Deadline: January 31, 2020
Applications are open for the MEDEA Award 2020. For more than 12 years, the MEDEA Awards has been encouraging innovation and good practice in the use of media (audio, video, graphics and animation) in education.
These annual awards recognise and promote excellence in the production and pedagogical design of media-rich learning resources and bring to the forefront those producers, designers and teaching staff who provide such inspiration to the entire educational community, particularly in Europe.
In tandem with Media & Learning 2020: Images and Sound in Higher Education organised by the Media & Learning Association together with KU Leuven on 17-18 June 2020 in Leuven (Belgium), the MEDEA Awards 2020 invites entries related to or aimed at those involved in higher and continuing education. In recent years there has been a huge increase in the extent to which media in general, and video in particular, is playing a role in these sectors and with this year’s MEDEA awards, they aimed to identify, recognise and reward the very best of what is produced and continues to be produced.
Categories
- MEDEA Award for Best Educational Media: This award will be awarded to the best professional or user-generated educational media product, resource, tool or service submitted aimed at learners in the higher education, continuing education and/or training sector.
- The Special MEDEA Jury Prize: The judges may, at their discretion, present a special award to an approach or production in recognition of exceptional innovation in pedagogic or technical design.
Eligibility
- Any multimedia material, programme, production, resource, software, tool or service that has been created for use in formal or informal higher and continuing education and/or training can be submitted.
- There is no restriction regarding the target group(s) for these materials which includes learners, teachers, employees, citizens and trainees at all ages but limited to higher and continuing education. Content can include all possible subject matters.
- There is no restriction regarding the language(s) of the educational media submitted.
- The multimedia production must have been created after January 1, 2018. Of course, the entry may include or consist of older material.
- There is no restriction on the geographical origin, location of use or subject coverage of the submitted materials.
- Media materials that are physically submitted on, for example, CD-rom/DVD as well as any accompanying print manuals, should be submitted in 4 copies and will not be returned to the sender after the competition.
- Participants are allowed to submit up to 8 entries.
Judging Criteria
The judges who evaluate entries to the MEDEA Awards recognise the primary role of effective and innovative educational design in the use of media with learners. This means that they will be looking first and foremost for materials and approaches that demonstrate original and successful use of media with learners to achieve clearly defined educational goals, methods and outcomes. The quality of the materials themselves is important as the judges will consider the following criteria, appropriate to the learning context:
- Pedagogical quality: quality of didactics and of communication. Has the target audience been addressed properly? Is there a clear learning objective? Is it likely that the material will result in good learning? Have the producers used principles of good instructional design or sound pedagogical approaches? Has the context of learning been taken into account? Is there a balance between content and form? In recognition of the importance of pedagogical quality, marks for this criterion have a double weight in the final score for each entry.
- Use of media: the choice and selection of the type of media, the advantages of the media selected. Is the type of media chosen used appropriately and in an exemplary fashion? Is the creative quality high?
- Degree of innovation: does this entry stand out from the others? Does it demonstrate extraordinary production values and excellence in terms of its overall production, its originality, the extent to which it demonstrates very good use of limited resources, its engagement of students and/or other staff who are not professionally trained in audiovisual production, its use of cutting edge technology or production practices, its multidisciplinary approach? Are there other reasons either specified by the entrant themselves or very obvious in the judge’s opinion that make this entry stand out?
- Aesthetic quality: attractiveness of materials. Is the style and design consistent and appropriate for the content, the objectives and the target users? Is the entry appealing and pleasing to look at and to use?
- Usability and Technical quality: are there possible flaws in the system and/or compatibility issues? Is it necessary to have unrealistic or advanced technical knowledge or resources to be able to use the system? Is it easy to use the application? Is there support, a tutorial, a set of guidelines, the possibility of feedback or help when necessary?
Application
For more information, visit MEDEA Awards.
