"The trend of digitalisation has entered all levels of public and private life, including education and training. However, adult education seems to stay behind the state of the art in utilising digitalisation for its own purposes. The Viral Skills project aims not only at catching up the adult education sector with more progressive sectors in education, but to go even a step further and integrate Virtual Reality (VR) features in the education of adults and especially in the utilisation of these technological benefits for low-skilled or low-qualified learners. Starting in October 2018, the Viral Skills project was originally planned for 24 months, but when the COVID-19 pandemic hit Europe, it was extended to an overall duration of 30 month in total, therefore finishing in March 2021. During this time and beyond, the Viral Skills project has been a pioneer act that enabled adult educators to become familiar with state-of-the-art Virtual Reality technology and paved the way to a more digitally advanced adult education sector by enhancing the digital competences of adult educators. A transnational and multi-professional partnership consisting of adult education providers, a social enterprise, an NGO and two higher education institutions from Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Cyprus, and Ireland has developed a well-interlaced suite of intellectual outputs:IO1) Viral Skills Digest: A survey and overview of recent VR hardware systems, their requirements concerning the technological devices and available room, including SWOT analyses for various types of VR systems according to their recommended field of use. IO2) Viral Skills Compendium and E-Thek: A useful handbook for adult educators and managers on how to integrate VR in adult learning. This includes a technical introduction to VR, the pedagogic state of the art, a country comparison between the partner countries and international, a target group survey with adult educators, and a special focus on low-skilled and low-qualified adults. A comprehensive additional element of the Compendium is the E-Thek, which is often considered as its own result due to the vast scope. The E-Thek is a collection of free VR software app descriptions that suit the needs of adult learners, including apps suitable for low-skilled and low-qualified adults. It offers information about various free apps from different VR software platforms.IO3) Viral Skills Training Programme: Based on the Compendium, a blended learning training programme has been developed. It covers 10 days of training, divided into 5 days of guided face-to-face learning settings and 5 days of self-directed online learning with webinars. All participates receive a certificate and the title of ""EU Viral Skills Educator"" with 3 ECVET Credit points.The Viral Skills Training Programme was tested in pilot phases in all partner countries and national multiplier events have been implemented, some of them only in an online context as they were happening during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Nonetheless, the project partnership was able to achieve the aims set and the Viral Skills project has achieved a massive impact on national and international level."

<< Background >>There is a common agreement among the agricultural society that feeding an extra two billion people by 2050 will require solutions relying heavily on innovative use of information and communication technologies (ICT). A commonly used term for the use of technological advances in the agriculture is “Agriculture 4.0” – sometimes considered to be the fourth agricultural revolution. Similar terms often used for this concept of ´Agriculture 4.0´ are ‘Smart Agriculture’, ‘Digital Farming’ or ´Digital Agriculture´, ICT4AG, ´Precision Agriculture´, ´Smart Farming´. The European Commission’s Digital Transformation Monitor (EC-DTM) concludes that ´Agriculture 4.0´ represents a process that will have a revolutionary effect on all of agriculture and even the global economy. Agriculture 4.0 is one of the lines of action set out in the Declaration and Action Plan of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Implementation of Smart ICT technologies is basically the way to strengthen the green economy: the low carbon industry, renewable energy resources, climate changes and handling the waste water.Project “Future IT for farms” (ITFARM) promotes the idea that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the power to change things across a broad spectrum of the society and schools and other executives need to be ready.<< Objectives >>ITFARM promotes the idea that the Fourth Industrial Revolution has the power to change things across a broad spectrum of the society: It is here and now, and schools and other executives need to be ready. The old way of doing things is not enough anymore, and education (for both young and adult) will be the first embracing all facets of ´Industry 4.0´ and all the opportunities it will bring.Providing education for family farm entrepreneurship based on integrated digitization of business production processes following challenges of the ´Agriculture 4.0´ revolution is an opportunity of a great benefit. These are opportunities addressing the goal of the ITFARM project:Develop and provide education for family farm entrepreneurship based on integrated digitization of business processes following challenges of 2nd ICT revolution, in case of agriculture of ´Agriculture 4.0´ technologies. Analyse entrepreneurial activities of the family farms and evaluate the curriculum content from the point of view of motivation and mediation of the entrepreneurial skills of owners, managers and employees who mostly need adult/vocational tailor-made education.Development of study materials and teaching tool-kits tailor-made for family farms owners and employees to familiarize farmers with the newest technologies. Help farmers to transform their production activities to new standards based on implementation of the 2nd ICT revolution. Support of VET teachers focused to education of future employees and owners of family farms and to seeking talents. The project will strengthen the green components in existing VET education programs.Information for decision makers and other relevant stakeholders, who will participate directly and indirectly in the transformation of the production process of the family farms.The project’s aim is also to harmonize the needs of all involved targets and bring effective solutions that can help them to be more prepared and open to each other.