Digital Skills Accelerator Erasmus Project

Project Title

Digital Skills Accelerator

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: EU Citizenship, EU awareness and Democracy; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Much research has been carried out on the digital divide in the labour market, most notably the gap between the demand for employees with high level ICT skills and the low availability. However, in today’s labour market, it is estimated that 90% of ALL jobs require ICT skills (www.idc.com) since rapid innovation in ICT is leading to “the need for digital skills in nearly all jobs where ICT complements existing tasks.” (EC Digital Single Market texts) Nevertheless, 47% of the EU population is not properly digitally skilled and this is even more noticeable in Poland, where 54% of the population have no or low digital skills. (EC Digital Single Market publications). Indeed, Poland ranks last among OECD countries with less than 20% of all workers using office software daily.

For these reasons, the Digital Skills Accelerator (DSA) project aims to put students in the driving seat of their own skills development. The goal of the project is clear: define the digital skills that should be prioritized by current and future cohorts of HE students, and create a self-directed multi-media learning system that students can access to bolster their skills in specific areas.

In order to achieve this goal, we will:
– Produce a DIGITAL SKILLS REPORT (IO1) identifying the most valuable digital skills required professionally and for civic engagement.
– Create an ONLINE SELF-ASSESSMENT TOOL (IO2) enabling students to identify their digital skills’ profile and map a personalized learning pathway.
– Develop the ESSENTIAL DIGITAL SKILLS TOOLKIT (IO3), an open, online modular training course allowing students to update their skills in the key areas.
– Produce a series of MOTIVATION AND RECRUITMENT VIDEOS (IO4) as an essential component of the recruitment and learning process.
– Rigorously test and optimize the resources before disseminating them widely to ensure strong use among the target groups.

The DSA model is based heavily on the concepts of user based design and so it is only reasonable that our project should integrate as much user participation as possible at all stages, from design to execution to evaluation, specifically:
– 50+ HE institutions, VET institutions and wider stakeholders will participate in the DIGITAL SKILLS RESEARCH REPORT
– 36 teaching staff from HEIs &VET institutions and 60 HE students participate in USER TESTING
– 12 + Students and/or other organizations will have their video CASE STUDY developed
– 250 HE and VET institutions and wider stakeholders will participate in MULTIPLIER EVENTS

On completion, the DSA project will have produced the knowledge, resources and social capital (commitment from key actors) to enable the introduction of the Digital Skills and Competences model to our HE and VET institutions, and through them to present and future generations of digital confident citizens.

In order to achieve this overall impact, the project will produce 4 intellectual outputs (IOs) which each focus on producing a tangible result or output.
1 Digital skills research report (IO1) identifying and prioritize information for digital competences
1 Self-Assessment tool (IO2) students will use this interactive self-assessment tool to identify their current digital skills profile.
1 Essential Digital Skills Toolkit (IO3) – a comprehensive training course of circa 18 modules to assist students to updates their skills in the key areas.
1 set of Motivation and Recruitment Videos (IO4)

The tangible results will lead to the following outcomes:
– TEACHING STAFF in HE institutions in 4 regions will grow in knowledge and skills, being able to integrate digital skills into their courses.
– HE STUDENTS, will develop digital competences and skills for application in their professional lives.
– HE AND VET INSTITUTIONS AND WIDER STAKEHOLDERS will demonstrate greater commitment to support its implementation in education
– WIDER STAKEHOLDERS AND POLICY MAKERS will gain greater awareness, knowledge and integration of Digital Competences as a new and important aspect of education.
– PROJECT PARTNERS will acquire in depth knowledge of digital competences

The impact of the project will be felt most at local and regional level through the strengthening of digital skills teaching and the ability of thousands of students to engage with the outputs of the project, thereby advancing their own digital literacy and competences. However, it also provides a reliable means of advancing systemic changes in approaches to digital skills education at national and international levels given the high relevance both of digital skills to the demands of our contemporary European economy, but also of digital literacy in these #fakenews times.

Moreover, it demonstrates that there are many new and innovative ways to increase the social inclusion and civic engagement of young people, while also contributing to the overall European goal of social cohesion.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 193064 Eur

Project Coordinator

ZACHODNIOPOMORSKI UNIWERSYTET TECHNOLOGICZNY W SZCZECINIE & Country: PL

Project Partners

• UNIVERSIDAD DE ALCALA
• EUROPEAN UNIVERSITIES CONTINUING EDUCATION NETWORK
• CANICE CONSULTING LIMITED
• MOMENTUM MARKETING SERVICES LIMITED