Project objectives
The INSTRUCT7 project is a continuation of the previous INSTRUCT1-6 projects, to intensify measures to increase ethics and academic integrity, digitize management and teaching processes, increase the quality of dissertations, doctoral theses, habilitation theses and scientific production resulting from doctoral and post-doctoral research activities. The measures proposed within the INSTRUCT7 project are correlated with the General Objectives (OG) and the types of activities stated in the information package for Domain 5: Education solutions and evaluation mechanisms supported by electronic platforms (e-learning, simulation) (OG 5.1, OG 5.5); Development and implementation of structures and procedures at university level regarding the evaluation of the quality of teaching (OG 5.2); Continuous improvement of teaching staff and learning tools (OG 5.2; 5.3); Promoting respect for deontology and academic ethics, including by strengthening specific structures (CCEA – Research Center in Applied Ethics of UTCB) (OG 5.4)
Activities carried out:
A1. Development of educational solutions and evaluation mechanisms supported by electronic platforms
•A1.1 Carrying out didactic, virtual activities – preparation regarding the norms and rules for conceiving and writing a scientific paper intended for master’s students, doctoral students, post-doctoral students, candidates for habilitation: Virtual seminar on writing articles (June, Oct. 2024), with new digital support on iosud.utcb.ro;
•A1.2: Making connections and virtual communication with international partners 1 virtual communication session with international partners about Open Science (Sept.-Oct. 2024);
•A1.3: Development and implementation of the continuous evaluation system, by students, of the education process 4 evaluation sessions, 15 types of online questionnaires on iosud.utcb.ro, 4 virtual discussions (May-Nov. 2024);
A2. Development and implementation of mechanisms and procedures at university level regarding the evaluation and improvement of the quality of teaching and learning at doctoral level
•A2.1: Identifying modern mechanisms for evaluating teaching and evaluation processes based on correlation with societal needs – 2 interactive workshops (problem-based learning, pedagogical micro-modules) (June-Sept. 2024);
•A2.2: Establishing a procedural code for monitoring the scientific publication activities of doctoral and master’s students from IOSUD UTCB. (Oct. 2024); target audience:
•A2.3: 2 courses for teaching staff on communication and teaching skills (May, July, Oct. 2024);
•A2.4: 2 information actions on the Gender Equality Plan and the Code of Conduct (July-Oct. 2024); A3.
A3. Actions for continuous improvement of doctoral supervisors, candidates for habilitation, doctoral students as well as learning tools
•A3.1: Support activities for supporting the participation of doctoral supervisors and candidates for habilitation Participation of 2 doctoral supervisors and candidates for habilitation in training courses (June-Oct. 2024).
•A3.2: 3 sessions of exchange of experience with European partners about Open Science (July, Oct. 2024).
•A3.3: 3 practical workshops on the use of AI in teaching (June-Sept. 2024); target audience: 50 teaching staff.
•A3.4: Renovation of a space for the Research Center in Applied Ethics (Oct. 2024).
•A3.5: 1 competition for the publication of 4 Q1/Q2 articles (May-Sept. 2024).
A4. Measures to promote respect for deontology and academic ethics in IOSUD UTCB
•A4.1: 2 interactive seminars on ethics (May, Nov. 2024);
•A4.2: 1 seminar for scientific writing (June-Nov. 2024);
•A4.3: 2 practical activities to prevent misconduct (June-Nov. 2024);
•A4.4: The conference “Current ethical challenges” and the publication of articles in an indexed volume (Nov. 2024).
•A4.5: Intensifying anti-plagiarism verification activities – Organizing a practical workshop – Ethics of disseminating research results in scientific journals. 1 workshop on writing review articles (Nov. 2024); target audience: 230 doctoral students
A5. Actions to increase the visibility of the Doctoral School of UTCB and IOSUD UTCB – with openness to EU-CONEXUS partners and other external partners
•A5.1: Carrying out actions to promote SUD at international level. Updating the sd.utcb.ro website and international promotion (May-Sept. 2024).
•A5.2: Participation in promotional activities within Construct Fest and other national and international promotion exhibitions/fairs (May-Sept. 2024).
•A5.3: Organizing the Doctoral School Conference (DSC2024) with UTCB doctoral students and EU-CONEXUS partner doctoral students, articles published in WOS/Scopus (Oct. 2024).
