Important information
About MICROBE project
The International Monetary Fund expects the global economy in 2020 to suffer its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Pope Francis has said the fight against COVID-19 is now considered to be the most important in the world at this age.
The broader objective of the project – to upgrade the curricula with 3 new harmonized multidisciplinary, personalized MOOC modules on minimizing the influence of coronavirus and negative emotions in a built environment by applying behavior change (MICROBE) to increase cooperation for innovation and strategic partnerships for higher education, enhance the quality and relevance of knowledge of students to the global market needs and to ensure international cooperation.
Main objectives of MICROBE project:
- To upgrade curricula of MSc by adding 3 new multidisciplinary personalized, recognised and certificated MOOC modules on consumer behavior change related to MICROBE education, to enhance the quality and relevance of education in participating universities to global issues;
- To develop world-wide innovative MICROBE System. It comprises the following components: Video Neuroanalytics, Web-based opinion analytics and Recommender System for the Protection against COVID-19 and Depression Reduction in Built Environment and 3 new harmonized multidisciplinary personalized MOOC modules.
- To strengthen educational and scientific networking among EU universities in the MICROBE education.
The partner consortium represents all key stakeholders relevant to the project topic – 3 public universities with rich experience in MICROBE education and research (LT, EE and ES), 2 municipalities (LT and IT), 1 adult education providing organizations founded by universities, private companies and local authorities (BG) and 1 Foundation for Urban Innovation (IT). All Partners will play an important role in the realization of the project. The leading partners of the different activities are determined according to the partner’s competences and capacity to carry out the work.
The MICROBE project activities and applied methodology involves the following stages:
IO1: Personalized MOOC Modules on minimizing the influence of coronavirus and negative emotions in a built environment by applying behavior change (MICROBE):
- Stakeholders’ workshops.
- Development of MICROBE education framework.
- Development of guidelines and accreditation rules for the quality assurance of MOOCs.
- Preparation of the framework report for the common MICROBE curricula.
- Preparation of the report on common grounds for teaching and learning.
- Training of teaching staff and public employees.
- Development of the MICROBE personalized MOOCs content and teaching materials.
IO2: Development, testing and improvement of the MICROBE Method:
- Formulation of the research problem and goals.
- Analysis of former concepts, models, methods, and theories of MICROBE.
- Completion of a Data Protection Impact assessment.
- Portrayal of the Big Picture of the MICROBE.
- Development of the MICROBE Method.
- Testing and improvement of the MICROBE Method.
IO3: Development, testing and improvement of the MICROBE System:
- Formulation of the Research Problem.
- Literature Review.
- The Big Picture.
- Scanning a Human-Centered Built Environment and Collecting Data.
- The Integrated MICROBE Method (see IO2).
- Development of the MICROBE System.
- Multiple-Criteria Analysis of Alternatives.
- The MICROBE System Correlation Subsystem.
- Real-time negative emotions and possible COVID-19 indices in Vilnius
- Assessing the Accuracy of the MICROBE System through verification and validation.
The main results and impact envisaged will be achieved as follows:
- 3 new, personalized MOOC Modules developed;
- development of the MICROBE Method and System;
- education of 120 students and 21 training staff and public employees;
- real-time negative emotions and possible COVID-19 indices in Vilnius.
The influence of COVID-19, environment, and climate goals are closely related and are included in the MICROBE System. The main users of the MICROBE System are EU students, training staff, public employees, residents, governmental institutions and business companies. Dissemination of the project results will promote developments of sustainable built environment in EU countries. The project partnership expects that the successful project implementation will produce the following main longer-term benefits on European level:
- cover the needs for new, modern, experience-oriented and user-friendly approaches for the MICROBE field training for entrepreneurs and managers;
- improvement of the competitiveness of the target groups on Single European market in the MICROBE field;
- improvement of the attractiveness and use of MICROBE System products through setting up a good example and development of closer connections with the stakeholders
- (“multiplication effect”).
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