Social Network based doctoral Education on Industry 4.0 Erasmus Project

Project Title

Social Network based doctoral Education on Industry 4.0

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Open and distance learning; Enterprise, industry and SMEs (incl. entrepreneurship); New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Background
PhD students have usually different goals in their study that will be synthesized in the PhD Thesis. The training offered by every University cannot satisfy the specific needs of a small population of students. Therefore, PhD students usually see a dichotomy between their specialized study goal and the generalized training offered by their University. Usually, the team composition for a specific research is made of a professor, one/some research assistants and a PhD student. Professor and research assistants are engaging in several research activities with different PhD students, by splitting their time. The team is hierarchic and not peer leveled,and the team’s goal is the research outcome while the PhD student main goals are to learn a discipline and to work on research project.Therefore, it is difficult that a group of PhD students in the same University be engaged in shared learning activities and be able to constitute a learning team. The Tiphys initiative addressed this gap by proposing an state of are course design focused on student interactions and based on distance learning.

Objectives
The objective of the project is to build an Open Networked Platform for the learning of Industry 4.0 themes dedicated to PhD students. All the learning material is designed according the modern Constructive Alignment paradigm. Through this platform the students can co-create their learning path and the learning contents and dynamic student teams will be created for every specific learning requirement. Teams are composed by students belonging to all the European countries. Teams will interact using a Social Network application.

Participants
Tiphys consortium is made of Teachers, PhD students and lab technicians from 7 universities in 6 different European countries. The choice of the single participant at each partner reflected the need for specific competences necessary to deliver the project results entrusted to the related partner.In detail:
•KTH the Royal Institute of Technology, the coordinator, Constructive Alignment (CA)
•University of Napoli Federico II, UNINA, MOOC domain for distance learning.
•University of Minho, UMINHO, Social Network Education
•University of Ioannina, UOI virtual reality

Transnational cooperation was particularly important for the success of the project because:
1. Allowed to reach the critical mass of students in order to justify the effort in setting up the course
2. Cluster together the knowledge, information and best international practice about Industry 4.0.
3.Allowed to enhance access to international educational best practices, which can be used and compared, and exchange knowledge
4.Six Countries –six languages –Six Educational systems allowed a richer learning experience and wider dissemination

Activities

1)Definition of the ontological model of the course subjects using the OWL language and the KTH model called CONALI (Constructive Alignment) ontology
2)Development of the MOOC specifics using open access platform Moodle further developed by UOI.
3)Co-creation of learning material based on the UMINHO approach of Social Network based Education (SNE)
4)Factory simulation model, exploiting the VR engine developed at UOI to implement the suggested educational unit in a virtual environment and consequent final release of the platform

Main Results
– The LTT activity formed 10 teachers from the consortium on how to use Constructive Alignment to design educational units.
– A total of 7 courses were re-design according to this new knowledge providing interchangeable knowledge base across different universities.
– BONUS: an updated version of the underlying CONALI ontology was released and published as result of the instantiation of the original model on new courses.
– The MOOC was produced using an open access platform called Moodle
– A technical feature of particular importance was that the e-learning platform enabled collaborative work, enhancing views’ equity. With the integration of the PADLET tool, the platform included simultaneous collaborative editing of files, awareness, and registering of participants who were doing what and history of creations and changes.
– The HANDBOOK on “Virtual Reality Technology as a Tool for Industry 4.0 Design, Implementation and Operation” was delivered as planned. This can be used as blueprint to implement a similar approach in different educational units
– BONUS: 2 Workshops in co-creation of learning material were hold by UMINHO as a way to train the consortium members on co-creation of learning materials
– A virtual platform and related scenarios were developed as planned :
– Workshops on the Virtual Reality environment was held by UoI to teach the partners how the VR environment works and show its capabilities.
– Knowledge of PhD. students was examined through Tiphys Moodle MOOC platform.
– Validation and evaluation report

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 370847 Eur

Project Coordinator

KUNGLIGA TEKNISKA HOEGSKOLAN & Country: SE

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI NAPOLI FEDERICO II
• TECHNOLOGIKO EKPEDEFTIKO IDRYMA IPIROU
• POLITECHNIKA RZESZOWSKA IM IGNACEGO LUKASIEWICZA PRZ
• UNIVERSIDADE DO MINHO
• TECHNICKA UNIVERZITA V KOSICIACH
• POLITECNICO DI TORINO