Estimated results:
1.1 virtual seminar (June, Oct. 2024) and digital support – 100% completed
2.1 international session with 2 themes about Open Science (Sept.-Oct. 2024) – 100% completed
3.4 evaluation sessions and 15 types of questionnaires in the iosud.ro platform – 100% completed
4.2 interactive workshops, 1 procedural code for publication, 2 training courses for teaching staff – 100% completed
5.3 sessions of exchange of experience, 3 practical workshops, 1 renovated space for CCEA – 100% completed
6.1 competition for publishing articles in Q1/Q2 journals – 100% completed
7.2 interactive seminars on ethics and scientific writing – 100% completed
8.1 international conference and publication of articles in indexed volumes – 100% completed
9. Updating the website and international promotion actions – 100% completed
The project is a continuation of the previous INSTRUCT 1-5 projects, dedicated to measures regarding academic ethics, digitization of management and teaching processes, increasing the quality of scientific production resulting from doctoral and post-doctoral research activities. For INSTRUCT6 the objectives were the following: O1- Increasing the quality of scientific production of doctoral students, post-doctoral students, master’s students and future doctoral supervisors from IOSUD-UTCB by organizing specific actions;
O2 – Improving the level of knowledge of the UTCB community regarding Academic Ethics, including by strengthening specific structures (Office for Ethics and Academic Integrity);
O3 – Increasing the visibility of the Doctoral School and its international research Master’s degree in the context of UTCB’s position as a partner of the EU-CONEXUS consortium of European universities;
O4 – Creating mechanisms to correlate the portfolio of research topics from the master’s program and from PPUA with societal needs by identifying modern teaching and innovation mechanisms.
A1. Carrying out actions to stimulate doctoral scientific production
A1.1 Organizing a training seminar on the norms and rules for conceiving and writing a scientific paper – completed
A1.2 Organizing a practical workshop: Circulation and exchange of information and research results in Open Science repositories – completed
A1.3 Hands-on workshop Building a research portfolio that demonstrates commitment to Open Science principles – completed
A1.4 Organizing an internal grant competition for financing the publication of Open Access papers in Q1 journals for doctoral students and candidates for habilitation – completed
A1.5 Organizing the UTCB Doctoral School Conference (DSC2023) and publishing the selected articles in a volume indexed in WOS or Scopus – completed, the conference volume has been edited and is in the process of being indexed.
A2. Improving the level of knowledge of doctoral students, master’s students, future doctoral supervisors, post-doctoral students regarding Academic Ethics.
A2.1 Information actions for researchers and doctoral students regarding the Gender Equality Plan and the Code of Conduct regarding integrity in research – completed
A2.2 Organizing the international conference “Current ethical challenges in research and higher education” – completed
A2.3 Organizing a training seminar – Ethics of disseminating research results in scientific journals – completed
A2.4 Organizing interactive seminars with the invitation of experts in academic ethics to present, answer questions and share their experience – completed
A2.5 Organizing activities to evaluate the impact of the measures developed through questionnaires and discussions with doctoral students, master’s students, future doctoral supervisors and post-doctoral students, to determine whether they have gained a deeper understanding of issues related to Academic Ethics – completed
A2.6. Arranging and modernizing a space dedicated to the Office for Ethics and Academic Integrity – completed
A3. Increasing the visibility of the Doctoral School of UTCB by operationalizing the international research Master’s program Smart, sustainable and resilient urban environment – with openness to CONEXUS partners and other external partners
A3.1 Carrying out actions to promote SUD and the research Master’s program at international level. operationalizing the website and other promotional materials with international visibility for the Master’s program – completed
