Based on the surveys performed each year as part of the internal evaluation of lecturers at various universities a conclusion can be made that students often have some kind of dissatisfaction with courses related to Control Theory. As an improvement of this situation an idea to create to create an interactive course was born. In order to check the students' opinion about such a course a survey has been made (see: http://bit.ly/ControlTheorySurveyUL ). The survey had two questions: 1. How would you rate the difficulty of Control Theory in relation to other courses? 2. What is/would be your preferred way of studying it? The results of the survey (see: http://bit.ly/ControlTheorySurveyULResults ) clearly show that students find Control Theory difficult in comparison with other courses. It also shows that an interactive course would be their preferred way of studying it. As no such course is available, an idea for an Erasmus+ project titled: "Interactive Course for Control Theory" (ICCT) was born among the contact persons of partners, which know each other from Japan (they all namely studied or made research at the Intelligent Control System Lab at the Tokyo University). All of them are now professors in their own countries. The idea for such a partnership of four universities from various countries would benefit as an interactive course for students with varying background knowledge can be made. Study programs in various EU countries namely differ a lot. Not only at the level of universities, but also on level of high schools. Control Theory is namely build on the knowledge obtained in various previous courses: (Mathematics, Physics, Electrical Engineering, Computer Programming, etc.). The staff of the partners which will take part in the project also cover various fields (UL-Mechanical Engineering, UNIPI-Manufacturing, UNIBUD-Electrical Engineering and Robotics and UNIRIJ-Computer Engineering). So, each of the partners will be able to contribute to the Interactive Course from his point of view. As part of the ICCT the following activities will take place: 1. Analysis of available frameworks for interactive course 2. Development of a framework for the Interactive Course 3. The Interactive course for Control Theory 4. Testing of a trial version of the Interactive Course 5. Manual preparation 6. The addition of FAQ and exam examples to the interactive course 7. Final trial testing The whole course (interactive examples, manual and FAQ and exam examples will be available in English and the languages of partners. In order to disseminate the project a multiplier event is organized. We however plan to achieve bigger impact as a result of attendance at various conferences that all lecturers must attend because of their elections. As no extra costs are associated with such an attendance, they are not formally entered in the project proposal. We however find the informal meetings taking part at such conferences as the best chance to disseminate the results of this project among other lecturers, which will also be encouraged to translate the interactive course to their own language (if it is not available in their language yet). During the project a homepage will be made, where the interactive course will be freely available after the project conclusion as well. We also intend to develop it after the project is completed based on the feedback of its users. We hope that a project homepage will function as some kind of forum, where ideas and good practices regarding teaching of Control Theory related courses will be shared. The students of the Control Theory related courses are the main participants in the project. In all four partner universities there will be approximately 2000 of them during the project. The target group are of course all EU students. They will get information about the interactive course through their lecturers and also through their fellow students who will get acquainted with it due to Erasmus+ exchange programs at partner universities. At the end of the project a survey about the difficulty of Control Theory will repeated. The As goal is that as a result of this project students will not find it that difficult anymore (on local, regional, national and EU level). This means that their understanding of the subject will be better and as a consequence their future employers will benefit in the form of better competitiveness on a global market. As another result of this project a strategic partnership of four universities will be made, which can therefore easier cooperate on future projects.
Based on the surveys performed each academic year as part of the internal evaluation of lecturers at various universities a conclusion can be made that students often have some kind of dissatisfaction with courses related to Control Theory. As an improvement of this situation an idea to create an interactive course was born. In order to check the students' opinion about such a course a survey has been made. The survey had two questions: 1. How would you rate the difficulty of Control Theory in relation to other courses? 2. What is/would be your preferred way of studying it? The results of the survey clearly showed that students find Control Theory difficult in comparison with other courses. They also shows that an interactive course would be their preferred way of studying it. As no such course is available, an idea for an Erasmus+ project titled: "Interactive Course for Control Theory" (ICCT) was born among the contact persons of partners, which know each other from Japan (they all namely studied or made research at the Intelligent Control System Lab at the Tokyo University). All of them are now professors in their own countries. The idea for such a partnership of four universities from various countries is beneficial as an interactive course for students with varying background knowledge can be made. Study programs in various EU countries namely differ a lot. Not only at the level of universities, but also at the high school level. Control Theory is namely build on the knowledge obtained in various previous courses (Mathematics, Physics, Electrical Engineering, Computer Programming, etc.). The staff of the partners which took part in the project also covers various fields (UNILJ-Mechanical Engineering, UNIPI-Manufacturing, UNIBU-Electrical Engineering and Robotics and UNIRI-Computer Engineering). So, each partner was able to contribute to the Interactive Course from his point of view. As part of the ICCT the following activities took place: 1. Analysis of available frameworks for interactive course 2. Framework for the Interactive Course for Control Theory 3. The Interactive Course for Control Theory 4. Testing of the draft version of the Interactive Course 5. ICCT handbook 6. The addition of FAQ and exam examples to the interactive course 7. Final trial testing The whole course (interactive examples, manual, FAQ and exam examples) is available in English and the languages of the partners. In order to disseminate the project a multiplier event was organized. We however planed to achieve bigger impact as a result of attendance at various conferences that all the lecturers must attend because of their elections (we are also carrying out this activity after the completion of the project). As no extra costs are associated with such an attendance, they are not formally entered in the project proposal. We however find the informal meetings taking part at such conferences as the best chance to disseminate the results of this project among other lecturers, which will also be encouraged to translate the interactive course to their own language (if it is not available in their language yet). The students of the Control Theory related courses were the main participants in the project. In all four partner universities there were approximately 2000 of them during the project. The target group were of course all EU students. They got the information about the interactive course through their lecturers and also through their fellow students who got acquainted with it due to Erasmus+ exchange programs at partner universities (this activity was/is however quite reduced during the Covid pandemic). The main impact of the project is a better comprehension of Control Theory related courses. As a result the satisfaction with these courses and grades has increased significantly at some universities (University of Ljubljana). Especially at bachelor level, the average number of exams taken before passing it successfully, was reduced by almost 50%. The average grades have also increased significantly (2.33 for the course with the largest increase and 0.93 for the lowest on the 1~5 scale). It should however be emphasized that these impacts should be taken by a pinch of salt as everyone had to tackle the pandemic. The exams were for example taken in another way (online or without oral exams). Also there were only online lectures at some universities during the major part of the project. So, in order to have reliable information about the impact, the situation after the pandemic will have to be observed. As another result of this project a strategic partnership of four universities was made, which makes an easier cooperation on future projects. One Erasmus+ project with two of the partners being part of the consortium is already being executed. Several other had been proposed.