State of Play, Trends and Developments in Europe

Transcription

EUROPEAN EXCHANGE MECHANISMS FOR E-LEARNING
CONTENT FOR E-SKILLS AND NETWORKING OF TRAINING AND
RESEARCH CENTRES
SYNTHESIS REPORT
STATE-OF-PLAY
TRENDS AND DEVELOPMENTS
IN EUROPE
September 2009
Authors
Stefania Aceto, Claudio Dondi,
Maria Luisa Callegari, Erica Delucchi
MENON Network
Prepared for the European Commission
And the European e-Skills Forum
State-of-play, trends and developments in Europe
The synthesis report provides, together with the best practice report, the key input to design and
develop the prototype of the European exchange mechanism for e-learning resources for eskills. The information contained in this report is the result of desk and field research, implying
consultation with 50 European experts in the fields of e-learning and e-skills and with the
members of the Steering Committee of the study1.
Disclaimer: The content of this document does not necessarily reflect the view or legislation of
the European Commission. Neither the European Commission nor the project partners or any
person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use that might be made of the
information in this document.
1
Roberto Carneiro (Universidade Catolica Portuguesa);, Markku Markkula (Aalto University), Fabrizio Cardinali
(Giunti Labs); Alexa Joyce (European Schoolnet); Kirstie Donnelly (University for Industry).
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
There is a broad consensus on the importance of the supply of e-skills in Europe. In particular,
many companies claim that they have difficulties in hiring ICT skilled staff and also IT/ICT
specialists. According to Eurostat 2007 the main reasons for hard to fill vacancies for ICT
specialists jobs are the following:
♦
Lack or too low number of applicants
♦
Lack of work experience in the field of ICT
♦
Lack of ICT related qualification from education and/or training
♦
Salary requests too high
Eurostat data (2009) suggest that acquisition of e-skills by individuals increasingly relies on
learning by doing as well as informal learning through peer to peer interaction. Self-study
through books and CD-ROMs follows whereas acquisition through attendance of courses, be
them part of formal education or recommended by the employer or even attended on the own
initiative of individuals are the less used strategies to obtain e-skills.
The notion of ICT practitioners adopted in the study on e-skills exchange mechanisms includes
not only IT/ICT specialists but also ICT users in working environment. The evolution and speed
of technological progress and the implications this evolution has on working and learning shall
in fact be taken into consideration when designing and implementing a European exchange and
networking mechanism for e-skills.
E-learning for e-skills in Europe: providers, curricula, delivery and distribution strategies
Providers of e-skills training (be it classroom, blended or online) belong to a variety of actors’
categories in Europe. These range from international providers to local ones, with
diversification of curricula, certifications and qualification offers.
The taxonomy2 of providers considered in this study includes the following categories:
♦
ICT industry and vendor neutral providers
♦
Corporate Universities
♦
Open Universities
♦
Vocational Education Training institutions
The ICT industry is both a provider and a demander of e-skills. Big multinational companies
such as Microsoft, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Cisco, and Oracle are well established suppliers of
e-skills training at international level. The training offer they provide is usually relevant to their
products and services (as in the case of Microsoft) and to their specific core business (as in the
case of Cisco).
Their training offer is provided worldwide with the same common structure, list of courses and
of available certifications, recognised worldwide. Distribution and delivery of courses at
regional/national level happens by means of accredited centres/business partners (private and
public such as VET institutions, academies and schools).
2
This taxonomy is not intended to be an exhaustive description of all the existing providers and available offer but
a way to reduce the complexity of the market and to illustrate some relevant experiences.
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Courses are delivered:
♦
In classroom: in this case the accredited learning centre provides the location, support
services and instructors to deliver training and usually is responsible for the examination
leading to the formal certification.
♦
Blended learning combining on-line and classroom training (performed by local
accredited centres/business partners).
♦
On-line: in this case the role of the local accredited centre is usually restricted to the
performance and assessment of the exams leading to certification.
The offer of courses generally varies according to the chosen delivery format, meaning the same
course might not necessarily be available both on-line and face-to-face. As concerns localisation
strategies, the courses provided might vary from one region of the world to another and from
one country to another. Whereas in-classroom training implies often adaptation in terms of
language, on-line courses are offered in English.
All the courses offered by ICT providers and leading to certification are fee-based. Usually
subscription happens on-line and grants access to courses, including learning resources and
support services. Entrance tests to assess the level of the learner and support him/her in the
identification of the most suitable course are generally provided for free.
The offer of the following actors is analysed in this study: IBM, Microsoft, CISCO, ORACLE;
SUN.
Vendor neutral providers are also present on the market, with European or worldwide spread.
These provide courses and/or certifications recognised by international professional bodies and
networks and generally address ICT specialists. The study analyses the cases of EUCIP and
ITACA.
Corporate Universities represent an important stakeholder providing e-learning courses for eskills. Traditionally, corporate universities only offered internal accreditation and use them as
means of channelling employee training toward corporate goals, sharing corporate information
or knowledge, and disseminating corporate culture. More recently, some corporate universities
have established links with academic institutions in order to offer formal degrees. The study
analyses the following corporate universities providing e-skills training: Oracle, Hewlett
Packard, CampusConnect (Infosys).
