Digital Education (DE) has the potential to provide better teaching and learning opportunities, especially in regards to the unpredictable circumstances such as COVID-19 which revealed that many HEIs faced problems of technical, socio-psychological and didactic nature. The project Digital Education for Crisis Situations: Times When There is no Alternative (DECriS) aims to produce 6 IOs, organize 4 MEs, 2 Summer Schools in the form of blended learning as an ‘hybrid’ arena for exchange of experience and knowledge transfer, and to design and produce 2 tutorials which will equip teachers with new skills required in the production, reutilization and use of DE. The project’ target groups are students/teachers at partner HEIs and European HEIs that offer programs in (L)IS, which will be approached widely in regards to the use of OERs and ways for promoting, enriching and improving of DE for crisis situations, and beyond. In order to contribute to the building of inclusive HE systems and promoting internationalisation, DECriS project is focused on innovative digital practices experienced during the academic years 2019-20 and 2020-21 during lockdown and other mitigation periods without complete lockdown but without face-to-face classes. Project will focus in particular on digital competencies, new innovative curricula and educational methods; international cooperation; and cooperation with business sector. DECriS project aims to create a framework for proper adoption of OERs in general, and in crisis situations in particular, making sure they will: improve the quality of the DE and expand the possibilities for collaboration and knowledge sharing, which may decrease the feeling of isolation common in situations like lockdowns; support both teachers and students in their development, especially in terms of adaptive, personalized and smart learning; possibly, lead to cost savings and repurposing finances to other educational activities and resources, which, may further reduce the existing gaps and barriers; be used as adaptive, flexible and smart ‘tools’; improve students’ participation in virtual classrooms, i.e. generate appropriate level of interest and engagement which is also one of the common issues in the context of DE. We are implementing: a design for scale that makes our OERs scalable beyond the project and easily upgradeable and expandable, and a design with the user approach which allows us to create OERs that: truly originate from the needs of the specific HEI and teaching/studying community; empower HEI (as users) and teaching staff and students (as end-users) to become (co)producers of educational materials; a so-called LEGO approach (brick by brick or modular approach) in designing the OERs making them modifiable (e.g. creating derivative OERs) and optimized in regards to the different needs and goals (e.g. they can be remixed and improved, integrated into existing OERs, etc.) and adaptable to different socio-cultural contexts and situations, such as pandemic crisis, as well as certain technological requirements or limitations. The project is organised in 2 phases: In phase 1 we intend to produce 2 IOs: state-of-the-play of the use of OERs at European HEIs and the analysis of the perception of DE by students and teachers of the partner HEIs during COVID-19 lockdown with a list of observed problems, as well as perks and examples of good practice. In phase 2 we plan to produce and justify critical factors for evaluation of existing OERs from the point of view of their use during the COVID-19 crisis and special periods without face-to-face teaching; produce one new OER and enrich existing ones by pointing to useful and relevant parts for information extraction from the multimedia collections added to OERs and for automatic scene segmentation for retrieving meaningful fragments which are shareable and reusable; produce an apprenticeship framework in order to create new models for students’ online apprenticeship. We are framing project outputs based on a platform model which serves in a crisis situation and supports the mash up of different services, models, strategies and educational materials so that they respond to these shifted goals and accommodate new set of educational needs.The whole project is data driven thus facilitating efficient DE management, informed decision making in a crisis situation, and a systematic approach based on scientific investigation of strengths and deficiencies. Consortium: U of Osijek, Croatia; U of Barcelona, Spain; U of Hildesheim, Germany; SULSIT, Bulgaria, and U of Zagreb Computer Centre, Croatia and four associate partners. Being able to do the mapping through international cooperation does not only strengthen partners’ relations, but also positions the project’s efforts and results in the context of COVID-19 crisis which threatens our lives, interactive and multi-layered networked culture and economy that itself implies more connectedness and resourcefulness.

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.