Abstract:

Since winter term 2007/2008 the Center for Translation Studies / University of Vienna has pursued the purpose of the Bologna Declaration by thriving to make academic degree and quality assurance standards more comparable and compatible in the European Higher Education Area:

• Introduction of a higher education degree structure based on a sequence of bachelor (of Cross-cultural Communication) and master (of Translating and of Interpreting) degrees.
• Standardisation of the course programme structure for each of the 14 offered languages, for example: Grammar, Oral Communication, Reading Comprehension, Translation, Interpretation etc.

Working on standardisation not only of curriculum, but also of joint didactics it became necessary to coordinate all the 140 lecturers, most of them busily practicing as interpreters and translators off campus. A way to reach all of them independent of location and time had to be found. Utilizing internet technologies a virtual collaboration room on the official Learning Management System of the University of Vienna (Fronter) was created.

The collaboration room called eZTW (ZTW is the German abbreviation of the Center for Translation Studies: Zentrum für Translationswissenschaft) is a communication platform and a meeting point for lecturers having no chance to speak to each other face to face. eZTW is also used as a means of distribution of important internal informations from the Center to all the lecturers. But most importantly eZTW is an idea exchange, where lecturers share successful teaching practice among others. The idea exchange is structured by type of course and not by languages, which promotes cross-lingual cooperation. In addition it contains also a standardised course guideline specifying objectives, methods and a checklist for error correction and assessment.

Furthermore the idea exchange establishes a link between education and research on the one hand by sharing outcomes of past e-learning research projects as best practices for the lecturers. On the other hand lecturers’ experiences will be subject to future analysis as part of research projects and curriculum designing. Hence idea exchange contributes to the (further) development of translation didactics, which is a poorly investigated field by now.

Summarizing the effects of eZTW it has a significant impact on didactical professionalisation of teaching (quality assurance), it facilitates knowledge management and enhances cross linking group members as a basis for intensified cooperation with team spirit and constructive working climate.

Since summer term 2009 eZTW has been successfully utilized as a collaboration room in Vienna. For the future it is intended to develop a nation wide network of Austrian translation institutes with the goal of standardising academic degree and quality assurance both in content and didactics.

Keywords:

quality assurance, knowledge management, e-learning and didactics.