion as Olle of the four areas deserving primary stimulation.

The project aims at promoting the level of education in the broad field oftelecommunication in the CSFR and Bulgaria. In the lang term, both coun-tries should

.be ahle to instalI, run and maintain their own communication networks; and. do research work in telecommunications at an international level.

Cooperation will be established in the areas of

.public data networks. value-added networks. communication protocols. mobile communication. satellite communication.optical data transmission. high-speed networking. digital signal processing

. digital switching

. simulation techniques~

We will (attempt to) meet the overall objective stated above by following twoapproaches: first to build up centres für practical training in Bratislava andSofia. Each of these centres will comprise heterogeneous local area networks,running different network software and interconnecting a wide range ofdifferent PCs and workstations. They are supposed to provide students withthe opportunity to be come familiar with general, real-lire networking prob-lems, like network configuration, the various issues of network managementor, later on, user support, just to name a few. Furthermore, students willlearnabout modem communication hardware and software and will IDen be ahle to

determine the pros and cons of envisaged solutions für particular problems.Experiences gathered with these networks are very likely to be of majorimportance für future communication engineers.

The second approach is to give Slovak and Bulgarian teachers the chanceto work and study in Aachen and Canterbury temporarily. During thesesmdies, they will have the opportuniry to kam from advan~ed le~tUre5provided für postgraduate students, to discuss with their German and Britishcolleagues about structure and topics of lectures and to offer their own

132 K Jakobs et al.

postgraduate seminars at the respective host university. In turn,German and British lecturers will give short intensive courses on all the topicsmentioned above.

Additionally, students' exchange, though primarily from east to west, issupposed not only to give Czech and Bulgarian students the opportunity to dopart of their studies at west European universities hut also to rüster contactsbetween students, thus facilitating closer cooperation between communicationengineers in the future.

3.1 The Name

I know this is a very minor point, hut I am proud of this name, and it took me quitea long time to figure it out. BASCULE stands für Bratislava, Aachen, Sofia, CanterburyUniversities Lecturing für Europe.

For the non-English natives (such as me), a bascule is olle-half of a bascule bridge,the most prominent example of which is the Tower Bridge in London.

Note that even the project name indicates the bridging function of our project.

3.2 Rationale

The product 'information' is becoming increasingly important. This is particularly truefür the Eastern European countries following the political and economical changes thathave occurred there. Access to information is Olle of the major basics für both thecompetitiveness of anational economy and meaningful scientific work.

A communication infrastructure is a sine qua non to provide für broad access toinformation. However, such an infrastructure is available in neither the CSFR nor

Bulgaria. Exiting telephone networks are inadequate (ever tried to phone to Bulgaria?).Dedicated data networks are in place, hut they only connect a sm all number of specialhosts. None of these networks are stare of the art. Hence, information flow is limitedeven due to technical reasons.

To overcome this problem, well-educated engineers, computer scientists and tech-nicians are needed desperately. It will be their task to build, maintain and develop amodern communication infrastructure. The importance of such an education has alsobeen realized by the respective national PTTs. For instance, the Slovak PTT supportsBASCULE by providing considerable manpower. The CSFR government hasidentified telecommunication as Olle of the key issues besides transport, ecology andmedicine.

Hence, the final goal of the project is to assist in teaching telecommunication. Gur(optimistic) hope is that this assistance will help to enable the CSFR and Bulgaria tobuild and manage state-of-the-art communication networks and to catch up with theinternational level in research. We believe that alignment with West European stan-dards will considerably support integration into the European Community.

Of course, there is another aim für the medium term: to enable researchers of STUBratislava and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences to participate in European researchprojects.

The second important concern of the project is to establish personal contactsbetween members of the involved institutions. Hence, we very much focused on

mobilities, i.e. the exchange of teachers and students between East and West. We dobelieve that getting to know each other will be at least as important as will a datanetwork.

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3.3 U7hatHas Been Done

As mentioned above, two mall areas of activities have been identified:

(1) to enhance the level of education, including.provision of modern places of work für practical training,. conceive new courses covering different aspects of data communication,. provide opportunities für language training;

(2) to promote personal contacts, including. to provide an opportunity für Bulgarian and Slovak teachers to work at the

universities of Aachen and Canterbury r~spectively,. teachers from Aachen and Canterbury giving lectures at Sofia and

Bratislava.

