Erasmus Innovative European Studies - Springer Link

Erasmus Innovative European Studies na3 , Jose Manuel Lopez-Guede1(B) , Erol Kurt2 , Necmi Altin2 , Manuel Gra˜ 4 and Valeriu Ionescu 1

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Faculty of Engineering of Vitoria, Department of Systems Engineering and Automatic Control, Basque Country University (UPV/EHU), Nieves Cano 12, 01006 Vitoria, Spain [email protected] 2 Faculty of Technology, Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering, Gazi University, 06500 Teknikokullar, Ankara, Turkey Faculty of Informatics, Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Basque Country Univesrsity (UPV/EHU), Paseo Manuel de Lardizabal 1, 20018 San Sebastian, Spain 4 Faculty of Electronics, Communications and Computers, Department of Electronics, Computers and Electrical Engineering, University of Pitesti, Targu din Vale 1, 110040 Pitesti, Romania

Abstract. This paper introduces an ongoing Erasmus+ project granted in the KA2 “Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices” call. The project was applied by the Gazi University (Turkey) and its duration is three years. It engages five universities and involves B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. students in the scope of renewable energies from different points of view, focusing on topics following the main interests of the partners.

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Introduction

Active Learning is a wide paradigm that groups several methods, and it is based on the responsibility and involvement of the students in its own learning process [1,2]. One of these methods is named Cooperative Learning, that is a paradigm in which the learning activities are planned looking for the positive interdependence between the participants of such learning [3,4]. The Erasmus+ projects [5] are a well known way of engaging students of different countries, and offers an appropriate platform to use active learning, and more specifically, cooperative learning strategies to profit from the different skills and competencies obtained in the educational systems of each of the participating countries. An especially suitable framework is the call related to Key Action 2 “Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices”, which is very appropriate since the design of the projects focuses on the obtention of joint results. In this paper authors describe a project applied by Gazi University focused on the above referenced characteristics, paying attention to some of the main relevant parts of a project. The remainder of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 introduces the project giving a brief description about it. One of the most relevant parts, i.e., c Springer International Publishing AG 2017 M. Gra˜ na et al. (eds.), International Joint Conference SOCO’16-CISIS’16-ICEUTE’16, Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing 527, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-47364-2 75

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the partners of the project are described in detail in Sect. 3, while Sect. 4 gives a list of topics that are going to be explained by the academiciand of the Basque Country University. A comprehensive list of the expected results is given in Sect. 5, and finally, Sect. 6 explain our main conclusions.

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Description of the Project

Clean Energy Research is a key task for the EU Agenda due to the energy Independence of the European Community. The European and Anatolian plates are not rich of fossil fuels such as coal, gas and oil. Even the carbon release from the fossil fuels prevents the European Community to use these traditional energy resources and motivate them to find out and improve alternative and renewable energy resources. In this manner, the efficiency of the renewable energy devices such as solar, wind, hydro-electric and harvesters play an important role to obtain maximal power output from the nature. In addition, new trends and technological ideas on these devices should be introduced to the students in the undergraduate and graduate levels (i.e. B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D.). The priority of this project is to handle this task in order to improve the educational aspects of different institutions in Europe. Initially, a curriculum study will be performed among the partners to present the best solutions of the state-of-art.

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Description of the Partners

In this section we are going to give a brief description of the history of each partner of the project and the actual capabilities to face it successfully. 3.1

Gazi University

Gazi University the biggest fourth university among the Turkish Higher Education Institutions. It has all branches of faculties, vocational schools, institutes, etc. The university has the third engineering education rank among all Turkish universities. It has 77,000 students and 3,500 academicians. The university has been founded as a Educational High School around 1926 by the founder of Turkish republic Kemal Ataturk. Later it was transformed into an Educational Institute around 1970s and became a university in 1982. From the beginning of that date, it has been one of the historical and powerful educational institutions in the country. Gazi University has not only educated the students and made the research activities for years, but also played a very important role educating the academicians of other universities in the country. Since the M.Sc. and Ph.D. opportunities and related research facilities are very powerful, many other universities send their students to get these degrees from Gazi University. Therefore, Gazi University has been declared as the “founder of universities” throughout the country.

