After a period in which activities were prepared, the first ICOD meeting was organised. This First Seminar (that took place in the Universidad de La Habana, December 2004), officially started the Network activities. The working groups and the calendar of activities were distributed. For the working groups, a mixed approach of European and Latin American universities was favoured, in order to enrich contents with diverse perspectives. The result of this first seminar, where each participant presented situation reports related to his/her country and university, was translated into two documents, one dedicated to the "Historical Evolution of Profiles in Communication University Students: Current Debates and Future Tendencies" and another entitled "Digitalisation of University Communication Studies: a Situation Map". Both documents, together with other texts drafted by the ICOD Network are part of this volume.
In the following phase, the ICOD Network developed a research project that involved more than 120 professionals related to communication media and institutions. The study was approached following a methodology based on common data acquisition (analytical interviews and focus groups) elaborated by the Université de Lille 3 representative and agreed on by consensus by all the Network members. The research reports of the universities that participated constituted the base of the document "Digital Communicator Competences", drafted during the Second Seminar (Universidad de Beira Interior, Portugal - July 2005).
From the Second Seminar onwards, a new research phase was initiated. The working groups developed a series of teaching experiences in digital communication and focused specifically on the pedagogical methods that were used. Groups produced other working documents that were presented and debated during the Third Seminar (Universidad Nacional de la Patagonia Austral, Argentina - December 2005). The final document of this meeting is entitled "Teaching digital communication: experiences and proposals".
Almost three years after its initial configuration, the "Digital Communicators" Project of the ICOD Network has reached its conclusion. During the Fourth Seminar, organised by Universitat de Vic, the institution that coordinated the project, all documents written by the Network will be presented. After this last meeting, the final phase, which will consist of spreading the ICOD Network results, will begin.
Right now all that is left to do is to thank all universities that have participated in the project and the EU ALFA Program. We also have to mention the support that the Generalitat de Catalunya has given to the project through the Departament de Universitat, Recerca i Societat de l'Informació (DURSI).
All participants of the ICOD Network hope that these documents will be useful for European and Latin American universities. The digitalisation of communications demands that universities adapt their programmes and methodologies to new realities. In this sense, we consider that the following volume contributes to the discussion, while being a working tool for those that are in charge of taking this process further.
