Due to the COVID -19 crisis, educators are confronted with the problem that the way teaching can be offered often changes within days or weeks. The pace of these changes hampers a structured approach, rather it is necessary to change the format of education immediately based on the current state restrictions. In order to meet this demand, educators, who in most cases are already working to full capacity, must keep pace with these rapid changes, while at the same time addressing the challenges of a fully virtual education. This is a particular challenge for educators who have no experience with digital technologies. In the absence of generally accepted guidelines on how to digitize the different types of lectures in the face of the current situation of an ongoing (health) crisis, educators must rely on their own knowledge and skills rather than on scientifically based and proven approaches. The main objective of the project is to develop a framework, a knowledge hub and practice-oriented crisis-resistant guidelines that provide the educational tools and methods as well as the expertise and experience necessary for the rapid adaptation and digitisation of lectures in case of a crisis. The framework defines various "crisis scenarios" that allow past, present and future crises to be identified and categorized and their impact on education and training to be determined. In addition, a distinction is made between lecture types such as oral presentations or individual exercises. These crisis scenarios and lecture types comprise a matrix, whereby the framework suggests favourable tools and methods in each case. The Knowledge Hub takes the form of an interactive website, which enables educators to search for and exchange expertise and experiences related to a crisis-resistant education and training. The practice-oriented crisis-resistant guidelines contain detailed descriptions of how to implement the most favourable educational tools and methods, thus providing educators with a clear and structured way to adapt their own courses to the given circumstances. The project focuses on "product design" courses for two reasons. Firstly, the variety of activities and tasks in product development leads to the use of a variety of lecture types. Secondly, the transition to digitized education and training has been slow, despite great progress in the digitisation of products and the product design process itself. Therefore, design courses offer an ideal candidate for the validation of the proposed crisis-resistant tools and methods. This project requires that all participating partners have a deep understanding of educational systems and methodologies, that they use such tools and approaches on a daily basis and that they have used them long before the crisis. The four partners TUW, UL-FME, UNIZAG-FSB and POLIMI have a long tradition of working together on different educational projects and of working with innovative ICT tools. Previously, UL-FME and UNIZAG-FSB worked together on EGPR and NARIP. Currently TUW, UL-FME and UNIZAG-FSB are finalizing the Erasmus+ CASPROD. Finally, all four partners are currently working together in the Erasmus+ project ELPID, in which an e-learning platform is being set up to meet the demanding needs of project-based design courses. The expected impact of the project, its activities and its results varies according to the actors involved. The main target group are lecturers in mechanical engineering and engineering design in higher education. The framework developed will enable them to assess different educational tools and methods and to choose the most appropriate approach for their own courses. In addition, the knowledge hub enables the easy exchange of expertise and experience related to crisis-resistant education and training. Finally, the practice-oriented crisis-resistant guidelines help educators to respond to rapid changes and adapt their courses accordingly. In addition, the educators participating in O2 have the opportunity to use modern technologies and to make their courses crisis-resistant under the direct guidance of the project partners. Another important target group are students of mechanical engineering and engineering design students in higher education. Thanks to the outputs, the students do not have to interrupt their education in case of a crisis. Instead, they benefit from the immediate implementation of modern educational tools and methods. Furthermore, students participating in O2 have the opportunity to work on innovative projects in the field of engineering design and gain experience in collaboration and teamwork in a virtual environment using state-of-the-art ICT tools. Finally, all educators and students outside of the product design domain will also benefit from the project, as it will bring different insights to educators who teach students mature enough to participate in a digital learning environment.
