On March 5-7, 2017, the first coordination meeting of DIREKT project within the framework of ERASMUS+ European Union programme was held in Petrozavodsk State University (PSU). The meeting had organizational manner.

This event was visited by all the participants from partner countries:  Drezden Technical University, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, as well as non-commercial organizations, possessing the competencies in field of information literacy, such as The Pyramid Group (Germany) and non-commercial partnership «NEICON» (Moscow), Beijing University of Technology, North-West Polytechnical University and Nanjing University of Science and Technology. Russian universities were presented by Petrozavodsk State University, Mordovian National Research University named after N.P. Ogarev, Baltic Federal University named after E. Kant, Far-Eastern Federal University. The republic of Kazakhstan was presented by S.Seifullin Kazakh Agrotechnical University, A.Baitursynov Kostanay State University, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University.

During the meeting, the participants had an opportunity to present their universities, the role of every partner university within the project, get acquainted with the head of the project Gerald Kavana and project coordinator Padraig Kirbey from Limerick Institute of Technology, grantholder university (Limerick, Ireland), who particularly explained the aim and objectives of the project, concentrating on the mission and strategies of the project, marked the expected results and defined state coordinators for each partner country.

The meeting continued with the conference of state coordinators for detailed discussion of the matters and tasks marked, defining the terms and responsible persons for certain stages of the project.

               Therefore, summarizing the results of the meeting and the conference, the project participants mutually decided to present the following information in 2 weeks after the meeting:

1. List of all the participants of the project (Name, position, English language proficiency level, contact information) for the duration of the project.
2. List of the project steering committee. 
3. List of persons, responsible for social networks within the project from each partner university.

Apart from that, the participants presented their drafts of the project logo, filled in the form with the information about every partner university, which were sent to Limerick for the taking of the final decision. 

Summarizing the results of the meeting, further action plan was agreed upon, recommendations for further promotion were given. Within the framework of the project, the participants from each partner university are to develop curriculum and education modules, aimed at formation of students' and lecturers' information literacy, formation of know-hows and skills of academic writing. In addition, these modules will aid students to learn how to properly search, process, disseminate and conserve the information, thus giving them the preparation for informational and communicational challenges of modern world of digital technology, accompanying people as in professional, so in casual life.

The base for realisation and development will be scientific libraries of the universities. They possess the experience in field of accumulating, preserving and passing knowledge, which will be realized with consideration of new technologies and will contribute to realization of the idea of lifelong learning. Next workgroup meeting will be held in May, in Beijing University of Technology, China. 

On April 19, 2017, A.Baitursynov Kostanay State Univeristy has held training seminar "Journal Selection for Publication: how to find a journal with impact factor and avoid unfair publishers". The seminar was moderated by Mukhasheva Lyaliza Adilyevna, information resources and educational programmes expert, representative of Clarivate Analytics company.

Lecturers of A.Baitursynov Kostanay State University, including DIREKT workgroup members, also took part in the training. As it was noted by the event participants, such measurements have a great importance in terms of information literacy level increase, however, it is necessary to further develop this field of additional education in the region, not only relying on help from companies, such as Clarivate Analytics. Organizing such events in the region by own efforts is one of the tasks, set in accordance with the project "Development Trans-Regional information literacy for lifelong learning and knowledge economy DIREKT" realizaiton.

In October 2017, lecturers Saule Zhabayeva and Yuliya Shandetskaya from Foreign Philology Department participated in Direkt Curriculum Training provided within DIREKT ERASMUS+ project, which is aimed at developing information literacy and promoting lifelong learning. Limerick Institute of Technology (LIT) hosted the training for university-partners from China, Russia and Kazakhstan. The main focus of the Direkt Curriculum Training was on such aspects as information literacy, academic writing and marketing.  The most appealing part of the training was the session of Dr Katerina Veselá from Constantine the Philosopher University, Slovakia. The participants of the training also had a unique opportunity to visit Glucksman Library (University of Limerick).

Didactic and scientific working group meeting resulted in development of action plan for implementation of the project. Each partner country developed and presented a marketing plan for National Information Literacy (IL) Awareness Day. It is projected that National IL Day in Kazakhstan will be launched at the end of May. 

From 22 to 25 of May, 2018 a number of project-related meetings took place in A.I.Herzen Russian State Pedagogical University. The partners presented the results of the assessment of the educational modules developed within the framework of the project. The coordinator was also presented with the results of conducting Information Literacy Awareness Days in cooperation with local libraries.

Partner HEIs, where the piloting and assessment of the modules is only planned to be conducted, have reported on preparation procedures.

Also, the discussion of the matters of Information Literacy online-module development and preparation for the next project meeting in June (Dresden, Germany) took place.

