Cooperation, in French universities, is organized at national level. This paper explains its advantages and presents the example of Paris universities: UNR Paris-Ile de France.

1. Cooperation among French Universities
Khadija Dib
French Ministry of Higher Education
Yves Epelboin
UPMC-Sorbonne Universités & UNR Paris-IdF

2. Ministry of national education, higher education and
Cooperation among French Universities :
Regional Digital universities
www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr
research

3. A global vision for a digital, open, lifelong
and flexible education
• Law on new basement for the Republican School
(July 8th 2013)
• Law on higher education and research (July 22th
2013)
• Digital agenda (october 2nd 2013)
– France Universite Numerique
• a brand
• a portal
• a national platform for MOOCs and distance
learning

4. A national strategy
More autonomy for all universities and institutions (law on liberty
and responsibility 2007).
• Groupment of universities and institutions in HE and
Research based on a geographical neighboorhood
• Each institution has its own digital strategy
but a national answer is required
• coherence within the community
• equity of treatment for each student
• the lowest cost
• pooling and sharing
• innovation
• coping with French specificities about distance learning

5. Background
2003:
A national initiative to provide funding for major operations
through a new organization called “Digital Regional Universities
(Universités Numériques Régionales)“
Strategic objectives:
•Development of digital services on campuses to provide to the
academic community, primarily to students, digital services such
as podcast, unified portal access and basic tools, computer
loans…
•Development of an infrastructure to facilitate the access to
these services: WiFi, networking…
•Support for the use of these digital services

6. Background(2)
The UNR are based on a relation between:
• The Ministry of HE and Research
• The regional government
• The consortium of the local universities and other Higher
Education Institutions
The Ministry provides the initial impulse through its funding
The regional government and the consortium add their own
funding
The achievements are periodically reviewed before starting a
new contract.

7. Examples of cooperation in France
• RENATER: National Internet infrastructure for Education and
Research
• UNT (Universités Numériques Thématiques): a national
initiative about Open Educational Resources since 2004
• per discipline
• Peer reviewed
• With national grants
• FUN-MOOC:a national MOOC consortium
http://www.france-universite-numerique.fr

8. The 17 UNR
2003 Phase1 with 10 Regions
2006 : Phase 2 with 15 Regions
2008 : 17 Regions (total cover of the country)

9. Development of digital services on campuses
Digital workspaces (ENT)
•Access to Student Information Systems: timetables, grades,
diploma,...,
•Information & communication: email, forums, ...,
•Desktop services,
•Access to LMS,
•Library & Documentation,
•Podcast, video,
23%
8%
10%
5% 9%
45%
L1
L2
L3
M1
M2
Divers
23%
22%
17%
7%
10%
21% Santé-sport
Sciences sociales
Droit
Sciences fondamentales
Economie-gestion
Divers
level study taught disciplines

10. Development of digital services on campuses
Digital workspaces (ENT)
•Social services, University Life,
•Corporate Relations,
A common technology for a vast majority of universities: uPortal and
a community to share experience and developments: ESUP (more
than 80 members)
https://www.esup-portail.org/

11. Development of an infrastructure to facilitate
Mobility
the access to these services
In 2009 the Ministry planned to consolidate the wireless Wi-Fi
networks of Institutions with impact on:
•development of nomadism
•improvement of living and working students’ conditions (access to
their timetables, pedagogical learning contents ...)
•Special support of a common initiative from UNR Paris Ile de
France: Eduspot

12. Eduspot
Why Eduspot?
Eduroam, the European common Wi-Fi infrastructure access,
managed by GEANT, requires a complex installation on
personal computers and is not available from public computers.
An easier technique was required to encourage Wi-Fi access
from any campus: Eduspot
What is Eduspot
A captive portal nationally available to all students and staff
from most campuses, dormitories…
A common national SSID in all universities: eduspot
A Shibboleth based authentication system
112 institutions members of the network
https://services.renater.fr/mobilite/eduspot/

13. Support for the use of these digital services
C2I
Information Technology and Internet certification
A national certification opened to all incoming students,
managed, at local level, by academic staff from the institutions,
members of the UNR for computer literacy:
Basic level
Advanced level:
Law
Engineering
Teaching
Health
Environment
Organization and communication
http://c2i.education.fr/

14. Support for the use of these digital services
Political policy implementation
Several areas:
- Promotion and communication among students and teachers,
- Training of students (Certifications),
- Training of teachers: oriented assistance devices for the
production of educational contents.

