DOLCETA “ONLINE CONSUMER EDUCATION”: A DESCRIPTION OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE FINANCIAL MODULE IN SPAIN

DOLCETA (Development of on line Consumer Education Tool for Adults) is an ongoing online consumer education project involving 27 countries of the European Union, supported by the European Commission. Specifically, this project is promoted by DG SANCO (Directorate General for Health and Consumers), and technically developed by EUCEN (European University Continuing Education Network). DOLCETA offers online modules focused on different consumer topics, such as consumer rights, services, product safety, sustainable consumption and financial services.

The main purpose of this virtual environment of online education is twofold. On one hand, DOLCETA provides consumers with general information useful for daily life and encourages them to use this information in order to make confident purchasing decisions. In the other hand, DOLCETA also provides teachers with information, contents and tools for improving the students’ education in terms of a more responsible consumption.

Thus, DOLCETA tries to educate people today and in the future, improving their behaviour in terms of responsible consumption, in a new economic scenario, where the globalization of economic relationship and the introduction of new technologies (distribution product, marketing, means of payment, etc) are moving very fast.

The need for a more responsible consumption is a widespread issue that involves a relevant concern in the context of the entire European Union. Because of this, the European Commission promotes this educational project based on the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) and e-learning. These learning tools allow recipients to overcome the physical barriers of distance and offers standardized and consistent information using a virtual educational environment.

In order to set the goals of the financial model, it was nominated an expert panel that designed the methodology and the contents to be included on it. Once this step was done, each country participating in this educational project adapted these general objectives to its own particularities. In Spain, this adaptation was done by a team led by Rovira i Virgili University.

In the current context, where ICT and virtual environments increasingly influence learning, this paper aims to shed some light on the process of building this educational experience. In this sense, the main objective of this paper is to describe how DOLCETA module on financial services was adapted in the case of the Spanish platform, how decisions related to this module were taken, and to describe the cooperation and coordination processes developed to construct the contents and activities of this module in line with the other participating European countries.