The main objectives of the project are the development of strategic partnership among universities, support of internationalization of the educational process, and the teacher´s mobility. The other goal is to support innovation and modernization of the educational process. Finally, it is an effort to contribute to the sustainable development of society, particularly in the field of nature protection threatened by the fast development of tourism. The project will also support inclusion since it will bring guidelines on how to prepare and implement barrier-free nature heritage interpretation. The project outputs will be a new complex modern didactic material in a digital form:E-book: an overview of theories in the interpretation of nature heritage, examples of good practice, case studies.Guidelines: designed and adjusted to professionals from the industry, they will spread awareness of the topic in the industry, support further live-long professional education, transfer foreign experience to experts.Video + Digital presentations: examples of nature heritage interpretation. Podcasts: timeless ideas from interesting personalities from the topic The need of such a project is based on the survey, which showed a gap in university syllabi and study materials. Despite the growing interest of visitors in nature, the professional literature doesn´t cover this topic, there is no comprehensive modern methodology of nature heritage interpretation, nor interpretation planning. The content of the project also reflects the mission and the new political framework for tourism in Europe. The European Travel Commission aims to develop new ways how to attract visitors to European nature heritage. The upgrade of nature heritage interpretation will increase awareness of nature heritage values, initiate responsible behaviour of visitors and nature heritage protection. The project will be implemented in partnership of 8 universities representing different European regions, capital and regional cities, and countries with diverse nature heritage and its potential.The distribution of tasks is well balanced among all partner universities. Each university will deal with its subtopic as follows:VSE Praha, Czech Republic: small-scale protected areas, interpretation through nature heritage trails, treetop walkways;Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, Romania: UNESCO locations, nature watching;University of Applied Sciences-Fachhochschule Burgenland, Austria: large-scale protected areas, interpretation centers in national parks;Universidad Europea, Spain: caves, interpretation in extreme nature areas, guiding; Fachhochschule des Mittelstands, Germany: cultural landscape, palace gardens, ZOOs and botanic gardens, gamification;Cork Institute of Technology, Ireland: geoparks, coastal landscape, inanimate nature, modern interpretation media; Universidade do Porto, Portugal: agricultural landscape, vineyards, wine routes, interpretation through experience; Vytautas Magnus University, Lithuania: hydrology, balneological nature resources, printed materials for interpretation.The project has a detailed action plan. The main activities of the project are:Compilations of materials and their didactic elaboration, collection of examples of good practice, elaboration of case studies, cooperation with the industry. Transnational project meetings for coordination of project implementation and evaluation, and as a platform for networking, for sharing the experience, and support of the development of internationalization in university activities. Short-term joint staff training events with training activities supporting the development and improvement of pedagogical skills, especially in the use of new digital materials and tools and their implementation in the teaching process. Dissemination activities: organization of an international conference, web pages, articles, papers, lectures at conferences outside the project, etc.Project management: communication with partners, monitoring, budget monitoring, evaluation. The created materials will help to build awareness of the importance of quality nature heritage interpretation and its significant role in the protection of nature values. The main group benefiting from the project results are students and teachers of 8 partner universities. They will benefit particularly in the field of the educational process - its innovation, internationalization, and digitalization.The outcomes of the project will be available also to other schools.Experts from the industry and other relevant stakeholders will also benefit from the compiled and published materials (Guidelines).The project outputs will be published in full on open webpages all partner universities and will be freely accessible. They will be technically user-friendly. They will be also downloaded into the Platform for Dissemination of Results of Erasmus + Programme.Long-term utilization of project outputs is expected.

