The base of the project is the identification of a specific need in high-quality research training in marine sciences including the study of a broad variety of marine organisms at the European level. In spite of being evolutionary distant from Humans, marine species can bring fundamental knowledge that can be transferable to understand molecular and cellular processes governing several aspects of human biology. In addition marine organisms constitute an important source of biomolecules with putative industrial and therapeutic applications making the development of marine resource a key area in the field of blue economy and blue growth. Considering the above-described context, the present strategic partnership will develop a thorough research training focused on the use of marine organisms in several life science disciplines such as neurobiology, cell morphogenesis/cell biology, tissue regeneration, evolution/life cycle and marine biotechnology. To this end, the partnership will gather the rare scientific experts (researchers / lecturers / professors) on specific marine models from different European and extra-European universities/institutions to create an innovative teaching method based on an on-line distant resource combined with practical lab-work course targeting on-campus students. Various studies related to educational programmes in higher education revealed that this kind of blended learning must be promoted in all universities. To our knowledge, no similar project is run in the academic world meaning that if our project is funded, the Erasmus + programme would be the first institution supporting the development of e-courses on the use of marine model in life science. The objective of the project is to provide student with new scientific, technical and conceptual skills together with experimenting innovative teaching method such as reverse instruction through the use of an up-stream on-line course. This new teaching method will give more autonomy to students and will make them more committed to their training, a prerequisite to develop their employability. This aspect clearly makes our project innovative. Master students will account for the prevailing target users of our on-line resource but scientific workers coming from the academic world or from industry will also be able to use this platform. To allow the dissemination of our activities to scientists and teachers beyond the partnership, our project includes the publication of a companion handbook. The final result would be the integration of this training into life science master degrees of partner universities and then the recognition of ECTS by each partner. The on-line resource proposed in this project will heighten teaching and research activities on marine models providing long term benefits to local, European, international scientific communities. It will be an Open Educational Resource (OER) thus transferable and workable to universities and research institutes that are not necessarily belonging to this partnership.
The Erasmus+ Project Strategic Partnership Hybrid educational and research training on the use of marine models in life science (DigitalMarine) deals with the marine biology training and specifically with the marine organisms. The consortium gathered around the project for three years is composed by Sorbonne Université (SU) – the coordinator, Stiftung Tierärztliche Hochschule Hannover (TiHo), Stazione Zoologica Anton Dohrn – Naples (SZN), Università del Salento – Lecce (USL), Université de Fribourg (UF) and the Australian National University (ANU). The project starts from two observations: 1/ Structuring training through research: the need to develop an academic training through research and in research in the field of marine organisms in life science. 2/ Pedagogical innovation: the need to elaborate new teaching and learning methods. Indeed, the marine organisms research in biology has led to numerous advances in the area of cancer, neuroscience, molecular and cellular biology, showing the value of a high-quality teaching about these organisms in the universities. Additionally, the instauration of new educational approaches, such as flipped classrooms and blended learning, needed to be reinforced in this field in the partner universities. For all these reasons mentioned above, we have developed an international partnership assembling a big number of teachers and scientific experts coming from European and extra-European universities. Thanks to the Erasmus+ financing, this partnership has created a platform of digital learning that explains the importance of marine organisms in the biology research. The use of each marine organism in the biology research is clarified to the students through digital contents such as short videos, interactive diagrams, recorded conferences, narrated slideshows, interviews with scientists who are not participating in the project. All in all, 71 videos have been published on this platform, which constitutes 8 hours and 30 minutes of watching. This platform is an Open Educational Ressource (OER). It is accessible to everyone, no user profile is needed. This platform allows every person who is interested in marine organisms, professionally or not, to discover this Erasmus+ project and to inform themselves about this scientific field and get some training in it. Students, which are enrolled in a Master program at one of the partner institutions, are now able to learn in an autonomous way thanks to the platform, which is used as a support for the practical course welcoming European students at a marine station during 15 days every year (Schmid Training Course, STC). This course took place three times in the frame of the project and 41 students in total participated in it. It is a blended course that combines a virtual learning through the platform and an in-person intensive practical course at a marine station with teachers and other students. This way, students are able to obtain the theoretical knowledge in an autonomous way before coming to the in-person class, where a priority is given to practical works and discussions with teachers and other students. The future editions of the STC, the next one being planned in 2022 in Roscoff, France will be in a fully blended training mode, using the project’s results. Finally, the consortium has also published a handbook of marine model organisms, which contains 500 pages and focuses on the same disciplinary field as the platform. Containing 24 chapter on 24 different marine organisms, this handbook is one of the most comprehensive ones on this thematic. It will soon be available in Open Access. In the long term, the project’s results fills the gap that existed in teaching and research on marine organisms in life science. They will allow the future generations of young biologists, as well as experimented biologists, to obtain key knowledge in this field, thus enabling them to make future discoveries and advances in cancer, neuroscience and molecular and cellular biology.