The full complexity of educational evaluation at various levels (i.e., system, school, classroom, and student) in different countries has hardly been recognized. It constitutes a tremendous barrier to consolidate theories on evaluation, and for countries to draw on successful experience and implement targeted educational policies for better quality and effectiveness. Important barriers include the insufficient methodology to soundly compare multiple countries and a cultural insensitive approach to unfolding evaluation processes and outcomes. This project aims to provide a comprehensive framework for the dynamics of evaluation with a solid cross-cultural research methodology. Using self-report data in 70 countries/economies in the 2015 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), this project delineates the pathways in processes and outcomes of educational evaluation in 70 educational systems by integrating policies at system level, practices in schools and classrooms, and student assessment outcomes with demonstrated comparability of data. Study 1 has a methodological focus to analyze scalable measures and their cross-cultural comparability. It tests whether self-report multiple-item measures from school principals, teachers, and students across countries reach approximate measurement invariance to ensure proper comparisons. Study 2 tests the effects of accountability policy, country affluence at country-level, and various evaluation practices including the feedback mechanisms at school and teacher levels, and the cross-level interactions on a broad range of student outcomes such as achievement, motivation, wellbeing, and test anxiety. This project contributes to theory building on educational evaluation from a cross-cultural perspective and identify effective measures for more targeted educational interventions.

Games Realising Effective & Affective Transformation (in Societal and cultural domains) Research and innovation in the GREAT project will generate new knowledge of the actual and potential impact of games on European society and new understandings of the innovative uses of games to support the social engagement of citizens. Leveraging the central role of games in contemporary culture, it combines academic studies and practical experimentation with novel applications of games. Using collaborative design and citizen science methods, it brings together researchers with expertise in the areas of games, data analytics, and policy in an integrated investigation, articulated by case studies of the use of games in facilitating dialogue between citizens and policy stakeholders (policy makers, policy implementers, political parties, campaigning organisations and affected citizens). The context for the research is the climate emergency, and each case study is a research cycle addressing a policy issue and research questions, with multiple pilots and quantitative and qualitative research activities. An important aspect of the method is to place games in an authentic context, so that players are aware that their activities have real-world implications, and to close the loop by including interactions with policy stakeholders. Agile methods are applied to adapt games from existing platforms, for use as research tools: (a) short games deployed at scale in hit mobile games, generating quantitative data and reaching 3 million players, and (b) longer collaborative games based around social dilemmas with small groups, generating in-depth qualitative data. Research outcomes include publication of research findings in journal papers, a method for using games to rapidly obtain data and insight for policy stakeholders, technical resources and guidance for adoption, and implementation of the method.

"“While we teach we learn”(L.A.Seneca)A major challenge in STEM education relates to the experience young people have during STEM classes. Students often complain that STEM is difficult, boring and not relevant to their everyday lives. Moreover, STEM teachers require ongoing professional training on innovative educational approaches to stay on top of their subjects. To ensure concrete enhancement of students’ learning experiences and ‘island of innovation and good practice need to be extended and mainstream’ (White paper about STEM studies and careers (2011).Context:Considering the high speed of progress in the field of new technologies already applied in all sectors of society and even in new domains of the economy, the implementation of new didactic approaches is highly perceived as a priority everywhere in Europe. In this regard, as recommended in the New Skills Agenda for Europe, the evolving nature of the digital economy requires “digitally competent people who are not only able to use but also to innovate and lead in using these technologies”. Combined with good hard skills and social and emotional skills, “digital skills are now as vital as literacy and numeracy” in the digital economy and society. Towards this vision, the Communication on the Digital Action Plan, COM (2018)22final, sets out how “education and training systems can make better use of innovation and digital technology and support the development of relevant digital competences needed for life and work in an age of rapid digital change”. Education should help empower young people to articulate and engage while digital technology enriches learning in a variety of ways and offers learning opportunities accessible to all. Finally, most of the above mentioned EU policies are supported by national priorities and objectives: - Germany: the Federal Education Minister recently announced the MINT Action Plan aiming at strengthening and improving mathematics and science skills- Turkey: the 2015-2019 Strategic Plan sets some key goals appropriate for strengthening the STEM education;- Belgium (Wallonia): the regional innovation strategy is a core component of the ""Marshall Plan 4.0"""", which foresees a budget of €642m for the innovation component (2015-2019).Problems addressed:Nowadays, competence requirements have changed with more jobs being subject to automation, technologies playing a bigger role in all areas of work and life, and entrepreneurial, social and civic competences becoming more relevant in order to ensure resilience and ability to adapt to change. COM(2018)24final. Digitization affects how people live, interact, study and work. Some jobs will disappear, others will be replaced, new jobs will be created, many jobs and industries will be transformed and new activities will emerge. This makes investing in one’s digital skills throughout life of the utmost importance. COM(2018)22final. As a consequence, education system needs to adapt to this reality. Reflection paper on Harnessing Globalization (2017) recognizes that “new ways of learning, as well as more flexible training and educational models, are needed for a society which is becoming increasingly mobile and digital”. Innovation is ‘extremely relevant’ for meeting the education sector’s needs and digital technology has huge, untapped potential for improving education. Project aim and objectives:The overall aim of the project is to raise awareness on the importance of choosing STE(A)M studies for pursuing successful STE(A)M careers, especially among young students. In particular, the project aims at persuading secondary schools to integrate immersive technologies and game-based learning in educational programs and foster school teacher’s capacity to teach STE(A)M effectively. For this purpose, teachers will be adequately trained to face challenges in using innovative ICT technologies during their STE(A)M lessons.Partnership:7 Partners from 6 EU countries (DE,IT,NL,TK,CY,BE), forming a transnational cooperation partnership with a balanced geographical representation of the Erasmus+ area.Methodological approach and key outputs:Since the very beginning of the project Partners will define concrete strategies and approaches for engaging upper secondary schools and other relevant stakeholders in experiencing innovative approaches for teaching STEE(A)M subjects. Partners will set up an online teacher training programme and student will be engaged in experimenting laboratory collaborative activities on a preferred STE(A)M topic guided by their teachers.Impact and long term benefits:a. raise awareness of the importance of choosing STE(A)M studies for pursuing successful STE(A)M careersb. give school teachers innovative instruments and tools to overcome the traditional method of teaching and learning engaging students to learn while enjoyingc. support educational institutions in integrating immersive technologies and GBL for teaching STE(A)M within their programmes."

