IMPACT – Innovative Maritime Training Products

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The IMPACT project partners are five major European Maritime Education and Training (MET) organisations. These are C4FF’s Maritime Education based in the UK, TUDEV Institute of Maritime Studies from Turkey, Satakunta University of Applied Sciences in Finland (member of IAMU), the National Maritime College of Ireland and Spinaker based in Slovenia. The partners have many years of experience in developing programmes for the education and training of merchant navy officers based on the international standards. The IMPACT project aims to promote the results of a number of completed maritime education and training projects which directly address particular problems or deficiencies in MET throughout Europe, and represent innovative use of ICT in lifelong learning. Initially, IMPACT will disseminate and transfer the innovative practices developed in several of these selected EU funded LifeLong Learning projects to MET providers across Europe and worldwide in order to support their valorisation. The long term vision for IMPACT is to expand its reach and valorise other innovative maritime based ICT projects developed for MET through its network and beyond. The IMPACT project has been supported and funded by the European Union through its Lifelong Learning Programmes. The NetOSKAR project promotes vocational training, learning and competence evaluation for seafarers with a knowledge development and assessment tool based on a database of multimedia questions. Whereas, the EGMDSS project provides online training courses for the Short Range Certificate (SRC), which is mandatory for mariners operating vessels of up to 300 GT within 30 nautical miles from the coast. Access to GMDSS learning materials is limited and often expensive, and this restricts the regular refreshing of knowledge. EGMDSS encourages life-long learning by providing a GMDSS e-learning web site, which is available in many languages, and now has over 27,000 registered users. The E-GMDSSVET project completed the EGMDSS learning tool by adding long range certificate (LRC) courses, and simulators of commonly used GMDSS equipment. With these online simulators and professionally produced tests, users can learn about VHF radio, NAVTEX receivers, SART and EPIRB. These EGMDSS projects have been awarding winning e-learning tools which have a number of animations and real life simulators included. The MarTEL project developed Maritime English tests for seafarers, in response to concerns expressed during the IMO’s 82nd Maritime Safety Committee meeting (2006) that there was considerable need for an International set of Maritime English standards. With a significant number of accidents taking place at sea due to poor communication, it is hoped that the creation of these new Maritime English standards will not only help to save lives but also reduce material and financial losses. Keyword: online learning, e-learning, Impact, gmdss, netsoskar, mep, mareng, assessment, maritime English