Project duration: October 2011 - July 2014

Project leader at ASH: Professor Ingrid Kollak

Other project contacts at ASH: Maxine Saborowski, Franziska Kuck

Management of the overall project: Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft Berlin (HTW), Professor Gerhard Hörber

Project website: www.maal.htw-berlin.de (under construction)

Abstract:

The aim of the project is to offer a part-time interdisciplinary Masters course in the area of Ambient Assisted Living in cooperation with the Hochschule für Technik und Wirtschaft – University of Applied Sciences Berlin (HTW). As the course will be developed in line with the “Tuning Educational Structures in Europe” model, it will be recognised and relevant across Europe. Individual modules from the course will be offered to a wide variety of people in the context of further education and continuing vocational training.

Together with HTW and other partners, ASH is developing the Masters course within the three-year MAAL project. The course is to be developed in line with the “Tuning Educational Structures in Europe” model, which includes, among other things, methods for promoting student participation in the design of new courses to be offered. The course is intended for graduates with bachelor degrees in the disciplines of humanities (for example, BA Social Work, BSc Heath and Social Care Management, BA Early Childhood Education, BSc Physiotherapy/Occupational Therapy), the engineering sciences and design, who will then be taught across subjects. The students will be trained to develop, produce and design AAL technologies, as well as to advise on, plan for and evaluate the deployment of these technologies.

As a university that focuses on “health, education and social matters”, we would like to pass on knowledge about local service and care structures in the healthcare sector within the new course. We are particularly concerned to embed participatory research methods. This should be clearly demonstrated both by student participation in developing the course and by the evolution of the course content during the study period. In this way, students should learn from the beginning to consider the user’s perspective when developing products. Using these methods and this course content, we seek to make the Masters course graduates more receptive to the needs and demands people have when dealing with technology. Thus, we want to enable the graduates to determine the immediate needs of particular social groups.

The MAAL-project is supported by the BMBF within the following project line: “Development of occupational and academic further education offerings and supplementary qualifications in the area of age-appropriate assistance schemes  – QuAALi”