ONE CLASS! Open Network for Education

1. Basilicata Multi-classes:

The project will support the Basilicata Region and the overall educational institutions, needing to ensure to each student present in a multi-class the access to the complete educational programme as delivered in regular classes, where each level has a dedicated teaching team. At this aim, ONE CLASS! offers a satcom solution to:

• Overcome digital isolation via the satellite technology
• Overcome the limit of a multiclass via the provisioning of a new didactic model
• Innovate the educational system towards an active dimension of learning

The project wants to create “one class” virtually opened to several users and offering relevant opportunities to access to educational experiences, contents and relations wider than the ones offered by a usual physical class.

2. Social Integration Services for Foreign Unaccompanied Minors (FUM):

The project addresses social operators/NGOs managing Reception centres of immigrants, which face the burning problem of ensuring the hosted Foreign Unaccompanied Minors - FUM educational paths fostering social inclusion within the local communities.

The project proposal represents an important opportunity both for users and for the social operator entities and NGOs to create:

• Personalised and certified education path in a collaborative and open environment;
• The link with people/relatives living in the countries of origin;
• Opportunity to be in contact with local media to be informed about what it is happening in the country of origin;
• Social inclusion and labour market opportunities.

Users and their needs

The Basilicata pilot addresses:

• Schools: Students and teachers are the “final users” of the ONE CALSS! solution. They need to overcome the limitations imposed by the multi-classes by accessing to a complete educational path.
• The Basilicata Region: it needs to find a new didactic model fitting the needs of the many multi-classes spread on its territory;
• Regional Education Office: it plays an important role in the process of involvement of the schools and in the design, monitoring and assessment of the education path.
• Ministry of Education (MoE): it supports the process of both digitalisation of schools and innovation in the learning/teaching practices.

The FUM pilot addresses:

• Immigrants: the beneficiary/users of the system are the foreign unaccompanied minors as citizens from third-country or stateless persons below the age of eighteen who enter the European territory unaccompanied by an adult person and are accommodated in reception centres.
• Il Sicomoro: is a private social operator managing reception centres located in Basilicata and active at national level. It needs to provide a set of services in order to improve the quality of education and life of FUM hosted within its reception centres especially from a social point of view.
• Ministry of Interiors: it is interested in improving services for FUM offered by Social Operators/NGOs at national level, with special regard to the socio-educational features.

Service/ system concept

1.Basilicata Multi-classes:

To offer students present in a multi-class the same educational path as delivered in standard schools, ONE CLASS! will implement a new didactic model based on:

• the daily use of video conferencing between the multi-class and the corresponding level of standard school (Synchronous teaching);
• a Cloud eLearning platform containing extra educational contents (Asynchronous teaching).

The proposed services create a clear advantage for the students thanks to access possibilities they offer to a real open network of '"Education" as well as to the possibility of creating a link between all the virtual classes. Overall, the Basilicata pilot will last 8 months and involve a network of 28 sites, divided between multi-classes and master schools.

The Basilicata Multi-classes service system architecture is shown below:

2. Social Integration Services for Foreign Unaccompanied Minors (FUM):

For the FUM pilot, the following activities will be supported:

• Daily videoconferencing between the FUM reception centre and the corresponding classes located in selected African schools (Synchronous teaching).
• Enrichment and valorisation of the extra school-time via the access to the cloud e-learning platform containing educational contents (Asynchronous teaching).

The pilot activities will last 5  months and the network will be composed of 4 pilot sites:

• 2 multi-classes located in the Sicily Region (Italy);
• 2 master classes located in two different African Countries.

The FUM service system architecture is shown below:

Space Added Value

The satellite technological solution is based on pre-existing elements already up and running provided by Eutelsat, with which Openet subscribed a specific contract. It will use the Ka–Sat system (space and ground segment). The broadband connectivity for the overall network will  be provided using Ka-band (20-30 GHz).

The use of satellite proves to be particularly beneficial for the targeted scenarios. The satellite technology will in fact support those schools and reception centres hosted in areas affected by digital divide and limited access to TLC.

Moreover, the standard terrestrial based IP connection cannot support the Quality of Service required for the videoconference which is necessary to support the synchronous teaching mode with the consistent level of quality. Another advantage of the satellite connection is represented by the possibility of allocating the required bandwidth on-demand, and of releasing the allocation when is not needed anymore.

Finally, in the case of FUM, the proposed solution will allow to start piloting a new model of social, educational and cultural inclusion through the development of targeted actions and tools able to directly "bring" the school anywhere needed, even in emergency events and centres set up with limited time and resources.

Current Status

In January 2016, the project has officially been kicked off with the signature of the contract.

In this early phase and by the BDR (which took place on 01 March2016), the user requirements are identified in strict cooperation with the pilot schools and reception centres, and all local stakeholders, including the regional education office, the Basilicata Region and Il Sicomoro.

Openet is also developing a baseline solution for the development of a bandwidth reservation tool and an Outcomes Assessment Tool (OAT), aiming at showing in near real time a number of indicators necessary to evaluate how the system is used, and the associated impacts.

Prime Contractor

OPENET
More: https://artes-apps.esa.int/business-network/openet
Homepage: http://www.openet.it
Italy

Project Managers:

Contractor Project Manager
Filomena Cuccarese
Openet Technologies S.p.A.
Via delle Comunicazioni sn
75100 Matera MT
Italy
Phone: +39 0835 680440
fcuccarese@openet.it

ESA Project Manager
Davide Tomassini
ESA/ESTEC
Keplerlaan 1
2200 AG Noordwijk ZH
Netherlands
Davide.Tomassini@esa.int

This article was first published online on 4 March 2016 at ESA's Artes applications website.