<< Background >>DECEL project bursts as an initiative of a group of teachers from the Engineering disciplines, at a time when the European Commission has presented two major initiatives aimed at unlocking Europe´s potential on education and innovation: the Communication on the European Education Area, and the introduction of the updated Digital Education Action Plan, whose purpose is to support the use of technology in education and the development of digital competences. Paradoxically enough, although engineering courses probably use the most sophisticated software tools to program, design or simulate, teaching processes in this field are still based upon traditional learning methodologies, with limited or no bilateral interaction promoted in most of them, and where the role of the teacher remains that of a mere lecturer in front of a passive cohort of students. In other words, while this increasing technological sophistication is being used in our classrooms to calculate things the teaching activity has proved to be hermetic to the use of this young and fresh tools to dynamize the learning process.Moreover, and equally disturbing, despite the global expanding tendency of this sort of studies, and the common use of the English language as a learning vehicle, the Erasmus+ Impact Study (2019) clearly evinces a deficit in the participation of Engineering students in international mobility programmes. This might be the result, among other circumstances, of the high level of experimentally into the Engineering fields all the technical courses, which are the most important part in the syllabus, and the handicap that may pose access to expensive lab equipment at any time and from anyplace. Against this situation, our project seeks a crucial movement from a reactive to a pro-active strategic approach in the design of Digital Electronic Systems courses; a movement that shall depart from the added value of using technology in our curricula to mainstreaming a digitally enhanced learning and teaching; a movement, to say the least, that shall stop having a traditional focus on internationalization based on mobility as part of our home degrees, to understand that we should explore internationalization of the curriculum and the teaching and learning process as the beacon for innovation in this studies. From the university level, new Erasmus+ Calls such as Alliance of European Universities are promoting the construction of joined schemes between several universities. These ones are usually constructed under a high-level perspective using a bottom-up approach. However, the teachers involved in regular activities as teaching have not had the chance to promote some type of European collaboration. Joining the need of promoting internationalization in our students, apply new pedagogical tools in curricular courses, extending European teaching cooperation and take advantage of new software/hardware resources, DECEL project is proposed.<< Objectives >>Against this background, our proposal to incorporate digital online technology into subject-specific teaching and learning through a transnational collaborative network, not only attaches a crucial importance to contribute to the main goals of the European Education Area, and the design the Digital Education Action Plan, but also sets a step forward in the modernization of a set of curricular courses from the area of Digital Electronics Systems through new pedagogical instruments, internationalization at home and the use real remote labs.We say modernize because we must teach using the new and proper tools to reach the requested and expected student skills from labor market. Because the new instruments article a new scenario where the interaction between the students-students and teacher-students can generate mutual benefits to learn better the concepts and promote transversal skills. The full set of digital tools are here to ease the study process to our students and they are not frequently used in our regular lectures.Thus we want to progress in the modernization of Digital Electronics Systems through:1.- Including collaborate on-line international learning (COIL) in curricula courses. We would like to promote the student-student interaction from an international perspective. Discovering them that the cooperation with other European colleagues can improve our technical and transversal skills.2.- To develop a common scheme of real remote labs for giving access 24/7 to those resources. Enabling the use of labs to any student from any part of the word.3.- Development of a common platform to spread the information and resources. Just one hub to concentrate open educational resources (OERs), exporting from other learning management systems (LMS).4.- Learning procedures of new pedagogical tools applied to Engineering. We will adapt novel teaching methods to the Engineering field with its features such as the high level of experimentally in these courses (hands-on labs).5.- Establishing a framework applied to Digital Electronics Systems for its modernization. The definition of a procedure could support further deployments of modernization in other fields of Engineering with similar conditions.<< Implementation >>DECEL project is using the facilities promoted by KA220 Call such as project outputs, learning activities and multiplier events. Based on this we have organized the implementation stage as follows:Outputs: We have divided the workload in five project outputs (O):O1: Assessment and establishment of pedagogical tools and methods applied to reconfigurable digital electronics field. This output is oriented to the teachers and ways to learn and apply new pedagogical approaches.O2: Digital enhancement of real remote labs. Creation of remote labs from several courses in each university.O3: Open Remote Resources: Definition and implementation of a methodology to share on-line resources. This project output is oriented to the creation of a working platform to host and share OERs, remote labs and COIL tools.O4: Design and implement pilot COIL virtual exchange projects. Applying COIL techniques in regular courses of Digital Electronics Systems working by pairs of European studentsO5: Developing of a common structure model for the implementation of modernized courses. The aim of this output is to collect all DECEL outcomes and experiences and create a scheme which will be shared among other colleagues.Learning activities. Because the two main target groups are teachers and students, we have composed a set of three learning activities:C1 (teachers): Applying novel pedagogical methods and tools to the teaching activity for Digital Electronics. Systems. The main goal of this short training is to learn from professionals of pedagogical tools in order to change the traditional teaching activity. Several methods will be explored and adapted to curricula courses in Engineering.C2: DECEL Innovation Fest. Aiming an international experience taking a advantage of a blended format (a first virtual stage + a face-to-face stage) international teams of students will address a common project based on Digital Electronics Systems. Several workshops and webinars will be conducted by teachers from DECEL in order to teach in specific technical fields.C3: Internationalization of DECEL participants through a Digital Electronics Intensive Training. Also playing with a blended format, new international teams will work together in internal competition to solve a challenge. As C2, the promotion of different type of skills and internationalization approaches will be handled in this training.Regarding Multiplier Events, DECEL project will organize just one at the end of the project (“A new trend within teaching Digital Electronics System: new methods applying remote-labs and novel tools”). The goal of this event is to share and spread DECEL experiences with other teacher colleagues from Europe. To validate the DECEL project through best practices.