As concerns Vocational Education and Training, in every European country there are many
different VET centres having as regulatory reference different national frameworks. Usually
they do no just produce and distribute courses anymore, but they provide a more complete offer
(information, promotion, orientation, tutoring and certification) to guarantee maximum fruition
and easy access, and to answer to the requirements of both private citizens and organisations
interested in an educational offer. The training offer they provide for adult education relevant to
the field of e-skills and e-learning for e-skills varies from ICT industries licensing courses to
lessons provided as citizen’s utility service. The study analyses some examples coming from
different EU countries: Trio Project (Italy); TechnofuturTIC (Belgium); FIT Ireland, CIST
(Bulgaria).
Open and distance learning universities provide access to a variety of subjects and courses
leading to the acquisition of formal titles. The Study analyses the offer of the following
universities: Open University (UK), UOC (Spain), Open University (The Netherlands), Hellenic
Open University, Universidade Aberta (Portugal).
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EXCHANGE MECHANISMS AND NETWORKING: STATE OF THE ART
Exchange mechanisms
According to the article “Designing an e-Learning Objects Brokerage System”3, an online
“brokerage system” is an on-line entity that acts as an electronic market place facilitating the
exchange of learning objects among organisations and individuals.
Annex 3 to this report contains a set of 21 ID cards showing the platforms, portals, web sites
and experiences considered relevant for the design of a European exchange and networking
mechanism for e-learning resources for e-skills. These have been selected through: consultation
with the 50 interviewed experts; internet search; desk research (consultation of relevant
documents, policy papers, reports, articles) and are listed below:
Exchange and brokerage mechanisms
Acronym
WLH
LREFORSCHOOLS
MERLOT
NORDLET
OCWConsortium
Name
EducaNext
Ariadne
21st Digital Marketplace
URL
www.educanext.org
www.ariadne-eu.org/index.php
http://21stdigitalmarketplace.com/
Measure Up
www.measureup.com
World Lecture Hall
http://web.austin.utexas.edu/wl
h/
Online Learning.net
www.onlinelearning.net
ALTC Exchange
www.altcexchange.edu.au
Fathom
www.fathom.com
Intrallect
www.intrallect.com
Learning Resource Exchange www.lreforschools.eun.org
for Schools
Multimedia
Educational www.merlot.org
Resource for Learning and
Online Teaching
Nordic Baltic Community for www.nordlet.org
Open Education
Open
Courseware www.ocwconsortium.org
Consortium
School of everything
www.schoolofeverything.com
Wikieducator
www.wikieducator.org
Other relevant platforms
Acronym
HELB
3
Name
E Practice
Hungarian Leadership Board
Digital Creator
eSkills UK
ITrain - online
Skillnets
URL
www.epractice.eu
www.helb.hu
www.digitalcreator.ie
www.e-skills.com
www.itrainonline.org
www.skillnets.com
“Designing an e-Learning Objects Brokerage System” by P. Avgeriou, L. Michael, I. Stavrou, S. Retalis.
Department
of
Computer
Science,
University
of
Cyprus,
Nicosia.
See:
http://iwi.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/2003/ProcICNUEAvgeriou/2003ProcICNUEAvgeriou.pdf
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The ID cards presented constitute a first input to the European Commission and to the Steering
Committee for the selection of the cases to be considered for further, strategic, in-depth analysis
which will feed the design and development phase of the European exchange mechanism for elearning resources for e-skills and for the networking of training and research centres.
The main features emerging from the analysis of the available information are the following:
Objectives: there are many different reasons that promoted the setup of the analysed exchange
mechanisms:
♦
Platforms created to foster the collaboration among educational institutions and to
improve the effectiveness/sharing/creation of teaching and learning by expanding the
access to high quality teaching and learning materials.
♦
Platforms responding to a very specific objective (strong regional or national connotation)
or devoted to the provision of assessments, certification and practice tests
♦
Platforms responding to a bottom-up approach where free and open digital content is
available for upload and download.
Geographical Coverage: Apart from some experiences with a clear regional o national
connotation, for example ALTC Exchange dedicated to exchange ideas about teaching practice
in Australia in the higher education sector or Nordlet Consortium created in order to develop a
Baltic specific perspective on the use of technology in learning, education and training, it is
possible to say that all the other platforms could by used potentially by an international English
speaking audience.
Resources: Apart from a few platforms providing patented courses and certifications after
payment (such as Measure Up) all the other platforms offering learning resources do it for free
providing almost exclusively open educational content and utilizing creative common licence.
Funding provided by: European Union (see: e-practice, lreforschools,), National Governments
(see: e-Skills UK,), Universities (Digital MarketPlace, Merlot, Nordlet, etc,). Only two
platforms are funded by user’s donations (Educanext, OCW).
Actors: The main actors involved in almost all the platforms analysed are: Universities,
Educational and Training Institutions, Industries, Governments and Publishers. They interact
through networks, sometimes they organize workshops, conferences and research projects (see
Merlot)
End Users: it is possible to distinguish between different levels of user’s involvement as
follows:
1)
Platforms like Wikieducator and School of Everything where users are interactive actors
and integral part of the project because these are collaborative and peer projects.
2)
Platforms based on network systems like E-practice where users can share commentaries
and insights on the content, discuss, rate and evaluate the courses
3)
Platforms like Measure Up where users have no real possibility of interaction and just
join the platform and choose the course they need.
IPR: in platforms where the content is under creative common licensing there is no real IPR
problem (lreforschools, Merlot, for instance.). All the platform providing courses under
copyright have their own policies and procedures. In the WLH platform only the author or
owner of a course Web page may submit it to the platform database; the Measure Up platform
offers licensing products and certification with fees. The OCW platform provides material
which is IP-cleared.
