4 X 4: methodology to design a set of 4 MOOCs between 4 entities under the same topic: Erasmus + smart rehabilitation 3.0 project

Abstract

Smart Rehabilitation 3.0 project, co-funded by European program Erasmus +, aims to define a new professional profile of “Building Rehabilitation Expert” and the creation of homogeneous curricula, validated at European level.

One of the research lines of the project is the development of 4 Massive On Line Open Courses (MOOCs) for the training of these experts within the framework of higher education, which is a pressing need, taking into account that housing stock in Europe, built before 1960, reaches 37% in South Europe, 42% in North&West Europe and 35% in Central and East Europe. The working team is led by the Rehabimed association, and the partners are the Association of European Experts in Building & Construction from Ireland (AEEBC), together with four universities: Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – Barcelona Tech (UPC); University of Lituania (KTU); University of Cyprus (UCY); University of Palermo (UNIPA). The latter 4 are the ones that have mainly developed the 4 MOOCs.

This paper will explain the different steps to design the structure of a set of 4 MOOCs sharing a common topic, the improvement of rehabilitation skills for building professionals, with the added complexity of 4 different countries involved in their development. This collaborative work for a common objective was based on an apparent contradiction: the existing (historic) buildings of each of the countries involved, respond to their very particular materials and construction traditions. So, how to teach rehabilitation strategies that could be applied globally?

This has been the great difficulty, but also the great richness of the final result. Aspects such as choosing the topics in which each of the partners could contribute greater knowledge, defining the common structure to all the 4 courses, deciding the main communication languages and subtitles, and the complexity of management to find a common digital platform that could host the 4 courses in an interrelated manner, led to long and interesting debates, in which every intervention was one more step towards rapprochement between the different countries.

As a result, a replicable methodology will be shown for the collaborative design of MOOCs between various entities that pursue a common goal, but adapting the guidelines and action criteria to the particularities and scope of technological and economic capabilities of each country.