Intellectual output (IO1)

Virtual Reality experiments simulated selected physical experiments that were not actually carried out during studies due to dangers or the effort involved, in a 3D, realistic, and content-correct representation. This concept was demonstrated in the PARFORCE settings by real, physical experiments, which were presented and located in a virtual environment with certain interaction possibilities. The main innovative objective was the availability of elaborate experiments that were not standard but were carried out at specialized institutes, to a potentially huge community of students. In the present project, these were boundary layer wind tunnel experiments at the Ruhr University Bochum, non-destructive and destructive experiments on shake tables at the Institute of Earthquake Engineering and Engineering Seismology (IZIIS), and fire tests at the University of Aveiro. This enabled the expansion of the educational opportunities for a broad group of students at the partner universities. The master students of civil engineering courses at the universities of Weimar and Osijek acted as pilot users in the project. One aim was to open up the different model ideas in experiments in civil engineering and to communicate them to the students. This was done in an internationalized and digitized way.

The Didactic Meeting at Bochum (see Transnational Project Meeting) was intended to present a comprehensive overview of the possibilities and offers of eLearning in the PARFORCE project. Digital tools, as well as possible application scenarios, were discussed, and different support options were shown. The aim was to use this information to motivate the planned further steps for the implementation of digital synchronous and asynchronous teaching offers. The event looked at how online cooperation could be well planned and structured. In this context, participants learned about the characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of different tools for online cooperation and possible application scenarios. Additionally, topics were addressed that frequently caused problems in practice, e.g., active participation or feedback.

The aim of the introduction was to familiarize participants, namely students and teaching and non-teaching staff, with the use of the basic and advanced possibilities of Moodle. Based on an exercise course, the course setup, the provision and administration of documents, the sensible use of communication and collaboration tools, and the development of automatically evaluable tasks were trained (GrAFOS). The course focused on the use of communication and collaboration tools in Moodle. These included forums, wikis, blogs, diaries (journals), videoconferencing, and glossaries. In addition, the joint work in a chat room and the maintenance of a database were discussed. By means of a demo course, the participants got a vivid insight into the handling of the different collaborative possibilities. The calendar of events and the corresponding time schedule were built and tracked within the Moodle environment. In the course of the event, a demo course provided advanced knowledge of the assessment tools integrated in Moodle, such as short quizzes, tests, and tasks, but also graded forum contributions. The short quizzes or tests were taught to be designed as participant self-evaluation or assessment tools. Special emphasis was placed on the creation of automatically evaluable tests and the different types of tasks and questions available. Furthermore, the handling and the various ways of using the Grading Centre were explained.

To support the international student groups, Researcher Learning in the PARFORCE project was an innovative methodological-didactical approach in which students in internationally composed student groups or teams participated in the joint development of multi-scale models in virtual teaching-learning formats, which were implemented in experiments in virtual environments. The special and diverse demands which this type of learning placed on students could not be met by all students equally due to the focal points of their previous heterogeneous educational biographies. Consequently, the focus shifted to personnel support capacities in particular, which enabled intensive and individual support in the sense of mentoring of intercultural student groups. For this reason, e-tutors were appointed to support and ensure the intended acquisition of competence by the students and to accompany them.

Read the intellectual output (IO1) report here ...