About

The project aims to develop an eco-system supported by a digital platform for the Acquisition and Assessment of Digital Competence with the use of micro-credentials on the 5 digital competence areas as per the DigiComp framework. The platform will be open to the community and will be sustained by the community. Central to the project, is the analysis into LOs of the descriptors for the 5 competences (Information and Data Literacy, Communication and Collaboration, Digital Content Creation, Safety and Problem Solving) which will be the building blocks for micro-credentials.  The platform allows educators (ICT trainers, teachers and training institutions) (the authors) to contribute with learning content and assessment questions to the platform, where both (content and assessment questions) are linked to micro-credentials. The system will assess the quality of the contributions using a peer review methodology, statistics gathered by the system and users’ feedback. Learners wishing the issuance of micro-credentials, will be able to take a personalized assessment based on the Digital competence area (1 to 5) they wish to assess and they will state their preferred technologies (software, apps, platforms/Operating Systems they use on a daily basis),. The system will deliver a Micro-credentials Transcript for the assessed competence, a learning path along with suggested courses that will delivered those LOs still pending (micro-credentials not issued). The user will have the option to save the issued MCs in a Digital Skills Wallet. The learner can take the assessment on multiple occasions. The system will check the user’s Digital Skills Wallet, where micro-credentials already issued are stored. and will provide those questions aiming to assess credentials not issued yet.  

The platform consists of 3 Modules: M1: An Authoring Tool for creating different types of Questions (single selection, multiple selection, put in the right order, matching etc) with the capability of linking Questions to micro-credentials and to software/apps that they assess knowledge, M2: A Mooc System where educators can upload bite-sized courses which are also mapped to Learning outcomes (and therefore micro-credentials) they deliver and  M3: An Intelligent System that creates a personalized assessment based on user’s preferences (competence area to assess and software/apps he/she uses) and delivers a personalized transcript with a set of Micro-Credentials issued  and those still pending. The intelligent module incorporates an AI module. The intelligent module also suggests a personalized learning path with a series of courses for the acquisition of those LOs that will lead to the issuance of the remaining micro-credentials for the competence area. 

The project also addresses the following issues:

• Data Privacy and Ethics: Educators (authors) and users will need to create an account, the first to request access to the platform as authors and the second if they wish to create a Digital Skills Wallet to save their MCs.  The platform will abide to the 6 principles for Data Collection and Purpose, Accuracy and Retention, Data Use, Data Security, Openness, Data Access and Correction.

• Quality of Content: As the platform will be sustained by the community (authors provided elevated access rights to the platform), mechanisms will be put in place to a) authenticate contributors b) control the quality of the content via peer review methods by other authors c) reporting mechanisms by the users (i.e. questions narration is unclear, wrong answers, etc) and statistics gathered by the system (too many wrong answers for a questions might imply uncomprehend narration etc) 

The project also delivers a question bank for assessing  competence area 1 of the DigComp Framework, and bite-sized courses (for the same competence area). The population of the platform with Questions and Courses allows us to do a large pilot test promoting Digital Competence to VET Students, Higher Education Students, Adults and the wider public. Therefore, the project delivers the opportunity for 1000 people to assess and further develop the 1st competence area.

The project’s legacy for the education community is two-fold: a) It delivers a guide on how to design bite-sized courses and questions leading to the achievement of one or more Learning outcomes, a framework that can be applied for the development of courses for the acquisition of transversal and sectoral skills b) It delivers a framework describing the process of building an eco-system for the acquisition of Learning Outcomes and the Issuance of Micro-Credentials for the community and by the community, issues and risks identified and  best practices. The framework provides the building blocks to develop any transversal and sectoral competences thus improving education and training and bringing a substantial innovative effect in terms of methods and practices to all types of learning.

Finally, it delivers 5 large scale events across Europe to present, the suggested eco-system, pilot results, guide and framework.