D-EWI: An innovative digital training course for the European Welding Inspection Workforce

The D-EWI Project aims to mitigate presented impediments, offering an innovative digital training course that could be attend by the people, in parallel with their daily work.

Open digital educational materials will be made and used to support implementation of innovative digital technologies for teaching and learning in initial and continuing VET in the field of welds inspections. They will be developed using innovative curricula aligned to the approach based on Learning Outcomes for a correspondence to the EU Qualifications Framework levels.

Education is the main engine of any society, so all of us needs lifelong education. In the context of Industry 4.0, technical education is one of the main goals of modern societies without which there would be no progress. Welding is an essential cross-sectoral manufacturing process, performed in almost every major industry. Therefore, weld quality and integrity are critical to safety in an extensive range of products and structures. The International / European Welding Inspectors (IWI/EWI) are the key players in the evaluation of welded products to provide value-added on the market. The specific activities they perform are highly demanding and have long-term significant impact on the quality and safety of the welded products and structures. But high-level training as IWI/EWI requires a long course, and employers cannot afford to take out of production employees for such a long time. Besides the course cost and its duration, travel and accommodation costs are added for those that attend the course elsewhere. Moreover, in the current context created by the pandemic situation, the training of people became even more difficult, and thus, people accessibility to face-to-face training is limited. In this context, the opening to the digital learning area has growing fast, the e-learning market being estimated to reach a global $ 200 billion by 2024.

The D- EWI project (Digital training for European Welding Inspectors) addresses the needs of training centres which could increase their expertise in the project field, having the opportunity to enlarge of their offer. To strengthen the market position, it is necessary to expand its field of expertise and to exploit the market opportunities (sharp demand for digital training) and current requirements (new standards/regulations). The project aims at enhancing training capabilities of VET teachers and trainers and developing of digital educational materials to support implementation of digital technologies for teaching and learning in the field of welding inspections. In terms of specific objectives, D- EWI will develop international standardisation of practices in e-learning and improving the VET trainers’ skill in developing and implementing of digital tools, to foster innovation in welding-related practices; as well as develop innovative e-learning educational materials, to improve the level of key competences in welding inspections.

The course will allow further development according to international guideline and the achievement of a harmonized education.

Project partners

The consortium comprises entities with a broad experience in ERASMUS+ funded projects. The project coordinator is ISIM Timisoara (http://www.isim.ro/home.htm) a Romanian centre of scientific and technical competence in the field of welding and material testing. The European Federation for Welding, Joining and Cutting (www.ewf.be); ISQ – Instituto de Soldadura e Qualidade (https://www.isq.pt/), a provider of scientific and technological support in Industry and Services; IIW – International Institute of Welding (http://iiwelding.org/iiw-in-short ), the largest worldwide network and centre of reference for welding and allied joining technologies; IIS – Istituto Italiano della Saldatura (https://www.iis.it/en), an Italian group that operates for the purposes stated in the Articles of Association of spreading knowledge in the field of welding; CESOL – Asociación Española De Soldadura Y Tecnologías De Unión (https://www.cesol.es/), a non-profit company in the service of welding and other technologies union; the University of Miskolc (https://www.uni-miskolc.hu/en), a University from Hungary; and Brandware Media SRL (https://brandware.ro/) a Romanian web development company.

Please access D-EWI website to be updated on the project’s activities: https://d-ewiproject.eu/