Impact of Intensive Study Programs on Higher Education Students in the Field of Design and Modelling of Textile Materials

Abstract

The knowledge of software for design and modelling of textiles offers a competitive advantage within the world of work for young textile creatives. The Erasmus+ project OptimTex – “Software tools for textile creatives” has created a large set of educational materials and the corresponding e-learning resources in this competitive domain. Six educational modules, one Moodle e-learning platform with courses in six national languages, one e-learning instrument for quick access to the content and one glossary of terms were implemented during the two-year’s project 2020-2022 (www.optimtex.eu). Two Intensive Study Programs (ISPs) of five days were already organized by the project’s partners: one virtual ISP with the host Technical University of Iasi and one mobility ISP with the host University of Maribor. A total number of 27 students and 15 lecturers participated in the first ISP and a total number of 17 students and 12 lecturers participated in the second ISP. The six modules for Design and Modelling of woven structures, knitted structures, virtual prototyping of clothing, embroidered e-textiles, design of experiments, and TechTransfer had a high impact on the students. The impact was measured by feedback questionnaires and the interest in e-learning resources by the number of accesses (www.advan2tex.eu/portal/). This paper presents the impact of the educational materials on Higher Education students in relation to the envisaged objectives of the project.