Remote learning and examination by using AR in maritime VET education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Remote learning and examination by using AR in maritime VET education

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 : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Environment and climate change; Gender equality / equal opportunities; ICT – new technologies – digital competences

Project Summary

RELAR project aims to create a crisis-proof resilient maritime VET ecosystem by enabling remote learning and examination using Augmented Reality, AR. It addresses the key challenges of maritime and port education ecosystem caused by structural change due to new digital technologies. It focusses on the adoption of AR tools to improve learning outcomes.

The consortium is formed by European VET and HEI organizations. It will tackle the deficiencies unearthed by the COVID-19 crisis by focusing on expertise and knowledge transfer of industrial organizations. It will improve security, safety and efficiency by empowering frontline connected workers with remote technology. The maritime VET ecosystem must become more resilient to crisis and improve adaptation capacity to forced shifts imposed by force majeure. Being tightly linked to other ecosystems with a major role in economy and society as a whole (port ecosystem, national or international education ecosystem), maritime education must absorb social shocks generated by crisis situations and ensure the continuity of learning processes.

Over the last decade, sensors enabled telemetry to connect devices, products, customers with Industry 4.0. While promising a wide implementation of automation, in most enterprises, operations are a set of tiring linear steps; slow, sometimes inaccurate or inefficient. Hence, frontline workers have been standing on the side line for the last 20 years; watching and waiting.

The paradigm shift with Industry 5.0 is where the frontline worker is now in the centre of things – machines, methods and workflows, and the technical management level can connect to him in a seamless manner. The project will mirror the new paradigm “expert – frontline worker” proposed by Industry 5.0 concept to a next-level “teacher – student” paradigm for VET. Teachers will wear the AR device for examining remotely the students by evaluating quality of the instruction’s students gave. Students will enhance their technological skills and hands-on experience by using the same AR device and executing tasks being remotely guided by the teacher. Both teachers and students will have the roles of expert or frontline worker depending on the objective: examination or learning.

Led by University of the Aegean from Greece, the consortium will identify and adopt a common architecture and framework for future interoperability, scalability and sustainability of remote learning. The core concepts of the architecture will be inspired by the existing Proof of Concept developed by STC Group for maritime education (EQF 4-5). During the first stage, the partners will encourage experimentation and exchange of ideas and good practices.

These will serve as requirements and criteria for establishing the most performant framework. Based on the selected framework, REmote Learning and examination system using AR (RELAR) will be developed. The established remote assistance communication protocol will ensure an efficient interaction between the teacher and student. The IMO’s Standard Marine Communication Phrases will serve as model. This communication protocol will eliminate the risk of misunderstandings or omissions that can lead to failures and jeopardize the correctness of the learning or examination process. Teachers will attend Train the Expert sessions coordinated by maritime training centre CERONAV from Romania, to be trained on technical aspects like how to use and manage the system. Students will attend workshops during multiplier events, ME, to get more insights in the design and functionality of RELAR system.

Being led by MCAST from Malta, scenarios are built to be used on RELAR system for learning and examination purposes for various use cases (ship engine officer, shipyard technician, transport fleet service & repair technician). The scenarios will benefit also from the associated partners’ input and will be demonstrated, evaluated and validated during a series of ME organised at the project partners location. Learning materials like videos and tutorials will be created to enhance the digital skills of students and teachers related to AR and to smooth the adoption process of RELAR in practical education. Teachers will attend Train the Trainer sessions organised by CERONAV, where they will get familiar with using RELAR scenarios for learning and examination using RELAR scenarios. Students will attend workshops during the ME to understand how to benefit most from the learning and examination with RELAR.

Quality assurance will be coordinated by the Slovenian VET center Šolski center Nova Gorica.

The partners will organise five Transnational Meetings, during which the teachers, students and experts from maritime industry and other sectors will get familiar with RELAR. The consortium partners will commit to further roll-out and implementation of RELAR in their organizations and at national level in VET and HEI and will establish a strategy for the continuation of cooperation.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 299997 Eur

Project Coordinator

STICHTING STC-GROUP & Country: NL

Project Partners

• MALTA COLLEGE OF ARTS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
• ŠOLSKI CENTER NOVA GORICA
• CENTRUL ROMAN PENTRU PREGATIREA SI PERFECTIONAREA PERSONALULUI DIN TRANSPORTURI NAVALE
• SATAKUNNAN AMMATTIKORKEAKOULU OY
• PANEPISTIMIO AIGAIOU
• UNIVERSIDAD DE LA LAGUNA