VIRTUAL MENTORING IN HIGHER EDUCATION. A PROTOCOL PROPOSAL

University has undergone several significant changes regarding the teaching-learning process. Two important elements have to be mentioned. First, the adaptation to the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS), which not only led to an adaptation of curricula, but also of the whole process, including the entry of new students, as well as their learning and assessment. The second element that has permeated the university teaching process has been the introduction of new technologies, not only in academia, but also in all personal and professional areas. An example of this is how university students and even teachers need new technologies to carry out teaching tasks. However, society often progresses faster than regulations. For this reason, we may find several everyday situations with no regulations that could produce different answers and procedures in the same situation and, at times, these are based on the assumption of the protagonists' rights and obligations. The principal objective is not to propose a regulation on virtual tutoring. We would like to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses by means of the status of the issue in order to offer a general proposal. I the second phase, the aim is to include university teachers's and students' opinion through a interview so as to adapt the general information to our reality and provide a protocol proposal. Interviews are based on items such as: sociodemographic information, the amount of time devoted to virtual mentoring, the main reasons for using it, frequency, the main day and time of use, the main means of communication (phone, email, virtual platforms, videoconferences, etc.), the level of agreement in the functions (technical, academic, organizational, guidance, and social functions) related to virtual tutoring (Llorente, 2006), the level of satisfaction, the motivation for using it, valorations about how it could help to the learning process and the opinion concerning a regulation of virtual tutoring. The interviewed University teachers were selected from Higher Education, with a broad experience on virtual tutoring. The selected students belong to the 3rd and 4th years of the Pedagogy, Early Childhood Education, Primary Education, Social Education and Psychology degrees. NOTE: This study is based on a Teaching Innovation Project. Accordingly, we are not able to present conclusions at this point. In any case, during this month we are finishing interviews and by the time of the conference we will be able to present the entire project.]