Public Call for Tender nb. 83427491 Senior Short term expert (SSTE) to operate and maintain Moodle Learning Management System 18.2208.9-001.00 QuA-VET

General information
a. Brief information on the project
The project "Improving the Quality and Attractiveness of Vocational Education and Training in
Lebanon" aims to increasingly align vocational education and training in sectors with
sustainable employment potentials with the needs of the Lebanese economy.
Emphasis is placed on improving the partnership between vocational training institutions and
the private sector, strengthening human resource capacity in vocational training institutions,
and developing practice-oriented training programs. The target groups of the project are young
people, unemployed and underemployed adults who want to improve their employment
prospects through qualifications relevant to the labor market.
The implementing partner is the Directorate General for Vocational and Technical Education
(DGVTE), which lacks capacity at various levels to involve the private sector in vocational
education and training. This concerns curriculum development, teacher training and the
expansion of practical elements in teaching. The project's advisory approach includes
establishing and advising coordination bodies with representatives of the state vocational
training sector and company representatives at the macro and steering levels, piloting
cooperation models between vocational training institutions and the private sector, systematic
human resources development in public vocational training institutions and testing
competency-based, modularized training programs.

Background – E-Learning (EL)

the still ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and the stumbling economic situation that are affecting Lebanon at several levels, TVET schools and institutes are not opening on a regaluar basis since March 2020 and are likely to stay closed several days of the week during the whole academic year 2022/23. Based on the experience in e-learning which the GIZ projects ProVTE and VTE4all have collected, and considering that the teaching and learning at distance will be a constant in the future in the form of blended learning, the QuA-VET project intends to develop the technical theoretical subjects of the following two sectors in e-learning modality:

• BT1 and BT2 “Maintenance of Manufacturing Machines
• TS1 and TS2 “Health Inspection and Food safety”

This will ensure that students are receiving the necessary support to access the technical theoretical subjects as e-lessons and that their learning is not interrupted due to the instability in the country. Moreover, the lessons in EL modality will be a support for teachers for in presence lessons, whenever more face to face teaching will be taking place.  

Outline of the mission

To assure a consistent level of quality of the content and the flow of the DL courses, an Authoring Software (AS) – Articulate Rise 360 - has been selected as a tool for the creation of interactive courses and a Learning Management System (LMS) – Moodle, which is SCORM compatible and can absorb the courses developed by the content developers contracted through QuA-VET project, has been chosen and used during the delivery of the technical theoretical subjects for the BT “Bâtiment et Travaux Publics” under ProVTE and VTE4all projects.

Moodle provides for an answer, that minimizes incompatibility and bug related technical problems and offers a cloud-based solution, which will allow for a quick and hassle-free set-up of the software and even offers offline viewing of the courses including progress tracking. As the e-learning lesson (ELL) development is a time-consuming process, students’ progress must be followed by the teachers who are not involved in the e-lessons’ development. These teachers will also receive a training on E-learning and remote tutoring concepts, and on the features of the LMS.

An analysis of the enrolment rates over the past year has shown that in BT "Mechanical Maintenance of Manufacturing Machines” and TS “Health Inspection and Food Safety” up to 500 students are expected to be enrolled in the current academic year in the 14 providing schools.

There will be up to 40 content developers trained in Articulate 360 by QuA-VET for inserting up to 810h of ELLs of the BT “Mechanical Maintenance of Manufacturing Machines” and TS “Health Inspection and Food Safety”, for the school years 2022/23 and 2023/24, into Moodle, and numerous teachers, who will disseminate the e-lessons to their students and monitor their learning progress.

In order to support teaching and administrative staff from the schools, external partners and learners in the effective use of Moodle, first line support to resolve any Moodle technical issues is required.

GIZ shall hire the contractor for the anticipated contract term, from 19.12.2022 to 31.07.2024

The contractor shall provide the following work/service:

For BT “Mechanical Maintenance of Manufacturing Machines”:

• Collect information on the LMS users in Excel from project team at the beginning of every academic year to create user accounts:
  • BT1 and BT2 students of “Mechanical Maintenance of Manufacturing Machines” in 10 schools;
  • Teachers responsible of delivering the technical theoretical subjects of the above specalization in the 9 schools;
  • 9 school directors that are part of the project implementation.
• Create cohorts on Moodle for each group of students, and their tutor(s), enrolled in one of the two levels of BT in each school.
• Assign each cohort to the courses they are registered in.  
• Create 2 categories in Moodle (one for each level) and in each category create in total up to 9 course rooms for BT “Mechanical Maintenance of Manufacturing Machines”, incl. configuration of advanced settings, development of custom plugins, configuration of authentication rules for access to the Moodle site.