Promoting Continuing Professional Education in Moldova (MD) in the sense of fostering Lifelong Learning is one of the priorities stated in the national Strategy Education 2020 and Code of Education. As a consequence thereof, teaching staff should be well prepared to these pedagogical challenges, which increasingly require the implementation of innovative and participative learning-teaching approaches enabling teachers to provide their courses more efficiently in different socio-pedagogical contexts, if primary, VET, HE, or LLL.Since pedagogy becomes more interdisciplinary, especially with a view to introduction of web & ICT technologies in teaching & learning, appropriate skills are increasingly required from teacher educators. Due to the lack of trainers both in MD, who can teach other to design and implement e-learning courses as well as to create learning situations in which trainees are encouraged to outline their own objectives and to operate with increasing autonomy, the present project proposal aims at developing and introduction of two new modules “e-teaching for teacher educators” and “Innovative pedagogical approaches”. These modules will be tested, accredited by National Agency of Quality Assurance in Professional Education, and integrated into the learning programs of CPE for teachers at participating Moldavan PU. To facilitate wider implementation of e-technologies in CPE, 5 existing CPE courses will be selected, redesigned according to the blended learning approach, tested, and serve as references for further modernization of curricula.Appropriate technical, didactical, methodical, and organisational support of teaching staff and trainees by creating and utilizing eLearning-based courses will be ensured by Centres of CPE (CCPE), which will be established and networked during the project life at MD PU. Network will be supported by e-platform to facilitate open exchange of e-learning/e-teaching experiences.

Cultural heritage (CH) is of great value to European society from environmental, social and economic point of view. Its sustainable management constitutes a strategic choice for the 21st century (DECISION (EU) 2017/864). Moreover, CH played a specific role in achieving the Europe 2020 strategy goals for a ‘smart, sustainable and inclusive growth’ (2014/C 183/08).Towards this vision, the European Union designated the year 2018 as the ‘European Year of Cultural Heritage’ with the purpose to encourage the sharing and appreciation of Europe's cultural heritage as a shared resource, to raise awareness of common history and values, and to reinforce a sense of belonging to a common European space. Various actions were put in place across Europe aiming at promoting Europe’s cultural diversity (#EuropeForCulture). Against this background, the CultApp partnership was inspired by the idea to contribute to raising awareness of Europe’s CH among young people from iVET institutions. In doing so, the partnership relied on powerful potentials of Augmented Reality (AR) as a tool allowing to experience cultural assets in a joyful and entertaining way. Through the combination of two topics, CH and AR, partnership strived to promote different set of 21st century’s skills of young learners, such as aesthetic, digital and civic competence, critical thinking, creativity and problem solving. The overall vision of the CultApp project was reflected in the project motto “Cultapp brings culture into the 21st century and in all our pockets”. In addition, CultApp aimed at creating supporting tools and strategies for iVET stakeholders (teachers, learners, managerial staff) towards integrating innovative AR-based teaching and learning practices in their educational activities, in particular, in incorporating CH-related topics in iVET curricula. The project’s objectives were implemented by the CultApp partnership consisting of 7 institutions with different profiles from Bulgaria, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, and Poland. 2 of them represented iVET sector (ITT MP from IT, Agora Niekée from NL), 1 – HEI sector (FHM, DE), 1 NGO with focus on providing educational support to children with special needs (NART, BG), 1 association specializing on the development and management of human resources (Effebi, IT), 1 training & consulting institution (PAIZ Konsulting, PL), and 1 SME focusing on the design and development of digital educational solutions (CCS Education, EL). CultApp partners performed a number of tasks which led to attaining the project objectives and resulted into the development and pilot testing of 3 intellectual outputs, which were:IO1: Augmented Reality meets Cultural Heritage - Compendium of practices and applications: the Compendium showcased 12 applications of Augmented Reality on art and cultural objects in DE, IT, BG, EL, NL, PL by describing their technological features, educational value, effects and impact produced, and provided several inspirations for adopting these practices to a wider community of stakeholders, if teachers & learners, cultural workers, public municipalities, tourism service suppliers and promoters. IO2: Open Online Teacher Training Programme “Augmented Reality for Cultural Heritage Education”. This Moodle-based course addressed Art, History or Media Design teachers who wanted to try AR tools to inspire their learners for CH. The course helped teachers understand the pedagogical value of AR, use AR for teaching CH-related subjects, and empowered them to design and implement simple AR projects.IO3: Augmented Learning Project work. During this project, selected teachers and learners from CultApp countries IT, DE, and NL virtually worked together on the development of AR scenes which presented stories about the past, the presence and a possible future of the selected cultural assets in the cities Florence, Bielefeld, and Roermond. The final output of the AL project is represented through 3 deliverables:-17 AR markers to be discovered with a mobile device with the installed AR Blippar;-1 publication reflecting pedagogical and organizational stages of the AL project;-1 AL platform containing visual and textual materials produced by learners during the AL project. Impact of the project:-increased transversal skills of learners, such as curiosity, creativity, digital and intercultural competence, collaboration and communication;-improved pedagogical and digital skills of teachers;-reinforced collaboration between EU iVET institutions;-increased awareness of common EU cultural and historical values.Potential long-term benefits of the projects are:- creation of challenging learner-centered educational environments at iVET institutions,- paths for modernizing iVET curricula towards incorporating CH-related topics through AR;- pedagogical AR projects in different subjects,- innovative cooperation models between iVET institutions, tourism suppliers, public municipalities.

