The aim of this project is to overcome differences that exist in the area of entry requirements and learning outcomes in the field of Information Science (IS). These differences cause large mobility barriers between HEIs that offer MA in IS and recognition of learning outcomes and ECTSs at the EU level. The common entry requirements that will mitigate or even eliminate the differences in enrolment procedures at different HEIs offering programs in IS could contribute to the higher enrolment of students with different educational background at the graduate level programs in IS. In their previous meetings the partners concluded that barriers could be eliminated trough the following project’s goals: strengthen partnership between HEIs involved in the proposal of this project; exchange of best practices through seminars for teachers from partner institutions; summer schools that will provide students with the most relevant basic knowledge to allow them to start their MA programs in IS well prepared; design and delivery of online teaching and communication platform, and OERs; intellectual activities that would contribute to the preparation of the international symposium on recognition and harmonization of entry requirement and learning outcomes in IS; recommendations for the improvement of learning outcomes and their recognition; strengthening the purposeful mobility at the European level. The summer school will also start a unique networking opportunity, which is quite crucial for the success in international (multi-national) future initiatives. Target groups for this project are students with BA diploma, university teachers, professional organizations in the IS field and policy and decision-making authorities that are responsible for the QA and QF at EU and national levels.The project partners have already been in cooperation for several years and are involved in several national and internationals networks and organisations in effort to successfully address large portion of the IS community across Europe, among them: ASIST/EC, ENWI, Euclid, EADH. Communication between the partners is carefully planned following the timeline of the project. Transnational meetings and multiplier events are planned involving participants from each partner institution and representatives of different stakeholders. In addition, the regular meetings of project management team are planned with a goal to allow discussions on how to foster the sustainability of project results. The use of deliverables will be analysed and used in future for summer school, the students and alumni platform, and other further projects. At the end of the official call for the enrolment to the summer school, meetings will be held in order to select the best student candidates (20 students for each summer school including students with disabilities and immigrant students). One of the main outcomes of the project will be a document: Policy Recommendation for the entry requirements and learning outcomes harmonization that will be presented in the draft form at several international meetings such as BOBCATSSS 2017, LIDA 2018, IFLA 2017 and 2018, and adopted at the EINFOSE International Symposium in September 2018.Students at the partner HEIs will directly benefit from the high quality lessons and the OERs during the project and beyond the duration of the project. They will also benefit from the online alumni platform that will allow them to use all of the OERs whenever they need in their further education, in working environment, in teaching and researching if they choose to continue their careers at HEI. The open access to the new and tested high quality OERs on topics agreed upon by the partner HEIs will help the individuals, but will also contribute to the international perspective in teaching at the IS graduate programs. At the local level all partner HEIs will benefit from strengthening their position inside their universities and local community by bringing in the international and interdisciplinary dimension. At the national levels project will contribute to the improvement of the legal framework concerning the facilitation of diploma recognition and mobility programs, the inclusion of the accepted learning outcomes, in the guidelines and legal documents related to the national qualification frameworks (NQF). The ideas developed for the summer schools will be further developed according to the evaluation process results and will aspire for a self-sustained model. All partners will try to contribute with at least two scholarships each to attract the students. The funding will be sought out inside the HEIs, the national funding agencies and donations.Partner HEIs intend to improve learning and teaching and build up a strong partnership network to be able take an active part in the implementation of the goals of the 2013 Communication on Opening Up Education and to an easier recognition of digital skills and qualifications across borders.
Information Science (IS) education at HEIs in Europe is characterized by various traditions and approaches. The partners worked jointly on a) detecting the main reasons for such a situation, and b) finding ways which might allow the overcoming of existing barriers. EINFOSE partners managed to successfully address large portion of the IS community across Europe in order to strengthen cooperation between IS HEIs which was not as strong as in some other academic disciplines. Since 2005 there were no other EU based initiatives to bring to public eye the importance of IS as an academic discipline and research field that is getting more value in regards to many new profiles of information specialists. We wanted to increase international cooperation in IS education, explore ways to attract students from other disciplines and foster international student exchange. EINFOSE managed to bring together various stakeholders such as representatives from ASIST/EC, ENWI, EADH, IFLA, as well as from STEM, humanities and other fields. EINFOSE focused on the following goals: to strengthen partnership between HEIs involved in the project; to present EINFOSE’s IOs through Multiplier events (ME); to organize summer schools (ESSIS 2017, 2018); to design and deliver EINFOSE platform; to design, deliver and translate OERs in several languages; to bring in intellectual activities for the preparation of the international symposium FEIS 2018 which offered the arena for discussions about recommendations on how to improve the process of recognition and strengthen the purposeful mobility at the European level. Two ESSIS had 40 students (36 with scholarship). Most of the presentations were recorded and are included in appropriate OERs. The ESSIS resulted in a unique networking opportunity, which is understood to be crucial for success in future international initiatives. In EINFOSE project there were 8 partners – all of them reaching some 1000 students in (L)IS; 38 teachers and trainers were involved in all activities based upon distribution of main responsibilities for each partner HEI. Five planned MEs were organized with a goal to share and discuss draft versions of five Intellectual Outputs among ME participants and partners’ teams. Four MEs managed to attract some 100 active participants from European countries, and the fifth ME, FEIS 20018 in Pisa, had over 100 participants from 26 countries (Europe, US, Asia and Australia). Participants came from different organizations: educational institutions, governmental agencies, private business companies, ICT sector, libraries, information institutions, and professional associations. The Project Management Team (PMT) had regular meetings supported by the TPM funding, as well as three other meetings. Several plans were prepared: Management Plan, Risk Management Plan, Dissemination Plan, Quality Assurance Plan, Summer Schools Learning Outcomes (http://einfose.ffos.hr/documents/). The Risk Management Plan proved very useful as several situations with partners’ internal problems had to be solved through the extra efforts. The sustainability of the project’s outcomes is based on an agreement to continue summer schools with a support of internal funding resources and willingness of the project’s leading institution to continue to maintain EINFOSE Platform after the official project ending. Students at the partner HEIs benefited from the high quality lessons and the OERs. Any other interested party can benefit from the experience in designing the EINFOSE Platform that allows the use all of the OERs whenever needed, in further education, in working environment, in teaching and research, etc. OERs can help the individuals, but also contribute to the international perspective in teaching at the IS graduate online or classroom based programs. Members of partners’ teams were active in presenting the EINFOSE goals and disseminating its results at domestic and international workshops and conferences such as ASIST 2016 and 2017, Digital Humanities Conference 2016, BOBCATSSS 2017 and 2019 (in preparation), ICI 2017, ECIL 2017, ALISE 2018, LIDA 2018, IFLA 2017 and 2018, i-Schools 2018 and 2019, COBISS, 2018. Information about EINFOSE was published in a number of professional journals and newsletters, on web sites of partners’ universities, local newspapers, radio and TV, as well as through a number of social networks such as ResearchGate, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. The FEIS 2018 conference was recorded: (http://mediaeventi.unipi.it/category/feis-einfose-2018/160). In the context of EU initiatives, EINFOSE contributed to the exchange of ideas and results that are fruit of discussions elaborated in the document Policy Recommendations on Entry Requirements and Harmonization of Learning Outcomes in IS. Some general remarks on the changing environment in HE in Europe, and the need to focus on flexible system of design and recognition of new profiles, relate to other fields not exclusively to IS field.