<< Implementation >>The project is based on previous research provided by using a mix of quantitative and qualitative surveys at the involved universities and practical experience in teaching a training of adults. All partners were/are involved in EU projects with impacts to innovations. The project does not aspire to be scientific, but its primary aim is to make science available to farmers so that they can understand it and be able to respond to the innovative demands of the digital society. Universities will prepare the methodology and study materials; other partners will adapt results to national/regional needs. The consortium will ensure the wide dissemination of relevant materials among users. The project starts with the research survey (carried out by questioning) among farmers, SMEs, manufactures and distributors of relevant ICT technologies in order to identify the current state of ´Agriculture 4.0´ application levels, the knowledge competencies and requirements of farmers, the social, economic and environmental conditions in which the target groups live and do business.Based on the survey, ITFARM develops study materials and provide courses, tailor-made for family farms owners, managers and employees, to involve the newest ICT technologies and the concepts into daily farm practices. Pilot testing of the study portfolio and study courses in the test beds will give information to reflect on and re-engage developed study materials.<< Results >>The study portfolio consists of curriculum and pedagogical guide, syllabi, study modules developed in the form of study units, study supports and tool kits, cases, exercises, hand-outs. The website will offer farmers a comparison of the different technologies offered by technology equipment suppliers on the market.The project results will be available and accessible for free on the e-learning portal Moodle and the project websites where will be possible to either to use them online and/or download. All developed study materials and courses will be fully available VET teachers and interested bodies. Support of VET teachers will be focused to education of future employees and owners of family farms and to seeking talents.In addition to economic effects, the implications of ´Agriculture 4.0´ can be much further impacting social and environmental issues in the farming industry, life in regions and in the society in general.ITFARM will speak the language of farmers, SMEs and is user-friendly for them.

The development of guidance services for adults within the workforce is a topical concern. Dramatic changes in work structures and social organization have occurred that are placing demands on adults to rethink their careers on an on-going basis. Added to this, are current EU policies that emphasise the need for continuous education for future economic and social mobility in an increasingly competitive global environment. The ACUMEN project consortium are of the opinion that traditional career guidance, although still relevant and important as a school-based or institution-based service, is wholly unsuitable to meet the needs of adults already in the workforce and that there is a considerable gap in the market for freely available and easily accessible career management training resources to help adults take control of their own career trajectory. Career management is a continuous process that occurs throughout one's career and not just at discrete times. It may be helpful to think of career management as a philosophy and set of habits that enable adults achieve career goals and develop career resiliency. Career management skills are like 'labour market literacy'. Adults in the workforce who have developed the necessary skills should be able to assess where the labour market is going; consider new skill areas that are appropriate to their own strengths and preferences; develop a personalized learning plan and map-out their career pathway to sustainable and rewarding work based on an understanding of potential future skill needs. Successful career management is accomplished through regular habits of building relationships, engaging in career development conversations, updating your career development plan, and setting new goals as life and career needs change. Being proficient at career management also means possessing basic skills related to job searching and managing change in a resilient manner.The Career Management Skills Framework for Scotland, published in July 2012, describes career management skills set around 4 themes of Self; Strengths; Horizons; Networks. This framework will be the basis for the ACUMEN project and consortium partners will develop a complete suite of tools and resources that address each of the above themes and support adults within the workforce or those seeking employment to identify an appropriate career progression pathway. The ACUMEN project will develop these new resources for adult learners in the UK, Ireland, Cyprus, Italy, Austria, Czech Republic, Germany and Finland. It will be the first project to comprehensively address career management skills in a European context and will provide tools and resources that are localized to meet the needs of adult learners in each partner country. Furthermore, ACUMEN will provide free on-line access through the most popular on-line platforms to all tools and resources developed. All resources and on-line platforms will be available in partner languages.

