An Extended Study on Motivation and Need for Multimedia Skills Development in the Case of University Staff

Abstract

University staff has been the most vulnerable actor (or even stakeholder) in the process of the online transition of all the academic activities (education, scientific, communication, internationalization, involvement in the community etc.). University missions has been re-shaped and re-designed considering the new ways (methods and tools) for communication, opinion expressions, dialogue, for scientific argumentations and negotiations, promotion of different results, achievements, events or the university activities. Multimedia competencies have become more valuable and together with the digital creativity has been considered the new “weapon” for creating a new image of the online universities (defining the new online world of the academic environment). In this context, the paper first, presents the specific situation and potential for multimedia competencies development in the case of the seven partners of MUST project: “Multimedia Competencies for University Staff to Empower University - Community Collaborations” (2020-1-RO01-KA203-080399, https://mustproject.eu/). The extended study refers to partners from countries as: Romania, Slovenia, Germany, Lithuania, Portugal, Spain, and North Macedonia. The preliminary state of the university staff competencies in the field of multimedia, has been the basis for the survey based on a designed questionnaire development for the training needs development. In the final part of this article the results of the survey are presented together with some comments and conclusions. The achieved knowledge and information from the extended study on motivation and need for multimedia skills development in the case of university staff have been considered for designing the MUST training program structure and content.