Enterpreneurship: A Serious Game Erasmus Project

Project Title

Enterpreneurship: A Serious Game

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 vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2014

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

Context and background of the project
This project aimed to engage young people in acquiring s the skills to deliver the key social and economic goals of boosting productivity, increasing competition and innovation. It focused on young people who need to develop entrepreneurial skills in order to make them more innovative and creative. Attractive entrepreneurial learning materials in the form of a serious game was the main product.

Objectives
The project and its partnership wanted to:
• get to grips with enterprise skills by identifying and describing their importance for both employees in a business and the entrepreneurs who want to start or continue to run a successful business.
• meet employers’ increasing demand for intrapreneurial employees – an innovative and entrepreneurial attitude, from all employees in addition to functional expertise and artisanal skills.
• produce a competence matrix , a new European Framework of Enterprise Skills 2.0 that will underpin a new and different enterprise game by undertaking a skills audit and by employing VQTS methodology, a proven ECVET instrument.

Partnership
The partnership consisted of 11 partners with distinction between senior and junior partners. The senior partners were ROC Midden Nederland (promotor), Gobierno de Navarra, BFR Ober-Österreich, Chamber of Commerce Hodonin and Cambridge Regional College. The partner were responsible for the development of the framework and the serious game. The senior partners were supported by junior partners in several areas. SWO and The Gazelle Group mainly supported the development of the Competence Framework form their knowledge of business and entrepreneurial education. IT-Workz and Navreme Boheme were experts in game development and were mainly concerned with the serious game. Kent & McGill supported the overall development as an external evaluator and quality control manager. Overall the partnership had all the necessary competences to produce the required results at a high level.

Description of main activities
The first phase was to develop a competence framework based on the latest scientific knowledge and the demands of employers. Initially all relevant information was gathered through a skills audit which included desk research and a online questionnaire filled in by more than 80 employers. A selection of competences and development stages was then derived using the VQTS model.
This framework was then designed in an attractive graphic.
The second phase was to build the serious game called SIMBIZ to take account of the main enterprise skills identified in the research. The game was built from scratch and extensively tested with students.
The third phase was to produce and design a teacher’s handbook that would assist those wishing to use the serious game. This manual contains a number of suggested activities and plans for using the game.
These three phases have run concurrently with a wide range of dissemination activities within each country that have generated interest in SimBiz and helped through feedback in the development of the project’s products.

Results and impact attained
The partnership has delivered the products to the standards set out at the beginning of the project.
The Competence Framework stands tall in the comparisons we have made with the very latest research into enterprise skills that has been published towards the end of the project period. It is well researched, thorough in scope and strong in design. It is practical as well being very accessible for reference. In excess of 100 people have had the opportunity to examine and comment on it and it has been mainstreamed into institutions within and outwith the partnership.
The SimBiz Game, the project’s main product, fulfills our initial goal. It simulates realistic scenarios and engages the learner in a self -development course that can be played at several levels and addresses both employability skills and enterprise skills. Given that it has been designed from first principles, it is well designed and sophisticated. Significant interest in SimBiz has been shown at presentations at conferences in the partner countries, including EfVET 2016.

Longer term benefits
Even though it is difficult to forecast the longer term benefit it is clear that within the partnership (international) entrepreneurial education has received a substantial boost. International entrepreneurial competences have been integrated into courses and the game is used by many students, not just in the partnership but also outside of the partnership. Especially the framework has the potential to become the leading instrument for the integration international entrepreneurial competences in vocational education in Europe.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 228808,7 Eur

Project Coordinator

STICHTING ROC MIDDEN NEDERLAND & Country: NL

Project Partners

• NAVREME BOHEME SRO
• Cambridge Regional College
• The Gazelle Foundation
• IT-Workz B.V.
• Okresni hospodarska komora Hodonin
• kent and mcgill limited
• BERUFSFORDERUNGSINSTITUT OBEROSTERREICH