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Presently, the university has 21 faculties, 4 higher vocational schools, 1 Turkish Music Conservatory, 11 vocational schools, 48 research centers, and 7 institutes. It has especially high educational and research ranks for Education, Medicine and Engineering. The university educates 1,500 foreign students in addition to the Turkish students and has a wide European and US networks among the other universities. Especially, the foreign students come from Middle Asia, Africa, Middle East Caucasian and European countries. In the graduate institutes, at least 5,000 master and doctoral students are educated. The university has the European quality systems and Erasmus certificates. It has several campuses, some of them are situated in the central Ankara while others in the closed towns of Ankara. According to Scopus Research Searches, the university has important effect on Medicine, Electrical and Electronics engineering and energy fields. 3.2

The University of the Basque Country

The University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) is a teaching and research Institution officially founded In 1985. The UPV/EHU is the Spanish university offering the highest number of degrees, one third of these degrees having the quality mention from the Spanish Ministry of Education. The UPV/EHU has been recently recognized as an International Excellence Research Campus by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation. According to the ranking of Shanghai, UPV/EHU is one of the leading universities in Europe for its teaching quality, its commitment to continuous training, and its research, development and innovation excellence. UPV/EHU holds agreements with over 400 international universities. Since the first Research Framework Programmes, the UPV/EHU has been very active and has participated in many collaborative projects and Marie Curie actions. With regards to the 7th Framework Programme, up to the date of submission the project explained in this paper, the University of the Basque Country participates in 94 projects, coordinating 22 of them and is the beneficiary 4 ERC Grants, accounting with more than 24.6 million euro of FP7 financing. The project is being carried out with the support of the Vicerectorship for Teaching Quality and Innovation, which is structured in four main areas: – Quality Cathedra: Contributes to the knowledge, implementation and improvement of quality management in all areas of the organization of the university, helping to achieve the highest standards of excellence. – Institutional Evaluation Service: A service of the university which aims to guide and promote the process of evaluation, verification and accreditation as well as those related to improving the quality of higher education. It also works with reference quality agencies in developing their programs in the university. – Faculty Evaluation Service: A service dedicated to promote, design, develop, advise, facilitate and train faculty evaluation process with the desire to contribute to the improvement of teaching quality.


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– Educational Advisory Service: It is a service which manages courses and training according to the needs of the faculty. It puts in place processes to gather information about which are the formation necessities. All these areas converge towards a methodology named IKD-Ikasketa Kooperatibo eta Dinamikoa in Basque (Dynamic and Cooperative Teaching-Learning in English), characterized by the following principles: – Active Education: IKD invites students to become the architects of their own learning and an active element in the governance of the university. To get this, it encourages learning through active methodologies, ensures continuous and formative evaluation, articulates the acknowledgment of its previous experience (academic, professional, vital and cultural), and promotes mobility programs (Erasmus, SENECA) and cooperation. – Territorial and social development: The IKD model development requires an ongoing process through which the university is committed to its social environment and community, with public vocation and economic and social sustainability criteria, promoting values of equality and inclusion. It also takes into consideration peculiar characteristics of each of the three provinces where sits the university, to contribute to their empowerment and to extract from them their formative potential. A curricula development responsible with the social environment is done through internships, collaboration with social initiatives, social networks, the relationship with companies and mobility programs that promote international experience and cooperation of our students. – Institutional Development: IKD curricula development drives institutional policies that promote cooperation between the agents involved in teaching, in an environment of confidence and dynamism. It promotes programs that encourage institutional structuring through the figures of the course or module coordinator, quality commissions and promoting teaching teams, which are key elements in this new teaching culture. Other institutional actions such as offering different types of education (part-time attendance, semi-face, non-face), significant and sustainable use of information and communication technologies (ICTs), institutional regulations concerning assessment, infrastructure design of educational institutions and public spaces (IKDguneak-IKDplaces), the extension of hours of use of space, should be considered from a perspective that encourages IKD culture. – Professional development: First, the continuous training of the people involved in teaching activities (faculty and support staff to teaching), in order to promote adequate professional development. Training programs (ERAGIN, BEHATU, FOPU) project to support educational innovation (PIE) and assessment tools for teaching (DOCENTIAZ), among others, are actions that support the construction of IKD. 3.3