15. www.unpidf.fr
Paris Île-de-France Digital University
36 Institutions
450 000 Students
50 000 Staff (Searchers, Teachers...)
An example: UNPIdF

16. Staff training
Registrations
Distribution of staff
Academic
Students
Support
Number of institutions
Satisfaction
Quality
Teacher
Answer to need
Number of classes
Filling of classes
91.3%

17. Student multipurpose card
One common student card for all universities (450 000
students)
Student ID with picture
Access to libraries on campus
and in most other universities
Access control on campus
Access and payment to students restaurants and cafeteria
Payment of facilities: vending machines, copies, printing…
Professional ID card for staff in many universities
Professional ID with picture
Access control
Access and payment to staff cafeteria
Facilities

18. Digital university user’s guide
A common user’s guide with 16 common pages + 16 pages for
each university:
Two editions, one for students, one for staff
Since 2008, from printing to digital versions

19. UnivCloud
Why?
• Establishments partners mandate UNPIdF (November 2010 ...)
• Improved services : More, Better, Faster
• Quality of services (24/7) / PRA, PCA, PSSI
• Optimization of process / Industrialization
• Team undersized / Easy Deployment
• Saving Energy / Infrastructure Optimization
• Thrift of scale / Reducing the carbon Footprint
• Pooling/ Best effort
• Payment services to use / Innovative Economic Model
• Target Infrastructure « Private CloudCommunity »

20. UnivCloud
When?
• End of study project : 31 july 2013
• Writing specifications leading to tender : January 2014
• AMOA (Integrator Functional /Technical)
• First Infrastructure deployments : end 2014 / begin of 2015
Where?
• POC (Proof of concept) in Paris Région Île-de-France / Partners
Involvement
• Reproducible at the National level (Pooling and co-construction)
• National Recommendations on Cloud-Computing

21. Rue des Facs
A question and answer service born from a complex geography
.
Operational since January 2009 and carried today by 27
university libraries in Île-de-France.
Ruedesfacs.fr now covers all fields of knowledge. More than
1500 are answered annually. Since 2011, many answers are
placed on a "research notebook" hosted by hypotheses.org, one
of three platforms of research development proposed by
OpenEdition (Cleo). This book receives more than 40,000 visits
per year.
www.ruedesfacs.fr

22. The Digital Shop
Best bargains in Paris area for hardware and software
Restricted to students, staff and family of UNR members

23. Impact of UNR actions
New services
Regional offer for staff training to the digital world
Simplified schedule access, exam dates, documentation, educational
platform, universities’ restaurants and dormitories...
Development of infrastructures for mobility,
Interoperability of Information Services with urbanization of the
Information Systems and standards.
More robust technical infrastructure
Qualitative impacts
A national Dynamics based on a common work from actors with
different profiles (CIO, President, Vice-President...) from various
Institutions, Mutualization aid and support by sharing resources,
ideas, significant projects (difficult to achieve on an individual basis.)

24. Discussion(1)
Impacts are of several kinds:
•First, all students enrolled in universities have now access to a
bunch of free digital services and resources related to their
studies : student system, e- education , podcast, multiservice
student card, communication tools and e-mail , documentation,
academic life, relationship with companies and potential
employers...
•100% of the spaces, dedicated to the students, are equipped
with Wi -Fi connections, to encourage the use of numerous
services available through laptops, tablets or phones.
•In addition to quantifiable inputs , the cooperation between
universities Impulses national projects through a dynamics and
synergy between teachers , CIO , ICT staff and librarians.

25. Discussion (2)
Cooperation between universities is a key factor to enable all
universities to offer a quality ICT environment at an affordable
cost.
Other similar initiatives exist all around Europe.
The US Higher Education system is very different from the
European ones. However the French experience might be of
interest to other universities to embark on this path with
solutions adapted to their own environment. Among them
sharing practice and software in all common fields, opening Wi-
Fi access to all the community, local initiatives for staff
development…