Information for course developers

Registered trainers can upload their materials easily and for free on the ECSA e-learning platform! To upgrade your account permissions, please email vcummings@semi.org with information on the content you would like to provide on the platform

Course design 

• First, check the available courses on the ECSA website (https://chipsacademy.eu/e-learning/) to see if your planned course does not overlap much (ideally below 25% by estimation) with the existing ones. 

• In the design process, adhere to the models presented in Chapter 2.2.1 (ADDIE and Dick-Carey) as much as possible. 

• The suggested workload for ECSA courses is between 30 and 150 learning hours (ECTS 1–5), which includes the following elements: 

• Contact hours: screen time / reading time for online courses; lectures and hands-on sessions for face-to-face courses – a good approach is that this is half of the workload, for example, 15 hours for a workload of 30 hours (1 ECTS credit) 

• Mastering the learning materials and preparation for the assessment – a good estimation is that this is the 1/3rd time of the total workload, for example, 10 hours for a workload of 30 hours (1 ECTS credit) 

• The rest (for example, 5 hours for a total workload of 30 hours), which is spent with other activities, like independent study, literature research, and forum activities. 

• Use the template for the course description provided in the media kit. 

• Provide an informative title and describe the topic ideally in 500, but maximum in 1000 characters. 

• Give the EQF level, target audience and the course level (beginner, intermediate, advanced, expert). 

• Provide a detailed table of contents listing the main chapters and the subchapters. 

• Provide the learning outcomes considering the workload and the EQF level. Please note that at least 2/3rd of the learning outcomes must be ESCO compatible (https://esco.ec.europa.eu/en/classification/skill_main). The number of learning outcomes (individually for knowledge items and skills) should be approximately a tenth of the workload: for example, around 3 knowledge items and 3 skills for a workload of 30 hours (1 ECTS credit); 9 knowledge items and 9 skills for workload 90 hours (3 ECTS credits). 

• Plan an appropriate assessment (considering the type of recognition – see below), for which the students are able to prepare themselves in a time of 1/3rd of the total workload. 

Course development 

• Use the ECSA templates for PowerPoint presentations and Word documents. 

• Plan the content and number of slides based on the following guidelines: 

• A good approach is that the total number of slides (including all chapters) should be between the 1/3rd and half of the contact minutes; for example, the total number of slides should be between 300 and 450 (e.g. 30–45 per chapter in average for 10 chapters) for 15 contact hours (30 hours of total workload – 1 ECTS credit). 

• PPT slides for delivery (a presentation used for face-to-face teaching or has a voice-over explanation accompanied by detailed lecture notes) should contain mainly bullet points (a few sentences maximum for definitions) and images. 

• PPT slides intended for mastering the learning material (without additional aids and lecture notes) can contain more text, descriptions, definitions, and explanations. 

• Ideally, every 4-5th slide contains other media, like animations and videos. 

• Every 10th slide should briefly recap previously presented materials, optionally with a short self-assessment quiz (1–2 questions). 

• Export the materials to PDF documents. 

Recognition 

• For providing the certificate of attendance and grey badge(s): 

• The ECSA standardised feedback form must be filled out by the students. 

• Optional, unsupervised assessment of the gained knowledge can be organised; a single-choice (best out of five) quiz-like test is appropriate for this assessment. 

• For issuing a full certificate and gold badge(s): 

• The ECSA standardised feedback form must be filled out by the students. 

• Supervised assessment, a complete examination must be carried out together with checking the students’ ID and ensuring fair and equal conditions. 

• To discuss and arrange the technical part of issuing gold badges, contact Marek Spanyik (marek.spanyik@vsb.cz).