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Localisation: The platforms based in English speaking countries provide materials in English.
The platforms with a clear international dimension provide content in English and solve the
localisation and adaptation issue by linking to national web sites; for example World Lecture
Hall publishes links to pages created by faculties worldwide who are using the Web to deliver
course materials in any language. In other cases such as ITRAIN ON LINE and lreforschools
homogeneity is guaranteed at international level in terms of subjects but not in terms of
available learning resources for the selected subject (for instance, in lreforschools one will find
completely different learning resources when looking at the same subject in different languages.
Networking
Many are the critical dimensions to be considered when planning to develop an exchange
brokerage system. The analysed cases show that networking in terms of gathering all relevant
stakeholders and let them collaborate to the design and development of the system plays a key
role in guaranteeing sustainability. Evidence suggests that research and training centres might
play a key role in determining the success of such an initiative, thanks to the scientific input
they (research providers) can provide by linking research results to societal needs and thanks to
the support they (training centres) can provide in the delivery of training.
The analysed cases as well as the opinion of the majority of the consulted experts leads to a
wider concept of networking (including partnerships) that is: integrating and federating all the
involved stakeholders (ranging from providers to final users’ representatives) to make sure that
rewarding in some forms (not necessarily financially) is guaranteed provided that commitment
and involvement are given by stakeholders through contribution (according to the different
fields of expertise and business) in the design and development of the platform.
The results of some networking experiences (the DECOM Declaration and eSkills UK) and the
potential of some others (the Network of Living Labs) are reported in the Study as a
contribution to the analysis to the role of networking in terms of input to platform design and
development as well as input on strategies and capacity to address contextual needs.
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RESULTS
OF THE CONSULTATION ON THE
EXCHANGE MECHANISM FOR E-SKILLS
FEASIBILITY
OF A
EUROPEAN
The consulted EU experts in the field of e-learning and e-skills were asked to express their view
on the following main dimensions:
♦
Perception of e-skills training needs in Europe;
♦
Perception on the current state of the art of the supply and availability of e-learning for eskills (e-learning courses, portals, projects, websites, “on-line” hubs…);
♦
Accessibility conditions of the European workforce to e-learning for e-skills resources;
♦
Feasibility on the set-up of a European exchange mechanism of online e-skills training
resources and description of how such a mechanism should look like.
Reporting is presented along the key core questions of the Study:
1.
Which e-skills needs/demand can be served by resource-based learning?
The focus of e-skills demand seems to be shifting from the capacity to run and manage software
applications to the capacity to critically and confidentially use one’s own skills in line with the
organisational and strategic needs of the company/institution. In this context, Web 2.0 and 3.0
solutions should be adopted.
In principle, e-skills demand can be served by resource-based learning, provided that the
potential of e-learning not only in terms of resources but also in terms of services and
interaction is adopted.
2.
What e-skills needs/demand would be better served by different forms of learning
and eLearning (e.g. work-based, learning communities, project work, e-skills
portfolio, etc.)
Online, Blended and mobile learning solutions shall be tailored to the specific needs of learners
and shall be user-friendly. As workers are increasingly required to be flexible and to use their
knowledge in a critical way, adapting it to the ever changing needs of their organisation, project
work, simulations, peer to peer learning through learning communities shall be enhanced. The
use of open source platforms and learning resources shall also be considered to meet the
financial challenge linked to e-skills training.
Quality of the offer, recognition and certification, IPR are key challenges to be met at the macro
level. At the micro level there is a strong need for online training resources designed along the
needs of individuals and the role within the organisations they are operating in.
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3.
What resources could be shared at what conditions?
No real answer was provided in this respect. Focus was set particularly on the need to exploit
the potential of open source software to build an open source based platform and on the need to
provide systematic and continuously updated information on the availability of open resources
for e-skills training. This was presented as a possible solution to the challenges related to IPR
management as well as to the critical aspect of how and to which extent private vendors shall be
involved.
4.
Who should be responsible for and who shall be involved in multi-stakeholders
partnership?
Public authorities at the European (European Commission) and national (government) level as
well as suppliers and all relevant stakeholders (chambers of commerce, training and research
centres, trade unions, industry confederations, professional associations) shall be involved in
multi-stakeholders partnerships aimed at enhancing e-skills in Europe and particularly in the
building of a European platform on e-skills.
Public-private partnerships should be enhanced among schools, university and industry at the
implementation level and among governmental institutions, professional associations and social
partners at the policy design level to facilitate convergence approaches on standards, IPR and
competence recognition.
5.
How would the European e-skills resource pool look like?
♦
The European e-skills platform shall not repeat or overlap with already existing portals,
initiatives, and exchange mechanisms in the field. It shall build on their achievements and
federate them, providing a comprehensive new approach for e-learning for e-skills
provision and networking.
♦
The platform shall have a European/global dimension (e-skills is a global issue rather
than a European one) and it shall at the same time guarantee access for all 27 Member
states. It could have a pan – European dimension and contain links to national portals.
Training shall be in English, but national portals shall provide information on available
learning resources in the national language.
♦
♦
It shall be so designed to embrace Web 2.0 solutions and social networking facilities. It
shall be bottom-up, horizontal, based on sharing and exchanging.
♦
As a one stop shop platform it would attract developers, increase competition and have a
positive effect on quality, quantity and variety of online training offering.
