European Digital University Staff Competencies Erasmus Project

Project Title

European Digital University Staff Competencies

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 2020

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

The rapid digital transformation of our society keeps being a challenge for HEIs. It requires higher education staff with the necessary digital capabilities to cope with current and future technologies to stay competitive and to provide students with a high quality educational offer. Fields like internationalisation and teaching and learning can leverage greatly from digital processes, software and methodologies, yet have not taken full advantage of the possibilities that other sectors like finance, consumer goods, energy and many others continue to utilise and innovate. Education is the foundation of our society and higher education has an important role to play to find answers to current societal challenges. While the COVID-19 pandemic certainly has accelerated digitalisation, higher education institutions need to systematically apply educational and digital research in their everyday practices to fulfil their role in our European society.

The EU continues doing its part by providing ample opportunities for organisations to cooperate transnationally on topics connected to open education and digital transformation. Projects and initiatives like Erasmus without Paper, the European Student Card and the European Digital Credentials Initiative are just some examples of European collaboration for the benefit of education.

The project European Digital University Staff Competencies (EDUSC) aims to support and accelerate digitalisation in higher education. By training staff members in digital competencies while utilising modern and digital teaching methodology, staff members are encouraged to become digital internationalisation stewards and join a community of ambassadors for digital transformation that benefits the whole sector.

Through a range of project activities, EDUSC has the objective to lead by example and have higher education staff embrace digital transformation. The project team wants to create a community platform that provides an interactive digital toolkit of resources, information, good practices and user stories that the community can share, discuss and benefit from. Additionally, the project will create Open Educational Resources (OERs) for some of the most relevant topics in digital transformation in internationalisation of higher education.

An OER on the topic of virtual exchanges will explore how institutions can systematically use online education across cultures. The benefits of such an approach are manifold. HEIs can extend their course offer, recruit more international students, provide local students an international experience, all the while also lowering the barrier to engage in an actual mobility experience for students and staff.

Another topic that has recently received renewed attention is the quality and recognition of teaching. While research still remains the guarantor for funding and recognition, more HEIs are strengthening their educational offer. The OER on the topic of high quality teaching will look at how digital transformation can positively impact higher education teaching.

Digitalisation of mobility management is the third subject covered through the development of an OER. The EC’s announcement that Erasmus mobility management will become digital requires swift acting for all higher education institutions.

The project consortium chose to produce OERs as they can be reused, edited and repurposed and can thus ensure longevity of the work. In fact, the consortium team believes that OER-based learning environments should be the basis for modern and flexible higher education that can cope with 21st century challenges. The project team will therefore produce a community-driven policy recommendation that will look at the use of OERs and digital competencies for HE staff.

To ensure that the OERs are of high quality and to provide pilot training to the community of digital internationalisation stewards, the project team will conduct three blended staff training activities to test the material and provide quality continued professional development to the community. Each blended staff training will last for several weeks with an onsite training for each of the three aforementioned topics in Berlin, Rome and Madrid. Each training will have around 35 participants from around Europe.

Once the first version of the OERs are released, the consortium will organise an expert consultation that will be publicly available for active users of the community. At the end of the project, the team will invite the community to launch the project results together in Brussels and engage in a policy debate with European organisations and policy makers.

The project envisions 100 digital internationalisation stewards to take part in the community and join the blended staff mobilities, sharing their practices and challenges, providing user-stories and supporting each other after the year one and engage 250 colleagues from all around Europe to become multipliers by the end of the project

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 238228 Eur

Project Coordinator

Confia International & Country: FR

Project Partners

• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA TOR VERGATA
• UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID
• Young European Research Universities Network
• Kiron Open Higher Education gGmbH