The main aim of the project EU-StORe - European Standards for Open Education and Open Learning Resources is to conceptualise and implement a European inventory of open learning resources, to analyse open learning scenarios and open learning resources, and to create shared common European standards and guidelines for open learning.Open education and open learning resources are actually one of the main educational topics in the EU. In the vision paper on open education 2030 J. M. Pawlowski stated that education is distributed on a global market. Therefore, he argued it is crucial for Europe to engage a broadcommunity in cross-border collaboration to be successful in this field. In the vision paper ´Open Education 2030´ he comes up with six recommendations: (see Pawlowski, p. 78)1. to create an inventory of OER and OEP2. to integrate existing communities3. to integrate curricula4. to create regional networks5. to create global outreach programs6. to support open education policy building !One aim is, that like in a huge store, online learning resources and open learning should be provided all over Europe for free. Although it is a big chance to make education available for a broad European group of interested learners, teachers, and trainers, there is no quality assuranceof the courses, learning resources, and open measures. Pedagogical material and education will be risky, if there are no standards to make sure that the content is correct and didactically well-prepared concerning the aims of the project, the didactical methods, the structure, the level of difficulty, the provided information and tasks as well as concerning the needs of the target groups. In former educational concepts experts wereresponsible to design the curriculum, courses and the learning materials. Nowadays, with unstructured and widely varying creation of content we have to create standards and guidelines to ensure these quality aspects and foster quality to fight social disadvantages, which can occur via wrong, unstructured or misleading information and knowledge. Especially disadvantaged and marginalised groups in European society can suffer from misleading information due to the fact that they face lots of challenges. For example it might be possible that they have fewer chances to identify problems and quality deficits of provided open educational resources themselves. This is the point where EU-StORe comes into action. It is based on the recommendations of Pawlowski and the EU and builds an inventory of online learning resources. Moreover, experts analyse these materials and courses and create standards for open learning activities, which provide a high quality. This leads to guidelines and standards that can be used (a) to create open learning scenarios in the future and (b) to rate existing open learning activities and resources. To integrate this information in the European learning community the standards are provided on an online platform where the inventory is also accessible. This is a basis to foster curricular design and the work of regional networks. The guidelines and standards have to be combined with policy papers, which engage ministries, the European Commission and multipliers in the field of education in different European countries in the process of implementing the standards.In order to conceptualize the inventory, to analyse it and to create standards EU-StORe uses partners who are experts in:• Didactics and open learning / training courses• Developing e-learning concepts• Developing online technology and platform design, ICT design• Dissemination activities and exploitation• Standards and norm creating• Evaluating education programmes• Policy counsellingIn former times educational concepts experts were responsible to design the curriculum, courses and the learning materials. Nowadays, with unstructured and widely varying creation of content we have to create standards and guidelines to ensure these quality aspects and foster quality to fight social disadvantages, which can occur via wrong, unstructured or misleading information and knowledge. This was the point where EU-StORe comes into action. It was based on the recommendations of Pawlowski and the EU and builds an inventory of online learning resources. Moreover, experts have been analysed these materials and courses and created standards for open learning activities, which provide a high quality. This leaded to guidelines and standards that can be used (a) to create open learning scenarios in the future and (b) to rate existing open learning activities and resources. In order to integrate this information in the European learning community the standards were provided on an online platform where the inventory is also accessible. This is a basis to foster curricular design and the work of regional networks. The guidelines and standards have been combined with policy papers, which engage ministries, the European Commission and mu

Innovation is a key source of competitiveness and sustainable economic growth, which has earned major political attention and corporate interest in the partner countries. In one hand there are increasing number of support programs/financial aids to promote innovation, on the other hand social innovation is still in its infancy, nevertheless there is much need for such initiatives in the fast changing social and economic environment of the digital era. There is much need for such initiatives in the fast changing social and economic environment of the digital era. With Coop-in project our partnership aims to raise awareness about the advantages of implementing social innovation at work by developing a complex Social Innovation Training kit for the most important potential actors of the field, primarily focusing on corporate VET trainers and mentors. Social innovation is often seen as a privilege of charity based organisations, and not as a skill/knowledge/know-how that has its well deserved place in a company's knowledge portfolio. However, social innovation can make an important impact on the world of work, reduce costs or lead to higher revenue (e.g. by creating a work conditions where employees are more satisfied and produce better; where diversity can bring an added value and new ideas, products, processes). As a topic it is still in its infancy in the partner countries and in Europe. There is a need for VET teacher/trainers and business coaches and advisors to better understand how to facilitate and support enterprises to exploit social innovation. Coop-in will encourage individuals, groups and organisations that would otherwise not participate in social innovation. In this sense, Coop-in partnership addresses all those actors whose cooperation would accelerate social innovation in the societies. The project partnership believes that collaboration is a key, not only for the successful realization of the present project but also for the systematic promotion and sustainable management of social innovation. The target audience of Coop-in project therefore is fairly wide. The project builds on the latest educational trends, applying gamification and micro learning approaches; enhances commitment, learning motivation by game elements; and micro-learning and scenario-based learning approach to ensure learning efficacy. Coop-in Social Innovation Training kit includes a game based learning platform enhancing practical approach on social innovation and collaboration, b-learning course book, self-assessment tool for social innovation scrutiny, an offline toolkit comprising co-working exercises and group dynamics with major attention on the recent CEN/TS 16555-5 innovation management standard. Based on our background research in the partner countries, currently there is no such a multi-lingual open learning portal in Europe that enables a complex methodological, theoretical and practical training on social innovation like the one described in Coop-in project. Furthermore, the application of the European Innovation Management Standard on Collaboration Management in VET is a novelty as well. The standard ensures a systematic approach for VET training and enables the development of strategic business partnership between corporate sector, VET providers and educational institutions.