♦
A Multi-stakeholder partnership involving suppliers, public authorities and stakeholders
shall be at the basis of the creation of the platform, each category having different roles in
the different phases of development.
♦
It shall be accessible to end-users including ICT practitioners, HR managers within
organisations but also ICT users. It shall contain self analysis and self assessment tools. It
shall include users’ ratings of the available resources.
♦
It shall provide a monitoring system on the available offer and incorporate, in an
evolutionary perspective, the input coming from educational and technological research.
♦
It shall provide a space for collaboration among all the involved actors for the design of a
common competence, quality, and certification framework for e-skills.
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6.
What would be the role of research and training centres?
The role of research and training centres is key in the design, development and implementation
of the platform. Research centres can support, identify, develop, improve, generate ideas and
envision future learning needs. Training centres play a key role in the design phase as they are
aware of users needs. In the implementation phase, they can provide a test bed as well as
providers of support services. Their role in the development models of local and regional areas
makes them key stakeholders.
As far as networking is concerned, for research this is considered as a viable option. Networking
of training centres might help in improving the supply of e-skills provided it is not driven by
private vendors. Networking of trainers and mentors is considered to have strong potential to
contribute to the development of e-skills in Europe.
7.
What would be the expectations and concerns of the main demand segments?
Consultation with experts suggests that a pan European platform working as an exchange and
networking mechanisms could help in filling the following gaps:
♦
Lack of systematised information on online training resources (by private vendors and
open).
♦
Need to solve the problems related to compatibility issues between different software and
technologies.
♦
Knowledge obsolescence: maintaining updated competences of the workforce in fast
changing technology space.
♦
Need for training on media and digital literacy.
♦
Need for more (basic and sophisticated) training on: e-security, e-identity, IPRs, privacy;
open standards, flexible systems, database and web technologies, as well as user-interface
design and usability, software ergonomics, requirements management, design and
documentation.
♦
Need for online resources more targeted to organisational needs, particularly SMEs’
needs.
8.
How to face access of SMEs, accessibility, IPR and standard issues?
Although all experts recognised the need to face the challenges given by IPR, and
standardisation for the successful development of a European e-skills framework and of a
European e-skilled population, no specific strategy was suggested on how to deal with these key
challenges. As regards accessibility to e-skills online learning resources, SMEs workers, selfemployed, people working in non office-based environments and teachers were classified as
having the worst opportunities. Accessibility problems for ICT practitioners were judged as
more linked to infrastructural problems like the lack of broadband or structural ones like the
limited offer of free training. Concerning the strategies to enhance SMEs access and use of
online training resources for e-skills, the need for ad-hoc content and services was highlighted.
Also, the importance of intermediaries such as Chambers of Commerce in facilitating
information brokerage and access was stressed. Last but not least, certification schemes
recognised at European level were stated to be potential motivators for SMEs to invest on
training of their workforce.
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9.
What economic and organisational model(s) would make the system sustainable?
A PPP or public authorities shall be responsible for providing the resources for the set up and
launch of the platform and for its management and promotion. The platform shall become selfsustainable after the start up phase. Its business model shall be based on fees and subscriptions.
It shall be cost covering, but needs to be not for profit (the surplus generated shall be reinvested
in the platform).
To guarantee scalability and adaptability, the platform should face the challenges linked to
standardisation and interoperability of content.
It shall be user-friendly and offer support services to its users and personalised learning.
It shall also represent a space where to test new approaches, like a living lab.
10.
How to keep the system “flexible”, ready to adapt to and even anticipate change?
IPR, standards, certification remain key challenges to be addressed to ensure the platform will
work effectively. In order to make the system ready to adapt or even anticipate change, the
following was suggested:
♦
Provide information on both commercial and non commercial (open) resources;
♦
As many online training resources are already available for free on-line, the platform
should, beside providing information on the available offer, distinguish itself for the
support and networking services provided to learners.
♦
Users shall play a key role in evaluating the platform: users’ ratings shall be included and
self diagnosis and self assessment tools shall be available.
♦
To be relevant to societal needs, the platform shall provide training also on digital media
literacy.
♦
The training resources and support services shall be so designed to teach people to
perform tasks rather than to use tools.
♦
The platform could support the development and implementation of a competency
framework for e-tutors.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE NEXT STEPS
In the globalisation context we are living in, implying increased internationalisation of learning,
the availability of brokerage systems able to widen the offer and access to learning resources is
an emerging need. In parallel, the exploitation of new technologies and networking services
potential is more and more urgent to support the general trend of “granularisation” and
personalisation of content.
The review carried out on available brokerage systems for learning resources as well as the
consultation with EU experts in the field of e-learning, e-skills and e-learning for e-skills has led
to the identification of the following challenges to be faced when planning the design and
development of a networking and brokerage mechanism for e-learning resources:
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Strategic dimension:
♦
Avoiding duplication: a European exchange mechanism on e-skills is generally
considered as necessary, provided that it does not overlap with already existing initiatives
but it rather aims at complementing and systematising them.
♦
Integration of vendor centric and vendor neutral interests: the e-learning for e-skills
supply is featured by private vendors (ICT actors, corporate universities and publishers,
for instance) active generally at global (and thus also at European) level and public actors
(such as higher education and VET institutions) active generally at national/local level.
The challenge is how to address them and make sure a revenue for both categories is
guaranteed (not only financially) to ensure their commitment and active involvement. In
addition, stakeholders’ role in the process of design, development, implementation and
monitoring of the brokerage system needs to be defined so to ensure that stakeholders
ranging from trade unions to industry confederations, chambers of commerce have a say
and can bring the views and concerns of final users of the system into the whole process.
