it-shape 5. newsletter

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER

5th issue November 2014

of 11

This project has been funded with support from the European Commission. This publication reflects the views only of the author,

and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.

Welcome to Ireland

23rd – 24th October, 2014

Demand for e-skills has been growing steadily

during the last years all over the world. According

to the study published in the frame of European e-

Skills Forum: “e-Skills shortages will result in an

excess demand of 384.000 ICT practitioners in

2015.” (Körte, W. B., Hüsing T.: Evaluation of the

Implementation of the EC's Communication on "e-

Skills for the 21st Century", Empirica, Bonn). An

important conclusion of related studies was, that

European companies "were increasingly struggling

to hire people who were competent in both

information technology and business

management. Companies need so called "T-

Shaped" professionals who enter the workforce

with a strong business understanding, ‘soft’ skills

and knowledge of leading-edge technology.”

(Fonstad, N., Lanivyn, B.: European e-Competence

Curricula development guidelines, Final Reports,

European Commission, European e-Skills Forum,

2010).

EUCIP Core - at European level recognized IT

qualification - is an answer exactly to this demand

as its competence framework strongly focuses on

the business skills related to the fundamental e-

skills. The certificate was established by CEPIS

(Council of European Professional Informatics

Societies) and has been used with success already

in seven European countries.

IT-Shape project aims to adapt EUCIP Core

certificate in the Hungarian Vocational Education.

The main impact of the project are the increased

chances of Hungarian (young and adult) people

getting their placement at enterprises, by offering

them internationally recognized, true pan-

European IT qualification.

Contents Welcome to Ireland ...............................................................1 The Dublin I-T Shape Meeting ................................................2

Meeting Day 1: ..................................................................2

Introduction .................................................................2

EUCIP System in the World ..........................................2

Planning Sustainability of the Results...........................3

Localisation of EUCIP Core Certification in Hungary .....3

Reports of Expert Groups .............................................4

Meeting Day 2 ...................................................................5

Welcome ......................................................................5

eLearning in Ireland ......................................................5

CLIL (Content and Language Integration Learning) ......6

Decisions Planning Future Actions ...............................7

Activities ................................................................................8 Group Dinner, Thursday Night ..........................................8

Cultural Event, Friday Afternoon ..................................9

News ...............................................................................10

Irish news stories on the topic of VET ........................10

Events ..............................................................................10

European e-skills 2014 Conference ............................10

Project basics .......................................................................11 Partnership ..........................................................................11 Target groups .......................................................................11 Objectives ............................................................................11 1.4 Work-packages ...............................................................11

This issue was published by:

ICS, Ireland

Editor: David Cleary

Copyright © IT-Shape Consortium

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER


of 11



The Dublin I-T Shape Meeting

Meeting Day 1:

Introduction

The third IT-Shape meeting, attended by representatives of the 10 project partners, took place on 24th and 25th October 2014 at the Irish Computer Society in Dublin. The Dublin meeting followed the Italian meeting which took place in April in Pontedera. The meetings occur regularly to evaluate, discuss and set new activities to be carried out by the project group. Jim Friars (CEO of the Irish Computer Society and Chairman of the EDCL Foundation) formally welcomed Mária Hartyányi (iTStudy Hungary Ltd) and the Hungarian and Italian delegation to Ireland. He said he was delighted that EUCIP Certification was

being introduced into Hungary, and he hoped it would make a positive contribution to the Vocational Education and Training sector. The meeting opened with Mária Hartyányi: (Project Coordinator, ITStudy Hungary Ltd), presenting an activity progress report, where she announced that the project results planned for the first year were completed and satisfactory. Mária emphasised the value of EUCIP Core, where she showed how it defines the “T”-Shaped profession concept of IT specialisation extended to include business knowledge and skills.

EUCIP System in the World

Pierfranco Ravotto (AICA) provided a presentation on the recognition of the EUCIP Core system in Europe and in the World. He said that the EUCIP Core qualification is at the beginning, in its infancy stage. In Italy there are approximately 1000 exams taken each year but year on year this number is steadily growing. He demonstrated how EUCIP currently aligns to e-CF (the common European eCompetence Framework supported by the European commission). He predicts that in the next few years, CEPIS (the representative body of national informatics associations), whose main aim is to promote the development of the information society in Europe, will be working to better align EUCIP to e-CF.

