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e-Carpet-School: Online training school for machin..
e-Carpet-School: Online training school for machine carpet weaving
Start date: Sep 1, 2014,
End date: Aug 31, 2016
PROJECT
FINISHED
Carpet manufacturing is an important field in Europe in terms of economical and employment figures. Turkey is capable of manufacturing %20 of whole world’s carpet need while whole Europe’s manufacturing share is approximately over %45. It is estimated that the number of employment in the carpet manufacturing sector is over half a million people across European countries such as Turkey, Belgium, United Kingdom, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. Although being a great sector, it suffers from several issues such as the lack of qualified technical staff. Furthermore, although carpet manufacturing is very widespread in Europe, there is not an existent definition of some carpet related vocations such as carpet operators. Accordingly, ISCED, the main catalogue of vocation definitions and curriculum, do not have required competency definitions for such mentioned vocations. Therefore, graduates of relevant institutions do not have the required practical experience until they are employed in a sectoral enterprise. They have the required competencies informally through practical experience and few number of in-service training facilities in the company. This causes several negative results such as increase in overhead costs, reduction in the effectiveness of the operations, economic losses and diminish of the competitiveness of the companies.
To address the above mentioned problems, the consortium will develop a novel curriculum that adopts a new pedagogical aspect. And secondly, ICT-based learning tools such an e-learning platform and interactive DVD based software will be constructed to present the content. The benefits of interactive online and offline system will help overcome the major issues caused by the lack of practical experience.
The project consortium that will implement the project is a multi-character team constituted of different types of foundations including VET institutions (university, vocational school), a SME in the relevant sector, a chamber of sectoral companies and a commercial company with expertise on e-learning and its applications on VET systems.
During the implementation of the project, the consortium will mainly focus on seven main tasks through the project activities:
1) Analysis of the sector and related vocations by inclusion of the target groups into the project via a two-phase survey system
2) Development of an innovative curriculum that utilizes the ICT-based learning tools which will be developed in the project
3) Development of the learning content and video production.
4) Transfer, adaptation and development of e-learning infrastructure (online learning tools)
5) Development of the offline derivative of the e-learning software which will be a DVD-based software (offline learning tools)
6) Testing, feedback, data collection, evaluation and improvement step
7) Dissemination and exploitation of the project outcomes.
After the project is implemented as planned, there will be six tangible outputs of the project:
1- A web platform that provides a meeting point for relevant stakeholders and project partners
2- A survey report that analyzes vocational status of carpet manufacturing related jobs in partner countries.
3- A novel curriculum for machinery carpet manufacturing related vocations that adopts innovative approaches
4- An e-learning platform that implements the novel curriculum
5- An offline solution specifically built for easily distributing and working in DVD format.
6- Relevant documentation for project products.
Expected impact on target group(s) are as follows:
a) Trainers / Educators of the relevant VET institutions including project partners and institutions that will be reached within the project lifetime will have a proper curriculum for carpet production process. Thus, graduates will be more competent for their jobs. Relevant sector will overcome difficulties in finding qualified technical staff. Then, overhead costs related to product deficits, production ineffectiveness will be removed.
b) Difficulties in training related to the expensive and continuously advancing hardware/equipment will be tolerated and overcome. Therefore, VET institutions will be enabled to offer training on machinery based carpet manufacturing. This option may also activate independent VET courses that specialize on carpet manufacturing by use of project products as blended learning material.
c) Companies that use the e-learning environment will have a good in-service training material. This will also contribute to the effectiveness of the sector companies.
d) New graduates and unemployed individuals that are planning to enter into the carpet manufacturing sector will have the opportunity to get a free service that enables them to perform self-paced, fast and effective learning.