♦
Networking: The platform shall provide facilities for the networking and cooperation
among all interested stakeholders.
Distribution, localisation and adaptation dimension: The exchange mechanism shall have a
European dimension compatible with national frameworks. The language issue remains a key
problem, though most experts suggest to stick to the English language as the “official ICT
language”. If this solution is adopted, the issue of distribution, localisation and adaptation will
be strongly linked to the harmonisation of the e-skills classification systems at EU level. In this
context, the European e-Competence framework could be considered as the starting point to
work on so to link it with available vendor and vendor neutral certifications. Its link to the
European Qualifications Framework implies an interesting potential to overcome national
differences Review of existing platforms suggests that the use of one single language is the most
effective option as otherwise the risk is to create a brokerage system that keeps on addressing
only the national level (with the European level being only a symbolic umbrella) and that
provides a scattered and inhomogeneous offer of learning resources across countries under the
same course/subject/certification/career profile heading.
Sustainability dimension: Public funding (at EU and national level) would be necessary for the
start up phase of the platform, though most experts agree that in the long term alternative
sources of funding shall be retrieved. If the strategic dimension is well addressed in the start up
phase, cases like the one of CSU show that investment (not necessarily in financial terms but
also in terms of time and resources) can also come from the private actors involved (vendors,
publishers, etc).
Technological dimension: Experts suggest that in the design of the exchange mechanism, a
bottom up perspective shall be combined with the more classic top down approach, in
particular:
♦
Web 2.0 and 3.0 solutions shall be considered for the exchange mechanism leading to a
community based approach where user ratings and interaction shall be key in guiding ICT
practitioners in the choice of the right e-learning resource for e-skills acquisition.
♦
The Open source “industry” as well as open source available e-learning resources for eskills shall be taken into consideration.
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The cases of existing brokerage platforms presented above show the need for a strong effort on
the technological design of the platform so to make sure that its clearing house and resources
hosting and distribution infrastructure works efficiently through a system allowing
interoperability. A deep analysis of the UNIVERSAL-EDUCANEXT case and of the CSU
digital marketplace is suggested in the next phase of project development to investigate further
on the technological solutions adopted and proceed to prototyping.
Security dimension: though the challenges linked to IPR were unanimously recognised, no
solution was given. Again, an in-depth analysis on the strategies adopted for copyright
protection, IPR protection and privacy protection of the users in the above mentioned systems
shall be carried out in the next phase of project development to evaluate the adaptation of such
strategies into the e-skills context. In particular, focus shall be set on:
♦
Need for a tracking system to determine content value for professional recognition
purposes.
♦
Institutional protection system against copyright violation and improper distribution of
materials by institutional users and others.
♦
Establishment of a business framework to ensure rewarding for both content creators and
providers.
♦
Privacy protection of individual users (to avoid advertising spamming, and improper
diffusion of final users confidential information).
Quality dimension: though not emerging as the most urgent issue to be dealt with, it is the
belief of the e-skills consortium that the quality of learning resources distributed through the
exchange mechanisms is a key challenge to be faced. The e-skills Steering Committee Group
recommended users’ ratings of the resources. The question remains whether this shall be
coupled with a system of quality assessment by a group of pedagogical and technological
experts or not.
Usability: user-friendliness and user involvement emerge as key aspects to ensure the
sustainability of the platform in the long term.
Finally, as regards the mission of the European exchange mechanism for e-learning content
for e-skills, the following suggestions were made:
♦
The platform could host a systematic monitoring system on the developments of e-skills
in Europe (demand and supply trends)
♦
The platform shall provide a brokerage service for information on available learning and
e-learning resources for e-skills.
♦
The platform shall support networking among all the e-skills stakeholders.
Additional suggestions made by experts are the following:
♦
The exchange mechanism shall help industry to understand how to operate in an
environment where informal learning and user-generated content are playing an
increasingly important role.
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♦
The relevance of the study (and of the Exchange Mechanism) to the modernisation
requirements of society is key to ensure success. The notion of e-skills shall include not
just ICT skills, but also digital skills. Focus shall therefore be on digital literacy as the
skills people need at the moment and will need in the future are at a high level of
sophistication. In this perspective:
◊
The definition of the e-skills “industry” sector shall include not only the e-learning
content providers and the ICT industry but also the digital media industry (even if
not recognised as an industry sector yet);
◊
Target groups of the e-skills exchange mechanism shall be ICT practitioners
including ICT professionals across all sectors, ICT users in large companies, SMEs
and Public Administration; ICT users willing to become ICT professionals.
To conclude, field and desk research have demonstrated that many have been the attempts to
create on-line brokerage systems for learning content. Only some of them have survived. Given
the increasing importance of e-skills to ensure employability of individuals and to support the
growth of the European economy, a European exchange mechanism for e-learning for e-skills
could represent a one-stop-shop solution for the brokerage of information and of learning
resources on e-skills as well as networking of relevant stakeholders and delivery of updated
information on the evolution of e-skills demand. In order to avoid overlapping with existing
initiatives and capitalise on past experiences, the platform could be built on the already existing
platforms Technological, security, quality, strategic, distribution and sustainability challenges
have to be addressed in the prototyping and business planning phases of the study. Existing
cases such as the ones mentioned in this chapter and others analysed in depth in the Best
Practice Report (to be delivered in Autumn 2009) will play a key role in capitalising the already
developed knowledge and experience in the field.
