According to the European Guidelines for the Validation of Non Formal and Informal Learning (CEDEFOP), the process of validating the outcomes from non formal and informal learning is divided in four phases: IDENTIFICATION, DOCUMENTATION, ASSESSMENT AND CERTIFICATION. According to the Council recommendation from 2012 on the validation of non-formal and informal learning, «[...] youth organisations and civil society organisations should promote and facilitate the identification and documentation of learning outcomes acquired in voluntary activities, using relevant Union transparency tools such as those developed under the Europass framework and Youthpass» (Council of the European Union, 2012, p. 4, 4a). In most cases, the work of voluntary organisations ends with the documentation and the work of providers of formal education starts with the assessment. Volunteers often face alone the transition between the documentation and assessment phases. In other words, they receive no help between the moment they obtain documentary evidence of the learning outcomes acquired in voluntary activities, until they secure an assessment of such learning outcomes from a formal education provider as part of an official qualification. There is a lack of information, training, guidance and tools to help volunteers with this transition. This is currently one of the main obstacles for the validation of learning outcomes acquired in voluntary activities in the EU. In this context, a transnational and cross-sectoral partnership made up of five organisations will develop the first open and multilingual online platform of information, training, guidance and support for volunteers during the transition between the documentation and assessment phases of the process for the validation of the learning outcomes acquired in voluntary activities. The platform will be divided in four modules: - one module of information on the current systems for the validation of the learning outcomes acquired in voluntary activities in the EU. - one module of training on the process for the validation of the learning outcomes acquired in voluntary activities. - one module of guidance, by the protagonists of success stories (volunteers, voluntary organisations, and providers of formal education) to advise and guide, via social networks, volunteers facing alone the challenge of the validation of the learning outcomes acquired in voluntary activities. - one module with tools for the identification, documentation, conversion of the learning outcomes acquired in voluntary activities to the standards of formal education, and assessment. Once its initial development is completed, the platform will be tested with volunteers from four countries in order to evaluate the extent to which the platform responds to the needs of the target group and to identify the elements in need of improvement before the final publication. The platform will be published, in four languages, as an OER (Open Educational Resource) under the Creative Commons license “Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0)". This license gives to everyone the right to share, copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to adapt, remix, transform, and build upon the material. According to the study “Volunteering in the European Union” (European Commission, 2010), there are around 92 to 94 million adults involved in volunteering in the EU (22-23% of the EU population). Therefore, facilitating the validation of the learning outcomes acquired in voluntary activities could have a huge impact in the number of adults in the EU who decide to re-engage in formal education or continue towards higher qualifications. Thus contributing to the objectives of the European policies “Education & Training 2020” and the “renewed European agenda for adult learning”. In particular, regarding the objectives: at least 15% of adults should participate in lifelong learning, and at least 40% of people aged 30-34 should have completed some form of higher education.
According to the European Guidelines for the Validation of Non Formal and Informal Learning (CEDEFOP), the process of validating non formal and informal learning is divided in four phases: IDENTIFICATION, DOCUMENTATION, ASSESSMENT AND CERTIFICATION. According to the Council recommendation from 2012 on the validation of non-formal and informal learning, «[...] youth organisations and civil society organisations should promote and facilitate the identification and documentation of learning gained through volunteering, using relevant Union transparency tools such as those developed under the Europass framework and Youthpass» (Council of the European Union, 2012, p. 4, 4a). In most cases, the work of voluntary organisations ends with the documentation and the work of providers of formal education starts with the assessment. Volunteers often face alone the transition between the documentation and assessment phases. In other words, they receive no help between the moment they obtain documentary evidence of the learning gained through volunteering, until they secure an assessment of such learning from a formal education provider as part of an official qualification. There is a lack of information, training, guidance and tools to help volunteers with this transition. This is currently one of the main obstacles for the validation of the learning gained through volunteering in the EU. In this context, a transnational and cross-sectoral partnership made up of five organisations joined forces to develop the first open and multilingual online platform of information, training, guidance and support for volunteers during the transition between the documentation and assessment phases of the process of validation of the learning gained through volunteering. The platform consists of the following elements: - Homepage, with tools and instructions for the identification, documentation, conversion of the learning gained through volunteering into formal education standards, and evaluation as part of an official qualification. - Online course on the four phases of the process for the validation of the learning gained through volunteering and on the current systems for it in the EU. - Guidance, through an online forum and social media, where volunteers, voluntary organisations and providers of formal education can advise and guide other people who are facing alone the challenge of validating the learning gained through volunteering. - Good practices and success stories for volunteers to get inspired. Once the first development of the online platform was completed, it was tested by 72 volunteers from four countries. Based on the testers’ feedback, the project partners implemented additional improvements before the final publication of the ‘eVA-VOL’ online platform in September 2020. The online platform is accessible from computers, tablets and smartphones in four EU languages (English , Spanish, Italian and Portuguese) at www.evavol.eu. According to the study “Volunteering in the European Union” (European Commission, 2010), there are around 92 to 94 million adults involved in volunteering in the EU (22-23% of the EU population). Therefore, facilitating the validation of the learning gained through volunteering could have a huge impact in the number of adults in the EU who decide to re-engage in formal education or continue towards higher qualifications. Thus contributing to the objectives of the European policies “Education & Training 2020” and the “renewed European agenda for adult learning”. In particular, regarding the objectives: at least 15% of adults should participate in lifelong learning, and at least 40% of people aged 30-34 should have completed some form of higher education. The ‘eVA-VOL’ project is a cross-sectoral and cross-border partnership led by the Spanish Volunteering Platform in collaboration with: Lazio Volunteer Support Centre (Italy), Portuguese Confederation of Volunteering (Portugal), Meath Partnership (Ireland), and Cork Institute of Technology (Ireland).