Extensive digitalization initiatives have been implemented in higher education by dots. and partners

Project “Digitalization Initiatives for Improving the Quality of Studies in the field of Strategic Specialization of Higher Education Institutions” is coming to an end, in which the leading partner of the consortium Latvia University of Life Sciences and Technologies (LBTU) has united the other higher education institutions: Rezekne Academy of Technologies (RTA), Daugavpils University (DU), University of Latvia (UL), Ventspils University of Applied Sciences (VUAS) and "Turība" University.

Within the framework of the project lasting more than a year six Latvian higher education institutions together with SIA "WeAreDots" (dots.) and SIA "Baltijas Datoru Akademija" (BDA) have implemented various digitalization initiatives in higher education, which will contribute to a significant increase of the education quality and the competitiveness of graduates in the labour market. In the future students will have access to various digitalized study courses, an assessment tool for digital competences, as well as the opportunity to acquire knowledge in hybrid audiences.

As part of the project strengthening of digital capacity has been carried out in 83 new and existing study courses which will be available for LBTU, UL, DU, RTA, VUAS and Turība. These activities were implemented together with dots. and BDA. The experts from dots. have evaluated the content of the courses and found them to be of good quality. For some of the courses, the experts have made suggestions to supplement the content with practical examples.

With the presentation of the results to the participants, dots. concluded the practical work, in which, together with representatives of the LBTU, a solution for monitoring red deer, roe deer and wild boar was developed that complements the functionality of the computer vision solution Detectcon. Participants had the opportunity to work on the development of the data collection solution, data marking and preparation so that an expert could train the machine learning model. As a result, participants gained an understanding of the development lifecycle of machine learning solutions.

BDA has developed a tool for assessing students’ digital competences, which was integrated in all higher education institutions involved in the project. An assessment of students' digital competences has been carried out, which showed that areas such as communication and collaboration are at a good level while safety is a competence that needs to be improved.

Project’s implementation will be finalized on 31^st December, within the framework of which all planned results have been achieved. Results achieved will also ensure the further digital transformation for higher education institutions, promoting digital competences of students and teaching staff.

REACT-EU funding for mitigating of the consequences of the pandemic crisis has been attracted to the European Social Fund's project “Digitalization Initiatives for Improving the Quality of Studies in the field of Strategic Specialization of Higher Education Institutions" (No. 8.2.3.0/22/A/005). The total funding of the project is 2,052,269.47 EUR. Its implementation started on November 1, 2022 and will end on December 31, 2023.