higher education

Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, ACCESS continues moving forward with project actions. While the impact of Universities closures and lockdowns in Costa Rica, Cuba and Dominican Republic has been felt on projects activities, ACCESS partners renewed their commitment on tackling inclusion, accessibility and disability through project actions. In September and November 2020, ACCESS consortium organized 2 on-line coordination meetings to outline priorities for intervention and shift project activities to an exclusive virtual modality until the COVID-19 pandemic recedes globally.

Through intense exchange ACCESS partners agreed upon conducting project activities online focusing on the following areas of intervention: resume data collection for the Needs Analysis, progressing with the establishment of the Support Centers in each partner country  and intensifying online dissemination actions. The consensus reach between all members of the Consortium is been confirmed via bilateral meetings conducted to provide personalized support to partners in order to overcome the struggles that they are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The CUDIMHA Second Steering Committee Meeting, originally scheduled in Alicante, took place on October 28th 2020 at the Webex platform because of COVID-19 restrictions. The meeting aimed to verify all the activities that have been developed so far. All participants and WP leaders updated the consortium on the tasks they are coordinating. The Steering Committee worked as well on final decisions to be taken in order to get started with the first semester of the Master (opening online on November the 9th, 2020). During the meeting FORMIT presented e-formar, an on-line learning platform that will be used for Master implementation on a distance.

From the 20^th to the 22^nd of July 2020 the 1^st ACCESS training “Inclusive Education: Context and Background” was conducted on-line, jointly delivered by the University of Alicante (UA) and the University of Macedonia (UOM).

This first training was supposed to be held on the same dates at the University of Macedonia in Greece, together with a study visit and a coordination meeting. However, due to the COVID-19 global pandemic, in order to continue with the project activities as initially planned, the training was conducted on-line using the Livestorm webinar platform. The use of this platform has allowed sharing presentation and videos, questions and answer sessions, a practical workshop and open discussions with moderation by the project coordinator, UA. Furthermore, the three sessions have been recorded allowing partners to view the sessions at any time.

EMINENT has finished its Online Training with the celebration of the last combination of Masterclass and Tutorial Meetings on Self-Evaluation of Study Programmes, led by the University College Cork (Ireland) from 13^th July to 17^th July and in close collaboration with Haitian partners.

As a pioneer institution on Quality Assurance policy in Europe and drawing upon their extensive expertise on this field, the University College Cork framed a training centered around the concepts of Self-evaluation and learning outcomes formulation. With this purpose, the University College of Cork delivered a Masterclass which covered in-depth all the practical aspects of these concepts, looking into the details of operationalization, data collection and organizational elements of the Self-Evaluation process but also analysing the intricacies of  reformulating study programmes according to learning outcomes.

Following upon their contingency plan, EMINENT consortium celebrated from Monday 6^th July to Friday 10^th July, their 2^nd Masterclass and Tutorial Meetings on Internal Quality Assurance System conceptualization, led by the University of Alicante. 

Counting upon the participation of their Vice rectorate of Quality Assurance, the University of Alicante recorded a Masterclass, delving into the complexity of formulating Quality Assurance policy at internal level and articulating the adequate mechanisms and tools to ensure the achievement of quality on Higher Education services provision. This lecture drawn upon the institutional and personal experiences of the University of Alicante in creating and developing their own Quality Assurance system throughout the last decades, integrating into the Bologna Process and meeting the standards set within the European Higher Education Area.

OPEN partners met on July, 8th for the 2nd Virtual meeting to follow up on project progress and activities made so far. The main discussion was focused on the advances related to the WP 1: Need Analysis. A recent survey “The state of internationalisation in Laos: need analysis & mission sharing”, developed by UNIBO, was successfully completed by all Laotian partners

EMINENT consortium has devised a contingency plan to carry forward with capacity building actions, coping with the disruption generated by the COVID-19 global pandemic. This Online Training comes in substitution of D3.3.1. Train of Trainers (Module IV) which was supposed to be held in March 2020, facilitating than Haitian partners advance further on knowledge transfer and experience adaptation on Quality Assurance within Higher Education during these uncertain times.

La UA - Universitat d'Alacant / Universidad de Alicante está participando en el proyecto Europeo Projet Cudimha Master en Histoire et Archéologie ("Desarrollo curricular: un Máster innovador en historia y arqueología") que tiene como objetivo desarrollar un programa de Máster que proporcione a los estudiantes más conocimientos y herramientas dentro del área de la comunicación y valorización del patrimonio cultural mediterráneo. Se trata de un programa internacional que involucrará a 9 universidades europeas y tunecinas, que dará inicio el próximo 1 de Octubre de 2020 y se llevará a cabo en modo mixto (un semestre en línea y un semestre presencial).

El próximo 9 de julio tendrá lugar la Jornada de Puertas Abiertas a través de Zoom y en las redes sociales, donde los profesores presentarán las asignaturas y podrán contestar a la preguntas sobre Máster. La información sobre este máster y sobre el Info Day está disponible a través del siguiente enlace.

On June 9, 2020, the first coordination meeting of the ACCESS project was held, bringing together representatives of 2 higher education institutions from Costa Rica, 4 from Cuba and 5 from the Dominican Republic, the Ministries of Higher Education of these Latin American countries, the University of Macedonia and the University of Alicante, the project coordinator. The meeting, scheduled for July at the University of Macedonia, Greece, was held virtually because of the current inability of the project partners to travel. The objective of the meeting was to present the current status of the project, the next activities to be carried out and the responsibilities of the partners. During the meeting a question-and -answer session was established to solve the doubts of the partners both at technical and financial level. Also, for the review of the financial aspects of the project an evaluation test was conducted among all the attendees, being the dynamics of the meeting more participative.

The University of Alicante hosted more than 30 representatives from 4 Moroccan and  4 Egyptian Universities in order to train them on inclusion and accessibility for students with disabilities from 17^th to 21^st February.  Within the framework of the PACES - Progression of Accessibility Centres in Higher Education for Students with Disabilities in North Africa, the University of Alicante contributed with their expertise on disability to share practices and lessons learnt on how to develop an inclusive Higher Education environment.

Therefore, partners had the opportunity to work closely with the staff of the Student Support Center of the University of Alicante on improving their peer to peer-volunteering services, understanding the experiences of students with disabilities at the University as well as harnessing the application of Assistive Technology to increase the scope of these inclusion actions. Besides that, partners also visited the Archaeologic Museum of Alicante which displays a very innovative and cutting-edge system on accessibility collection, providing an excellent example for inclusion on didactics and tourism.