Background

To work towards two of the concrete strategies proposed among the priorities of the European Commission for 2019-2024 ("A Europe fit for the digital age"), which were of interest to us: "A European Strategy for Data" and "Big Data Value Public-Private Partnership". All this in order to strengthen the knowledge, skills and competences of the members of European universities and companies (decision makers and staff) in relation to Statistics and Big Data so that together they are able to produce, analyze, use and/or create value from data. Students must be aware of the needs that are going to occur in the future to focus their learning; professors have to know how to provide the right tools to students to guide them in their learning and companies and NGOs must be aware of what technologies can be used to improve their performance. So we sought to provide innovative practices to the educational, youth, training, business and social sectors so that they could take advantage of them to acquire skills in gamification processes as well as in Statistics and Big Data.

Objectives

The objectives of this project were:
1. To teach teachers how to design, implement and evaluate gamification processes for university teaching (in general), especially Statistics and Big Data (in particular) through a MOOC.
2. Connect Universities with Companies and/or Social Organizations that require personnel with knowledge and skills in Statistics and Big Data, so that these actors can jointly develop an educational itinerary through a gamification process (virtual game) that responds to this need.
3. To teach Statistics and Big Data to university students through the gamification process (virtual game) above, in order to increase their chances of insertion into the labor world (connecting them with Companies and/or Social Organizations that require personnel with these knowledge/skills).

Implementation

Throughout the project, the following activities have been carried out: planning, coordination and communication activities between partners; transnational and bilateral meetings between partners; meetings with key social agents to present the project and establish cooperation channels; creation of a graphic line and visibility and dissemination activities in different media (social networks, web, radio...); attendance at conferences and congresses to present the project and its results in different areas; creation of surveys and focus groups to carry out a context analysis that served as the basis for the development of the MOOC and the game. ); attendance at conferences and congresses to present the project and its results in different areas; creation of surveys and focus groups to conduct a context analysis that served as a basis for the development of the MOOC and the educational game; scientific research on best practices in the field of gamification; seminars with USAL students (undergraduate, master's and doctoral) for knowledge transfer; selection of participants for local and final hackathons for the evaluation of the educational game; multiplier event and monitoring and evaluation activities.

Results

As proposed in the application, two main intellectual products have been developed: a MOOC on gamification processes in higher education and an educational game on statistics and Big Data. Derived from the previous work done for the development of these products, a report has also been generated with a context analysis with the results of the surveys conducted to students, professors and entities from the partners' countries of origin about gamification and statistics and Big Data. This quantitative analysis was completed with the results obtained from the focus groups on the usefulness of gamification, experience and barriers associated with learning and/or teaching statistics and Big Data. Likewise, a mapping of entities interested in hiring young people with profiles associated with this branch of knowledge or in updating these skills for their own employees was carried out.

More information about the project and access to its educational resources are available on the official website: https://bigdata4all.eu.
The platform and its materials are available in English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Danish, promoting inclusive access to open educational resources across Europe.

This project has been co-funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union under Grant Agreement No. 2020-1-ES01-KA226-HE-095688.
The content of this publication reflects the views only of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.