Maritime Simulators and Training Facilities Network for Enhancing the Exchange of Good Practices and Digital Learning

The project mission has aimed to meet the dynamic needs of the stakeholders including students, industry and society, in parallel with the changing professional realities of the modern world from ...

MARS-NET aimed to achieve a strategic network for joint partners' facilities and teaching/learning practices exchange, seeking to obtain by implementation significant results on following directions: training skills improvement of the trainers, by good practices exchanges on different simulators offered by the partners, implementing a digital teaching framework for hard skills achievement; harmonized methodology for training resources to be achieved; dual education enhancement by developing the cadets’ abilities for online training on simulator facilities, using the digital resources in their training, onboard the ships during the cadetship - adaptation of present syllabuses and simulation exercises; building teaching resources for simulating exercises to digitize the teaching and training environment as a valuable supporting feature for “blending learning” methods enhancement; implementing harmonized training modules in order to value the partners’ experience, facilities and good practices into the network; institutional internationalization stimulated by organizing different events; new research methods and research areas of knowledge identified, where the simulators to used and valued on competitive basis.

In the relation with the specified intellectual outputs planed in the project management plan, various activities have been conducted among the partners, as following: - curriculum development and harmonization according to IMO STCW rules and regulations; - innovative training programs have been implemented on sustainable basis, based on modern teaching methods by simulation and further good practices have been exchanged; - updated training and learning material development have been available for a large pool of students/teachers, implementing a joint virtual e-campus on www.marplat.eu portal; - exchanges activities have been organized stimulating the internationalization across the EU; - research activities have been conducted, resulting a number of 5 scientific studies and 7 scientific articles published. Overall, 5 joint face-to-face courses have been organized by the partners, alternatively in each country, using and valuing the simulating facilities of the partners in area of navigation, marine engineering, logistics or research. The virtual campus has generated a larger participation of beneficiaries, more than 250 students attending the online courses posted on www.marplat.eu. Moreover, to disseminate the results and the project conclusions, 5 conferences have been organized, to achieve the impact in soundness and to attract stakeholder and potential beneficiaries into the network. The courses and the conference have been financed from the budget lines, in accordance with the participant number, distances and days of attendance, in compliance with Erasmus+ financial rules. Along with MARS-NET project implementation, the partners' representatives have scheduled 5 project meetings, one per each quarter of project implementation.

The project has been mainly focused on building an efficient and effective educational network among the partners, with regional soundness, to value the simulation facilities for adopting innovative teaching and learning practices, as a definitive step toward the digitization of maritime higher education system. Subsequently, other objectives are aimed as to get competitive advantages from the good practices exchange and knowledge sharing within the network, in regard of improving the teaching skills and simulation learning methods, in respect of an updated alignment to the new tendencies in education and training processes around the European Union, providing a solid support for excellence in teaching and skills development processes. In this respect, the partners will conduct specific activities to produce 5 wider intellectual outputs, defined under a quantitative perspective (i.e. work days for manpower on categories of personnel), as following (https://www.anmb.ro/marsnet): - O1: “Building the updated pool of competencies for maritime education to improve the value of simulating facilities in maritime education”: 10 course syllabuses have been harmonized to value the simulation learning methods on hard and soft skills requirements, in order to align the MET curriculum to the newest STCW standards for preparing a virtual exchange program for students and teachers (the result is uploaded in the e-campus: https://marplat.eu/mod/folder/view.php?id=294); - O2: “Digital media tools to enhance the simulating teaching efficiency in maritime education” – a guidance framework has been developed with the partners contribution, together with the summary design of most 5 relevant courses in which simulation facilities are majorly used; - O3: “Virtual digital campus for teachers, researchers and students” – a virtual network has been developed as a “virtual campus” for sharing the didactic materials and the digital resources, for simulating learning environment courses and classes (www.marplat.eu; https://marplat.eu/course/index.php?categoryid=18); - O4: “Joint scientific research partnership for building a more efficient and effective teaching and learning environment based on simulation facilities” – technical solutions for integrating the simulator within an operational network have been described, the students being now able to access the designed training resources, even from onboard the ships, independently and with autonomy; - O5: “Virtual webinars tools to enhance the digitization of learning materials in Maritime Higher Education” - an overall number of 250 students and 20 teachers have been virtually enrolled in digital classes, to support the developing of the digital content materials - as result of O5, the partners made available 5 digital courses, fully covered with harmonized curriculum (O1), teaching materials (O2) and online available resources (O3), providing the hard skills for maritime higher education cadets, in virtual manner to stimulate the cadetship dual system programs,. Beside the intellectual outputs, 5 joint face-to-face courses have been conducted by the partners alternatively in each country, for a total of 30 students and 30 teachers, using and valuing the simulating facilities of the partners in area of navigation, marine engineering, logistics or research. The virtual campus www.marplat.eu and the project website https://www.anmb.ro/marsnet, have generate a large participation of beneficiaries. To disseminate the results of the project results, 5 workshops had been conducted, to improve the impact in soundness, attracting the stakeholder and potential beneficiaries into the network.