A3.2 Participation in promotional activities within Construct Fest and other national and international promotion exhibitions/fairs – completed
A4. Creating mechanisms to correlate the portfolio of research topics from the master’s program and from PPUA with societal needs
A4.1 Organizing training courses for teaching staff to develop communication and teaching skills – completed
A4.2 Organizing training courses oriented towards interdisciplinary collaborative practices through online Open Science platforms – completed
A 4.3 Organizing a Hackathon dedicated to master’s and doctoral students to solve challenges launched by various partners and stakeholders – completed
Degree of achievement of the assumed results:
R1 – A1.1, A1.2, A1.3- 1 Seminar writing papers + 2 workshops Ethics and Open Science – in the process of being finalized
R2 – A1.4 Minimum 2 Open Access papers in Q1, Q2 journals – 100% completed
R3 – A1.5 DSC Conference and the related volume of papers – 100% completed
R4 – A2.2 Conference “Current ethical challenges in research and higher education” + volume of papers – 100% completed
R5 – A2.3, A2.4 1 Seminar Ethics of dissemination in Open Science + 1 Interactive ethics seminars – 100% completed
R6 – A2.5 Activities evaluating the impact of measures related to Academic Ethics at IOSUD level – 100% completed
R7 – A2.6 Arranging space for the Office for Ethics and Academic Integrity – 100% completed
R8 – A3.1. Promotional materials, flyers – 100% completed
R9 – A3.2 Construct Fest Participation – 100% completed
R10 – A4.1, A4.2 1 Training courses communication and teaching +1 Courses interdisciplinary collaborative practices – 100% completed
R11 – A4.3 Hackathon for master’s and doctoral students – 100% completed
The project is a continuation of the previous INSTRUCT 1-4 projects, dedicated to measures regarding academic ethics, digitization of management and teaching processes, increasing the quality of scientific production resulting from doctoral and post-doctoral research activities. For INSTRUCT5 the objectives were the following: O1-Increasing the quality of scientific production of the academic community from IOSUD-UTCB; O2-Improving the level of knowledge of the UTCB community regarding Academic Ethics; O3-Increasing the visibility of the Doctoral School and the international research Master’s degree; O4-Creating mechanisms to correlate the portfolio of research topics from the master’s program and from PPUA with societal needs by identifying modern teaching and innovation mechanisms. All objectives were met through the activities carried out:
A1. Carrying out actions to stimulate doctoral scientific production
A1.1 Organizing a training seminar on the norms and rules for conceiving and writing a scientific paper: Writing a journal article; Technical-scientific English – completed
A1.2 Organizing a hands-on writing workshop for journal article papers – completed
A1.3 Organizing an internal grant competition for financing the publication of open access papers in Q1, Q2 journals for doctoral students, post-doctoral students and candidates for habilitation – completed
A1.4 Organizing the UTCB Doctoral School Conference (DSC2022) and publishing the selected articles in a volume indexed in WOS or Scopus – completed, the conference volume has been edited and is in the process of being indexed by IOP.
A2. Operationalizing the electronic platform for managing doctoral activities, by participating in the revitalization of the UTCB MCEE magazine
A2.1 Operationalizing the editorial management module for doctoral students’ articles for publication in the Modelling in Civil and Environmental Engineering magazine of UTCB – completed
A2.2 Involvement of doctoral supervisors in Guest Editor type activities – completed – 2 volumes in Energies and Applied Sciences + 1 volume in MCEE in the process of being finalized – completed
A2.3 Completing the e-learning module from the IOSUD platform with video materials related to writing the doctoral thesis, the habilitation thesis – completed
A2.4 Operationalizing the module intended for organizing internal competitions of the Doctoral School – organizing GID 2022 – completed
A3. Improving the level of knowledge of doctoral students, master’s students, future doctoral supervisors, post-doctoral students regarding Academic Ethics.
