"Skill training is complex and time-consuming and demands extensive lecture resources. Despite the development of various learning approaches, clinical skills appear to be a global educational challenge. Due to the lack of skill training centers in many European nursing educational institutions and the fact that clinical placement opportunities have been reduced, we argued that it was essential to develop new strategies to ensure that students were prepared for clinical practiceThe object of the current project was to supply European student nurses with an innovative digital pedagogical tool aiming to enhance their clinical skills. In specific, our aim was to develop and implement a skills simulation app to provide an active and flexible student-focused learning approach. The partnership of this project consisted of three European universities: The University of Stavanger (Norway}: Department of Health Studies and the Department of E-learning Development (NETTOP}, which was the lead partner. The participating organizations were The University of Nottingham (UK}:School of Health Sciences, and Universidad de Valencia San Vicente Martir (Spain}:Department of Nursing Care. The project group was interdisciplinary and included educational staff, technical staff, researchers and nursing students from all three universities. The partnerships has been fruitful as it has increased the transparency and mutual recognition of clinical nursing skills as well as our understanding of cultural and legal diversity of clinical nursing practices in England, Norway, and Spain.The finished app is named ""DigiSim nurse training"". The training app follows the underpinning principles of the Practical Skill Performance Model (Bjork, 1999). The app is available through App Store and Google Play.The development of the app included to main activities: 1) Identification, consensus and quality assurance of simulation scenarios, concept of app and manuscript production 2)Technology and media development (design and solution). First,consensus was reached by the three partners regarding inclusion of procedures that were relevant for all three partners. Preliminary draft films were conducted by the use of simple mobile cameras. These films were shared across institutions by a video collaboration tool that allowed for immediate feedback in a rigorous manner because inputted text was added at precise, time-marked points on the video, generating discussions. Film manuscripts were developed by using a manuscript template including specifications of scene description, voiceover, text, and time and provided space for comments from all three countries.A pilot film was carried out (subcutaneous injection). The pilot was discussed in workshops that included nursing students and has guided further film production of the remaining procedures.At last, a test version were provided to nursing students.Digisim Nurse Training includes the offers the following alternatives: 1. Video: The ‘Video’ tab includes all the steps of the procedure performed by a professional nurse in a realistic context. It allows students to start watching the demonstration or download it for later offline viewing. The ‘Equipment’ tab has a list of all equipment required for the specific simulation selected. 2. Checklist: The ‘Checklist’ tab has a breakdown of key behaviours intended for students to follow and 'tick' once completed. This can help students to remember the sequence of steps for a procedure. If working in pairs, one person can use the list to assess the other, 3. Traning: The ‘Training’ tab provides students with audio instructions that can be played automatically as start to perform your simulation. Once students are are prepared, they can use this tab whilst performing a procedure. The app contains recommendations for use. At university of Stavanger, the app was included as a part of skill training lectures for some of the students groups autumn 2020. Five focus group interviews were conducted regarding students experiences of the app. Preliminary analysis have shown that studens found the app very useful due to the ""to the point"" approach, the flexible use and the ability to monitor their own performance and progress. The app has been published in App Store and Google Play. During the project period, the app has also been disseminated through conferences, social media and l through local presentations. To sum up; The specific outcome of the current project is a newly developed practical skills simulation app on mobile devices for student nurses. Due to the feedback from student representatives and preliminary findings from the focus group interviews, it is is expected that the simulation app in the current project will positively affect possibilities of achieving the desired clinical skills; this is due to the fact that practical skills simulations will supply a flexible, dynamic and interactive e-learning environment."

