VP-Num vice-presidents meet at Inalco

The Chair, March 29: "Digital Sovereignty" round table. From left to right: Nicolas Aslous, Information Systems Security Officer, Christophe Peyrel, MESRI/MEN deputy senior defense and security officer, Isabelle Blanc, ministerial administrator and DGESIP and DGRI data advisor.

For these two study days in attendance, the VP-Num had chosen to meet around topics crucial to their missions, in particular the development of eco-responsible digital in our universities, higher education and research data policy and the hybridization of teaching. This working session opened with a presentation of the results of the latest survey carried out by the association with the Simone and the Robots agency on the impact of the Covid-19 crisis on teaching practices and the organization of French universities: the new strategies of establishments were discussed, as were the ways in which resources and technologies have been adapted to needs. The survey highlighted the activation of action plans aimed at reducing the digital divide among students, as well as supporting university staff in their digital uses and teaching methods. The presentation was an opportunity for the assembly to take stock of the resources to be pooled and to discuss the solutions to be recommended for the successful development of digital in our establishments.

Thus Ivan Šmilauer, Inalco's vice-president in charge of digital, presented the AHFLO' (Accompagnement de l'Hybridation des Formations en Langues et civilisations Orientales), which benefited from the seed funding following the response to the PIA3 "Hybridation des formations d'enseignement supérieur" call for projects launched in the context of the 2020 health crisis. This project, whose aim is to develop distance learning in Oriental languages and civilizations, has enabled many Inalco colleagues to set up a wide range of hybridized courses, from teaching units enriched by digital resources to full degree courses as part of initial training or MOOCs on the FUN platform.

As digital is not just immaterial, the VP-Nums called on the association La Fresque du Numérique to organize a collaborative workshop to help them develop their skills in eco-responsible digital. Spread around tables in the courtyard and in the salon Borel, the vice-presidents played a serious game to identify and precisely measure the material impact of digital. Realizing, for example, that a two-kilogram computer requires 800 kg of raw materials to manufacture, they each left with a concrete action plan to reduce the ecological impact of digital technology in our universities.

Inalco's Maison de la Recherche, located in the heart of Paris, enabled members of the VP-Num association to fit a visit to the Institut de France into their program. They were welcomed by Claire Mathieu, a member of the Académie des Sciences: the researcher in algorithm design and analysis at the CNRS explained how the algorithm for solving the stable marriage problem enabled her to develop and evolve the Parcoursup algorithm, which she helped develop.

Finally, several working sessions were devoted to higher education and research data policies and the issue of data sovereignty with several guests: Isabelle Blanc, Ministerial Administrator of Data, Algorithms and Source Codes, Christophe Peyrel, Deputy Senior Defense and Security Official MESRI/MEN, François Pellegrini, Vice-President of the CNIL and Jean-Marc Ogier, President of the Digital Committee at France Universités. The exchanges, which highlighted the benefits of opening up data while measuring the risks involved, concluded the need for universities to pool their efforts to better guarantee the sovereignty of their data.

From left to right: Brigitte Nominé, VP Numérique et SI, Université de Lorraine, former VP-Num association president; Eve-Marie Rollinat-Levasseur, VP-Num association secretary, Université Sorbonne Nouvelle; Guillaume Bourlet, VP-Num association treasurer, VP numérique, Université Paris-Est Créteil; Isabelle Olivier, president of the VP-Num association, VP digital, Université Grenoble Alpes; Ronan Tournier, board member of the VP-Num association, Université Toulouse 1 Capitole; Pierre Boulet, vice-president of the VP-Num association, VP digital transformation, Université de Lille.