“An important goal of the SFUs is to get other educational environments to use knowledge and experience that these centers have developed. And you are very much an educational environment for inspiration and support for others, ”said Minister Iselin Nybø during the announcement ceremony at USN Campus Vestfold in December 2019.
Institutions with the SFU label shows high quality and innovative practice in education.
Zoom meeting instead of a celebratory cake
Center of Excellence in Maritime Simulator Training and Assessment ( COAST ) started formally on 1 June 2020. What would have been a grand opening with cake and a full-day workshops was replaced by a digital kick-off, attended by the students, staff, instructors, industry and international partners in October due to the pandemic.
COAST has its origins in MARKOM2020, which is a collaboration on maritime education between USN, UiT, NTNU and HVL, run by USN Professor Salman Nazir on behalf of the four institutions.
“Our task is to be the world's leading provider of simulator training and assessment methods for maritime education. We will engage students, instructors, industry partners and researchers to understand maritime simulator practice today, identify gaps and come up with suggestions for solutions for the future. This is a unique opportunity to set a world-class standard for maritime simulator training and to ensure the quality of training of seafarers,” says Nazir.
Will collaborate globally
The SFU status is granted for five years with the possibility to extend for another five. The goal is to continue to raise the standards for maritime simulator education in Norway, which can inspire other disciplines and global institutions.
The educational programs at USN that have connections to SFU are bachelor in nautical science, bachelor in marine engineering and bachelor in shipping and logistics.
“This is a very exciting investment that we have high hopes for. Through COAST's dissemination of knowledge, SFU will not only be able to promote maritime education in Norway but will also be able to contribute to the quality development of other educations where the use of a simulator is relevant,” says Ingvild Marheim Larsen, vice-rector for education, who also participated in it digital kicked off.
With COAST now open, partner universities will organize their work towards delivery, plan workshops, design simulator experiments, and collect data involving students, teachers and researchers across the partner institutions.
“I am humbled and lucky to be able to contribute to Norwegian maritime education together with this team with support from DIKU (Norwegian Directorate for International Cooperation and Quality Improvement in Higher Education). Now we want to collaborate with industry and academia from all over the world,” Nazir concludes.
During these five years, the centre will focus on four areas:
- Overall submission to the plan for simulator training.
- Innovation in simulator-based learning and assessment.
- Student involvement.
- Organizational development
