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Stories
Open U!REKA courses: a milestone and a significant added value for students.
The open courses are clustered into three themes: digital skills (digital literacy and data skills), green skills (insights into sustainability, climate action and urban resilience) and transversal skills (broad competences such as communication and creativity). They offer students additional opportunities to broaden their knowledge and explore new horizons, for example with subjects such as digital fashion, ethical hacking or sustainability reporting.
It is no coincidence that sustainability is a specific item in the range of available open courses: U!REKA is strongly focused on knowledge about and development of smart & sustainable cities and strives to equip students with the ability to make climate-conscious decisions, e.g. through courses such as ‘urban development’ or ‘waste treatment’.
International and multidisciplinary
The courses also focus on topics that prepare students for their professional careers in not discipline-specific way, such as design thinking, adaptable mindset, entrepreneurship, and crisis management.
And of course, the U!REKA-courses enable the students to build an international network, improve their English language skills, and collaborate in a multidisciplinary way. “This international and interdisciplinary context is of great importance in today’s society,’ says Lena De Mol (HOGENT), lecturer in research methods, which will be offered as a U!REKA course from the next academic year onwards. “Contact and exchange opportunities can take the students’ experience to a higher level.”
Hurdles
“The international and interdisciplinary context is of great importance in today’s society. Contact and exchange opportunities can take the students’ experience to a higher level.”
Lena De Mol, lecturer in research methods (HOGENT)
At the same time, Lena points out that coordinating such a joint course is less straightforward than it seems. “Students must, of course, obtain permission from their own institution and programme to take a course from the U!REKA offer. The semesters at the various U!REKA partners do not run entirely in sync. That can be an initial practical hurdle. It is also essential to agree on the method of assessment: should we use a traditional examination, continuous evaluation or some other method? And are all partners familiar with the chosen methods?” she explains.
Adjustments to the course are also part of the deal, she adds, giving an example from her own course: “In research methods, students learn how to find a specific research question and check if it’s suitable for a bachelor’s thesis. They also learn how to critically evaluate sources. These are general skills that are not discipline-specific. But my course also contains specific elements that are geared towards the applied computer science programme, in which the course is embedded. In the U!REKA context, these should be broader in scope.”
Important step
An open course programme for all U!REKA students is not just a matter of plug-and-play. It requires a careful process involving a great deal of consideration and mutual coordination. But precisely this complexity demonstrates that the courses offered, which will be further expanded in the coming months, are an important step forward for all partner institutions, their educational programmes and, above all, their students. In other words, the open U!REKA courses are a not-so-obvious milestone, but a milestone nonetheless.
Check the U!REKA courses on the website: ureka.eu/courses.