University of Pitesti

The University of Pitesti is a public educational and research institution from Romania. The University has approximately 500 hired staff and approximately

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10,000 students. Its organization is composed of several faculties of different educational fields: Engineering, Social Science, Economics, Law, Science, etc. The university has the Faculty of Electronics, Communications and Computers, which contains the Department of Electronics, Computers and Electrical Engineering. In this department work 30 people specialized in Electrical Engineering, Electronics and Software Engineering. Most of them hold PhDs degrees in their fields of specialization. The University of Pitesti offers large educational possibilities to the young people from Romania and from other regions in the world. The priorities of the University of Pitesti are focused on the development of a high quality scientific research activity and on training young people as future high specialists able to find a proper job in the Romanian and European labor market. Among the priorities, it is possible to mention the large international collaboration that the university developed through a series of partnerships, projects and programs financed by the European Community. Its target is to develop in Pitesti a business oriented university, a university deeply rooted in the everyday reality, a university that strongly interferes with the social-economic sector by offering its assistance finding the correct solutions to the numerous problems this sector is facing at present. The University of Pitesti has various faculties, among which is the Electronic, Communications and Computers faculty. In this faculty there is an Electric Engineering Department which provides courses in the field of Renewable Energy. Also the staff of this department is actively involved in research projects with national and international partners. Among the interest fields, the teachers of Electric Engineering Department are concerned of Renewable Energy and ways of developing this area in Romania as well as other parts of the world. The University of Pitesti is a strong regional Higher Educational Institution that has collaborations with several national and multinational companies that are located in Arges county and Romania. Among these there are automotive, energy, auxiliary industry companies. The University of Pitesti is closely related with research and educational institutions, i.e., National Research Institute of Electrotechnics, National Research Institute of Chemistry, Nuclear Research Institute, Polytechnic University of Bucharest, University of Targovtste, University of Plolesti, etc. Also being an educational institution, the University of Pitesti has very dose collaboration relation with the Pre-university Educational Regional Department of Arges county and various technological high schools of its area. Through the International Relations Department the University of Pitesti, and the Faculty of Electronics, Communications and Computers, it holds International agreements with several European Universities spread in various countries as Turkey, Spain, Poland, France and Norway. 3.4

Klaipeda University

It is situated in a territory with a population of 650,000 with prospective industrial and business potential as well as a rapidly developing marine metropolis


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and region that is famous for exclusive cultural heritage, tourism, recreation and resort facilities. KU was established in 1991. Its mission is to develop the university as a modem marine Center of research, arts, and studies in the Baltic Sea Region educating highly qualified specialists. Present strategic priorities of the University are: development of rational and sustainable academic structure, formation of the Marine Valley (integrated research, study, and business center with its infrastructure comprised of research, education, and social facilities provided by highly qualified human resources). Currently, the prospective area of University Campus is comprised of 24 ha is being supplied by investments. The Business and Technology Incubator, the building of research laboratories, and student dormitories are being erected in the nearest future. Academic and research activities have been organized at seven faculties. Environmental, life, health, social, and technology sciences as well as humanities and arts have been taught there. Today around 6,000 full-time, parttime, and unclassified students are attending lectures at Bachelor, Master, PhD, vocational training, and other study programs. Research and experimental development is organized at departmental level in faculties as well in two centers of research excellence: the Marine Science and Technology Center and the Institute of Baltic Sea Region History and Archaeology. Around 100 R&D projects are pursued annually at KU. They significantly contribute to the research, scholarly production of the University as well as to its financial sustainability. University expands its internationalization by taking part in the main academic networks across the Baltic Sea Region and Europe; it has tied agreementbased cooperation with more than 40 foreign universities. More than 190 partner universities in Europe are Erasmus Mobility partners of KU. There have been launched joint study programs in MA and PhD collaborating with Lithuanian and abroad universities. Klaipeda University has been awarded the ISO 9001, ISO 14001, OHSAS 18001, SA 8000 Quality Management Systems certification by TUV Uolektis. The quality of research and education provided by the university are recognized internationally as well as the status of environmentally friendly and socially responsible university. These standards bring teaching, care, social, and environmental benefits together (for example, the certificate proving the standard SA 8000:2008 for the following fields: organization and execution of studies, research performance, knowledge and technology transfer, projects management). 3.5

