TELETURF project develops an open source on-line course to train or reinforce skills of people involved in turf sport field maintenance, with a special focus on football fields maintenance, but that can be easily adapted to other turf based sports like Hockey, Rugby, Paddle, Tennis, etc. The targeted public has often no technical background or any specific formal education and their acquired skills are normally achieved based on a work based learning method, with an apprenticeship-type training scheme. Maintenance of sport infrastructures is one of the main concerns for governmental institutions as it has a high economic impact on the exploitation cost of these infrastructures. In particular, when talking about turf sport fields, maintenance plays a key role on the yearly cost of ownership, as it can go from 60 % in case of natural grass to 15 % in case of artificial turf. The level of maintenance and its quality also influences other factors like playability, security or aesthetics of the sport field, making them accessible for schools, sport organisations, local communities and citizens to promote a healthy life, in agreement with the Work Plan for Sport 2014-2017 recommendations of HEPA.A multidisciplinary and transnational consortium has been set up (Spain, France, Belgium and Netherlands) with the aim to share knowledge, skills and best practises on turf field maintenance, particularly those that are specific for different countries, and to widely disseminate the results of the project towards the potential end users, and the public in general.The project is coordinated by the Valencian Foundation of Sport (FDM), a public entity belonging to the local government of the city of Valencia. They promote TELETURF project, in representation of end users, on the framework of their permanent support to sport activities in Valencia city. The consortium includes two reference research institutions with high expertise in sport turf fields quality assurance and FIFA certification, Instituto de Biomecánica de Valencia [IBV] in Spain and KIWA ISA Sport [ISA] in Netherlands. Both institutions collaborate to provide knowledge and share good practises to give high value content to TELETURF course. This task is supported by the participation of CESPEVAL, a private company working with turf field maintenance and installation, bringing to the consortium the expertise acquired by day-to-day contact with end users. Participation of two associations, Association of Infrastructure Managers of the Valencian Community (GEPACV) and the European Federation of Cities and Capitals of Sports (ACES Europe), allow to collect training requirements from target users as well as to validate the online course before public launch among potential target users. Finally the consortium includes the municipality, Marseille town (Marseille), awarded with the European Capital of Sport 2017, that contributes, among other tasks, with a high visibility impact during the project length.The project has been structured into six working packages to ensure proper management (WP1), dissemination (WP5) and exploitation activities (WP6), as well as to organize the work performed to achieve the three forecasted Intellectual Outputs (WP2, WP3 and WP4). The Intellectual Outputs foreseen are a VET Curriculum on TELETURF course (IO1), which includes the specification and design of the course as well as the definition of the learning and evaluation methods, the pilot online course integrated in the e-learning platform (IO2), which includes the contents of the course in English and a preliminary version of the course, and finally the TELETURF open access online course in English, Spanish, French and Dutch (IO3), resulting in a final version. The contents of the course will be prepared by the technical partners (IBV, ISA and Cespeval) based on their own expertise and the inputs of target users that will be gathered through the participation of the associations and municipalities (ACES, GEPACV, FDM and Marseille) (WP2). A pilot course will be performed to evaluate the achievements of the project objectives before to release the last version of the TELETURF course (WP3).The open access TELETURF online course will be carefully designed to be friendly user, with a multimedia approach, compatible with mobile devices, giving users the possibility to apply the acquired knowledge in situ. TELETURF project results in a unique training tool that will optimize time and resources and consequently reduce turf sport field maintenance cost and ensure proper achievement of the payback period. It will bring the possibility to the trainees to formalize the acquired knowledge through the available tools (Europass or national certifications) with an international relevance, giving them working opportunities in other UE countries.
In 2016, a consortium of 7 European entities presented the TELETURF project within the European Union's call for proposals entitled ERASMUS+ for education, training, youth and sport, which was finally approved and financed. The project, with an estimated duration of two years, had as its main objective the improvement of the safety and quality conditions of the artificial turf sports fields, as well as extending their useful life, all of this through the improvement of their maintenance. The aim was to achieve this objective through the creation of a free online course in four languages (English, French, Dutch and Spanish), the main and core intellectual product of our project. With this project it was estimated that an economic saving of 750M€ per year could be produced at European level through the reduction of the cost of renovation of artificial turf surfaces. It should be remembered that the level of maintenance and its quality also influence other factors such as the playability, safety or aesthetics of the playing field, making them accessible to schools, sports organisations, local communities and citizens. The latter is important to achieve as the promotion of healthy living through physical activity and sport is one of the recommendations of the HEPA 2014-2017 Sports Work Plan. Likewise, there are associated benefits that are not negligible: the reduction of polluting emissions and energy savings by reducing production due to the extension of the useful life of the fields; or improve the professionalization of workers in the economic sector of maintenance of sports facilities. These benefits are in accordance with the main European policies. The 7 entities that have developed this project are: Researchers - Suppliers: - Valencia Biomechanical Institute (IBV) - ISA-Sport (Netherlands) - CESPEVAL (Company specializing in maintenance of fields) End users: - Association of European Capitals of Sport (Belgium) - Municipality of Marseille (France) - GEPACV - Fundación Deportiva Municipal de Valencia (which also plays the executive role in the project) The project was structured in six different work packages: - Project management. All the control tasks of the project, including the elaboration of a Quality Plan and a Final Quality Report. - Development, integration and adaptation of curricular contents. Through quantitative work methodology (surveys) and qualitative work (interviews and discussion groups), reports were elaborated with the learning requirements and preferences, basic tools to develop the contents. - Implementation and validation of the pilot course. Once the contents were developed in English and Spanish, they were implemented in an online pilot course, with the participation of students from several European countries, whose feedback was fundamental. - Implementation of improvements and translation. Once the contributions of the students who finished the pilot course were received, the improvements were implemented in the final version and these definitive contents were translated into English, Spanish, French and Dutch. - Dissemination of the project. Continuous task during the two years of work: preparation of a Dissemination Plan, creation of the corporate image, website and a whole series of complementary actions included in two Dissemination Reports. Also to be highlighted are the multiplier events held in Marseille and Brussels, the latter in the European Parliament. - Exploitation of the Project. Initial and final Exploitation Plan that guarantees the survival of the work carried out in the post-project stage. With the work carried out, we can affirm that the impact achieved is very similar to the ambitious forecasts established at the beginning of this journey. Although it is too early to determine whether the objectives have been met (the improvement in maintenance and all the added advantages it entails can only be evaluated over the years), it is important to point out how well our project has been received by the sectors involved in it. The diffusion made through the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces and FAGDE (national association of sports managers) has led to multiple bodies and national managers interested in getting more information about TELETURF and participate in the first editions of the course. The same can be said at an international level: when the results of the project were presented at the European Sports Gala organised by ACES, in front of dozens of consistories from all corners of Europe, the name TELETURF was managed to reach international areas that have already shown their interest in taking advantage of the results obtained.