Intellectual Outputs

Output Identification

O6

Output Title

Apprenticeship Framework for crisis situations

Organisation

University of Osijek

Output Description

Europe aims to become a knowledge-based economy as envisioned by the Lisbon Declaration. For that goal, innovating and modernising education and training were priorities in initiatives of the Europe 2020 strategy, in particular the Agenda for New Skills and Jobs, and the Digital Agenda. Also, the Yerevan Communiqué (2015) as an expression of the political will in the European Higher Education Areas encouraged to exploit “the potential benefits of digital technologies for learning and teaching”. This required systemic and holistic change and transformation. However, the adoption of digital learning and OERs still needs further action to reach the goals set by these visions. The latest documents which were approved by EC focused on the COVID-19 crisis and its impact on the society, including HE, and DE in particular. For this IO we found that the fourth goal: Supporting the green and digital transitions of the EC’s Recovery and Resilience Plans (September 17, 2020) and EC’s Digital Education Action Plan, 2021-2027 (September 30, 2020) represent a solid basis for the investigations that could detect how the HEIs organized apprenticeship and field works during the time of crisis, and how these can be improved in an online setting.
Schools, HEIs, libraries, computer companies etc., have to join forces to offer top notch programs (formal and informal, workshops, webinars, etc.). The apprenticeship practice in the COVID-19 crisis also pointed out to the problem if the apprenticeship and field work rely only on physical presence in organizations. With this deliverable we would like to indicate the potentials of online apprenticeship not only during the COVID-19 crisis, but otherwise in a growing DE challenges for HEIs. We have in particular in mind the online apprenticeship in the business sector, i.e. in private computer companies, and public sector (e.g. libraries, documentation centres, centres for information analysis), in the time of COVID-19 pandemic or similar crisis situations. We intend to analyse the practice at partner HEIs to learn about the models used (for example, on-boarding document for newcomers at the working place; his / her own individual plan tailored to his / her skills and knowledge; a mentorship and internship plan; organization of work on distance with daily and weekly assignments; involvement in Slack, for example, and communication in groups within which their team is located and exchange experiences, etc.). Examples, such as the experience of students from Osijek IS Department who have been finding jobs in computer companies at the city, regional, national and even international level, opened up a new issue of how to work during internship during the pandemic situations. Some practical examples are an incentive to design long-term, quality and cost-effective telecommuting solutions for students and graduates who have to do an internship, field work or apprenticeship during the time of crisis.
Furthermore, we expect three open access research papers as a result of this phase.

Tasks

One person will be in charge of detecting (L)IS institutions partners' in organizing students’ placements during their field work, practical work during the study years and apprenticeship. Former students will be contacted in order to collect their experience. After this initial phase, a draft will be prepared by other two members of Osijek team stating which elements have to be taken into account when planning students’ activities outside the university settings during the COVID-19 crisis and otherwise. This means that we plan to propose a draft of the framework as a guideline in order to help in organizing online students' activities i.e. to avoid situations which happen during COVID-19 crisis resulting in stopping some or all of such activities. Other partners will comment the first and second draft and include their own experience. Final version of the Apprenticeship framework will be prepared by all partners under the guidance of the team from the University of Osijek.

Start Date

15-06-2021 (dd-mm-yyyy)

End Date

20-06-2023

Report

IO6_DECriS_Report.pdf