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Call for Nominations: experts needed to represent International Science Council on an international alliance around COVID-19 education

14 May 2020

This project will look at the world-wide educational challenges caused by the COVID-19 crisis and how innovations and technologies can help educational institutions moving forward

The International Science Council (ISC) has been invited to join an international alliance of organisations looking at the world-wide educational challenges caused by COVID and how innovations and technologies can help education institutions respond to similar challenges in the future and enable life-long learning with digital tools that are fit for purpose.

This initiative is coordinated by the multidisciplinary Platform for Transformative Technologies (P4TT) led by Dr Veerle Vandeweerd and a COVID-Education Alliance of partners (COVIDEA), with expertise in digital education for the future. COVIDEA aims at making a substantive contribution to addressing the educational challenges associated with the pandemic by:

1. Developing new algorithms/search engines to:

  • find and assess existing courses on-line
  • provide a teaching environment conducive to teachers and students
  • identify tools and practices allowing the teachers to respond to the new educational reality

2. Developing appropriate criteria and evaluating technological solutions, on-line courses, tools and practices for their potential to substantially contribute to addressing the educational challenges associated with the pandemic
3. Making operational recommendations to governments, academic bodies, and the private sector
4. Providing intelligence and insight on the socio-economic and skill changes needed to transition towards more sustainable development patterns in a time of deep technological changes
5. Reviewing and assessing the findings and recommendations emanating from COVIDEA, including identification of research needs and knowledge gaps, and how to use open research and cooperation to improve the findings and upscale their applications.

Nominations

The ISC is inviting nominations from its members such as the Royal Irish Academy to help establish a group of 3-4 experts that will represent the Council in COVIDEA.

The nominated individuals should have expertise in the following areas:

  • Development and use of on-line courses and digital educative material (with a focus on sustainability)
  • Training of teachers and professors delivering online education, including competencies and skills (including emotional)
  • Assessment of educative tools and programmes


This small group is asked to attend COVIDEA’s virtual meetings in 2020, and help determine possible roles for the ISC and its members in the review and assessment phase. The duration of the full project is estimated at 2-3 years, with a potentially more active engagement by the scientific community represented by the ISC towards the end of that timeline. No travel is currently foreseen.

To express an interest in being nominated for this project by the Royal Irish Academy, please send your CV and a short letter of motivation to policy@ria.ie by midday, 21 May.

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