"OceanTraining.eu : a toolbox for digital ocean education" will develop a set of digital resources aimed for international education programmes in the field of Ocean Sciences. International programmes do face several challenges when it comes to switching from non-digital to digital education. The geographical spread and diverse student communities, and the lack of possibilities to train students in practical and field related skills are just some of the elements that illustrate the complex situation when switching to digital education forms. With a consortium of 4 universities we plan to develop existing and new ideas which should support the targetted international education programmes. In addition we foresee that the outcomes of this project will also be usable on a broader scale (for example in the context of Life Long Learning initiatives or global capacity develop in the area of Ocean Science). The OceanTraining.eu toolbox will entail four categories of digital education instruments: 1. A fully online set of fundamental Ocean science courses (BASE) valid for 30 ECTS will support graduate programmes seeking for good online alternatives for local programmes. The online setup allows geographically spread students to participate from a distance, but still offers opportunities, thanks to the activating and engaging learning methodologies, to exchange and connect with peers and teachers. 2. The format of Short Online Courses (SUPPORT) will be used in second package to provide supporting learning content answering very specific learning needs. A diverse student community with a diversified background does need many additional resources in order to be able to follow regular courses. SOCS will be developed using a wide range of formats in order to provide clear answers to these needs. 3. The Virtual Ocean Lab (EXPLORE) will bring together digital learning techniques and tools which may serve as alternatives for the regular field and practical experiences available in most Ocean Graduate programmes. 4. Lastly a supporting publication tool (UNITE) for teachers investing time and energy in the development of digital learning will be initiated. This tool, in the format of a digital journal, will allow teachers to post their resources in a citable and peer-reviewed format. This tool should increase visibility of digital learning resources and should also make them retrievable. The presented toolbox for Digital Ocean Education will be launched and presented during a closing multiplier event. This event will be organized as a symposium in which Ocean Educators can showcase innovative learning tools and methodologies. This unique event should also create connections between European Universities active in the field of Ocean Science Education and could hopefully lead to increased collaborations. OceanTraining.eu hopes to be a starting point for new developments and joint initiatives in the broad field of Ocean Education.
Through IO1 we wanted to make available a set of fundamental online asynchronous courses in the field of marine science. From 2021 onwards this set of courses would be officially approved by at least 11 EU universities and available for take-up in formal graduate education. Through IO2 we wanted to create asynchronous learning experiences based on self-paced learning and supporting fundamental courses. A set of 43 Short Online Courses (SOCs) have been created to support basic courses and to expand the students’ background on ocean life and functioning. Through IO3, we wanted to bring together digital learning techniques and tools which may serve as alternatives for the regular field and practical experiences available in ocean graduate programmes. For IO4, the goal was to evaluate the existing online catalogues on various platforms, the existing metadata format, develop a catalogue as a prototype version either on an existing platform or on a prototype platform to be developed within the project. During the multiplier event, we wanted to share the intellectual outputs developed by the project. Moreover, we wanted to provide participants with opportunities for upskilling and training in ocean education.
High quality fundamental online courses in marine sciences: all marine graduate programmes have a set of common skills and learning needs in which students need to be trained. Six fully online interactive courses were created. All six courses were approved and made available across the 11 partner universities in the International Master in Marine Biological Resources (IMBRSea) programme. Short Online Courses (SOCs) on selected topics are needed in order to provide resources to students with diverse international backgrounds.To support this issue partners of the project developed 43 SOCs on very specific topics. A third challenge faced by Marine international graduate programmes relates to practical and field work, which are essential components to understand several of the courses. In this project we developed an catalogue of existing resources that can be used in the context of practical and field work. Finally with the project we developed a central registry for online marine education resources. Currently a lot of educational resources are being or have been developed all over the place. Many of these are not traceable because of the lack of a centralized repository in which educators can register their resources.