"""At the moment ECVET is too conceptual and far from easy to implement. Moreover there is a huge gap between companies and the education sector in relation to timescales."" (ECVET Magazine, 11/2013 as consequence of the annual ECVET forum 2013). This statement of the workshop held with representatives of all European countries on the involvement of companies into the ECVET and whole transparency instruments process shows one of the most crucial success or fail factors of the ECVET process - the world of business. Recent studies and analysis (e.g. made during the peer evaluation event of the Slovak National Agency about ECVET in September 2017) do again confirm this difficult relationship between ECVET (education) and business, which becomes crucially important in the area of workbased learning.There are of course many reasons for the fact that ECVET and transparency instruments do not really find their way into the world of business and work leading to a broad use of instruments and a paradigm shift from a push recommendation and requirement of teh European Commission and the education systems to a pull need of businesses who require these instruments as they improve their performance and outputs in HR processes. This change of paradigm was the main aim of the ECVET goes Business project.The project aimed at the following main objectives:1) Development of an approach to make ECVET and other European transparency instruments relevant for the regular HR processes of companies2) Providing materials and information in a format and language HR managers, job stewards, business owners, foreworkers etc. can use and understand3) Increase the demand for ECVET instruments on company level4) Develop a short term and comprehensive training programme for HR managers, job stewards, business owners, foreworkers etc. on how to use ECVET and other tranparency instruments in the human resource management and development process5) Feed the opnion and needs of companies back into the discussions on the ECVET implementation of the member states6) Broaden and mainstream the use of ECVET by focusing on the business worldTo reach the chosen objectives the ECVET goes Business project developed and realised following core intellectual outputs:1) research study: during an in depth research based on the focus group methodology project partners elaborated with HR staff from companies the core HR processes where ECVET and transparency instrumenst could be used and embedded.2) HR handbook: The handbook described as a reference tool the crucial HR processes in companies and how ECVET and European transparency instruments can support these core processes. This was done together with reference cases, supporting tools and instruments.3) ECVET goes Business training course: A 2 days training programme for the target group of HR staff in the broadest sense where participants learn in practice how to work with ECVET and transparency tools in the HR practical work, test single instruments, exchange experiences and build a community of practice around the topic was developed including learning material.The participating organisations in the project were mainly VET institutions with comprehensive experience in ECVET application, but also trade union, chamber of commerce and NGOs which commonly worked on the realisation of the intellectual outputs and the project impact overall. The partnership consisted of 8 organisations from 7 European countries. The combination of a set of thoroughly developed and tested intellectual outputs together with a comprehensive and well elaborated dissemination and exploitation strategy contributed to the achievement of a considerable impact on organisational, geographical and sectoral level. A broad number of companies, VET institutions, public organisations but also HR managers, company managers, job stewards, foreworkers and line managers participated actively in the project activities, learned about the wide possibilities of ECVET (instruments) and other transparency instruments in modern HR processes and finally managed to apply directly single instruments and tools in their HR processes. The project and its results received broad andhighly positive feedback from the world of business and also the world of education. A dedicated exploitation strategy for each partner country and beyond, together with the free availability of the project results as open educational ressources will ensure a long lasting sustainability of project results and the further improvement of the pull factor in ECVET implementation throughout Europe."