The representatives of A.Baitursynov Kostanay State University also had a chance to attend a number of educational seminars within the framework of NEICON  conference «Strategies of Efficient Use of Electronic Resources and Scientometric Instruments in Modern Research and Education».

The events of «NEICON» Scientific Enterprise, that took place in Saint-Petersburg, housed by Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, included the following:

Additional professional programme of further training of Saint-Petersburg branch of Educational and Consultative Centre NEICON, housed by the main library of Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia: "Strategy of Efficient Use of Electronic Resources and Scientometric Instruments in Modern Education and Science" (NEICON Summer School); " Developing Trans-regional information literacy for lifelong learning and the knowledge economy (DIREKT)". The project is financed by EU programme ERASMUS+. The project involves HEIs of Russia, China, Kazakhstan, European countries and Scientific Enterprise "NEICON", as non-profit organization – representative of Russian libraries; "National aggregator of open repositories of the Universities of Russia", НОРА. The project is supported by the fund of President Grants and implemented by "NEICON" Scientific Enterprise in collaboration with the project partners and participants.

НОРА project presentations and videos are available at: 

https://openrepository.ru/about/videozapisi-seminarov/110-seminar-v-sankt-peterburge-22-maya

Participants were offered a set of project curricular materials:

"Self-archiving and open repositories": 
https://openrepository.ru/images/docs/Metod_Mikheenkov.pdf
"Curricular recommendations on development of repositories": 
https://openrepository.ru/images/docs/Metod_Schwarzman.pdf
"Curricular recommendations on dissemination, licensing and utilization of open source materials": 
https://openrepository.ru/images/docs/ZT.pdf

The events took place in  the Armorial Hall and the compartments of the main library of Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia. The events were attended by over 149 people from 28 cities and regions of Russia, Germany, Ireland, Kazakhstan, China and Slovakia.

The reports on specific events, photos and presentations can be found here:
https://lib.herzen.spb.ru/news/show/450
https://lib.herzen.spb.ru/p/programma_pk_neicon

The library intends to include the materials to the training and seminar programme of the year 2018.

On June 2-6, Dresden Technological University hosted the meeting of the ERASMUS+ project DIREKT. Kostanay State University was represented by Senior Lecturer of Foreign Philology Department Yuliya Shandetskaya. The main goal of the meeting was to discuss intermediate results of the project. During the meeting, the reports of the project dissemination were presented, as well as the results of module piloting in partner HEIs. Lecturers of Konstantine the Philosopher Slovak University Eva Reid and Bozhena Khorvatova made an explicit analysis of pilotion of the Modules 1, 6 and 7 in Kostanay State Universtiy, where the positive sides of the piloting were presented – highly qualified and trained lecturers, presence of the project-related courses and well formed requirements, along with the weak sides – difficulties in arising motivation for librarians to study English, absence of the access to academic writing resources, insufficient experience in teaching academic writing. Our Slovakian colleagues recommended to further cooperation with partner HEIs from Kazakhstan (Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and S.Seifullin Kazakh Agrotechnical University) to exchange experience.

The meeting participants from Kazakhstan, Russia and China worked on the improvement of Modules 1-7 under the guidance of the lecturers from Dresden (Gemany), Nitra (Slovakia) and Limerick (Ireland). As the result of the collaborative work, the necessary changes were made within the Project Modules, those will be available soon at https://direkt-cbhe.com/activities/. The second piloting will be conducted on the renewed Modules from January to June 2019.

During the meeting in Dresden, the matter of Online Module development was discussed. The meeting participants elaborated the requirements to the Modules. Based on those requirements, an online platform will be created to be utilized by the partners from 3 countries during the following 7 months. The Online Module will act as an addition to the existing 7 Modules. Another bonus of the project will be an additional 8th module for Dresden colleagues. The module will supposedly be dedicated to implementation of the English language in professional fields (creating CVs, motivation letters, official correspondence, etc.)

October 2-3 2018.  A.Baitursynov KSU hosted the events within the framework of the National Information Literacy Awareness Day, organized by the initiative of the ERASMUS+ DIREKT project.

On October 2, at 3 p.m. librarians participated in round table discussion of important matters of digitalization, information resourses access and the role of libraries in modern world. The round table was initiated and coordinated by Zhamilya Yerzhanova, head of KSU Scientific Library "Bilim Ortalygy".

At the same time, the internet hall of SL "Bilim Ortalygy" was used as a platform for master, PhD students and lecturers to study and work with information resources of the library. Dana Zholdybayeva, specialist of the internet-hall presented basic capabilities of "Web of Science" and "SpringerLink" resources.

