International networking: the case of the European project QuILL

In our day and age, collaborative work is of the utmost importance for the development of research projects as well as the establishment of solid networks in a myriad of knowledge areas. It was in this context that the European project QuILL – Quality in Language Learning – saw its first light. Written and coordinated by Pixel-Italy in cooperation with the project applicant and scientific coordinator, the Polytechnic Institute of Bragança (Portugal), it is funded by the Erasmus+ programme, KA2 – Strategic Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness. The partner institutions in the project are as follows: Vilnius University, Faculty of Philology, (Lithuania); Cuza University of Iaşi, Department of Language Learning, (Romania); University of Bologna (Italy); Károli Gáspár University (Hungary); and Universidad de Cordoba (Spain). The first intellectual output (IO) of our international project was achieved, that is the collection of online open educational resources, which enabled us already to put an open-access database together in 18 European languages. This IO followed a collaborative approach, through the interaction among the partners, but also through their multilingual and multicultural teams that oversaw the assessment and validation of these resources by means of case studies, the analysis of the type of resources, the methods suggested, and their application in real learning-teaching contexts. Guided by the same collaboration input, the second IO for QuILL consists in the creation an on-line training package for the identification, use and creation of digital based language teaching and learning sources for teaching languages at higher education level. Regarding the third IO, we intend to publish a document that seeks to highlight and analyse the technological potential for language learning in European higher education systems. Our aim with this paper is not only to reflect on the outputs already achieved or under development and their added value for an increasingly technological education, but also on the strengths and shortcomings of international collaboration, of which QuILL will be a case in point.