Partners

A. Is the project on schedule? what activities have been carried out so far?

Management co-ordination and financial control

OCT 09-SEPT 2011

Start up meeting October 12th 2009. Establish Project Board and Project Office with appropriate communication channels and software management systems mailing list, skype, web site collaborative technologies. Learn project requirements from documentation provided by the NA. Set up financial systems and expectations of partners, gathering information, providing support and remedial training to partners where necessary in relation to overall project management. Meeting with Pedagogical adviser in Germany to agree contract and provide comprehensive briefing. Provide end of phase interim report including financial summary with recommendations for action to Project Board. Second project meeting in Prague. Third project meeting in Sofia. Dealing with the UK regulators, agreeing 4 additional EQF referenced qualifications beyond those planned in the project. 

Act on recommendations from interim reports and the report of the Pedagogical Adviser approved by Project Board. Financial control and audit using transparent data collection via the web site. Continue to provide general professional support related to the innovation being transferred and the technical skills and knowledge needed to use the collaborative technologies for project management. Provide tech support as required. Ensure budget cash flow is on target to be accurate for the year end.

Assessor Training

OCT 2009

Provide initial on-line training course for assessors followed by centralised training of Assessor Trainers in Sofia at initial meeting combined with project management meeting in order to maximise efficiency and contextualise the management overview in the key players. Trained 2 assessor trainers from each of BG, RO, ES, CZ.  Subsequently each new assessor trainer trains a minimum of 15 assessors during the next year (delayed due to regulators not finalising the assessment criteria but can be brought back on track by the end of the year). Additional training provided using internet to level up the capability in using collaborative technologies. Variable skills across partners. On-line Moodle Course for Assessors transferred to Drupal by Spanish partner to make it more accessible. regular up dates with regard to the assessment criteria and methods.  

The Assessor training follows the training programme agreed with the UK regulators. We use a combination of technological and human methods because both have strengths and weaknesses and training is through regular contacts and answering questions as well as formal meetings. The combination is usually more powerful than either alone.

Research and needs analysis to establish centres

OCT 09-SEPT 2011

Documentation and community support

OCT 09-SEPT 2011

Translation and Localisation

OCT 09-SEPT 2011

Translated e-learning materials, all assessment criteria for the Awards site. The research questionnaire was translated to partner languages and German. Some additional language translations eg assessment criteria in Portuguese, Polish and Malaysian beyond the original plans. Some aspects of translation delayed by the time to get the assessment criteria finalised but re-organised to get back on track. The handbook has now been finalised for translation and will be completed on schedule before the end of year one. 

Training manual in open systems

OCT 09-March 2011

Developing supporting e-learning resources

OCT 09-SEPT 2011

Quality Assurance and Certification Trials

OCT 09-SEPT 2011

Designed flyers and brochure, produced them in English, awaiting translation. attended the BETT show in London January 2010 and the SSAT Achievement show at the Emirates Stadium in London. A lot of initial work done with regard to networks. INGOT project publicised on the ADAM database, Facebook, LinkedIn, NAACE mailing lists. Local publicity with photos in local news with Euro MP Malcolm Harbour in the UK and Tamworth MP. Publicity to through direct communication with the UK Regulators and Sector Skills Council Regular e-mail shots to all the schools in England established. This can be replicated but needs all the translations in place to follow up. 

CZ: publicity of the project on company website and press release through the press portals with direction to schools. Publicity on web sites supporting using the open source with huge number of daily visitors (www.linuxexpres.cz, www.liberix.cz). Communication with the Czech Research Pedagogical Institute and Association of IT Teachers - the meetings are planned after the end of the translation process.

BG: publicity and awareness raising in various specialized online and printed media. More at http://theingots.org/community/impact

ES: we have designed and printed folders and leaflets for INGOT's publicity, the kind of publicity we show and deliver on exhibitions and fairs to disseminate the project and let more and more sdudents and trainers know about Ingot Certificates and its courses in IT. We also are in close contact with the Spanish Confederation of Teaching Centres (CECE) in order to increase the number of teaching centres (schools, academies...) in which we can advertise and promote INGOT, and pubilshing articles and adverts in CECE educational magazine, both national and regional magazine. Also contacting biligual centres, since translation into Spanish and different laguages is still in process to start carrying out the courses. We are establishing a new googlespreadsheet as well to determine and define the different exhibitions, fairs and congresses the group has already attended or is going to attend soon.

You can also find further information about the project in the company website: www.agifodent.es

B. Have there been any changes to the project activities or partnership? if yes, how do they impact on the project? Are there any changes envisaged in the future?

C. How is the project management and partnership working? How well are your partners responding to their allocated tasks?

The project website is used to record time spent and travel and subsistence. It is clear and transparent for all partners to see what the budgets are in each work package. Partners log their time and costs against each work package. Time and costs are then transferred into the Interim Report Financial Tables. Financial monitoring takes place in accordance with the National agencies guidelines. Rosemary Lynch manages the process. Expenditure checks are easy to do via the information recorded by each partner on the website so this is an ongoing process. Checks are made on copies of receipts, boarding cards, invoices etc after each partner meeting when these items are collected. Costs are checked against work packages and also against the Agreement with the National Agency document Part B Financial Provisions, if there is any doubt then the National Agency is contacted directly.

The company finances are managed in Sage Line 50. The partners all record their costs on the website against the work packages. The project finances are recorded on a spreadsheet they are also recorded on The Interim Report Financial tables which have been found to be a very usefull tool in recording and evaluating the financial progress of the project. A bank statement for the companies Euro account is received every month and this is checked against expected movements in the account on the project spreadsheet.

A. Operational direct costs