E-Learning platform for industrial innovation
In the CEPHEI project (Cooperative E-learning Platform for Higher Education in Industrial Innovation) a consortium of nine universities joined forces to build a community of digital learners in university and industry. It aims to develop a cooperative e-learning platform for industrial innovation. The e-learning platform will consist of an open platform, with free online courses, project-based (face-to-face) education at university and it provides a community-building platform.
University of Twente is one of the partners in this recently started Erasmus+ capacity building project of nearly 1 million euros, funded by the European Union. “The fact that this a global e-learning platform that is specifically targeting businesses in the technical industry, and uses a blended approach makes this a unique project” says Ard Kosters, system developer at UT and one of the IT specialists in the project.
Bridging the gap
With this project the partners intend to bridge the gap between science and enterprises in the field of industrial innovation by actually applying standards of blended learning to real-life issues brought in by industry. It is a win-win situation since universities become more in tune with the field and businesses will have the opportunity for capacity building of their staff. Skills sought after by industry will be incorporated in the curriculum. Industry is however not involved as project partner. Chris Rouwenhorst, educational consultant at UT and programme coordinator for 4TU.CEE: “Businesses participate in the project by providing real life cases and information on their needs. We aim to attract at least 100 industrial and business partners spread over all regions of participating universities to gain input on course content that fits the needs of enterprises.”
Challenges
Non-EU and EU universities work together in the project. This makes the project dynamic, but also challenging, according to Marcus Pereira Pessoa, assistant professor product development at the faculty of Engineering Technology: “First there is a geographical challenge with universities in China, Russia, Turkey, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands. Not all technical applications can be used in China for example. Then there are also issues with intellectual property, who owns the courses that we will develop? Therefore it is important that we make a set of requirements. Privacy is another topic that needs attention, especially with the new European GDPR regulations.” Another issue is that universities in Russia and China lack blending labs. “Money is also allocated in the project to erect facilities such as green rooms, so that they can contribute to the project target to turn 60 ECTS of Industrial Innovation education into the blended form,” says Rouwenhorst.
CEPHEI partners
The project partners consist of programme countries and partner counties. Programme countries have a leading role in developing the e-learning platform thereby supporting the partner countries to set-up e-learning courses. Twente together with LUT (Finland), KTH (Sweden) and MEF (Turkey) form the programme universities and will share their knowledge and expertise with respect to e-learning. The partner universities are located in Russia (St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Gubkin Russian State University and the TUSUR University, Tomsk) and China (Tianjin University and Hebei University). The project will run till October 2020. For more information about CEPHEI see: https://www.cephei.eu/ or contact Chris Rouwenhorst of 4TU.CEE.