The ongoing COVID-19 crisis has reopened a debate over the equal opportunities, accessibility to and flexibility when obtaining (online) academic education. Whilst HEIs seem to have managed to make a transition to digital learning and teaching, online assessment, in particular, online proctoring (OP), is still in its infancy across EU, although this service might be a powerful tool for conducting professional testing without leaving home and therefore significantly contribute to increasing opportunities for all towards receiving an academic degree. The reasons are manifold: data protection issues, compatibility with educational law, inadequately qualified online proctors, lack of awareness among internal HEI stakeholders (including HEI managerial, teaching and administrative staff, and – last but not least – students). Even if a HEI takes a decision to introduce online proctoring services, they usually rely on support of proctoring companies who, indeed, have at their disposal needed technical expertise but are not in charge of implementing a holistic approach to online proctoring at HEIs. As a result, end-users of OP services, students and teachers, are mostly discouraged and confused with their online proctoring experiences.The goal of the PROWIDE project is to help HEIs make a transition to high-quality online education and, in particular, to remote exams by ensuring the best possible academic integrity. Based on our understanding, introducing OP services requires consolidated efforts of HEI stakeholders at different levels (managers, teachers, educational & exam offices, IT) that need to be coordinated by a specialist with an interdisciplinary qualification profile that embraces data protection issues & education law, technical aspects, communication with internal and external stakeholders, management skills. We associate this type of professionals with the job title/profile Online Proctoring Manager (OPM) and believe, qualifying and recruiting OPMs at HEIs is crucial when making transition to a high-quality online education based on equality, flexibility, and accessibility. Neither such type of professionals no corresponding training solutions for their qualification are present yet.Against this background, objectives of the PROWIDE project are:-To boost capacities for HEIs towards implementing holistic OP strategies;-To raise awareness of HEIs stakeholders for OP services; -To promote new job opportunities related to the management of OP services within different sectors by having a specific focus on HEIs. To attain these goals, a further education program Online Proctoring Manager will be jointly developed by 5 PROWIDE partners from Germany, Italy, Latvia, and Turkey (4 HEIs and SME Proctorio that is specialized in developing OP solutions and services), including creation of the qualification profile, curriculum design, development of digital learning contents, teaching and assessment strategy, preparation of the online learning environment, upskilling 12 native trainers in a 4-day staff training event, and tested in terms of online delivery to 20 pilot attendees from 4 participating HEIs (5 per country) in English language. After the 8-month long piloting phase that will finish in an online proctored exam, program attendees will be qualified to OP Managers and employed at their home HEIs in the corresponding position related to the implementation and integration of OP strategies and procedures. To enhance the multiplier effect of the project as well as to ensure the sustainability of the project results, the piloted OPM program will be adapted to the non-formal and formal learning context. This means, on the one hand, that piloted OPM program will be made freely accessible as open online course to a wider community of non-formal learners across EU. In this manner, the entire course or stand-alone modules can be used for self-studies but also reused by other educational providers (HIEs, VET sector, testing or certification agencies) that are interested in adapting produced project open resources and materials.On the other hand, 4 participating HEIs, after completing required institutional validation procedures, will integrate the OPM program in their native languages into the regular services of Continuing Education Departments or similar structures. This program will therefore respond to the needs of formal learners interested in receiving a formal certificate OP Manager. The envisaged impact is:- Reinforced capacities of HEIs across EU towards providing reliable OP procedures and high-quality online education in general,- Increased opportunities for formal and non-formal learning;- Enhanced cooperation between HEIs and OP providers towards a common vision of achieving the best possible academic integrity.