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER


of 11



Planning Sustainability of the Results

Mihály Kocza presented the results of a Hungarian survey involving the owners of SME’s. The main question being asked was “Are company owners interested in employing IT staff with EUCIP Core qualifications?”. This was a significant survey with 700 companies being asked to take part. 57 organisations responded. He reported that the result was very positive from the respondents, with 38% having IT employees without any certification or formal qualification. He concluded that this group would be a suitable target group.

Dr Imre Balogh (University of West Hungary), carried out an interesting study on matching the EUCIP Core syllabus to that of the Business IT curricula (BSc level) course currently being run at his university. The purpose was to see how closely they aligned to each other and to identify any gaps. He was satisfied to report that between 70 – 90% of the EUCIP Core syllabus is covered by the students taking the Business IT course. In his opinion, students studying Business IT could be prepared for taking EUCIP exams with some extra hours of training. Another interesting finding was that when asked, the students were in favour of adding a European recognized certificate to their qualifications. They believed it would add value alongside their degree.

Localisation of EUCIP Core Certification in Hungary

EUCIP core is divided into three modules, PLAN, BUILD, OPERATE. Three Expert Groups were setup to review each of these modules for suitability for the Hungarian VET sector. Each module group was to: 1. Evaluate the syllabus and mapping to the content in the three English course books. 2. Consider on how practice orientated are the modules 3. Review the QTB (question test base) in terms of its currency and level of difficulty. 4. Compare the content to current courses being offered to Hungarian business IT students.

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER


of 11



Reports of Expert Groups

Group 1 - Plan

Mária Hartyáni ( iTStudy Hungary Ltd), who is a member of the PLAN expert group, reported on well the module aligns to the HNRQ (Hungarian National Registry of Qualification). She said that the Plan module is not a typical business module nor a typical IT module, but more a hybrid course. She explained that this will mean teachers from both fields will need to collaborate to produce optimum resources when preparing students. Barna Éles (business teacher of OJSZIGK), the leader of the PLAN expert group estimated the Plan module would take 144 hours to teach (4 hours/week). He explained that students would find the technical terms and abbreviations used in the English course text their main difficulty, but the group agreed that as English is the universal language used in the IT industry, the English abbreviations ought to be retained.

Group 2 – Build

Erika Manyhárt the leader of the BUILD expert group said 100 hours training would be required to prepare students for the Build module but much of the content could be integrated into subjects currently being taught to IT Students. She felt that the test itself was based on theory with no practical questions and that she would have liked to have a mix between practical and theoretical assessment. She also said that some of the content refers to older technology and practices and would need to be updated. It was agreed to compile a list to forward to the ECDL Foundation for review and possible updating.

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER


of 11



Group 3 - Operate

Dr Ildikó Balassa (SZÁMALK) is the leader of the OPERATE expert group. She said that the content was about 90% current and provided the students with enough knowledge to answer every question in the test. Again, as with the previous presenter, she reported that some of the content needed to be changed to bring it up to date and that she would compile a list to submit to the ECDL Foundation to review. She was pleased to report that the Hungarian IT System Administrator training currently covers the OPERATE syllabus to between 80 -90%. She said that the EUCIP OPERATE could be offered to students undertaking the IT Administrator course who would like to have a recognized European qualification.

Meeting Day 2

Welcome

Maria welcomed the project team to the second day of the meeting, and said she hoped everyone enjoyed the group dinner in the Trocadero Restaurant the previous evening.

eLearning in Ireland

David Cleary (ICS) started the day 2 proceedings with a short demonstration of the online learning system employed by the Irish Computer Society. He followed up with a suggestion for a multilingual solution where the students can switch between English and Hungarian while attempting to answer questions in the practice test. He suggested that by using this method, students will become familiar with terms and expressions and question structures.

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER


of 11



CLIL (Content and Language Integration Learning)

Judith Gyulavári (NJSZKI) presented on CLIL (Content and Language Integration Learning). She began her presentation with an introduction to CLIL, and she explained that in Hungary it is run as an intensive language year, and that the question of who should teach this course is often asked, IT teachers or Language teachers or both? She said that content that is geared towards the specialist subject of the student is more interesting for them. This led to an engaging discussion in the group.

Adriana Fasulo (ISP), gave some details about using CLIL methodology at her school and that it was currently being run as an experiment or pilot. She also told the group that all EUCIP students at her school take the core module exams through English.