Information Literacy (IL) is „the set of integrated abilities encompassing the reflective discovery of information, the understanding of how information is produced and valued, and the use of information in creating new knowledge and participating ethically in communities of learning“ (American Association of College and Research Libraries, 2016). IL as a social key competence is particularly essential in post-secondary education and research. Our project followed an extended content framework that includes additional goals and competencies from the SCONUL model (2011), ANCIL model (2011), Open University Framework (2012) and Metaliteracy model (2013, 2016). According to many studies (e.g. Maughan 2001; Katz 2007; Rubinić et al., 2013), student’s information literacy levels are generally low. Most college curricula do not include content aiming at the development of IL, and the efforts libraries invest in teaching IL seem to be insufficient. However, since the concept of IL is widely unknown outside the information science community, an attractive tutorial is needed which can be developed on a broad basis of available material. Accordingly, the main outcome of the ILO project was a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) for developing IL focusing on higher education students. MOOCs are online courses with no entry barriers aiming at unlimited participation. As open source software solutions are available for MOOCs, the project was able to focus on developing the content of the course and the accompanying research. Project ILO concentrated on IL elements which are relevant for all subjects/disciplines. Examples for such general IL elements are Boolean operators, basic principles in knowledge organization, or basic knowledge of copyright law. IL also covers subject-specific elements, so the project demonstrated the applicability of the ’generic’ IL MOOC to two exemplary disciplines: Business Administration and Psychology. To facilitate the use of the MOOC in subject-specific contexts the project also developed guidelines for teachers.A special aspect of the project concerned offering this content for six European cultural and lan-guage groups: English, German, Spanish, Catalan, Slovenian and Croatian. By addressing three of the largest language groups in Europe, the MOOC is available to many citizens with different native languages. Moreover, it is one of the first MOOCs available in Slovenian and Croatian and as such provides a new innovative model for MOOC development in these two language areas. The multilingual approach did not only consider formal translation but also cultural-specific differences in the various realizations. Research findings stress the existence of different learning and teaching styles in different cultural and linguistic environments. The approach of implementing the MOOC in different languages based on a common content framework opened research opportunities regarding cultural and language specific differences of the various realizations. A shortcoming of current IL courses is the lack of self-assessment components. Therefore, another innovative approach of our MOOC is the implementation of technology based assessment components which allow students to get feedback on their learning success.This strategic partnership is composed of seven European higher education institutions:-University of Graz, Graz, Austria-University of Hildesheim, Hildesheim, Germany-Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education, Frankfurt, Germany-City, University of London, London, Great Britain-University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain-University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia-University of Zadar, Zadar, CroatiaThe MOOC was already successfully used and evaluated at several higher education institutions. The student feedback obtained was very positive. Also, a standardized test instrument has shown an increase in IL competencies after attending the MOOC, specifically among the students that attended the MOOC as an integral part of their regular university courses. Our MOOC continues to be available after the end of the project through https://informationliteracy.eu. Our website also features a repository including our developed re-useable learning contents. We will continue to use and promote the MOOC. As such, the MOOC will have a long-term impact on IL teaching. By the end of the project, the MOOC had already around 500 registered learners. The project, especially in regard to the parallel development of multilingual/multicultural learning contents could serve as role model for other projects and as such also help to develop more high-quality Open Educational Resources considering the linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe.