Cooperation Partnership for Digital Higher Education in Integrated Omics for Environmental Sustainability

DIGI OMICA

DigiOmica:

The Omics Journey in the Digital World

An investment in knowledge pays the best interest.

Benjamin Franklin

In the last decades, the rapid development of omics – a multidisciplinary field that encompasses genomics, epigenomics, transcriptomics, proteomics, and metabolomics – was triggered by improvements in genome decoding techniques and high throughput screening to enable the profiling of mRNA, proteins, and metabolites. Omics technologies aim at characterizing and quantifying pools of biomolecules that translate into the cellular structure, function, and dynamics.

The subfield of environmental omics refers to the application of omics technologies to understand and model environmental and genetic factors, toxicity mechanisms, and modes of responsive action. Omics technologies that address environment-related problems study the characteristics of biomolecules in relation to environmental exposure and apply systematic approaches to advance our understanding of biological processes in environmental context.

The progress in findings in this area have alerted us to the need of focusing and updating higher education towards the environmentally applied omics.

Our Facilities

DigiOmica project supports the digital integration of the educational resources design, academic practices, infrastructure, and ways of HE delivery. It offers specialized facilities to:

Deliver innovative learning content in environmental omics to address EDU 4.0, linking the molecular life sciences sector and the green innovation policy;
Encourage educators to adopt modern and innovative methods of teaching to make learning easy, more meaningful, and engaging;
Stimulate competence development of various environmental professionals and foster the performance of adequate quality standards in environmental omics learning;
Satisfy the global needs of digital education readiness of academic professionals and students.

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Curriculum ‘Integrated Environmental Omics’

DigiOmica’s curriculum focuses on the emergence and development of OMICS technology. It bridges digital technology and environmental omics and reveals modern implications of ICT in Molecular Biology as an effective means to study environmental DNA – a powerful tool to monitor and protect ecosystems.

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HE Teachers’ Catalogue

An essential aspect of the DigiOmica project is the vital role of HE teachers as problem-setters, masters, consultants, and analysts in the HE system. DigiOmica creates a catalogue focused on the best pedagogical and ICT-based practices for conducting HE to tackle the need for excellence and specific digital skills in HE teaching development.

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Students’ Toolkit

B.Sc., M.Sc., and Ph.D. students have essential roles as learners, collaborators, and team members in the learning process. DigiOmica creates a student toolkit to help them increase their capabilities to learn skillfully and effectively due to the knowledge and skills they acquire and the learning process they master.

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OMICS index

These are DigiOmica guidance methods and components for the DigiOmica education process arrangement. They include methodological approaches for checking and stimulating prior knowledge display, acquisition of causal knowledge, acquisition of planning knowledge, and exchange of analytical reports.

Customized Learning Pathways

DigiOmica Customized Learning Pathways (CLPs) represent individual learning objects that are structured from the collection of DigiOmica learning resources (Modules). They are designed to fit DigiOmica target groups and their needs to gain new and upgrade available specific competences within the integrated environmental omics area.
The CLPs are formulated and launched as personal educational routes assigned to particular end-users’ profile and matching EQF reference levels 6, 7, and 8.