<< Results >>According to the project distribution, each project result will produce several outcomes and results. 1.- Adaptation of curricula courses using new teaching methods.2.- Evaluation of satisfactory level and student performance through new methods.3.- Creation of real remote labs for different courses of Digital Electronics Systems (microprocessors and Field Gate Programmable Gate Array) working 24 hours 7 days.4.- Introducing real remote labs in our curricular courses as an extra tool to give more freedom to the students.5.- Open our facilities to the world through real remote labs.6.- Creating a common software platform to share open educational resources including remote labs and COIL pilots.7.- Fostering COIL demonstrators through the partners to promote the European cooperation between universities at different levels: students and teachers.8.- Creating a framework to extend and deploy DECEL to other domains.In addition we would like to comment the untouchable resources and outcomes produced by the proposed events and activities:9.- The execution of training for teacher will consolidate a group of teachers working in the same field with common interest to improve the teaching activity. Also, the study of success cases and other without the same result, will generate a set of tips and best practices to be applied in new courses in the future. 10.- Internationalization of Engineering students. We would like to tackle the internationalization of engineering students from a new way: short-courses in other university (learning activities), creation of international teams for a common goal and internationalization at home through COIL initiatives.11.- Fostering the European collaboration. To validate the need of working together in an European way to enhance and modernize our Universities adapted to the 21st Century.

"Eure.K has set itself the aim of producing a recommendation document based on experience developed during the course of the project on the procedures applied for recognizing, validating and certifying European key competences in the field of vocational training and adult education.Initiated in 2016, Eure.K thus conducted its studies concurrently with the development of the 2016 European Parliament and Council Recommendation revision that provides a Reference Framework on Key Competences for Lifelong Learning. The recommendation revision resulted in the new Recommendation of 22 May 2018 which advocates in particular “further developing the assessment and validation of key competences acquired in different settings (…)” (see § 3.3 of the recommendation) by an application of best practices. The Recommendation specifies in its annex that “different approaches to assessment of key competences in non-formal and informal contexts could be developed” (see Annex, C,c). The Eure.K project thus anticipated the new recommendation by providing the first contribution to the sharing of practices called for by the European Council. The Eure.K project has involved university professors and researchers (Lisbon and Algarve; Padua, Italy; Le Cnam, France), training organizations and networks (APap in France, Le Forem in Belgium), business training resource centre organizations (Politecnico Calzaturiero, Italy) and knowledge dissemination institutions (Istituto Sturzo). Each partner was involved in the development and analysis of one of these practices. Partners were also involved within the Steering Committee in a general reflection: the Committee thus operated as a collective player, members of the committee being collectively responsible for specific projects led by their colleagues. The diversity of member profiles within the Steering Committee was therefore a source of enrichment and a significant asset. The committee first examined the use of the European Reference Framework by actors and institutions working in the field of vocational and adult education. The framework cannot and should not be applied “mechanically”. On the contrary, starting from the actual context of actors and institutions, from the purposes they pursue and from the target audiences involved is necessary to understand the use of the reference Framework, even if this means amending it to fit the context.This is what the project undertook by conducting 10 “action-research” studies.Each partner within the consortium was involved in the implementation of schemes in the 4 countries represented in the project so as to give an account, taking their own specificities into consideration, of the use of the Reference Framework. Target groups varied from people with low levels of education but with a significant life experience to doctoral students. Implementation contexts were diverse, varying from the field of social inclusion to company or professional development contexts as well as formal training. Objectives of the schemes could be the empowerment of individuals through self-recognition of prior experience, employability, professional qualification or simply assigning a value to prior learning acquired from remarkable experiences.The project therefore provided to all actors and institutions concerned a restitution of unique experimentations which showed, based on the experimentations themselves, the multiple possible uses that can be made of the reference framework. Although it may be amended, supplemented or clarified, the framework nevertheless serves as a reference without imposing a normative “Framework”.By formalizing strengths and points of concern which emerged from the great variety of experiments, the project also contributed in a first sharing of findings. This is the subject of the document called the ""Memorandum"", in which six recommendations are thus set out. Its aim is to share with all the actors and institutions wishing to be involved in processes and schemes for the recognition, validation and certification of skills, the lessons learnt from the experimentations themselves as well as from their collective analysis. The recommendations are only valid within the scope of the 10 "" action-research "" studies. They simply have the ambition of being useful in the design and ""engineering"" phase of these schemes."