Practical courses on telecommunication and data communication have been installed inBratislava. PCs and different workstations have been interconnected via Ethernet local

area networks (LANs). An environment like this will provide students with the oppor-tunity to learn about, für instance, installation of networks, network protocols andnetwork management.

The second phase, which is currently running, aims at integration of these networkswith wide area networks (WANs) like the Internet, EUnet, the German ResearchNetwork (DFN) or the European Research Network (RARE). Having finished thistask, a number of positive effects may be anticipated:

(1) students will know much about network protocols, protocol implementation,maintenance and maybe debugging;

(2) students will have learned quite a lot about everyday problems of internetwork-mg;

(3) access to the worldwide research community will be established. The first serviceto be provided will be electronic mai!. This will lead to a broad exchange of mostuseful information.

These practical courses try to incorporate theory learned from dedicated new coursesinto practical skill. Those new courses are/will be established in all the different areasof data communication and telecommunication listed above.

Additionally, practical courses düne at SIEMENS AG, Munich, provide für themore practical aspects. These courses will mainly include working with the CHIliprogramming language.

As mentioned above, establishing and extending personal contacts has from thebeginning been a major concern of the project. From their very nature, TEMPUSprojects are ideal vehicles to promote such contacts.

A considerable number of students and lecturers from both Bratislava and Sofia

have visited Aachen and Canterbury and these visits will continue. Such stays typicallylast für 1-4 months; short breaks für about one week are used to do project planningand management.

Besides the mere technical aspects, a number of personal and private contacts havebeen established. In the long term, maybe this is the most important aspect of theproject. Such contacts may provide für very effective, yet informal information ex-change, they may help in solving specific problems and they may simplify or evenfacilitate cooperation [3].

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3.4 What Will Be Done

To date, work appears to be successful. Hence, fiere appears to be no reason to alterthings substantially (see next section für same exceptions). The major modificationconcems the new possibility für British and German lecturers to do same teaching inSofia and Bratislava. For same unknown reason this hag not been funded throughout

the previous years. Accordingly, a substantial part of the work to be clone at Canterburyand Aachen will be to develop same 1- or 2-week 'mini courses' to be held in Bratislavaand Sofia respectively. These will be very likely of a seminar type; i.e. Slovak andBulgarian students will be provided with relevant material on same dedicated topics indata communication or telecommunication and will have to give talks on the respective

topics, to be followed by a discussion. Additionally, same deepening lectures will begiven by the British and German lecturers. We feel that this scheme will be mostadvantageous to all persons involved.

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4. Lessons Learned

In this section, we describe what we have leamed from the TEMPUS project so rar.

Hopefully, this will be of same use to others in a similar situation.

4. 1 The Problems

Until now, we have discussed the basic ideas ofTEMPUS, and the achievements madeso rar. However, there are many other things to do with project management and theeveryday work of keeping things going, rather than with the contents of the project assuch. We came to realize that the real, time-consuming problems and difficulties sternfrom this area.

In the very early stages of the project, fiere was absolute joy. The Slovaks werehappy to have a chance to star in Germany or Great Britain für a while (with samepreference für Germany), we were pleased to hast them and to do good. For Bratislavateachers, this opportunity to star and leam abroad was much more important than wasthe equipment they were financed under the contract.

Same things were rather pleasing für uso We experienced great hospitality whenvisiting Bratislava and Sofia. Having been to Bratislava about 2.5 years aga, theprogress was obvious. We made friends with same of our guests, and have stayed intouch since IDen.

The following is a list of problems we experienced. Most of them have nowbeen solved; however, same issues were (and continue to be) definitely beyond ourscope.

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4.1.1 Accommodation. Finding good value accommodation tumed out to be Olle of the

major problems, especially in Aachen. Both Aachen and Canterbury are rather smalltowns with comparably large universities. To make things even Würge, TEMPUScontracts last für a maximum of Olle year, and finding accommodation für such arelatively short period makes things more complicated. Finally, same latent xenophobiaworsens the problem. Unforrunatc1y, illere seems to be no direct solution. However)the situation seems to be heuer in the UK, where accommodation is normally provided

on campus.

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4.1.2 Unclear contract. In 1991, TEMPUS was a very new programme. This wasprobably the main reason why the wording of the contract was not always absolutelyprecise. For instance, it was not explicitly allowed to transfer money to eligiblecountries. We had considerable problems in convincing our administration that trans-ferring money to Slovakia would substantially simplify the management procedure.Until we succeeded with this task, every attempt to spend money für Slovakia, für, fürexample, grants, buying books or other equipment, led to about 2-3 person hoursadministrative overhead. This became intolerable.

