One of the outcomes of the project, the E-learning Course on ECI is now completed. It’s first edition was a success according to the evaluation of the students, and now the second revised edition has started for the second year students.
COURSE OVERVIEW
The ECI e-learning course is an output of a larger project: the European Citizens' Initiative: A Tool for Engagement and Active Citizenship (ECI: From A to Z) financed by the European Commission under the Erasmus + program (project 2020-1-PT01-KA203-078546).
The instrument of the European Citizens' initiative, established by the Treaty of Lisbon, is a field of excellence for civic engagement and participation within European Union public life. It deserves, therefore, to be better understood and applied in all of its entirety. The ECI online course – the first of its kind on this topic – will help students to familiarise themselves with the functioning of the European Citizens' initiative from all angles: historical, legal, political, administrative, technical, etc.
The core purpose of the ECI project – and also of this online course - is to develop new methods and tools for learning processes that are to be applied in a collaborative and practical way. We hope you feel motivated by our contents, videos and activities to become a co-constitutive creator of your own European Citizens’ initiative.
This course has a duration of 54 hours [equivalent to 2 ECTS] distributed over 2 months.
MODULES
The modules entailed in the E-learning Course are the following:
- Participation: purpose, levels and instruments
- Comparative direct participatory mechanisms
- European Citizenship
- European Citizens initiative: goals, regulation, procedure
- Powers of the European Commission
- ECl experiences in several fields
- Technical and administrative aspects of ECl
- Evaluation the ECI participatory mechanism
LEARNING OUTCOMES
At the end of the ECI online course students should be able to:
- Know the main direct participatory mechanisms that they may use;
- Understand how the European Citizens’ Initiative works;
- Understand how the European Citizens’ Initiative has continued to develop over the years;
- Realize the relevance of being an engaged European citizen;
- Grasp the importance of group working in order to voice common concerns;
- Be motivated to use the European Citizens’ Initiative in the future, either as an organizer or as a supporter.
METHODOLOGY
The ECI online course is divided into eight modules that work together as a whole as a learning experience around the European Citizens’ Initiative.
The succession of modules follows a (progressive) internal logic; therefore, starting with module 1 and finishing with module 8 is highly advisable.
Despite the global coherence of the course, autonomy has been given to each module leader(s) regarding the process of designing the content, videos and activities in each one. This is why you will find differences between modules, which are always fine-tuned to suit the topic in hand.
The outcome is nonetheless the one and only aim of providing an online course that shows the importance of participation in general and, in particular, that of the European Citizens’ Initiative as a tool for further engagement and involvement in European Union affairs.
