Short Course on Marine Data Literacy

Course Announcement

As academic courses are further boosting qualified professionals to fit the challenges of a knowledge-based society that is relying more extensively on our sustainable relationship with the earth and oceans, there is a growing need to qualify the skills of students in the efficient handling of data. This is the evolving scenario that elevates the value of data, in particular that related to the sea, and its transformation into information and knowledge in the context of the digital age, spearheading the evolution of marine services to match stakeholder demands, and boosting research and innovation applications, such as within the ambit of Blue Growth and Mission Ocean – the European Commission’s initiatives to further harness the potential of Europe’s oceans, seas and coasts, for sustainable development, jobs and value.

This is the background against which SEA-EU is offering a joint intensive course engaging some of its best expert academics from its six universities to deliver a training programme dedicated to data harvesting and harnessing. If you are a student pursuing to complete your undergraduate studies or to do research (MSc or PhD) based on the specialised use of data, this is your opportunity to sharpen your talents and learn in one spot how to search, understand, handle and exploit data in one single dedicated formative intensive course. Through this course, SEA-EU is showcasing the benefit of merging academic excellence across the alliance universities to offer students a unique setting for a cross-university experience, through a joint delivery, with exchange and teamwork between students from different European countries in a common shared academic environment.

The course tackles the full range of data types, covering the different data acquisition and generation platforms (e.g. observations and models), and including the merging of data of diverse nature (e.g. socio-economic and ecological) including non-scientific and qualitative data (eg resource tracking and mapping, demography, performance statistics, etc).

The course adopts a practical and hands-on approach throughout so that concepts and methods are delivered through examples and real applications, especially those related to the marine and maritime contexts. The delivery of the course is expected to apply a blended approach where students would be offered options with a mix of online and physical delivery. The course is planned in three linked but distinct components (introductory, intensive and project phases), for a total of 50 hours spread over a period of two months, October/November each year.

The execution of the course is done jointly by the partner universities and coordinated by a Board of Studies which is this year led by the University of Malta (Prof. Aldo Drago, aldo.drago@um.edu.mt). The hosting and organisation of the intensive practical week will be done on a roster basis, with the host/lead university rotating every year between the participating universities.

For 2021, a fully online delivery is being planned. Once the COVID19 restrictions are over, the course can follow the structured components as outlined above.

For more info on the course please follow the details in the course concept or contact the members of the Board of Studies.

The detailed programme and timetable will be issued in September.