4. 1.3 University administration. A number of activities undertaken required involve-ment of our university administration. Unfortunately, this involvement orten proved tobe very time consuming. This led to problems particularly when visitors stayed für only1 or 2 weeks.

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4.1.4 Communication. This was always a problem and sometimes a disaster. Trying tophone or send a fax to Bulgaria required more than average patience. Things look muchbetter für Slovakia. A working and reliable communication link was Olle of the majorrequirements, not least because of the following problem.

4.1.5 Uncertainty about authority. Very orten, problems had to be solved immediately.Usually, this required the signature(s) of the person(s) responsible. While this was noproblem für those responsible für the Aachen or Canterbury side, it tended to becomea problem für the BratislavaiSofia side, since normally the persons responsible were notavailable.

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4.1.6 Information policy. Every now and IDen, we had the impression that Olle or otherof our visitors did not do very much work. Since we were not the people in overallcharge, we could not do very much about it. Besides, we usually had only a vague ideawhat the respective visitors actually were supposed to da.

4.1.7 Language proficiency. This was a similar problem. Knowledge of the Germanlanguage should be a must für visitors to Aachen (this holds analogous für visitors toCanterbury), especially für students who were supposed to artend courses. Unfortu-nately, same students/teachers spake neither German nor English.

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4.1.8 Officespace. This may become a major problem when illere are up to five visitorsat a time.

4.1.9 Staff. For a couple of months, three members of our statT were busy withTEMPUS almost full time. Work included mere administration tasks as weH asplanning accommodation and developing timetables. No department or institute canafford such an extra overhead in the lang term.

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4.2 Suggestions

Whereas solving some of the problems mentioned above is beyond our scope at present,we do have suggestions and recommendations für some others.

Provision of good value accommodation will remain the major issue. At least fürlonger stays, the only way is to rent a flat. However, trying to rent a flat für just one year(the common term of a TEMPUS contract) is a difficult and time-consuming task. Ofcourse, we do not have any easyanswer to the lack ofhousing. The one thing that mightbe considered from the TEMPUS side to make this task easier would be to extend theterm of the contracts.

Some of the contract's first version's ambiguities have now been eliminated. Never-theless, some deficiencies remain. For instance, it should be stated explicitly that moneymay be transferred to the eligible countries. Furthermore, we have found it helpful tobe allowed to open a dedicated bank account on behalf of the project.

Communication links sometimes tend to be a problem. We have learned that inmany cases an electronic mail connection is extremely advantageous, particularly sincesuch documents may be easily stored, retrieved and processed.

From our experience, running a project such as TEMPUS requires at least twopart-time workers. This staff must be financed by the project, since otherwise the wholeprogramme will become completely unattractive für Western European universities.

Every now and IDen adecision must be made immediately. In such cases, anauthorized representative of every partner should be available. It should be assured thatthis is always the case.

To guarantee that the project is useful für all who are involved, sufficient languageproficiency of all visitors should be assured. The same holds für the professionalqualification. To ensure this, Western partners should have the right to refuse somevisitors or to shorten their stay. These items should be included with the contract.

5. Conclusions

After our experiences with a TEMPUS project, we draw the following conclusions.

(1) The basic idea of the programme is very good and weIl worth supporting.(2) Personal contacts have been established and strengthened.(3) The management and administrative problems cannot be solved by the staff in

addition to the everyday work (this holds at least für Aachen University as theprime contractor). Financing some additional personnel is a must.

(4) Hosting up to six TEMPUS grantholders causes considerable problems in termsof spare office space.

(5) At least für the time being, für Western European universities, such projects areby no me ans lucrative, from the materialistic point of view.

All in all, it looks very much as if we will not apply für another TEMPUS project unlesscurrent conditions are modified according to the suggestions given above.

REFERENCES

[1] CEC TEMPUS Office (1991) TEMPUS Vademecum.[2] JAKOBS,K., MALv, O. & QUERNHEIM,U. (1990) BASCULE Proposal, RWTH

Aaehen, GoSe.[3] JAKOBS,K., MALv, 0., QUERNHEIM,U., POPIEN, C. & VERMÖLEN,R. (1991) BAS-

CULE Interim Report, RWTH Aachen, CoSc.

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