Iidikó contributed to this discussion, saying that her school had developed e-learning materials for teachers to teach English to IT students and she offered to make them freely available for this project. In conclusion, it was agreed that the Hungarian partners would develop support materials for VET teachers on how to use CLIL in preparing students for the EUCIP core exams.

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER


of 11



Decisions Planning Future Actions

The rest of the day 2 working session was spent making important decisions and planning next steps.

Decisions

1. Exams The deadline for EUCIP Core exams in Hungary was set to the period between Feb – Apr 2015. The agreed plan is to test 60 students through English and 80 students through Hungarian.

2. Certificates Mary Cleary (ICS) suggested that to be able to receive a certificate for each module completed would be a great benefit. She said that she asked the Foundation to consider and was now delighted to report that this will be possible as the Foundation have agreed to having individual module certificates for the purpose of this project only. This means that a student is eligible for a Certificate for each of the Core exams passed as well as ITAF.

3. Localisation of EUCIP Core Syllabus and tests - The ECDL Foundation has

agreed to review the syllabus and test items and to update as appropriate.

4. Localisation of EUCIP Core Textbooks - It was agreed to produce three separate text books for PLAN, BUILD and OPERATE.

5. EUCIP Core Structure Review - The group was concerned that the EUCIP Core structure may be modified over the next year. Mary said that the probability for this happening is not high, but that the Hungarian partners should take into consideration is the concept of e-CF during adaptation and localization.

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER


of 11



Activities

Group Dinner, Thursday Night

Dinner on Thursday night in the Trocadero restaurant in the centre of Dublin.

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER


of 11



Cultural Event, Friday Afternoon

A cultural event was organized on the evening of Friday 24th. This consisted of a walk through Trinity College and a guided tour of Dublin Castle.

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER


of 11



News

Irish news stories on the topic of VET

http://www.irishexaminer.com/business/skills-shortage-will-delay-recovery-290019.html

http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/apprenticeships-shortage-germany-system-ireland-1683823-Sep2014/

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/it-conversion-courses-not-all-employers-are-converts-

1.1990810

Events

European e-skills 2014 Conference

http://eskills2014conference.eu/

http://www.irishexaminer.com/business/skills-shortage-will-delay-recovery-290019.html

http://businessetc.thejournal.ie/apprenticeships-shortage-germany-system-ireland-1683823-Sep2014/

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/it-conversion-courses-not-all-employers-are-converts-1.1990810

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/education/it-conversion-courses-not-all-employers-are-converts-1.1990810

http://eskills2014conference.eu/

2013-1-HU1-LEO05-09615

it-shape.hu

NEWSLETTER


of 11



Project basics Acronym: I-T Shape Title: I-T Shape – Shape European Level Competitive IT Certification for the Hungarian Vocational Education Duration: 1.October 2013 – 30 September 2015 Action type: Transfer of Innovation Program: Leonardo da Vinci – LLL Subprogram Participating countries: Hungary, Italy, Ireland Website: http://it-shape.hu Contact: Mária Hartyányi, iTStudy Hungary Educational and Researching Centre, Hungary E-mail: [email protected], skype: hmaria718

Partnership ITSTUDY- iTStudy Hungary Ltd. HU AICA - Association of Italian Information Technology IT ISF - S Fermi in Pontedera IT ICS The Irish Computer Society IE SZÁMALK-Szalézi Vocational Highschool HU Öveges József Vocational and Grammar School HU Neumann János Vocational School for Information Technology HU Makó – Galamb József Agricultural Vocational School HU University of West Hungary HU Enterprise Development Foundation of Pest Country HU

Target groups Primary target group: Hungarian VET students, career changers, non-qualified IT practitioners, job-seekers looking to break into the industry, secondary target group: VET teachers and trainers, managers and employees of SMEs

Objectives Adaptation and localization of EUCIP Core in Hungary included its three Knowledge Areas (Plan, Build and Operate) Elaborate the detailed syllabuses and the Hungarian EUCIP Core Program Validating the results: piloting the first module by involving Hungarian teachers, 50-60 participants from vocational/university and adult educational institutes Accrediting EUCIP Core under the Hungarian Program Accreditation System.

1.4 Work-packages WP1 Project Management WP2 Analysis and Design WP3 EUCIP Core Adaptation WP4 EUCIP Core Localization WP5 Pilot trainings WP6 Evaluation WP7 Valorization WP8 Dissemination