University of Perugia

The University of Perugia was founded in 1308. In that year, Pope Clement V issued a bull entitled Super sperula, which granted the Studium of the city, i.e., the authority to engage in higher education. The bull made Perugia a leggere generaliter, giving its degree courses universal validity and recognition. Formal Imperial recognition of the University was conveyed in 1355, when Emperor Charles I granted Perugia the permanent right to have a university and to award degrees to students from all nations. In the 14th century, the university offered

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degrees in two fields: Law and General Arts. Today, research, education and consulting activities in the various disciplines are organized in 16 departments, with about 23,500 students, 1,100 professors and researchers and 1,000 staff members.

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Contributions of the Basque Country University

In this section we provide a brief list of the topics that are going to be handled by the lecturers of the Basque Country University. These topics are integrated in the curricula that has been designed by all partners of the project. The topics are the following: 1. Active and passive flow control devices for wind turbines 2. Wind turbine control design 3. Reinforcement learning for speed variable wind turbine power generation control 4. Application of Adaptive Backtracking Search Algorithm for pitch control of a mini wind generator 5. Modeling and control of photo voltaic systems 6. Consumption based Energy Model Transitions: Energy Democracy 7. Composites for renewable energies 8. Implementation of flexible control systems 9. Geo spatial Analysis of Renewable Energy.

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Expected Results

In this section we describe the main expected outputs of the project, which can be summarized as follows: 1. Online Education and Training Material (e-learning): web-site preparation and update will be performed. The web-site for the project will be open for the awareness, announcement and education on the renewable energy issues world-widely. 2. Experience gained by the project partners in the management and undertaking of transnational partnerships. 3. Exchange of ideas and good practises: Student poster presentations on renewable energy researches for the exchange of ideas and a good academic practises will be prepared for a scientific presentation after several technical transnational meetings. 4. Exchange of ideas and good practises: Innovative laboratory researches with the students and teaching staff in each working group. Cooperative practises will be performed in several technical transnational meetings. 5. Transnational sharing of experience and best practice: Short term mobilities of students (undergraduate, M.Sc. and Ph.D.) for the workshop courses and laboratory practises in each partner country. The students will take part in a special theme in order to develop intellectual project outputs. Apart from their formal education in their institutions, workshops will give a good opportunity to practise on the renewable energy topics.


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6. Transnational sharing of experience and best practice: Short term mobilities of teaching staff (undergraduate, M.Sc. and Ph.D.) for formal education in partner countries. The teaching staff will contribute to the annual workshops in other partner universities and explain their methodology in detail in their laboratories. 7. Cooperation processes and methodologies: The formation of working groups abroad Europe for energy education methodology. I will be done directly in researches and trainings (technical transnational meetings, workshops, conferences with many intellectual outcomes) within the working groups including partnering institutions with students and teaching staff. 8. Certification system: The certificates will be given to the students after the compilation of the teaching/learning activities such as the workshops, conferences, laboratory practises and certificates of gratitude will also be given to the teaching staff.

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Conclusions

In this paper we have introduced a project that is being developed in the context of the Erasmus+ framework of the European Union. We have started the paper with a rough description of the scope and the main objectives of the project. We have described in a more detailed way all the partners of the project, paying attention to their specificities, giving a deeper insight into the Basque Country University. So, we have added a full list of the topics which are going to be handled by their academicians during the development of the project, which cover different knowledge areas. Finally, we have gathered a comprehensive list of the expected results at the end of the project. Acknowledgments. This work and the described project were supported by the European Union through the Erasmus + Programme call of 2015, project number 2015-1-TR01-KA203-021342.

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