Analytical chemistry and chemical analyses belong to four basic subjects taught at each universities provided education in chemical sciences, natural sciences, environment, pharmacy, medical sciences veterinary, food and agrochemistry. The subject Analytical chemistry is taught at majority of universities not only in Slovakia, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Serbia, but also rest of the EU countries. The content of Analytical chemistry usually consist of classical analytical chemistry (titrimetry and gravimetry) and instrumental analytical chemistry (separation methods, electrochemical methods and spectrometric methods). In the pandemic COVID-19 time, the education is mostly provided in form of distance learning using internet tools via on-line lectures and seminars. Those are easy to prepare and provide. Integral part of each university education is also laboratory exercises, that improve students skills and give them opportunity to perform their own experiments. Especially, the possibility to perform own experiments is one of the crucial and unreplaceable part in the education of students of experimental disciplines, even in the teaching of analytical chemistry. However, digital and on-line approach in this case is more complicated and not available et all. Thus, the DigiLabAC project focuses on development of on-line platforms for teaching of laboratory exercises in analytical chemistry. The project effort will result in web platform for students, containing pdf manuals, audiovisual materials and computer simulations for sampling, laboratory tasks from classical analytical chemistry, separation, electroanalytical and spectrometric methods. At the same time, a virtual laboratory will be created, with the possibility to generate laboratory tasks for various number of students for successful completion of a virtual laboratory exercise.
The main objective of the DigiLabAc project was to prepare on-line platform for laboratory exercises from analytical chemistry that could be used in distance learning or as a supporting materials for student to prepare for laboratory exercises or for exams. The project aimed to introduce innovative teaching and learning materials for teaching of analytical chemistry. The project was expected to achieve the following goals: 1. Prepare high-quality learning materials in five languages (each partner institution native language and English). 2. Prepare laboratory instructions and video materials of laboratory tasks to help students better understand performed laboratory exercises. 3. Develop an online education platform incorporated in Moodle system. 4. Create openly accessible education resources available in five languages. 5. Harmonize the teaching approach in partner universities and support the strengthening of organizational and internal institutional capacities by sharing knowledge among partners. 6. Foster the capacities of international multidisciplinary teams for future project proposals by strengthening their networks.
Integral part of each university education is also laboratory exercises, that improve students skills and give them opportunity to perform their own experiments. The implementation of the DigiLabAC project was initiated due to lack of accessible quality online materials that could be used for teaching of laboratory exercises in a distance learning, which was particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. Video materials available on-line for classical and instrumental analytical methods usually did not reflect the needs of the university (it was not possible to find an experiment carried out at the university), or they were not methodologically correct. The main reason for project realization was the lack of high-quality teaching materials, where students of the bachelor's degree would get at least basic information about the individual laboratory tasks that are performed during the semester. The DigiLabAC project introduced a new platform for online teaching of laboratory exercises in analytical chemistry. The transnational implementation of DigiLabAC brought about the harmonization of the teaching approach among partners and supported the strengthening of internal institutional capacities.