Internal dissemination

ACTION no.1: Staff meetings Referring to the internal target audience IN1

Teaching staff of all faculties to be actively involved in the teaching activities, the planned actions are:

• Staff meetings regarding the study areas of the Intensive workshops (ISPs), to raise awareness for the theme, coordinate didactic activities, the contents of the lessons, the topics of the workshops and the expected results. Such coordination is necessary to the students. Also, it is expected to collect reflections, best practices and other materials for the online course.
• Online staff meetings to coordinate the Erasmus+ planned activities, to monitor their development and to evaluate their advances. These meetings are arranged periodically to provide frequent exchange of information and ideas among the staff.
• Exchange of information and documents on a dedicated web platform, to create a common virtual dwelling space despite the physical distance between the various academic venues.

== ACTION no.2: Selection of the course participants Referring to the external audience ==
National/international learners from various domains, the relevant tools of the innovative didactic methods are: virtual classrooms, wikis, and the learning management system. The dissemination should encourage their participation in the online course to enhance the development of knowledge and skills. The top priority is disseminating the online part of the module. It is not an open online course for an indefinite number of participants (i.e. 200+ active participants), because the size of the learning groups must be limited according to the characteristics of this learning process, which are: interaction, feedback and peer reviews. However, the online course is also available to the external audience OUT6 – National and international professionals can attend the lessons as auditors to learn a design methodology and improve their professional skills. For instance, professional bodies and associations can encourage the participation of their members in the online course in several ways, i.e. direct notices, website advertisements, grants for training credits to professionals who fulfil the planned activities (continuing professional development plans). The availability of the course will be communicated through various channels such as: project newsletter, press releases in multiple languages sent through the institutions’ distribution lists and the strategic use of social media addressing the related interest groups.

Each academic partner should announce the call for participation to the didactic module directly to its students, also informing the landscape schools regarding the content of the project, in order to widen the internal participation in the online activities. In fact, the curricular integration aspect is a key factor to enhance the overall programme. This can be implemented with the international mobility part of the blended learning activities (ISPs). Due to the budget, the participation in international mobility should be competitive, by opting for a selection process with specific criteria, to be clearly communicated to the interested subjects during their initial online course registration. Another advantage of introducing an online course within the academic curricula lies in its flexibility. The learning activities can either be embedded in a blended learning activity or they can be done completely online. Finally, as to be ready for further use, the constant updating of the online contents guarantee a stable basis for continuing the activities beyond the project’s timeframe.

ACTION no.3: Course participant network

It is of primary importance to develop a network of course participants, to sustain and disseminate the community experience gained during the blended learning activities. This community can be organised via social networks, i.e., Facebook. This activity contributes to the postfunding continuity of the course as well. Erasmus+ has an open access requirement for all materials developed by the projects it funds. Open educational platforms are an effective means to ensure free public access to intellectual outputs, tangible deliverables, scientific results and didactic methodologies. This Wiki is an example of a collaborative web-based platform to build shared knowledge and to highlight the outcomes of Erasmus+ projects. The programme participants can easily upload their materials on the Wiki and the contents can be updated at any time. Such a platform, however, requires a full respect of copyright and websharing laws. The learning materials produced for each module will be made available under the Creative Commons (CC) license (Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike). In addition to their further development, other educators will be able to reuse the materials and adapt them to their specific contexts. Experience plays a big role in developing the best strategies. Learning from personal and other’s experiences supports the achievements of better results. Reports, drawings, images and videos from international learning activities will be available for download from the project website and they will also be found via social media.

ACTION no.4: Enrolment of the local community and stakeholders both in the online course and the ISP (Intensive Study Programme) on site

At a later stage of the project, dissemination must overcome the limits of teachers and learners and it should be oriented towards tailored stakeholders, calling for interaction and cooperation between the research institutions and ther institutions such as the mass media, schools, art institutions, communities with various beliefs and volunteer associations. The ISP learning and research activities include the active involvement of a large range of local and regional stakeholders:
community members– local population, entrepreneurs, local and regional authorities, representatives of local and regional public social and cultural institutions, local and regional private companies, local and regional NGOs, local and regional professionals and researchers.

This involvement is to ensure both a proper knowledge of the study area issues and development aims, and their ongoing participation and feedback for defining and outlining the projects and development proposals of the students. Each partner is responsible for informing the relevant national stakeholders about the project activities via its distribution channels and for calling them to direct meetings (including mutual presentations and debates) with the students and teachers attending the ISP. This also includes informing the local and regional authorities. The ISP activities start with detailed presentations of the local and regional public and private representatives, including authorities, institutions, professionals, researchers and companies, on the national coastal area and the specific study area while further meetings and debates take place with the local community and other stakeholders. Also, especially during the ISPs, the project has the chance to develop a wide communication campaign, through newspapers, local mass media, seminars and meetings about the activities carried on both in the workshop and the programme as a whole. The project partners hosting the ISP ought to prepare a written manual describing the aims, contents, schedule, activities, academic participants (students and teachers) and local stakeholders.

At the end of the ISP, the hosting partner provides a booklet documenting the activities and their impacts on the local community. The format of the booklet is composed by the partners, along with coordination of its dissemination.