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.