On October 3, any person interested were invitied to participate in a stunning event "To possess the information is to possess the world", which took place on the venue of SL "Bilim Ortalygy". The event opened with awarding winners of essay competition with certificates and prizes. Before conducting the National Information Literacy Awareness Day, KSU announced the essay competition for students, lecturers and anyone interested. The topic was "Information Literacy in 21st century". Participants of the competition were to share their ideas on the importance of IL for a modern person. Over 70 participants presented their works in three languages (English, Kazakh and Russian). 10 of them won the awards, having presented thorough and profound vision on the matter. KSU students were among the winners.

1st prize: Margarita Zaytseva, Dinara Mukhanbedya, Alexandra Skylo;

2nd prize: Kseniya Zadorozhnaya, Botagoz Seidakhmetova, Anastasiya Smakovaya, Nadezhda Kotelnikova;

3rd prize: Marina Ryzhkina, Kristina Masliy, Perizat Daribay

After the award ceremony, the guests of SL "Bilim Ortalygy" had a chance to participate in Debates, watch on-line information literacy lectures, test themeselves in intellectual trivia game, or play a quest "Librarian for an hour". The National Information Literacy Awareness Day attracted over 500 participants in total.

From 21 to 25 October 2018 Al-Farabi Kazakh National University (Almaty city) hosted the meeting of the working group of the DIREKT Erasmus + project. Kostanay State University was represented by senior lecturers of Foreign Philology Department Yuliya Shandetskaya and Oksana Nazarenko, the head of “Bilim ortalygy” library Zhamilya Erzhanova and a librarian Dana Zholdybayeva. 

The main goal of the meeting was to provide training on Module 7 (Academic writing and information literacy) and introduce new additional Module 8 (English for Professional Purposes). The training on modules was conducted by the leaders and coordinators of the project – Jerald Cavanagh, Padraig Kirby (Limerick Institute of Technology) and Gerrard Cullen (Dresden University of Technology). Module 7 training covered the issues of Information Ethics, Research Ethics and Recommendations to get the article published. Module 8 is divided into 2 parts and is aimed at teaching students to write different types of letters, prepare for a job interview, etc. 

During the meeting of the working group representatives from each partner university reported on dissemination activities in their universities since the beginning of the project. Kazakhstani partners also presented their report on National Awareness Day.

The last day of the meeting was devoted to the discussion of the further work on the project. All the m embers of the working group were awarded certificates of participation.

  
A meeting of the Erasmus+ Direkt project working group took place from 27 to 31 May, 2019 in Nur-Sultan city on the basis of S. Seifullin KATU. A. Baitursynov KSU was represented by senior lecturers of the Department of Foreign Philology Yu.N. Shandetskaya and O.S. Nazarenko.

The main purpose of the meeting was to report on the work done within the project and discuss the plans of integrating the project modules into the universities’ curriculum. Yu.N. Shandetskaya and O.S. Nazarenko gave a detailed report on the activities of A. Baitursynov KSU working group by presenting a film. The university activity was highly assessed by the Irish partners and project coordinators. In the course of the meeting, the issue of holding National Information Literacy Awareness Days was discussed.

Partner countries – Russia and China – presented their reports on IL Awareness Days held in 2019. Towards the end of the meeting, the working group visited Nazarbayev University library, where they were told about new tendencies in the development of library service and information literacy in general.

July 2-5, 2019, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra, Slovakia hosted the meetings of DIREKT project workgroup members. The meetings were generally aimed at discussion of dissemination strategies, project results sustainability assurance and preparation of final reports.

Special attention was given to the seminar on DIREKT online platform. This part of the project is realized on the basis of software products and cloud services produced by SpringShare company. The platform provides library workers a wide range of opportunities for cooperation and information exchange at the international level.

 October 2-4, 2019. A.Baitursynov Kostanay State University hosted the events within the framework of the National Information Literacy Awareness Days, aimed at dissemination of the results of the ERASMUS+ Programme DIREKT Project, as well as promotion of IL related competencies in general.

October 2, the first day of the events, was dedicated to training seminars for KSU teaching staff, which were aimed at increasing competencies in the field of application of electronic information resources of the university and scientific work preparation skill development.  At the same time, "Student Information Culture" Exhibition was taking place throughout the day.

October 3, the second day started with the round table event, organized for library workers from all over the Kostanay Region. The event took place with participation of a special guest - Gerard Cullen, International Project Co-ordinator of Dresden Technological University. The second part of the day included the official opening of student competitions: Lib-quest, intellectual trivia game and debates on topic: "Information from the internet: pros and cons".

The last day of the events, October 4, was dedicated to the training seminar "English for Professional Purposes", organized for the lecturers and students of Kostanay State University. The training was howted by International Project Co-Ordinator of Dresden TU - Gerard Cullen.