Today's students expect flexibility and digital technologies in their learning process and increasingly, e-learning resources have been designed to be amenable to different devices such as tablets and mobile phones. This project addresses bachelor student nurses' challenges and needs regarding active and flexible learning approaches and innovative teaching practices based on digital open educational recourses (OER) as well as cohesion of the nursing education in Norway, England and Spain as OER promotes international mobility.The specific aim of this project was to develop and implement new mobile interactive e-learning applications (apps) for European Bachelor Nursing in Norway, England and Spain. Based on established and well-evaluated Norwegian rich media e-compendiums, new interactive e-learning apps to be used on mobile devices has been produced. The apps contain a variety learning tools such as text, figures, interactions, animations, videos, audio, tasks and more. All e-learning apps are made in English, Spanish and Norwegian and published on App Store and Google Play, free to download. The apps includes guidelines addressing both students, teachers and technical staff (erasmus.nursing.net).Partnership of this project has consisted of three European universities. The University of Stavanger (Norway): Department of Health Studies and the Department of E-learning Development (NETTOP), which is the lead partner and initiator of the project. The participating organisations are; The University of Nottingham (UK): School of Health Sciences, and Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir (Spain): Department of Nursing Care.Main activities The project group was interdisciplinary and included educational staff, technical staff as well as researchers and nursing student representatives from all particpating universities. The development of the app consisted of three main activities that were interacting throughout the development process:•Content development: The pre-existing Norwegian learning materiel was translated into English and Spanish. Four of the e-compendiums were nursing focused (wound care, cardiovascular diseases, nutrition and temperature regulation) and four were biology focused (neurophysiology, kidney anatomy and physiology, respiratory physiology; anatomy and physiology of the heart). The content was adapted and adjusted according to the curricula of nurse education at the partners’ universities. Differences between the partners' programs were identified and quality assured to comply with national guidelines. •Technical development: A new web based app platform was developed to make the multimedia and interactive learning (i.e simulation games, images and exercises) material usable on iOS and Android mobile devices as well as all other platforms, online and offline. Audio of all text was recorded, available both in the app and e-compendiums, and separately as podcasts trough iTunesU and other channels.• Feedback from the user perspective: Student nurses representatives were included in all phases of the development process to assure relevance. A preliminary version of the app was tested in a small group of nursing students and focus group interviews were conducted. The feedback from the student representatives and findings from the qualitative interviews guided further development of the e-learning app and its content. Implementation and evaluation of the finished e-learning apps took place at the three universities from fall 2016 and trough spring 2017. The implementation of the apps followed the specific programs at the participating universities to ensure relevance. The evaluation included a questionnaire survey at all three universities measuring students´ use and satisfactory with the app solution and the content. Focus group interviews with students supplemented further insight and guided the further deelopment of the app. In addition, experiences and reflections from technical staff and educational staff was captured in workshops activities at transnational meetings were the wider project groups from each partnership were represented.The questionnaire survey and the qualitative data indicated that students found the apps useful in their strategies of learning. The students highlighted the value of variation and the flexible use and reported aspects important for learning such as that the apps helped them to be more motivated, engaged and focusing on essential parts of the course. Thus, the project might have contributed to a more flexible interactive and multi-faceted e-learning environment.Finally, the current project has provided the project participants with useful experiences regarding the value of interdisciplinary cooperation, a flexible and interacting working process, a visible working platform, open communication between the participating university partners and the importance of including the user perspective through all phases of the process.

<< Background >>Dry grasslands are one of the most biodiversity-rich ecosystems in Europe, and their conservation is a major goal of the EU natural conservation policy. They are also the basic resource for pastoralism, and are therefore strictly linked to economic activities such as dairy and wool production, and to tangible and intangible cultural heritage related, for instance, to transhumance practices.The strong decline of pastoralism that occurred in EU countries over the last decades, especially affected mountain areas, which experienced widespread depopulation and impoverishment. Such decline was combined with the new challenges linked to the adaptation of animal husbandry to climate change, regarding the maintenance of the quality of products whilst ensuring environmental sustainability. These challenges can be translated into opportunities, because of the potential benefits that innovative husbandry practices could provide to the economy of currently depopulated mountain areas, linking environment and cultural heritage conservation, high-quality and healthy food production, and tourist appeal.Defining a sustainable and participatory management strategy for grasslands, maintaining the balance among conservation needs, animal welfare, quality of products and incomes, is a very complex task. Nevertheless, the relevance of this issue at European level makes the definition of such guidelines urgent and necessary. On the other hand, given the different environmental and socio-economic conditions in European countries, this