eLearning : covering lifelong learning in the European Space for higher education. Editorial

Abstract

The Bologna Process (European Ministers of Education, 1999) aims to establish a European Area of Higher Education by 2010. The general objectives are the introduction of undergraduate and postgraduate levels in all countries, with first degrees no shorter than 3 years; a European Credit Transfer System; and finally the elimination of remainingobstacles to the mobility of students and teachers. But in a deeper sense, this process represents a philosophical movement; it is a unification of the European university model that goes towards a more active learning model, i.e. a transformation from a Napoleonic model, centred in the teacher figure (deeply rooted in the South of Europe), to an Anglo-Saxon model, centred in the student figure (deeply rooted in the North of Europe).