The main recommendation emerging from the desk and field research conducted is to consider
the specificity of the field addressed (e-skills), strongly related both to commercial interests and
to educational values and trends. Beside all the challenges listed above, a major challenge to be
addressed is to merge the concept of brokerage systems and access to open educational content
with a community-based approach.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY......................................................................................................... 3
EXCHANGE MECHANISMS AND NETWORKING: STATE OF THE ART ................................ 5
RESULTS OF THE CONSULTATION ON THE FEASIBILITY OF A EUROPEAN
EXCHANGE MECHANISM FOR E-SKILLS ............................................................................ 8
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE NEXT STEPS .................................. 11
TABLE OF CONTENTS.......................................................................................................... 15
1.
INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................... 18
2.
METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................................... 19
3.
2.1
AIMS AND APPROACH ........................................................................................... 19
2.2
FIELDS OF ANALYSIS AND DEFINITIONS ............................................................... 19
E-SKILLS THROUGH E-LEARNING........................................................................ 23
3.1
SOME INTRODUCTORY DATA ON THE STATE OF THE ART OF E-SKILLS IN
EUROPE .................................................................................................................. 23
3.1.1 Demand ........................................................................................................ 23
3.1.2 Supply........................................................................................................... 25
3.2
E-LEARNING FOR E-SKILLS IN EUROPE: PROVIDERS, CURRICULA,
DELIVERY AND DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIES. ....................................................... 27
3.2.1 ICT Industry ................................................................................................. 27
3.2.2 Corporate Universities.................................................................................. 36
3.2.3 Vocational Education Training..................................................................... 38
3.2.4 Open and Distance Learning Universities.................................................... 40
4
EXCHANGE MECHANISMS AND NETWORKING: STATE OF THE ART ...... 43
4.1
EXCHANGE MECHANISMS ..................................................................................... 43
4.2
NETWORKING ........................................................................................................ 46
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5.
RESULTS ON THE CONSULTATION ON THE FEASIBILITY OF A
EUROPEAN EXCHANGE MECHANISM FOR E-SKILLS..................................... 51
5.1
WHICH E-SKILLS NEEDS/DEMAND CAN BE SERVED BY RESOURCE-BASED
LEARNING ............................................................................................................... 52
5.2
WHAT E-SKILLS NEEDS/DEMAND WOULD BE BETTER SERVED BY
DIFFERENT FORMS OF LEARNING AND E-LEARNING (E.G. WORK-BASED,
LEARNING COMMUNITIES, PROJECT WORK, E-SKILLS PORTFOLIO, ETC.) ........ 54
5.3
WHAT KIND OF RESOURCES COULD BE SHARED AT WHAT CONDITIONS? ......... 55
5.4
WHO SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR AND WHO SHALL BE INVOLVED IN
MULTI-STAKEHOLDERS PARTNERSHIP?............................................................... 55
5.5
HOW WOULD THE EUROPEAN E-SKILLS RESOURCE POOL LOOK LIKE?............ 57
5.6.
WHAT WOULD BE THE ROLE OF RESEARCH AND TRAINING CENTRES?............. 63
5.7.
WHAT WOULD BE THE EXPECTATIONS AND CONCERNS OF THE MAIN
DEMAND SEGMENTS?............................................................................................. 64
5.8.
HOW TO FACE ACCESS OF SMES, ACCESSIBILITY, IPR AND STANDARD
ISSUES?................................................................................................................... 65
5.9
WHAT ECONOMIC AND ORGANISATIONAL MODEL(S) WOULD MAKE THE
SYSTEM SUSTAINABLE?......................................................................................... 66
5.10 HOW TO KEEP THE SYSTEM “EVOLUTIVE”, READY TO ADAPT TO AND
EVEN ANTICIPATE CHANGE?................................................................................. 68
6.
EXCHANGE MECHANISMS FOR E-LEARNING FOR E-SKILLS: DREAM
OR REALITY? ............................................................................................................... 69
BIBLIOGRAPHY ..................................................................................................................... 78
ANNEX 1
LIST OF INVITED EXPERTS FOR INTERVIEWS ............................ 84
ANNEX 2
LIST OF CONSULTED EXPERTS ......................................................... 89
ANNEX 3
GOOD PRACTICE CASES: ID CARDS................................................. 92
EXCHANGE AND BROKERAGE MECHANISMS.................................................................. 93
EducaNext .............................................................................................................. 93
Ariadne ................................................................................................................... 95
Digital Marketplace ................................................................................................ 98
Measure Up........................................................................................................... 102
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World Lecture Hall (WLH) .................................................................................. 103
Online Learning.net .............................................................................................. 104
ALTC Exchange ................................................................................................... 106
Fathom Knowledge Network Inc.......................................................................... 108
Intrallect................................................................................................................ 109
Learning Resource Exchange for Schools (lreforschools).................................... 111
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching MERLOT.............................................................................................................. 113
Nordic Baltic Community for Open Education – Nord let ................................... 116
Open Courseware Consortium.............................................................................. 117
School of everything............................................................................................. 119
Wikieducator ........................................................................................................ 120
OTHER RELEVANT PLATFORMS .................................................................................... 122
E practice .............................................................................................................. 122
HELB Hungarian EUGA Leadership Board ........................................................ 124
Digital creator ....................................................................................................... 126
e-skills UK............................................................................................................ 128
Itrain - online ........................................................................................................ 131
Skillnets ................................................................................................................ 134
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1.