task should be addressed transnationally through collaboration and exchange among different contexts.Moreover, the inherent complexity of grasslands management requires a strongly integrated approach and multidisciplinary skills that are currently lacking. This lack regards local actors (breeders, farmers, policy-makers) in the first place, whose lack of a comprehensive, integrated vision of the issue makes them unable to plan and implement sustainable use of resources, finally producing adverse effects on biodiversity and reducing incomes of animal husbandry activities. But it can be detected in the Higher Education as well, where the gap between HE teaching and the practical application of academic theory to real management contexts makes the academic knowledge less able to positively impact on grasslands management practices, and puts the graduates’ employability in the sector at risk. The project aims to effectively fulfil this educational need, by fostering collaboration between the academic world and the actors in charge of the actual management of grasslands.<< Objectives >>Building on the results of other EU-funded and national projects, TranSuMan intends to develop an innovative educational approach to build a professional figure able to address in a multidisciplinary way the sustainable management of European pastoral systems. According to this approach, academic knowledge and local actors’ experience will both contribute to create a stimulating learning environment for students, enabling them to work in a real-world setting. Specific project objectives are: - defining shared guidelines and strategies for sustainable management of grasslands and farming valorisation; - defining teaching methods and strategies for stakeholder engagement in the teaching/learning process; - transferring knowledge to HE students on the complexity of grasslands management, including planning sustainable productive chains based on high-quality products, and the management of bottom-up processes.<< Implementation >>To achieve the above-mentioned objectives, the project envisages:- sharing of knowledge and experiences among partners, leading to the definition of shared guidelines for the sustainable, participatory management of grasslands, and of a common teaching method involving local stakeholders as both trainees and trainers;- sharing and refining of the guidelines among the partners during two dedicated 3-days' workshops (a Teachers training workshop in Romania, and a Methodology training workshop in Greece);- creation of OERs on the project topics, and drafting of instructions for their use;- mobilisation of local communities and establishment of a collaborative environment between the academic and the extra-academic world, through the creation of local Green Teams gathering experts, local actors, lecturers, researchers and students from partner HEIs, who will periodically meet to work on Project Results, validate them, and jointly produce OERs on the project themes;- a 4-days' Joint intensive course in Camerino (Italy), which will be the final test bed of the methodology (R1) and of the educational materials (R2, R3) developed by the project;- integration and refining of the project methodology according to the results of the workshops;- 3 national multiplier events, organized within the framework of relevant agri-food events in partner countries;- an international Final Conference in Valencia (final multiplier event), to present and disseminate project results, and embedding a hackathon (AGRI-HACK), involving national and international experts, as well as local students and stakeholders, to outline joint recommendations for transferability and a replicability plan.<< Results >>The project will target HE Bachelor’s Degree, Master’s Degree and PhD students, researchers and teaching staff within the faculties of Agronomy, Biology, Forestry, Veterinary Medicine, Food Processing, Rural economy, and Landscape Planning, and local stakeholders (farmers, representatives of farmers associations and public bodies, managers and technicians of the Natura 2000 network and protected areas).HE students (8 per partner), teachers/trainers (2 staff members per partner) and local stakeholders (at least 5 per partner) will be part of local Green Teams, which will participate in periodical meetings and in the project workshops organized by the respective HEI and in the Grasslands Management Joint Intensive Course (dedicated to students). For every project workshop, each hosting HEI will involve at least one full course.HE students will have the opportunity to improve their skills by experiencing a real-life management planning process in a stimulating, international and trans-disciplinary learning environment. Teachers will improve their ability to share and integrate experiences and knowledge by testing a teaching approach that can be replicated in their regular academic activities. Local stakeholders will gain awareness on the complexity of grassland management, getting insight into planning processes and the implementation of sustainable management activities. Their involvement in teaching activities will enhance their capacity to achieve a common language with the academic world and so to share knowledge, objectives, and methodologies. The networks developed during the project will foster the links between the HEIs and the labour market.These outcomes will be supported by a set of concrete Results:- Methodological guidelines (R1) for implementing and teaching participatory grassland management;- Sustainable Grassland Management Teaching Toolkit (R2), collecting Open Educational Resources (OERs) to support lessons, discussions, practical works and case studies analysis on the project topics, as well as methodological instructions on how to use these materials.- a modular online course on sustainable grasslands management (R3);- recommendations for transferability and replicability plan (R4).The long-term benefit of the project is to improve cooperation and share knowledge between HEIs and stakeholders and combine trans-disciplinary competences to create a new educational approach, and to promote and mainstream the application of more sustainable grasslands management practices in target territories and beyond. The teaching/learning experiences implemented and the OERs provided will be freely available to HEIs and other institutions/categories, also within extra-academic training programs and already existing e-learning platforms.