For TS “Health Inspection and Food Safety”:

• Collect information on the LMS users in Excel from project team at the beginning of every academic year to create user accounts:
  • TS1 and TS2 students of “Health Inspection and Food Safety” in the 5 schools;
  • Teachers responsible of delivering the technical theoretical subjects of the above specalization in the 5 schools;
  • 4 school directors that are part of the project implementation.
• Create cohorts on Moodle for each group of students, and their tutor(s), enrolled in one of the two levels of TS in each school.
• Assign each cohort to the courses they are registered in. 

• Create 2 categories in Moodle (one for each level) and in each category create in total up to 17 course rooms for TS “Health Inspection and Food Safety”, incl. configuration of advanced settings, development of custom plugins, configuration of authentication rules for access to the Moodle site.

Others:

• Remove users that are no longer enrolled in the e-learning from Moodle.
• Prepare and conduct up to 4 training sessions to train up to 40 content developers on how to upload the ELLs in form of SCORM packages into Moodle.
• Record an instructional video for teachers on how to use Moodle to monitor their students.
• Prepare and conduct training sessions, (2 hours each) for teachers responsible of delivering technical theoretical subjects in the schools, on how to use Moodle for monitoring their students learning progress and activities, generate and analyse reports, train their students on the use of Moodle and its features.
• Prepare and conduct a training session for directors of schools involved in e-learning, on how to monitor their teachers and students’ activities on Moodle.
• Offer first line support to resolve any Moodle technical issues: become a first point of contact for learners, teachers, and content developers with Moodle issues (passwords, bugs, technical support, etc.).
• Create user accounts for digital training participants and enroll them in the courses as per the project team request.
• Meet with project manager, project team members, staff of the DGVTE and of other organisations involved in the project as considered necessary.
• Inform and regularly consult the project Team Members.
• Carry out all activities necessary for the accomplishment of the required outputs / results.
• Write mission report and required administrative deliverables.
• Be accessible after the short-term mission through internet for follow-up discussions.

Outputs/Results

The outputs / results requested from the Expert for EL in BT “Mechanical Maintenance of Manufacturing Machines” are:

• Excel files incl. information of users and cohorts for account creation for each academic year.
• 2 categories incl. up to 9 course rooms for each technical theoretical subject created in Moodle.

The outputs / results requested from the Expert for EL in TS “Health Inspection and Food Safety are:

• Excel files incl. information of users and cohorts for account creation for each academic year
• 2 categories incl. 17 course rooms created in Moodle.

Other outputs / results requested from the Expert are:

• Training sessions schedules and delivery for up to 40 content developers to be trained on how to upload ELLs to Moodle and adjust the settings.
• Guide, in PDF format, for content developers on how to upload DL SCORM packages into the correspondent school categories while adjusting the settings.
• Training sessions schedule and delivery for teachers responsible of disseminating technical theoretical subjects in the schools, on how to use Moodle for monitoring their students learning progress, generate and analyse reports, train their students on the use of Moodle App and its features.
• Guide, in PDF format, for teachers on how to use Moodle for delivery of ELLs and  check reports. 
• Instructional video for teachers in charge of e-lesson delivery, on Moodle features and functions.
• Training delivered to school directors on how to use Moodle for monitoring their teachers’ and students’ e-learning activities.
• Guide for directors, in PDF format, on how to monitor their teachers’ and students’ activities on Moodle.
• Customized technical support to schools provided upon request.
• A report summarizing the challenges encountered by the teachers and students using Moodle features with recommended solutions (could be done through survey or focus groups).

Administrative Deliverables:

• A comprehensive end of mission’s report submitted to team leader for revision and approval following the structure:
• Scope and objectives of the mission
• Approach adopted for conducting the mission
• List of outputs produced during the mission (including meetings and people met)
• Description of the outputs produced during the mission
• Problems and challenges encountered during the mission
• Recommendations for the follow-up of the mission
• Recommendations for the improvement of project implementation
• All documents produced should be delivered in hard copy and in digital form using exclusively MS-Office applications