The present study highlights the value of gastronomy and culinary practices in Făgăraș County as a dimension of the Intangible Cultural Heritage that can contribute to the sustainable development of the area. The field research carried out within an interdisciplinary project of the Transilvania University of Brașov pointed out the importance of the different “ciorbe” (sour soups) in the local gastronomy of Făgăraș County. Our groundwork found some traditional local soups and soup recipes. Starting from these results, the study stresses the opportunity to exploit this heritage resource through social entrepreneurship. To uphold this perspective, our study highlights that soups and sour soups are prepared with local ingredients, that women in the area are experienced and have the willingness to cook together. The tourist specificity of the area favors the creation of a local network between entrepreneurs from all over the country. The main contribution of the study derives from the fact that it presents arguments that show the generosity of gastronomy and culinary practices as a heritage resource, illustrating that a popular culinary product can grow and become a local brand.

In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the importance of online learning has increased. Inherently, the stakes of a sustainable approach to the challenges raised by the wide access to the Internet, the use of readymade solutions to meet didactical tasks, and students’ appetite for plagiarism have become higher. These challenges can be sustainably managed via a procedure aimed at constructively converting students’ appetite for plagiarism (SAP conversion) into a skill of critically approaching relevant materials that are available online. The solutions proposed by the specialized literature concerned with the problem of plagiarism can be grouped into five categories: better trained students, more involved teachers, the use of anti-plagiarism software, clear anti-plagiarism policies, and ethical education of the youths. The SAP conversion procedure is a solution targeting increased involvement on behalf of teachers. Its partial application in the case of the disciplines included in the undergraduate educational program of Sociology conducted by the Transylvania University of Brasov, where students’ evaluation is based on essays, has considerably decreased the amount of student plagiarism.

Contemporary tourism favors niche offers and heritage tourism is successful niche tourism. The cultural mapping of Făgăraș Land (Romania), accomplished during a project conducted by Transilvania University of Brașov, highlights the groups of caroling lads as a main local resource of intangible cultural heritage. The field research indicates that during winter, celebrations of the life of rural communities are organized around the group of lads. Currently, the group only performs a ritual role, but in the past the group had community work attributes, which could be resumed. Additionally, a sustainable heritage tourism can be developed around the groups of lads from Făgăraș Land. That is a form of niche tourism based on the aforementioned concept of foster Christmas relatives. The concept was outlined during the field research carried out as part of the project and refers to host families providing tourists access to the performance of group of lads within the community during the winter celebrations. Resuming the old attributes of the group of lads along with niche tourism could contribute to the sustainable development of rural communities and building local cultural identity. Additionally, they would also consolidate the status held by group members within the community.

Este estudio presenta los resultados de una investigación documental sobre los enfoques recientes de las causas y soluciones del plagio de los estudiantes universitarios. Contiene una clasificación de las causas de acuerdo con el nivel en el que ocurren. Además, según los resultados de una observación directa, el estudio muestra que en Rumania, donde se promueve el aprendizaje basado en proyectos, la costumbre de los estudiantes de usar fuentes basadas en internet de manera poco ética se desarrolla antes de la educación académica, con el requisito de que los alumnos elaboren proyectos escolares. Esto se propone como una causa adicional de plagio de estudiantes universitarios. El hábito de copiar y pegar materiales disponibles en línea es difícil de contrarrestar de manera eficiente, pero puede corregirse y dirigirse hacia la adquisición de nuevos conocimientos. El plagio ya no es eficiente para los estudiantes cuando se les pide explícitamente que hagan comentarios sobre materiales que ya están disponibles en línea.

Făgăraș Land (Romania) is a very old administrative formation with its own identity, preserved from the beginning of the Middle Ages. The mapping of the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) highlighted the groups of caroling lads as the main strategic heritage resource, but also the existence of many other ICH resources that can be exploited towards the sustainable development of the area. These include local soups, an ICH gastronomic resource that can help build the area’s tourism brand. All resources, together with the peculiarities of the local medieval history, the memory of the anti-communist resistance in the Făgăraș Mountains and the religious pilgrimage to the local Orthodox monasteries, support the configuration of Făgăraș Land as a multidimensional associative cultural landscape. The content analysis of the information on ICH available on the official websites of the administrative territorial units (ATUs), correlated with the data from the interviews with local leaders, highlighted the types of local narratives regarding the capitalization of cultural resources and the openness to culture-centered community-based development, namely glocal, dynamic local and static local visions. The unitary and integrated approach of tourist resources, tourism social entrepreneurship, support from the local commons and a better management of the local cultural potential are ways to capitalize on belonging to the Făgăraș Land cultural landscape, towards sustainable community development of the area.

The sudden shift of online teaching activities in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic has caused disruption. It has been a challenge for both students and teachers. It has also presented an opportunity for a critical analysis of the subject of the educational process in an era of wide access to information technology. One of the desirable consequences of the analysis is to highlight the didactic usefulness of hybrid events. A collective autoethnographic text about the challenges related to moving teaching activities to an online environment during the pandemic at Transilvania University in Brașov (Romania), and an observation report on a cultural event held in hybrid mode in a Europe for Citizens project, hosted by the same university, support the recommendation to consider hybrid education as a solution that must be available to teachers for the efficient management of future possible crisis situations. The teachers retroactively appreciated the logistical, economic and comfort advantages of online education, but they pointed out the difficulties of conducting the teaching process entirely online. The hosted hybrid event highlighted the utility of being able to quickly transition from offline to online. Hybrid learning is efficient because it can combine the benefits of online and offline learning. Teachers trained to manage hybrid events will feel a reduced impact in future crisis situations.