1. EDEN – EU projects and
forthcoming annual conference
Digital Skills and Competences Working Group
2nd meeting, 28th-29th April 2016
Deborah Arnold
EDEN Vice-President Communication
@DebJArnold

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“The smart network for the professional community
and a professional community for smart learning”

3. The most extensive and established professional
network in open and distance learning
 Founded in 1991
 171 institutional members
 852 individual members
 Over 20 agreements with related organisations
 64 EU projects since 1997
 ERASMUS+ Civil Society Cooperation
Operating Grant since 2015
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4. Core missions
• Policy and feasibility studies
• Professional development – EDEN “Academy”
• Innovative projects
To support our members
and partners in their
endeavours to
modernise education in
Europe
• Annual Conferences
• Network of Academics and Professionals
• Disseminating practice, project results and policy
To facilitate the
exchange of knowledge
and practice in all
sectors and levels of
education
• Support for early-stage researchers
• The European Journal of Open, Distance and e-
Learning EURODL
• Bi-annual Research workshops
To further research in
the field
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5. 5
Contribution to EU Programmes
 Comprehensive strategic projects
 Raising stakeholder awareness of EU policies
 Boosting stakeholder participation in E&T
 Exploiting the wide-scale expertise of NAP
members
 Networking and knowledge-base building
 Promoting excellence and innovation
 Supporting a new generation of educators
 Recognising and valuing competences
 Evaluation and dissemination of results

6.  ODS
 ARMAZEG
 Carer+
 EMPORT
 E-SOLVE
 VM-PASS
 STAY-IN
 EduWorks
 Revive-VET
 POERUP
 eLene2learn
 VISIR
 NEST
 MOVE-ON
 SEVAQ+
 EquNet
 Learnovation
 eTTCampus
 eLene4work
 OBN
 OpenPROF
 D-Transform
 t-MAIL
 DigiSkills
 TALOE
 LACE
 LeHo
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EDEN’s EU projects

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8. Open Badge Network Charter
 Advocate the adoption of Mozilla Open Badge standard across Europe
to recognise learning achievements gained in variety of contexts.
 Provide information, guidelines and use cases to enable the widest
possible adoption of Open Badges across policy, education,
employers, service providers and individuals.
 Advocate for and enable social inclusion by ensuring marginalised
groups are able to gain recognition for all their skills and
achievements, supporting their personal and professional progression.
 Raise the value and profile of informal and non-formal learning taking
place outside of formal education.
 Support on-going development of Mozilla’s open source backpack and
other open badging tools, to ensure end users’ data is portable
between systems and retained by the individual. 8

9. eLene4work -
Learning to Learn Soft Skills and Digital Soft Skills for employability
 Soft skills linked to employability, especially young people
entering the job market
European Commission, 2012 ; European Economic and Social Committee, 2010, Deloitte, 2011 ;
SFOL,2012 ; IUL, CRUI, & Centromarca, 2012 ; Manpower Group, 2012.
 By 2020, 90% of jobs will require digital skills
 74% of universities consider they prepare their graduates well
for the world of work, but only 38% of students and 35% of
employers.
McKinsey (2014). ‘Education to Employment, getting Europe’s youth into work’, ILO Global
Employment Trend.
This project has been funded by the Erasmus +
programme of the European Union.

10. eLene4work -
Learning to Learn Soft Skills and Digital Soft Skills for employability
Little consensus:
Different terms:
 Soft skills, wicked skills Knight & Page (2007)
 Transversal skills, non-technical skills, 21st century skills
Different understandings:
 Digital skills ≠ computing skills
 Work-related competences ≠ Transversal competences
 Ex. community management
Open for debate:
 Can the so-called ‘personal skills’ be learnt?
 Is it the role of Higher Education to teach soft skills?
This project has been funded by the Erasmus +
programme of the European Union.

11. eLene4work -
Learning to Learn Soft Skills and Digital Soft Skills for employability
self-evaluation
tool +
orientation
•Personal Journal
•CV
•ePortfolio
Comparative
Analysis
•Policy
•Literature review
•Initiatives
Focus
Groups
•Students + young
workers
•Teachers + HR
managers
This project has been funded by the Erasmus +
programme of the European Union.

12. eLene4work – the soft skills framework
Comparative analysis + focus groups + link with DIGCOMP
Social (inter-personal)  Communication
 Teamwork
 Conflict management
 Negotiation
Personal (intra-personal)  Leadership
 Self-evaluation
 Adaptability and flexibility
Methodolological  Learning to learn
 Analytical skills
 Creativity and innovation
 Problem solving
Digital  Information and data-processing
 (Digital) communication
 (Digital) content creation
 (Digital) problem solving
This project has been funded by the Erasmus +
programme of the European Union.

13. Spotlight on two EDEN initiatives
• Short training courses embedded in
EDEN conferences
• Fully online and blended courses
combining the best of online and face to
face (e.g. MOOCs + workshops)
• Contributing the the sustainability of EU
projects
EDEN
“Academy”
• EDEN Fellow and Senior Fellow awards
• Young Scholar Award
• Best Research Paper Award
• Best Practice Initiative
• Open Badges
Recognition
schemes
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14. EDEN 2016 Annual Conference
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www.eden-online.org/2016_budapest/
Keynotes:
 Susan Aldridge
 Danny Arati
 Paul Bacsich
 Tony Bates
 Cristobal Cobo
 Melissa Highton
 János Józsa
 Micheal G. Moore
 Yves Punie
 Antonio Teixiera
 Lesley Wilson

15. At #EDEN16
WG DSC Interactive workshop
D. Hodson, D. Arnold, S. Kucina and…
 EU Policy on digital skills and competences
 Learning café for participants to:
 exchange on initiatives relating to selected
themes from the WG DSC mandate
 make their own policy recommendations
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16. Thank you!
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Deborah Arnold
Deborah.Arnold@u-bourgogne.fr
@DebJArnold
www.eden-online.org
www.eLene4work.eu
www.openbadgenetwork.com