Procurement: digital Tools and sustainable Goals Erasmus Project

Project Title

Procurement: digital Tools and sustainable Goals

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: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses; Open and distance learning

Project Summary

CONTEXT
The context for this project is determined by the changes in the Education sector where, in the short term, the health emergency forced universities to lockdown their face-to-face activities and where “traditional” universities are challenged by new players such as digital universities and digital education platforms. In front of these changes, “traditional” universities are challenged not only on how and how much they are able to develop digital courses/contents fit for a rapidly changing job market but also on how they can recognize and certify the skills that learners are acquiring also in terms of digital micro-credentials.
TARGETED SKILLS GAP
In an overall scenario where Europe is facing a significant digital skills gap, ProcToGo proposal focuses on the area of “Procurement” – and in particular of “Sustainable Procurement” – considering developing digital courses aimed to provide future procurement professionals the new required digital skills and the digital certifications that will allow them to more effectively spend their new skills on the job market.
MAIN OBJECTIVE
The project objective is twofold:
-design two short digital courses on digital sustainable procurement practices, certifying through a digital badge the acquired skills;
-develop a micro-credential framework based on which learners (including life-long learners) can build up progressively new digital skills as required by their professional career in the area of procurement.
The intellectual outputs will match the twofold project objectives.
PARTNERSHIP
The 5 project partners (Universiteit Antwerpen, Universität Bremen, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Universidade Nova de Lisboa and Università degli Studi di Roma ‘Tor Vergata’) are all members of YERUN (Young European Research Universities Network) and are already cooperating in several Erasmus+ Strategic Partnerships. Associated partners will strengthening this partnership contributing as checkpoints in the content development phase (ASVIS and CSCMP), as reference in the setting of the micro-credential framework (DCU and YERUN) and as amplifiers for the dissemination (YERUN and CSCMP).
PARTICIPANTS
The project addresses with its activities to master level students and teachers at higher education institutions.
Students, taking part in the two planned mobilities, will be up to 50, however the digital courses running on Open edX platform will have a wider potential participation, for a total target reach of 250 learners.
According to a “train the trainer” approach, there will be at least 10 teachers that will go through a comprehensive training path providing them with new skills on digital course design and digital micro-credential development.
METHODOLOGY
All the project activities related to development of learning contents will be designed taking into account the ILO (intended learning objectives) approach segmented till the level of the micro-credentials. The actual development of the contents and of the framework will be managed through an agile iterative approach. The quality evaluation of the results will be assessed by the quality departments of the full partners (in particular by the programmes that will be recognizing the credentials in their degree courses).
RESULTS
By the end of the project, the following results will have been achieved:
– the design and development of digital course materials based on the new specific skills required by the job market
– the packaging and delivery of these digital contents in two digital learning modules, customized depending on whether they address private or public procurement;
– the free accessible access of these courses on Open edX platform
– the testing of the use of micro-credentials and digital badges towards both enrolled and non-enrolled students;
– the training of trainers in order to be able to further develop digital courses and digital micro-credential in the respective universities.
IMPACT
The project will provide new digital teaching contents allowing learners to acquire the new digital skills required by the labour market. The project will also contribute to development of a different teaching approach and recognition of qualification based on digital contents and micro-credentials, supporting “traditional” universities to be more effective in the Digital Education arena. The solid and long-term commitment of the project partners to their respective areas of expertise matched with the intrinsic characteristics of digital platforms requiring large investment for the building-up phase and limited costs in their operations, indicates that the ProcToGo approach will be sustainable in the long term and will have a wide impact in the long-term in with reference to learners trained on line to the digital skills required for sustainable procurement .

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 261722 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI ROMA TOR VERGATA & Country: IT

Project Partners

• UNIVERSIDAD CARLOS III DE MADRID
• UNIVERSITAET BREMEN
• UNIVERSITEIT ANTWERPEN
• UNIVERSIDADE NOVA DE LISBOA