Research

The first group of the activities is the Research on the market awareness and readiness related to the Controlled Environment Digital Agriculture (CEA) industry including Vertical Farming: current knowledge and practice about the sector, VET providers identification and the knowledge gap between the market needs and VET providers.

The research will include:

• Collection and analysis of secondary evidence (collection and processing of existing policies, papers, academic literature, and statistical data).
• Collection of good practices (DSS models, capacity building programmes, technical solutions) applied in the CEA sector in EU, replicable in the WB region
• Best solutions how to overcome the barriers for VF integration in the third countries not associated to the Programme, referring to the best practices from EU countries.
• CEA Mapping in partner countries to understand the market drivers and pressures, and the VET provider needs, gaps and obstacles that they face to understand the market needs related to CEA education and training programs.

VET providers training program

The scope of the training is to equip VET trainers with theoretical and practical knowledge based on DSS models (data driven, model driven, communication driven, knowledge driven, document driven) to increase knowledge, skills and competences in the simulation, assessment, and optimization of VF systems to the market needs.

The training will stimulate technical education, communication-based methods, face-to-face interactivity via hands-on demonstration and a mixture of cognitive, affective and practical training.

Participants will learn about national/regional/EU policies and legal frameworks in Agricultural technical and vocational education and training (ATVET) and European credit system for vocational education and training (ECVET).

Capacity building program

Each partner organization will implement a 7-day event of local educational and practical activities with VET learners aimed at conveying knowledge, skills and instruments elaborated in the training programme into real life scenarios.

The capacity building programme will engage 10 VET learners from each country to develop their design and operation strategies with handy farm-wide input-output analysis, economic and environmental evaluation, and information of the optimum system design and operation under different scenarios.

VET trainers will propose the DSS models and solutions to scheduling production of vertical farms, allowing guidance for farm-wide control. By linking the DSS to online database captured by IoT technologies and robotic machines, VET learners can achieve a high level of automation in the field of CEA, and quickly adopt economically and environmentally sustainable production practices.

MOOC development

Design of MOOC contents includes converting obtained training material from Training Course to MOOC interactive modules utilizing several tools and visually engaging illustrations or other multimedia tools such as audio/video script, graphics, charts, animations, interactive contents and quizzes to enhance learning process.

The eLearning platform will deliver online webinars each month. The course contents are anticipated to comprise 3 modules and guideline of PROVER CBF: Modelling of VF system, multi-dimensional sustainability assessment, and Optimization. 2 sessions of approximately 30 minutes each will be held online. Every session will contain at least 1 video (duration 2-4 minutes), presentation/slide, reference materials etc.

Every VET institution can have access to the MOOC platform. All documents produced during the project will be published in the platform. Two sections of the MOOC are foreseen: a theoretical one and a practical one.

Each module will comprise pre and post-tests/assessment to assist with learning evaluation with questions and answers section. The question content will consist in multiple tries with combined feedback to show some explanations as well as hints on answering correctly. In addition, the provision of the add, remove, and edit the content will be disposable to access (secured from unauthorized users).