The project’s main objectives were based on the underlying idea to support educators with a structured approach to adapt teaching activities to a crisis and guidelines synthesized from the learnings of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore, being able to recognize the scope and difficulties that come with varying boundary conditions imposed by a crisis and efficiently transition to a fully online course, which can uphold the expected quality in the delivery of education. The focus of the research activities revolved around the development of a framework, a knowledge hub and practice-oriented crisis-resistant guidelines that provide the educational tools and methods as well as the expertise and experience necessary for the rapid adaptation and digitalization of lectures in case of a crisis. Three main intellectual outputs were proposed: - Framework for the rapid adaptation and digitalization of education and training in the event of a crisis (IO1). The framework defines various “crisis scenarios” that allow past, present and future crises to be identified and categorized and their impact on education and training to be determined. In addition, a distinction is made between lecture types such as oral presentations or individual exercises. These crisis scenarios and lecture types comprise a matrix, whereby the framework suggests favourable tools and methods in each case. - Knowledge Hub for a crisis-resistant education and training (IO2). The Knowledge Hub takes the form of an interactive website, which enables educators to search for and exchange expertise and experiences related to crisis-resistant education and training. - Practice-oriented crisis-resistant guidelines for the rapid adaptation and digitalization of education and training in the event of a crisis (IO3). The practice-oriented crisis-resistant guidelines contain detailed descriptions of how to implement the most favourable educational tools and methods, thus providing educators with a clear and structured way to adapt their own courses to the given circumstances. The project focused on “product development” courses for two reasons. Firstly, the variety of activities and tasks in product development leads to the use of a variety of lecture types. Secondly, the transition to digitized education and training has been slow, despite great progress in the digitalization of products and the product design process itself. Therefore, product design courses offer an ideal candidate for the validation of the proposed crisis-resistant tools and methods. This project requires that all participating partners have a deep understanding of educational systems and methodologies, that they use ICT tools and online learning approaches on a daily basis and that they have used them long before the crisis. The consortium of four partners TUW, UL-FME, UNIZAG-FSB and POLIMI has set itself the goal of improving teaching activities by adopting innovative approaches. It has a long tradition of working together on different educational projects and working with innovative ICT tools. Previously, UL-FME and UNIZAG-FSB worked together on EGPR and NARIP and took on TUW for the project CASPROD. TUW, UL-FME, UNIZAG-FSB and POLIMI have been working together on the Erasmus+ project ELPID, in which an e-learning platform was being set up to meet the demanding needs of project-based design courses. Currently, all four partners are currently working together on the Erasmus+ project ProHackin’, focused on employing open innovation practice through product hackathons, which will thus demonstrate how to create a link between industrial companies and students. The CResDET project expands the research scope by introducing the perspective of delivering crisis-resilient education. The expected impact of the project, its activities and its results varies according to the actors involved. The main target group were lecturers in mechanical engineering and engineering design in higher education. The framework developed enables them to assess different educational tools and methods and to choose the most appropriate approach for their own courses. In addition, the knowledge hub enables the easy exchange of expertise and experience related to crisis-resistant education and training. Finally, the practice-oriented crisis-resistant guidelines help educators to respond to rapid changes and adapt their courses accordingly. In addition, the educators participating in O2 had the opportunity to use modern technologies and to make their courses crisis-resistant under the direct guidance of the project partners. Another important target group were students of mechanical engineering and engineering design students in higher education. Thanks to the outputs, the students do not have to interrupt their education in case of a crisis. Instead, they benefit from the immediate implementation of modern educational tools and methods. Furthermore, students that participated in O2 had the opportunity to work on innovative projects in the field of engineering design and gained experience in collaboration and teamwork in a virtual environment using state-of-the-art ICT tools. Finally, all educators and students outside the product design domain will also benefit from the project, as it will bring different insights to educators who teach students mature enough to participate in a digital learning environment.
The decision to apply for this project was driven by the challenges faced by educators during the COVID-19 crisis. The sudden and rapid changes in teaching methods due to the pandemic presented a need for immediate adaptation to online education. These emergency transitions, referred to as emergency remote teaching, aimed to replicate in-person teaching but proved to be difficult to achieve. The urgent shift to online education lacked the systematic and structured development typically required for effective online courses. Educators, already working at full capacity, were tasked with keeping pace with rapid changes while grappling with the challenges of fully virtual education. In general, the development of an online university course typically takes six to nine months, which was not feasible due to the urgency of the situation. Additionally, many universities lacked sufficient support personnel familiar with online teaching practices, resulting in suboptimal course delivery in the virtual environment. Despite the rushed implementation of online courses, educators and students made significant efforts to adopt and implement online teaching practices. However, the high workload of teaching staff led to challenges in transferring course materials and organizing virtual courses. Students also encountered difficulties and obstacles during the transition to online education. It is crucial to gather and share lessons learned and best practices across different institutions within the engineering education community, including acknowledging and addressing mistakes made during this rapid transition. Furthermore, it is important to focus on the sustainability of online practices and their integration into regular programs in the post-pandemic era to maximize their perceived benefits. Educators without prior experience in digital technologies faced particular challenges, leading to misconceptions about online teaching and a lack of awareness about the potential benefits that structured online courses or hybrid education can offer. In the absence of universally accepted guidelines for digitizing different types of lectures during an ongoing crisis, educators had to rely on their own knowledge and skills rather than scientifically based and proven approaches. Given this steady demand to deliver high-quality education continuously and avoid disruption by unforeseen incidents, the needs to be addressed are therefore to develop and validate a structured approach to adapt teaching activities to crisis scenarios and to foster collaboration and exchange between educators on best practices during the crisis.