INTRODUCTION
The Synthesis Report provides, together with the best practice report, the key information and
elements necessary to design and develop the prototype of the European exchange mechanism
for e-learning resources for e-skills. This report aims to:
♦
Provide an overview of the state of play, trends and developments of Exchange
mechanisms and networking of research and training centres for e-learning in Europe and
at international level
♦
Identify a first set of 20 case studies showing relevant good/best practice elements;
♦
Provide a first set of inputs on the main features and implementation, sustainability and
scalability strategies of a European e-skills exchange mechanism for e-learning for eskills as emerging from the consultation with 50 European experts in the field.
The results hereby presented are based on an intensive desk and field research activity carried
out by the MENON network in the first 6 months of project development. Desk research has
implied consultation of relevant reports, web sites and platforms, documents and all relevant
sources and resources at international level and at EU and country level within the 27 Member
States. Field research has implied the conduction of 50 interviews to European experts in the
field of e-learning and e-skills.
The report is articulated as follows:
♦
Chapter 2 – Methodology – provides an overview of the methodological approach
adopted to run field and desk research activities as well as a set of definitions of key
terms as used in this study.
♦
Chapter 3 – e-skills through e-learning – presents a short overview on the e-skills
market and analyses the provision of e-learning for e-skills in terms of providers,
curricula, delivery and distribution strategies.
♦
Chapter 4 – Exchange mechanisms and networking: state of the art provides an
overview of the analysed cases of brokerage and networking mechanisms.
♦
Chapter 5 – Results of the consultation on the Feasibility of a European exchange
mechanism for e-skills – presents the main results of the consultation with European
experts on the feasibility of a European mechanism for e-learning resources for e-skills
and the experts’ view on challenges for development, implementation, sustainability and
scalability.
♦
Chapter 6 – Exchange mechanisms for e-learning for e-skills: dream or reality?
Presents a set of considerations and remarks on the challenges related to the set up of the
European exchange mechanism for e-skill as emerging from the analysis of the state of
the art and trends in the field.
Finally:
♦
Annex 1 and 2 present the list of invited experts to consultation (through interviews) and
of respondents respectively;
♦
Annex 3 presents the identified good practice cases summarised through 21 ID cards to
be considered for the selection of 10 best practice cases that will be analysed in-depth.
The analysis of best practice cases (feeding the Best Practice report) will be crucial in
defining the building blocks of the exchange mechanism prototype to be designed,
developed and tested in the second phase of development of the study.
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2.
METHODOLOGY
2.1
AIMS AND APPROACH
Both desk and field research has been carried out to produce this report:
♦
Desk research has implied consultation of relevant documentation, reports, magazines,
specialised publications, web sites at EU and international level. The consulted
documents will be available on the study web site4 and will also be delivered to the
European Commission on a CD-ROM as per contractual terms.
♦
Field research has been run through the following steps:
◊
Provision of a draft list of experts to be interviewed to the European Commission
(in attachment to the deliverable Roadmap);
◊
Inclusion of new experts based on the suggestions of already interviewed experts.
The experts where first contacted via e-mail and then via phone to investigate on their
availability. Respondents could choose to reply in writing or through a phone/Skype
interview.
2.2
FIELDS OF ANALYSIS AND DEFINITIONS
e-skills
Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has become all pervasive in the European
Union of today. Most Europeans will interact with ICT during the course of their working day,
and even during personal time. Young people enjoy exploiting the many functions of their
mobile phones, MP3 players, Internet chat rooms and “blogs”. Many people in office jobs use a
search engine to track down they need from websites, and even those in more traditional sectors
and activity rarely escape some impact of ITC on their words. In terms of the greater European
economy, ICT is a major force.
As from the Communication “e-Skills for the 21st Century: Fostering Competitiveness, Growth
and Jobs” of the European Commission5, “there is an important need to address ICT- related
skills (e-skills) issues in order to respond to the growing demand for highly-skilled ICT
practitioners and users, meet the fast-changing requirements of industry, and ensure that every
citizen is digitally literate in a lifelong learning context requiring the mobilisation of all
stakeholders”.
The skills required for developing and operating ICT systems, and for using the devices in
support of a wide range of activities, are complex. Since they are largely derived from ICT
systems and their capabilities, understanding e-skills requires an adequate understanding of ICT
system plus awareness of the many aspects of skills.
As defined by the European e-skills Forum (2004)6, the term e-skills covers:
♦
4
5
6
ICT user skills: the capabilities required for effective application of ICT systems and
devices by the individual. ICT users apply systems as tools in support of their own work,
which is, in most cases, not ITC. User skills cover the utilisation of common generic
http://www.elearningeuropa.info/eskills/es
COM (2007) 496 final
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/doc/e-skills-forum-2004-09-fsr.pdf
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software tools and the use of specialised tools supporting business functions within
industries other than ITC industry.
♦
E-Business skills: the capabilities needed to exploit opportunities provided by ITC,
notably the Interne, to ensure more efficient and effective performance of different types
of organizations, to explore possibilities for new ways of conducting business and
organisational processes, and to establish new business.
♦
ICT practitioner skills: the capabilities required for researching, developing and
designing, managing, the producing, consulting, marketing and selling, the integrating,
installing and administrating, the maintaining, supporting and service of ICT systems.
