In the European educational sector there is a paradigm change to competence oriented education and validation of learning outcomes in informal or non-formal learning (VINFL) in order to facilitate the transparency and comparability of qualifications and to foster mobility in Europe. Since 2002 European instruments like EQF, ECVET and EUROPASS have been largely introduced on national and European levels. Nevertheless these initiatives and developments have in many cases and in several member states not (yet) reached the stakeholders from the field, who only have very little knowledge and practical relation to VINFL. However, in order to reach the European goals, especially those target groups must be actively included in the developments. Based on latest surveys carried out in the framework of the predecessor project VITA, the following obstacles and weakness have been identified: 1. Lack of technical interoperability a. due to missing technical specifications (also leading to a lack of comparability of units and learning outcomes); b. Missing connection to IT supported learning and assessment systems and open educational resources (OER) such as open source LMS or e-Portfolios. 2. Missing outreach and lack of cross-sectoral usability a. Lack of integration of other educational sectors like AE, Youth and School in the VINFL approach and missed opportunities to attract new users and to exploit the full potential of EUROPASS, ECVET and VINFL; b. Lack of interfaces to key competences and social, personal and organisational competences; c. Lack of further training and continuing professional development for stakeholders in these sectors and missing networking opportunities among national and European stakeholders on the matter. 1. In the VET sector the validation of learning outcomes and the related systems are designed along qualifications, units, learning outcomes (LO) and referring to the EQF or NQF systems that describe qualification levels in terms of knowledge, skills and competences (KSC). More than 100 pilot projects have been listed with their outcomes in the ecvet-toolkit.eu portal and http://ecvet-info.de, clustered in different sectors. They have developed competence matrices or qualification catalogues for different professions in which Qualifications, Units, LO, KSC have been described, valued against ECVET levels and related to credit points. However, a basic technical specification of the description of qualifications, units and learning outcomes as outlined in the ECVET specifications (2002) is missing in most of the documented project products. As a consequence the developed systems defining qualifications, units, LO and KSC vary to a large extent in taxonomy (system) and in quality. The lack of standards and specifications lead to missed opportunities to improve the usability and to create synergies for instance to exchange units and learning outcome descriptors, to create multilingual learning outcomes by using meta-data or to create common databases and repositories for exchange. Minimum requirements for the descriptions of learning outcomes and a taxonomy (technical specification prototype) for an IT based processing and exchange of these data are not available. IMPACT will tackle this issue by developing a prototype specification to facilitate the interoperability of European validation and certification instruments with Open Educational Resources (OER) and IT based learning systems to make them transferrable and to increase the attractiveness and usability of validation in practice. 2. Missing outreach and lack of cross-sectoral approach: Many professionals from the field of Adult, Youth and School education have only a faint idea on the conception of VINFL and on the potential impact and value in their fields of work. Research on educational professionals, but also on employers, highlighted the potential value of VINFL in general but also the fear of additional workload or missing operability and connectivity with systems that are already in use. During an IST course for 25 course providers in Belgium in January 2014, there was hardly any profound knowledge on VINFL even though those providers and their target groups (educational institutions who send their educational staff on mobility learning) are supposed to offer systems for validation of learning outcomes. Especially for those stakeholders who do not directly work on the professional qualification of learners, the ECVET systems do not directly relate to their professional demands. However, as previous projects have clearly shown, VINFL can have a positive impact on the quality and credibility of their work, on the chances of their learners in order to bridge the gaps between the educational sectors on their lifelong learning pathways. Therefore IMPACT will offer educational professionals cross-sectoral instruments and courses and joint learning and development spaces on VINFL and ECVET.
IMPACT - IT based Methodology for Promoting, Assessing and validating Competence oriented learning and Training
Davide Taibi;Giovanni Fulantelli;Paola Denaro;Marco Arrigo;Giovanni Todaro;
2014
Abstract
In the European educational sector there is a paradigm change to competence oriented education and validation of learning outcomes in informal or non-formal learning (VINFL) in order to facilitate the transparency and comparability of qualifications and to foster mobility in Europe. Since 2002 European instruments like EQF, ECVET and EUROPASS have been largely introduced on national and European levels. Nevertheless these initiatives and developments have in many cases and in several member states not (yet) reached the stakeholders from the field, who only have very little knowledge and practical relation to VINFL. However, in order to reach the European goals, especially those target groups must be actively included in the developments. Based on latest surveys carried out in the framework of the predecessor project VITA, the following obstacles and weakness have been identified: 1. Lack of technical interoperability a. due to missing technical specifications (also leading to a lack of comparability of units and learning outcomes); b. Missing connection to IT supported learning and assessment systems and open educational resources (OER) such as open source LMS or e-Portfolios. 2. Missing outreach and lack of cross-sectoral usability a. Lack of integration of other educational sectors like AE, Youth and School in the VINFL approach and missed opportunities to attract new users and to exploit the full potential of EUROPASS, ECVET and VINFL; b. Lack of interfaces to key competences and social, personal and organisational competences; c. Lack of further training and continuing professional development for stakeholders in these sectors and missing networking opportunities among national and European stakeholders on the matter. 1. In the VET sector the validation of learning outcomes and the related systems are designed along qualifications, units, learning outcomes (LO) and referring to the EQF or NQF systems that describe qualification levels in terms of knowledge, skills and competences (KSC). More than 100 pilot projects have been listed with their outcomes in the ecvet-toolkit.eu portal and http://ecvet-info.de, clustered in different sectors. They have developed competence matrices or qualification catalogues for different professions in which Qualifications, Units, LO, KSC have been described, valued against ECVET levels and related to credit points. However, a basic technical specification of the description of qualifications, units and learning outcomes as outlined in the ECVET specifications (2002) is missing in most of the documented project products. As a consequence the developed systems defining qualifications, units, LO and KSC vary to a large extent in taxonomy (system) and in quality. The lack of standards and specifications lead to missed opportunities to improve the usability and to create synergies for instance to exchange units and learning outcome descriptors, to create multilingual learning outcomes by using meta-data or to create common databases and repositories for exchange. Minimum requirements for the descriptions of learning outcomes and a taxonomy (technical specification prototype) for an IT based processing and exchange of these data are not available. IMPACT will tackle this issue by developing a prototype specification to facilitate the interoperability of European validation and certification instruments with Open Educational Resources (OER) and IT based learning systems to make them transferrable and to increase the attractiveness and usability of validation in practice. 2. Missing outreach and lack of cross-sectoral approach: Many professionals from the field of Adult, Youth and School education have only a faint idea on the conception of VINFL and on the potential impact and value in their fields of work. Research on educational professionals, but also on employers, highlighted the potential value of VINFL in general but also the fear of additional workload or missing operability and connectivity with systems that are already in use. During an IST course for 25 course providers in Belgium in January 2014, there was hardly any profound knowledge on VINFL even though those providers and their target groups (educational institutions who send their educational staff on mobility learning) are supposed to offer systems for validation of learning outcomes. Especially for those stakeholders who do not directly work on the professional qualification of learners, the ECVET systems do not directly relate to their professional demands. However, as previous projects have clearly shown, VINFL can have a positive impact on the quality and credibility of their work, on the chances of their learners in order to bridge the gaps between the educational sectors on their lifelong learning pathways. Therefore IMPACT will offer educational professionals cross-sectoral instruments and courses and joint learning and development spaces on VINFL and ECVET.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
