Open Educational Resources – Raising Effectiveness of Volunteering in Europe through Adult Learning REVEAL II

OER-REVEAL-2, fully in line of priority #2 of Strategic Partnership “support the production and adoption of OER in diverse EU languages, builds upon REVEAL, a successful multilateral Grundtvig project that produced 12 training courses and 4 self-assessment tools in 6 languages. Its main aim is to respond to the specific learning needs of those operating within the volunteering sector, by identifying their typical functional profile, the set of competencies needed and developing self-assessment tools and didactic courses to strengthen the skills of Volunteering Agents all over Europe.At EU level, volunteering is increasingly recognised as an exceptional catalyst for active citizenship, social cohesion and inclusion and as a precious platform for formal and non-formal intergenerational learning, with a remarkable economic relevance. At present, an estimated 92 to 95 million adult Europeans actively engage in volunteering activities for an aggregate contribution to the GDP of Member States varying between 0.5 to 5%. Yet, many capacity constraints undermine the efficacy and impact of volunteering as a whole: volunteering organisations seldom have the right set of managerial skills to maximise the impact of their activities.The “professionalization of volunteering” (DG EAC, Volunteering in EU 2010) requires effective management of resources and planning of volunteering activities, otherwise vulnerable to inefficiencies. Our project allows to formalise and value knowledge while identifying training needs of individual volunteers. OER-REVEAL-2 offers adult learning solutions to address those needs with the ultimate aim of enhancing, through effective Adult Learning, the relevance, efficiency and impact of volunteering throughout EU.As already stressed, OER-REVEAL-2 builds upon the success and lessons of REVEAL, a best practice project co-funded by the Lifelong Learning Programme and concluded on December 31, 2013. Throughout its lifetime, its partnership’s main objectives have been to:A) Widen the geographical scale, by including new countries and languages. OER-REVEAL-2 has expanded the coverage of the project from 8 to 12 partners representing 11 languages that are spoken officially in 16 EU Member States and Candidate Countries, providing learning tools to a potential public of 400 million people (= total population belonging to the countries where one of the official project languages is spoken);B) Enlarge the technical and operational scope by including new topics for specific training topics devoted to adult learners in the domain of the third sector and volunteering, with a learning offer of Adult Education that encompasses 21 courses along 7 themes. To the 4 “old” domains – Project Management, Financial Management, Communication and Public Speaking and Management of Human Resources for Volunteering – 3 new ones have been added: Audiovisual and Multimedia tools for Volunteering, EU Project Management for Volunteering, Events Management for Volunteering;C) Open the project results to the widest public through Open Educational Resources, through a set of multilingual learning tools, namely:1. The web-based self assessment tool, to map, formalise and value the knowledge and competences of adult learners / volunteers, identifying specific capacity and learning gaps2. A set of multilevel web-based training solutions, to address those gaps through customised learning solutions for adult learners and volunteers;3. Interactive training content & material, library of relevant knowledge, expertise, case studies, etc.The Partnership encompasses representatives of the third sector, volunteering associations, facilitators for the volunteering sector, private sector service providers and research centres active in the field of civil society and volunteering coming from 11 EU Member States or Candidates, as follows:CSIAPA -CSV - ITALYBEST - AUSTRIAFVSZ - HUNGARYKSEAD - TURKEYIHF - BELGIUMFOUNDATION FOR FREEDOM - POLANDHELP - CROATIAPROVOBIS - ROMANIAFORUM - SWEDENIWS - SPAINIDP - ITALYNCVO – UNITED KINGDOMWith a total of 57 self-assessment tools and 171 training courses– available totally for free and with no registration on the project platform -, OER-REVEAL-2 brings together the various participants of the adult learning domain for the third sector, with a strong emphasis on Pan-European Open Educational Resources that are accessible in 11 languages for the realisation of the EU2020 inclusive growth through improved adult learning opportunities, to sustain the societal and economic impact of volunteering in EU.