<< Objectives >>To answer young people’s need for an effective sustainable education, GREENTRACE aims at filling the gaps of competence that youth workers, sport leaders and educators encounter in their field of belonging, by creating an innovative method of sustainable learning through sport, youth participation and exploration. The approach will be created through a multidisciplinary cooperation, applicable in different territorial and learning contexts and supported by an assessment tool.<< Implementation >>A study on sustainability will precede the methodology definition. Minimum 20 youth workers, sport leaders and educators will then attend thematic workshops (sustainability, new learning methods, assessment) to co-create the learning approaches that will be tested on groups of young people (firstly on the groups they work with, secondly on peers involved by the first groups). Minimum 40 young participants will create their sustainable plans and participate in the creation of a digital platform.<< Results >>A report will expound the analysis and the methodology, with a practical annex for youth workers. Youthpass portfolios will attest the new competences acquired by the participants. For young people it will have two levels, the first issued for the presentation of a sustainable programme, the second for having taken action and involved the peers. The digital platform will create a network of professionals and young people, to embed sustainability among youth and foster further innovation.

Transhumance is a type of pastoralism entailing a seasonal movement of livestock between summer and winter pastures along designated trails; historically, given their economic importance, the presence of these routes used to have major effects on the uses of land. Most have disappeared, but many are still clearly visible in mountain and rural landscapes, and are often subject to landscape protection measures. Further traces can be found in place and family names, cultural practices, architectural elements, archaeological findings, and the memories of the elderly.Transhumance was practiced in many European countries. It has shaped European cultures, societies and landscapes for centuries. Such heritage needs to be preserved, also as a resource for rural and mountain economies that often suffer from depopulation.The analysis, understanding and conservation of this heritage is the target of very different disciplines. Making the most of such heritage should be the focus of responsible policy-making, programming and planning. However, given the cross-cutting nature of transhumance, a transdisciplinary approach must be applied for ensuring the best effects of policy making and planning on landscape, economy, society, reduction of natural risks, and conservation of cultural assets.The overall objective of PECUS is to define HE methods and tools based on cognitive mapping, able to convey the complexity and trans-disciplinarity of the issues related to the conservation, management and promotion of tangible and intangible cultural assets – in particular, focusing on the transhumance heritage.For this purpose, PECUS combines two elements to promote and achieve transdisciplinarity in teaching & learning:- the involvement of teachers and students in workshops centred on transdisciplinary planning for the conservation and management of transhumance landscapes and the sustainable development of related environments and economies- the use of Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping (FCM) as a tool to facilitate the representation and understanding of complex problems, and foster transdisciplinary decisions.FCMs are a symbolic representation of complex systems in terms of concepts and their mutual interactions. Their construction requires inputs of human experience and knowledge on the system under consideration; therefore, the outcome is an integration of the experience and knowledge accumulated by the persons involved, concerning the underlying causal relationships amongst factors, characteristics, and components of the same system. For this reason, PECUS intends to apply this tool as a support for a new, transdisciplinary educational approach for developing programmes/plans affecting the spatial, social and environmental status of an important asset of the common European culture.PECUS will involve both students and teachers from partner organisations:- 12 teachers will participate in a preliminary workshop aimed at defining the contents and methods for the following workshop- 50 students will be selected by partner universities to participate in a 7-day international, intensive workshop centred on the practice of transdisciplinary planning for the conservation and promotion of transhumance landscapes, supported by the use of cognitive mapping, and tutored by the 12 teachers having participated in the preliminary workshop- 250 additional students will be involved by partner universities in further local activities based on the use of FCMs.Besides the above educational activities, PECUS will deliver a series of Intellectual Outputs, namely:- an online repository of educational materials supporting the project activities and made available to anyone interested- a modular online course made of thematic “pills” on the project topics (videos, presentations, animations, self-evaluation tests, etc.)- a set of methodological guidelines for FCM-based transdisciplinary teaching practices- the proceedings of the final conference focused on the project outcomes.The project is intended to contribute, in the long term, to:- develop cross-boundary skills in future professionals and decision makers- contribute to the European and international debate on how to analyse, preserve and valorise tangible and intangible cultural heritage, in particular related to transhumance- contribute to the development of a collaborative environment among teachers, researchers and students in partner HEIs- contribute to open up traditional educational practices in partner HEIs through the diffusion of the use of FCM in HE courses- increase the quality of HE teaching and research in the field of the preservation, management and promotion of tangible and intangible cultural heritage, thanks to the diffusion of a trans-disciplinary approach.The sustainability of the project’s approach relies on the adaptability of the FCM method to different topics and contexts.