Challenges in educating museum professionals for The 21st century: the MU.SA - Museum Sector Alliance Project

Abstract

This paper aims to present the Mu.SA - Museum Sector Alliance project, funded by the European Commission, more specifically by the Erasmus+ Program and the Key Action 2 (Cooperation for Innovation and Good Practice Exchange), which supports the Sector Competences Alliances (575907- EPP-1-2016- 1-EL-EPPKA2-SSA). Building on the results of a previous project (eCult Skills_2013-15), funded by the Lifelong Learning Program, weaknesses in the museum sector were identified at the level of digital and transversal competences. The Mu.SA project intended to contribute to the mitigation of these fragilities, in order to empower museum professionals, as well as those who aspire to be, to better face the challenges of Information and Communication Technologies and to enhance their museums and Society by promoting their development and sustainability, building on larger and stronger synergies between different sectors of education, training and youth, for the better articulated interaction between research, policies and practices and for the best use of references for recognition and validation of competences and qualifications. Thus, based on the identification and characterization of a set of emerging professional profiles and respective competences, the Mu.SA - Museum Sector Alliance aimed at, and has been, developing an Open Educational Resources repository to support individual equipping in more than forty digital and transversal competences. These duly structured resources are offered in different formats of education and training courses: a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), certified and of a generic and introductory nature; and a Specialization Course, credited and structured considering e-learning, face-to-face and work-based learning contexts. The legitimate and reasoned expectation of building communities of practice will also contribute to ensuring the sustainability of the results, beyond the duration of the project. Among the other positive expected results, at the level of those more or less directly involved in its activities, there may be an increase in the spirit of initiative and entrepreneurship, a more active participation in Society, a greater capacity for understanding, respect and response.