Training providers have a strong need to increase their skills in the field of training engineering to cope with the digital transition in their sector of activity.  The many challenges posed by the emergence of this issue have given rise to numerous publications resulting from various initiatives in civil society (Kampylis, Punie, Devine, 2015; Cabinet Ambroise Bouteille et associés, 2016; Amar, and Burstin 2017) and a line of academic research has developed (e.g. Lameul, 2008; Sar, 2014; Marengo, Labbé, Hille, and Vidaller, 2019; Boboc and Metzger, 2019). However, the particularity of rural areas is not clearly addressed in these studies, even though on a European scale, these sectors sometimes face real crisis situations (eg. Courcelle, 2012; Lebreton, 2013; Agence nouvelle des solidarités actives, 2018; Besson and Brouillard, 2018). For example, the training of professionals involved in home care for people with a loss of autonomy and in the management of the chronically ill, outside of collective structures, poses major problems in rural areas where the training offer is virtually non-existent and the demand for training is anchored in outlying areas, where the need for care is felt.

This paper presents the partnership established between two university research centres and a private company active in the field of training and working in rural areas, with the aim of developing training engineering adapted to the needs of this company. The theoretical basis of the project is in the stream of empowering evaluation in education and training as initiated by research on adult learning (e.g. Mezirov, 1978; Mezirov, 2009), curriculum evaluation (e.g. McCutcheon, 1982) and ecological studies (e.g. Hamilton, 1983). The empowering evaluation promoted by Fetterman (1994) is particularly appropriate for the development or improvement of people, programmes or institutions and aims to increase the likelihood of success by (1) providing stakeholders with the tools to assess the planning, implementation and self-assessment of their activity or project and (2) integrating evaluative activities with the rest of the planning and management of that activity or project (Wandersman et al., 2005; Bellanger, 2011). It consists of a participatory and collaborative approach with regular steering and monitoring by all stakeholders. 

One of the specific objectives of the partnership is therefore the creation of an internal evaluation culture regarding the management or acquisition of evaluation skills, with regard to digital technology and its use to overcome distance, for the different groups involved in the home health care training scheme. 

The implementation of this research-development partnership also contributes to the development and promotion of research in education and training sciences in the field of care for professionals training homecare workers.

From a methodological point of view, the partnership is based on a mixed methodology combining quantitative analysis (processing of questionnaires and data) and qualitative analysis focusing on both 1) the actions, intentions and interpretations of the direct actors of the training experience in relation to digital technology and its uses in training; and 2) the informational contexts (i.e. access to digital resources) in which these experiences are nested. The approach is iterative. It endeavours to link together the elements of analysis (comprehensive, clinical and pragmatic analysis of the interviews) in order to grasp the reality and meaning of the experiences as closely as possible, leading to the development of a training proposal and then the deployment of a system. The implementation of the partnership is organised in 9 work packages. It includes an initial survey phase: a) summative evaluation to specify in concrete terms the organisation and implementation of the current training scheme; b) development of a survey methodology; c) data collection; and d) data analysis. The field survey of training candidates will allow for consideration of the adaptation of training programmes and activities and the development of trainers' skills. A second phase is organised around the design of this training system, the development of training tools and the implementation of this system. The partnership also pays particular attention to the dissemination and exploitation of the results. Communication and valorisation of the project's activities at both regional and national levels are organised on an ongoing basis, as is the management and scientific coordination of the project.

All in all, the partnership is developing an original and innovative training system aimed at contributing to the fight against medical desertification by encouraging home care for people with a loss of autonomy and the care of chronically ill patients outside of collective structures, by adapting the training offer. In this sense, it contributes to the modernization and innovation of the training offer and to the academic reflection on the integration of digital technologies in the training systems. The perspectives offered by the partnership are fundamentally to contribute to the development of knowledge in the field of training engineering in the context of the digital transformation of training systems. For the researchers involved, it is also a question of crossing their expertise and the results of their experiments in order to move towards a better understanding of the phenomena concerned: work and experiments in digital training, study of the role of the phenomena of socialisation and social influence and work and experiments for the training of trainers and training managers. The expected results allow for the possibility of deployment in other training areas.

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