Diversification of seafarers' employability paths.

Romania's admission following the extension of the EU and the globalisation of the maritime industry exposed Romanian employees to the maritime labour market. This market is characterised by increased competition determined by technological advancement and the emerging new Asian maritime nations. These conditions were exacerbated by the increased wage expectations of the European maritime manpower. On the demand side, the maritime industry has historically been characterised by lack of marine officers, in particular of senior rank, but the current slow global economic recovery and the weak commodity demand tend to level the scorecard. These changes affected the marine global labour market and led to structural unemployment among Romanian seafarers. Considering the traditional purpose of marine universities - to prepare marine officers, and the labour market needs - marine officers highly qualified in specific fields, this paper aims at identifying the skills required by marine industry and analysing the possibility to extend them to other positions/qualifications from the marine industry

Improving the Voyage Energy Efficiency by Using EEOI

AbstractThe environment protection is one of the main concerns of our society and this paper aims at presenting some of the international efforts in the maritime transport. Marine pollution consists of water pollution and also air pollution. Regardless of the delay in recognizing the latter type of pollution, it rapidly gains many organizations to argue on it. The first step was including a dedicated annex in the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, which seek to minimize the airborne emissions from ships. The efforts continued and the International Maritime Organization has developed a series of measures for monitoring the emissions. These are grouped in three main directions: technical, operational and management related. The subject of our study is the concept of Energy Efficiency Operational Index, developed to provide ship-owners and ship-operators with assistance in the process of establishing a mechanism to achieve the limitation or reduction of emissions from ships in operation. It serves as a monitoring tool and it represents the mass of CO2 emitted per unit of transport work. The paper presents the way how the commercial software can be used for estimating the EEOI value before the voyage, in comparison with the true value calculated on board. The true value is calculated based on unpredictable factors that might appear during the voyage: varying the speed, days on anchor, or waiting for orders period. The authors included these in a software solution, which allows to emphasize the influence of the on board measures over voyage energy efficiency

Critique to pro-cyclical admission in maritime higher education.

The paper represents a critical analysis of the options ahead of maritime universities in terms of number of students admitted, particularly in periods of industry downturns. The study refers to the global maritime industry and analyses the patterns of the industry cycle. These patterns are characterised in macroeconomic terms by peaks, troughs and secular long term trends. The current maritime industry faces chronic global trade imbalances in the context of slow global economic. The secular trend has flattened and the industry is clearly in the downturn. These patterns envisage both cyclical and structural unemployment components. This paper addresses the maritime universities' options associated with cyclical unemployment of maritime graduates. These options include pro-cyclical, counter- cyclical or level capacity approaches in the students' admission capacity planning, depicted by the duration of studies and the offset between admission and graduation. The analysis overlays the graduate studies and industry cycles and proposes to evaluate the different scenarios based on industry outlook and to determine the optimum admission policy solution

Nurturing a Digital Learning Environment for Adults 55+

Being digitally competent means having competences in all areas of DigComp: Information and data literacy, Communication and collaboration, Digital content creation, Safety and Problem-solving. More than other demographic categories, adults 55+ have a wide range of levels of digitalization. Depending on their level of competences, individuals may join self-administered online courses to improve their skills, or they may need guidance from adult educators. Taking into consideration the above situation and willing to address adult learners regardless of their initial skill levels, the proposed educational programme is carefully designed for both: self-administrated and educator-led training. It comprises five totally innovative courses that can be separately taught or can be integrated into a complex programme delivered by adult education organizations. These courses are the result of an ERASMUS+ project “Digital Facilitator for Adults 55+”. Chapter 1 introduces the methodology for designing attractive and engaging educational materials for adults’ digital skills improvement. The methodology clarifies the inputs, the development process and the expected results. An ample explanation of the five phases of the 5E instructional strategy is presented to help adult educators build a sequence of coherent and engaging learning stages. With this approach, learners are supported to think, work, gather ideas, identify their own skill levels and needs, analyse their progress, and communicate with others under the guidance of educators. Following up on the proposed methodology, in Chapter 2 researchers from Formative Footprint (Spain), TEAM4Excellence (Romania), Voluntariat Pentru Viata (Romania) and Saricam Halk Egitimi Merkezi (Turkey) developed five course modules in line with the DIGCOMP - Digital Competence Framework for Citizens. These modules address the competence areas of information and data literacy, communication and collaboration, digital content creation, safety, and problem-solving. Each course module comprises digital textbooks, videos, interactive activities and means for evaluation developed using the 5E instructional model strategy. Understanding that accessibility is one of the main components of lifelong learning education, Chapter 3 of the manual provides an overview of the integration of educational materials, tools, instruments, video tutorials as well as DIFA55+ web app in the digital educational ecosystem. Finally, the authors formulate recommendations for usability and transferability that go beyond individuals, ensuring that educational materials are user-friendly and effective while making it easier to apply successful pedagogical approaches in other complementary educational contexts or projects.Grant Agreement—2021-1-RO01-KA220-ADU-000035297, Digital Facilitator for Adults 55