This Erasmus+ - MOOCs IN BASIC SKILLS TRAINING - is based on the valuable experiences gained through a previous Erasmus + project - BASIC SKILLS IN WORKING LIFE (2016-1-NO01-KA204-022071). The new project is a continuation of this project with the same partnership.The partnership consist of FONIX from Norway (leade partner), BEST from Austria, STEP from Slovenia, CITEVE from Portugal and CONFAPI from Italy.One of the main outcomes the Erasmsu+ project BASIC SKILLS IN WORKING LIFE consisted of a large number of quantitative and qualitative data collected from eight different branches in six countries. All results and reports are thoroughly documented on the project's website: http://www.basicskillsinworkinglife.no/From the data collected, we observed that across all countries and branches the need of soft skills was more valued than the need of technical skills. By soft skills, we defined the “character traits and interpersonal skills that characterize a person's relationships with other people, they are to do with who people are, rather than what they know. Therefore, they encompass the character traits that decide how well one interacts with others. In workplace they are considered a complement to hard skills”. In this new project MOOCs IN BASIC SKILLS TRAINING we plan to take these findings to a higher level and take into account for further discussion and development the following issues: 1. Soft skills are more needed than occupational skills in the “new” industry. The question is how these will enhance low skilled employees, and how we can prepare a curriculum for better training for the target group. 2. If common training framework for low skilled employees is to be put in place; how to accommodate all partners’ needs?To answer these questions we will conduct a project that produce curriculums for practical training courses on the most important social skills in working life, supporting digital learning maps and combined and incorporated with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The target groups in the project MOOCs IN BASIC SKILLS TRAINING are low skilled workers with a demand for new skills and / or formal coalification in terms of soft skills in working life. In this project, we are specially aiming for employees in companies / branches where the demand for the new skills are generated as a result of technological changes and / or new digitalized production methods. The project MOOCs IN BASIC SKILLS TRAINING will work in three phases that each are covered and defined by an Intellectual Output:IO1 First we will create concrete curriculums for training courses based on the results from our previous Erasmus+ project. We have a lot of materials since we already explored and developed this with practical training and pilots in each partner country, as well as a Teacher-Training-Event in Portugal in 2017.IO2 Secondly, based on the curriculums we will produce digital learning maps in accordance with each curriculum for employees with low basic skills. The learning maps will both function as individual “skill checkers” and important motivation tools as well as concrete learning material for online courses.IO3 At last – and as the major output from this project - we will produce three different Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to support the online training. The main outcome of this project is practical focusing on producing minimum three MOOCs that can be presented and distributed on many different platforms throughout the partner countries. Each MOOCs will be minimum 30 minutes long and will be produced in English with subtitles in each countries language. The MOOCs can also be linked to “classrooms” inside the companies as well to other national and international digital learning platforms that are used by providers all over Europe.This offers a multi-perspective and practical view on how and why providers should implement basic skills training in communication and soft skills as an important strategy for training for employees in a modern working life.

"Europe's population is getting older. The share of people aged 65 years and over is increasing in every EU Member State, EFTA and candidate country (Eurostat '17). Turkey, e.g., is one of the world's youngest countries, but it is among the top 10 in the world's fastest ageing. The situation of demographic change is similar in the other partnering country in this project: Austria, Latvia, Spain, Italy. Correspondingly, the growth rates for travellers over 65 years have been increasing over the years - and are even higher than those of other age groups (Analyse Lifestyle 2017). In Spain, e.g. the national institute of statistics censed 3,593,857 travellers, on average 43 years old (2017) and they have seen an increase of 5% in terms of travellers who decide to consume a rural getaway more than once a year. - To this, the tourism sector needs improvement based on new educational approaches and instruments that the ""Silver Travellers"" project wants to provide in order to upgrade respective customer services offered.TANGIBLE RESULTS of the project: The SILVER TRAVELLERS project aims, through the development of mobile learning and professionals' key skills learning material relevant to the labour market and considering the usage of European Instruments (ECVET/ECTS) to close an existing gap in the provision of modern technology learning in the rural tourism sector facing new market challenges. The SILVER TRAVELLERS (IO1) aims at providing access to formal contents that can be used as mobile learning. Hence, this project will provide formal and sequenced learning objects using prompts in different formats, namely audio, text, videos e.g. Being open to public for free download; a Creative Common Licence will be agreed in the partner contracts. (Horizontal priority of Open education and innovative practices in a digital era).Our project also develops SILVER TRAVELLERS - professionals' key skills: skills cards for improved learning pathways and learning material that answer initial and continuous vocational training aspects.The project wants to: provide VET/ HE for working in tourism education with systematic approaches to and opportunities for the initial and continuous professional development of their staff in both school and work-based settings, support educators in this field with new technology solutions for their training.Rural tourism enterprises shall receive results and have a clear competitive advantage by employing Silver Travellers' trained staff and thereby better attract new customer segments to their benefits. Main participants: - Tourism SMEs (mainly in rural areas of the partner countries) and their staff, receiving new skills and benefits- Educators applying the SILVER TRAVELLERS instruments and working with target groups from the tourism sector focused on opening new niche markets Actively participating in the project: 100 partner staff members, 200 learners, 100 VET/tourism provider organisation reps, 80 policy makers/stakeholders Through the application of the European Qualification Framework (EQF) during this process, the VET system will improve its quality and the participating training institutions will benefit from increased internationalisation, through the transnational cooperation within the project consortium. A Peer Group consisting of trainers, job counsellors, tourism representatives will offer feedback throughout analysis and definition of the key competences and the creation of the new skills cards and mobile learning contents. The project consortium is composed of six partners: The educational institution Turkish Vocational College of Tourism, the Sera Lake Hotel, BEST Institut (a private training institute), KOAN a tourism consultancy, the Latvian Country Tourism Association and CONFAPI (a social partner in Italy) provide the necessary expertise and network in the field of Tourism and also the important link to the business sector. The College will provide academic input to research analysis and the OER infrastructure; BEST will contribute to the project with its extensive experiences related to the recognition and validation of skills as well as the creation of new learning material. KOAN will provide tourism sector related contents and know-how of new market trends. The other bring in the tourism businesses with all their members in this sector.Via new learning forms and instruments, the SILVER TRAVELLERS project will strongly and concretely support educational provision for micro to small sized tourism business and improve related standards in the involved partner countries: By making use of intensive network activities throughout all project activities, it also lays the ground for further internationalisation of the project, its results and innovative results."

Fønix AS in Norway has been the coordinator of an Erasmus+ KA2 project: Basic Skills in Working Life. The project has involved partnership from Norway (Fønix AS), UK (The Manchester Colle), Portugal (CITEVE), Slovenia (STEP Institute), Austria (BEST) and Italy (CONFAPI). This has been a good working partnership since it represented both adult learning organizations with a good working relationship to basic skills in working life (Fønix, The Manchester College and STEP Institute), and representatives from different business branches with a good working network to relevant companies (CONFAPI and CITEVE).The project included 5 Intellectual outputs, 1 Teacher Training Event in Porto; Portugal and 1 Multiplier Event in form of a two seminars in Rome, Italy A summary of the project results are as following:•A qualitative report regarding what the future may look like for the low skilled and low educated workers in the perspective of formal vocational education end certification in each of the partner countries.•An identification of critical factors/success criteria to succeed with basic vocational education/training and certification in different types of branches/companies in each partner country. •Practical training/pilots in some dedicated companies/branches in three of the partner countries – Italy, Slovenia and Portugal.•A lot of good examples from «lessons learned» from the pilot projects together with the practical outcome from the multiplier event with the teachers/trainers and the evaluatorsOne of the main outcomes of the project consisted of a large number of quantitative and qualitative data collected from eight different branches in six countries. All results and reports are thoroughly documented on the project's website: http://www.basicskillsinworkinglife.no/In the Basic Skills in Working Life project, we specially targeted for companies / branches where the demand for new skills was generated due to technological changes and / or new digitalized production methods. From the data collected, we observed that across all countries and branches the need of soft skills was more valued than the need of technical skills. By soft skills, we defined the “character traits and interpersonal skills that characterize a person's relationships with other people, they are to do with who people are, rather than what they know. Therefore, they encompass the character traits that decide how well one interacts with others. In workplace they are considered a complement to hard skills”. The major findings from the project can be summarized as the following:•There is a recognized demand for more basic soft skills in companies.•The three most recognized demands can be summarized as:The ability to adapt to change at workThe ability to maintain trustful relationship with customers / colleaguesThe ability to work autonomouslyThe main target group in our project was teacher / trainers that was working with employees with low basic skills in working life. This was a main target group from the beginning of the project and did not change during the project period.The project was successful by reaching a significant number of teachers / trainers, especially in Norway, UK and Portugal. In addition to this we also reached a number of leaders / representatives from companies from different branches in each of the partner countries.We also reached a large number of leaders / representatives form international and Italian companies during the two end seminars in Rome, Italy.The results from the Basic Skills in Working Life project is taken further in a new Erasmus+ KA2 project that was granted in the 2019 round. In this new project MOOCs IN BASIC SKILLS TRAINING we plan to take the findings to a higher level and take into account for further discussion and development the following issues: 1. Soft skills are more needed than occupational skills in the “new” industry. The question is how these will enhance low skilled employees, and how we can prepare a curriculum for better training for the target group. 2. If common training framework for low skilled employees is to be put in place; how to accommodate all partners’ needs?To answer these questions we will conduct a project with the same partnership that produce curriculums for practical training courses on the most important social skills in working life, supporting digital learning maps and combined and incorporated with Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).