A3.1 Operationalizing CCEA – completed
A3.2 Organizing an information workshop detecting plagiarism with the help of specialized programs – completed
A3.3 Organizing a course for teaching and teaching-auxiliary staff, in order to increase the degree of awareness of the danger of discrimination and favoritism – completed
A3.4. Disseminating the new EU CONEXUS Code of Ethics and Academic Integrity and implementing a procedural code in order to implement and monitor specific activities at IOSUD UTCB level – completed
A3.5 Organizing a training seminar through CCEA on the use of documentation resources necessary for the elaboration of scientific papers intended for master’s students, doctoral students, young teaching staff – completed
A4. Increasing the visibility of the Doctoral School of UTCB by operationalizing the international research Master’s program Smart, sustainable and resilient urban environment
A4.1 Carrying out actions to promote SUD and the research Master’s program at international level. Creating a website and other promotional materials with international visibility for the Master’s program (May -Sept.2022) – completed
A4.2 Correlating the discipline sheets from the existing portfolio with challenge-based research projects – completed
A5. Correlating the portfolio of research topics from the master’s program and from PPUA with societal needs
A5.1 Identifying and applying successful mechanisms in challenge-based learning teaching and evaluation processes, with international partners – completed
A5.2 Organizing training courses for teaching staff to organize challenge-based learning modules – completed
A5.3 Creating a digital Innovation Hub for the analysis of spatial data with applications for specific solutions related to the resilience and quality of the built environment – completed
Degree of achievement of the assumed results:
R1 – A1.1 and A1.2 – 1 Seminar + 1 writing workshop – 100% completed
R2 – A1.3 – minimum 4 Open Access papers in Q1, Q2 journals – 100% completed
R3 – A1.4 + A5.4 DSC Conference and the related volume of papers (Oct. 2022) (O1, O3) + 1 CBL workshop – 100% completed
R4 – A2.1 and A2.2 – Operationalizing the MCEE editorial module + 3 Special Issues with doctoral student authors
R5 – A 2.3 – Support materials in the e-learning module of IOSUD – 100% completed
R6 – A2.4 – Operationalizing the internal competitions module + organizing GID 2022 – 100% completed
R7 – A3.1 + A3.2 +A3.3 – 1 Seminar Detecting plagiarism + 1 Courses – Increasing awareness of the danger of discrimination and favoritism – 100% completed
R8 – A3.1 – Information brochures – a transparent and inclusive working environment + translation of the Code of Ethics and Academic Integrity + 1 Presentation workshop – 100% completed
R9 – A3.1+A3.5+A3.6 – 1 Training seminar – Documentary and bibliometric resources +1 training seminar Ethics of dissemination in scientific journals – 100% completed
R10 – A4.1 – Website in EN, FR, RO, other promotional materials, flyers – 100% completed
R11 – A5.1 and A5.2 CBL training courses + Course support “Practical methods for Challenge Based Learning – CBL” – 100% completed
R12 – A5.3 – Organization of Digital Innovation Hub GIS, Geoportals – 100% completed
The project aims to improve the quality of teaching activity by digitizing management and teaching processes, increasing the quality of dissertations and doctoral theses, habilitation theses and scientific production resulting from doctoral and postdoctoral activities, creating the necessary tools to increase the quality of scientific results and promote ethics.
The objectives for INSTRUCT4 are a continuation of the previous ones, for completing the virtual platform for managing doctoral activities already developed previously, course supports in digital format, organizing new counseling workshops and information seminars, operationalizing and arranging information and documentation points for doctoral students.
https://utcb.ro/cercetare/fondul-de-dezvoltare-institutionala/d5-imbunatatirea-calitatii-activitatii-didactice/
The FDI INSTRUCT 1-4 projects are part of the general vision of the UTCB Strategic Plan both in the national and international context, within its mission as a partner of the EU-CONEXUS consortium.
The projects propose a series of objectives and activities correlated with the current requirements for fulfilling quality criteria for doctoral university studies, visibility of IOSUD UTCB, promotion of Ethics and academic and scientific integrity.
The assumed mission of IOSUD UTCB is “to be a national center for training new generations of specialists and for high-performance scientific research in the field of construction.” The role of IOSUD is to be a knowledge-generating pole and scientific production, coagulating the forces of research teams in which doctoral and master students are integrated. In recent years, at the IOSUD level, the alignment of activities with the University’s Strategic Plan and with PNCDI has been initiated, in order to prepare its evaluation by ARACIS and for the co-option of new doctoral supervisors. In the previous context, it is necessary to continue implementing measures that support the increase in the quality, quantity and visibility of scientific activities and the promotion of academic ethics at the IOSUD level. These refer to: efficient management of activities, diversification of courses offered to doctoral and master students, increasing the level of information regarding research activity, the rules for elaborating a scientific paper of international level and the use of documentary instruments and support doctoral and master students from the university, but also future and current doctoral supervisors bearing the responsibility of the young people guided.
For the secretariat of the Doctoral School, its own document management platform was implemented, which was specially developed for the Doctoral School within the FDI-CNFIS-2018-0125 and FDI-CNFIS-2019-0354 projects, operationalized through FDI-CNFIS-2020-0370.
Through the FDI-CNFIS- 2020-0370 project, information and documentation points for doctoral students were arranged in the 3 campuses of UTCB.
Thus, in the Tei campus, a multifunctional information and documentation point was arranged within the secretariat of the Doctoral School, which is accessible to all doctoral students, equipped with furniture, laptops, video conferencing system (screen, camera), video projector, etc.
Through the FDI-CNFIS- 2021-0144 project, information and documentation activities were continued.
