Brain@Work – Information competence as booster for prospective scientists Erasmus Project

Project Title

Brain@Work – Information competence as booster for prospective scientists

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 2019

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

Nowadays Information Literacy (IL) is important in general because future professions and the labour market require the ability to constantly update and learn specific high-profile skills throughout the whole life. EU includes IL in the set of fundamental competencies of LLL as a dimension of the digital competence, crucial asset for citizens and workers in a digital knowledge society to build EU workforce, develop world-class of professionals, managers and researchers and build research, knowledge and innovation.
In the field of STEM disciplines IL represent even more a crucial competence: students and researchers, like all workers today, are in a paradoxical situation: there is an abundance of information available but it is often difficult to obtain useful, relevant information when it is needed.
The problem to tackle:
IL education is more developed in relation to social sciences and humanities, while there is a lack of experiences both in the application of IL for STEM disciplines and in the use of the most effective strategies to teach competencies, recognized by educational studies.
Although many curricula exist in some EU regions, there is a lack of studies about the evaluation of effectiveness of IL training.
Moreover, there is a lack of experience in collaborative designing and teaching involving a multifaceted team of professionals, within and outside the library.
In some EU Countries educational resources developed by librarians are not available online and remain unknown.
BRAIN@WORK general aim is to deepen knowledge about existing IL for the STEM disciplines in EU and to upgrade the training offer of the participating organization creating a modular set of innovative training units for future workers on technical and scientific sector.
Through the collaboration among universities, research institutions and companies from 5 EU Countries – Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Latvia and Spain – the project develops contents that are innovative for two main reasons: (1) they are based on real cases extract from researchers’ and professionals’ activities, (2) and they are developed connecting IL with other soft skills needed at work – like problem solving, decision-making, team work, project management – of whom information competence could be considered a crucial component.

INTELLECTUAL OUTPUTS envisaged:
– Two publications: comparative report and guidelines for trainers
– Set of innovative training modules and related assessment tools
– Guidelines and examples of official agreements

TRAINING ACTIVITIES envisaged:
– 4 intensive training courses addressed to project partners to learn and debate about different methodologies to be applied to IL for STEM
– 5 pilot trainings (one in each participating Country) about IL for STEM addressed to HE students and researchers
– 5 Training of Trainers (one in each participating Country) about IL for STEM addressed to teachers/librarians.

Direct participants to training activities are in total a minimum of 210 persons, while participants to other project activities (i.e. resonance groups and dissemination actions) are a minimum of 2.730 persons.

At the end of the project the following results are expected:
– increased number of librarians, teachers, researchers, students, professionals and administrative staff of universities and research organizations in Europe, aware of IL for STEM, thanks to the Report (O1) and the Comparative Research (O2)
– increased number of university and research libraries active in IL for STEM in Europe, thanks to training modules (O3)
– more effective, appealing and fast learning training modules (O3) thanks to the adoption of competency-based education measured through related authentic assessment tools (O4)
– increased number of IL for STEM training modules embedded in all participating universities and research institutions at different levels (single course, doctoral course, master, etc.) thanks to modular set of training units and official agreements (O5)
– online openly availability of lesson plans, educational materials and assessment tools
– upgraded information skills for students and researchers piloting the courses
– deeper knowledge of IL training methods for teachers participating to the project.

Potential longer term benefits:
– improved and re-defined collaboration among librarians, students, academic teachers and researchers in dealing with IL for STEM disciplines
– development of network of librarians dealing with IL for STEM at European level.

Project Website

https://www.brainatworkproject.eu/

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 312330 Eur

Project Coordinator

CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE & Country: IT

Project Partners

• FUNDACIO EURECAT
• SMART SKILLS CENTER SRL
• RIGAS STRADINA UNIVERSITATE
• UNIVERSITE DE LIEGE
• UNIVERSIDADE DO MINHO