Date: 07. September 2023
Time: 14:30 – 16:00
Location: University of Aveiro, Portugal

I. Welcome and approval of the agenda (Marcus Specht)

Overview of the EATEL, status overview, objectives of EATEL and agenda of the session. The agenda was approved.

Introduction of the current board, EATEL chairs, steering committee, volunteers. Benefits of being a member: contribution, doing things, building new things. Social media channels. Thank you for new institutional members. IAALDE as an umbrella to bring together different entities, joint actions: IAALDE session and sharing of best papers. Support also from Springer. Publication chair activities: proceedings and collaboration with IEEE TLT.

II. Report of the activities of the association 2022 - 2023

Highlights (Mikhail Fominykh)

  • EATEL member newsletter
  • Community mailing list relaunched, rules
  • JTEL Summer School 2023
  • Joint activities with IAALDE
  • New SIGs: Educational Robots & Robotics; TEL Curricula and Programs
  • New institutional members: TLU, NTNU, Heidelberg University of Education, and University of Aveiro

Educational activities (Maria Perifanou and Mikhail Fominykh)

  • Summer school success story. Overview of the participation, activity framework. Call for next summer school organisation
  • DE-TEL Erasmus+ project: Joint publication. Series of DETEL webinars. DE-TEL open book. Work in the progress, to which it is possible to contribute
  • ECTEL DC 2023: overview

SIGs (Marcus Specht)

  • Possibilities to initiate new SIGs
  • Overview of existing ones:
    1. AI for Education (R. Klemke short overview, planned activities and overview of the WS)
    2. SeGaGa (R. Klemke short overview), planned activities
    3. TEL Curricula and Programs (M. Kalz short overview of the activities and WS)
    4. EduRobotX (I. Buchem short overview of the activities and WS, plans for the future)

III. Approval of the report by the General Assembly

Motion: The GA was asked to approve the activity report of the EATEL management board.

Vote: Unanimous for accepting the report, with 4 abstentions

IV. Financial reporting (Tobias Ley)

Income and spendings Sept 2022 – August 2023

Result – 14636.15 eur. Minus to some extent planned, because of the earlier savings. Income: institutional memberships (less than members), individual memberships, sponsorship (Springer), JTELSS because the organisation goes through EATEL accounts. Spendings: admin. costs, taxes / charges, board meetings (project resources), personnel costs (M. Khulbe), institutional membership dinner, best paper, JTEL costs.

Summary

  • Main expenses: making processes more professional, supporting young researchers, scholarships and enabling credit card payments.
  • Major income categories: increase membership payments and DETEL project ended
  • Reason for default: tax return (in every 3 years), timing issues with DE-TEL project (costs in 2022, funding received in 2021), JTELSS23 default because of scholarships and keynotes (planned by us).
  • The general situation is stable, 25 000.- eur savings needed for cashflows, spending mostly cover incomes.
  • Suggestions: membership fees to be increased, calculate an overhead into JTELSS registration fee, re-consider credit card payment options.

Question: Are there any solutions to be more flexible with savings (25 000).

Marco: max 4 years to keep the money. Risky to plan this money.

Mikhail: This year such an amount of money to plan SS is enough (25 000).

Mikhail: To increase the income, EATEL could be a partner in your projects and participate in communication & coordination work.
Tobias: Then we need to talk about it to plan the project administrative work.
Mikhail: We managed.

Discussion with the audience on the importance of credit card payments for JTELSS fees. Different solutions suggested.

Conclusion

  • No clear agreement, board will investigate the options and take into consideration the additional effort for the board work.
  • One participant had some problems with bank transfer because of the association’s very long name. The name cannot be changed, but we can provide guidelines on how to fill in the transfer.

V. Approval of the financial report by the General Assembly

Motion: The GA was asked to approve the financial report of the EATEL treasurer.

Vote: unanimous for accepting the report, with 5 abstentions.

VI. What’s next (Marcus Specht)

Mission 2021-2025

  • Strengthen management: extended board positions, announcement of web, consolidation of management processes
  • Community building: discord, newsletters, mailing list, social media, SIGS and development of portfolio
  • Institutional member focus: European distribution and specific benefits and strategic development discourse. Open Positions in Digital and TEL.
  • Professionalising EATEL: EC-TEL conference handbook, SIG portfolio to promote the activities, collaboration with IAALDE
  • ECTEL 2024 announcement – join tomorrow

No questions and recommendations.

The meeting ended at 16:15 local time.

Aveiro, 07. September 2023