As agreed in the project kick off meeting, the study will focus on ICT practitioners skills, i.e.:
practitioners within ICT industry and ICT using sectors. More details on the definition the study
gives to ICT practitioners and their e-skills is provided below.
Supply and demand
In order to analyse the state of play and trends of e-skills focus has been set on the e-skills
market. The graphical representation below illustrates the different categories of supply and
demand of such a market, as extracted and elaborated from the CEPIS and RAND reports7:
SUPPLY CATEGORIES
DEMAND SEGMENTS
DIGITAL MEDIA INDUSTRY
ICT PRACTITIONERS IN ICT
INDUSTRY
ICT INDUSTRY
ICT PRACTITIONERS IN OTHER
INDUSTRIES & PUBLIC
ADMINISTRATION
PROFESSIONAL
ASSOCIATIONS
ICT USERS IN LARGE
ORGANISATION
E/T PROVIDERS
ICT USERS IN SMALL
ORGANISATION
CONTENT INDUSTRY
ICT USERS WISHING TO
BECOME ICT PRACTITIONERS
OTHERS
(e.g.: peer support at work)
The left part of the graphical representation shows the main Supply categories that need to be
considered when studying the market of e-skills, ranging from ICT industry (Microsoft, Sun
Microsystems, Cisco, etc.) to professional associations, Education and Training providers
(Vocational Education and Training and Higher Education institutions for instance) and the
content and digital media industry. “Others” have been considered as an additional category
referring for instance to peers at work, as the informal learning happening at the workplace also
needs to be analysed.
7
“Thinking ahead on e-skills for the ICT industry in Europe” – Council of European Professional Informatic
Societies – CEPIS, November 2007; RAND REPORT “ The supply and demand of e-skills in Europe” 2005.
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This it true for users and also – to some extent – for professionals: more and more often the eskills needed are learnt by means of peer support rather than access to the training offer
available on the market. This leads to the emergence of an “informal category of suppliers”
made of and by peers.
The right hand side shows the categorisation of ICT practitioners proposed by the study and
confirmed (with some adjustments) by the results of consultation with the members of the
Steering Committee and with the interviewed experts. The following categorisation is therefore
adopted: ICT professionals in ICT industry and in other industries and Public Administration,
ICT users in large and small organisations; ICT users wishing to become ICT professionals.
ICT practitioners’ skills
This study will deal with ICT practitioners’ skills. As evident from the above mentioned
categorisation, ICT practitioners range from IT specialists to ICT users in working
environments. This implies, in consideration of the current evolution of technologies and of
workers’ skills required from the corporate sector and Public Administration, that the definition
of ICT practitioners e-skills will include – beside the official definition as provided by the eskills Forum – the notion of digital skills as defined in the Recommendation of the European
Parliament and of the Council, of 18 December 2006, on key competences for lifelong learning
[Official Journal L 394 of 30.12.2006]8, i.e.: the capacity to critically and confidentially use
Information Society Technologies.
Learning resources9
A learning resource can be associated with more than one physical resource or a learning object.
A learning resource can offer two types of entities, educational material and educational
activities.
Educational material refer to sharable chunks of reusable learning content such as electronic
textbooks, recorded lectures and presentations, case studies, quizzes, lecture notes, problem
statements, project assignments, etc., usually available in formats such as text documents,
spreadsheets, presentations, audio and video files.
Educational activities refer to distributed educational and training activities such as lectures,
tutoring sessions, synchronous group collaboration with the aid of video-conferencing and
complete on-line courses through learning management systems.
Exchange mechanism
The e-skills exchange and networking mechanism shall provide a networking, brokerage and
clearing house platform supporting the exchange of e-learning resources on e-skills in Europe.
Below the main issues addressed to gather elements for the design and implementation of such a
mechanism are listed. Such issues have been the core subject of the interviews conducted,
addressing 50 European experts in the field of e-learning for e-skills.
8
9
http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/education_training_youth/lifelong_learning/c11090_en.htm
Quotation from “UNIVERSAL: e-learning brokerage service” by S. Gunnarsdóttir (Iceland Telecom, Research
Department), S. Thorsteinsson, E. Thora Hvannberg (University of Iceland, Computer Science Department). See:
http://www3.hi.is/~ebba/publications/summit_5b_universal.pdf
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WHY…
♦
Is this exchange mechanism necessary?
♦
Should suppliers be interested?
♦
Should learners be interested?
♦
Should employers be interested?
WHAT…
♦
Exactly should be exchanged and made available in the resource pool?
♦
Products and services shall be available in terms of contents and courses?
♦
Strategies shall be adopted by supply in terms of drivers (i.e.: language, competitiveness,
visibility, excellence in integration…) to partnership and networking?
HOW…
♦
To collect needs and expectations?
♦
To design the service?
♦
To maintain the resource pool?
♦
To collect feedback and suggestions?
♦
Important are qualifications for the market (in terms of employability)?
WHO…
♦
Shall be involved in partnership and networking and with which responsibility?
WHEN…
♦
How much time would different phases require?
♦
When will the European e-skills resource pool be meaningful?
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3.
3.1
3.1.1
E-SKILLS THROUGH E-LEARNING
SOME INTRODUCTORY DATA ON THE STATE OF THE ART OF E-SKILLS
IN EUROPE
Demand
Corporate Internet Access
Figure 1 below (extracted from Eurostat, 2008) shows the percentage of enterprises having
access to the Internet at EU and at country level. Strong discrepancies are still featuring the
European corporate landscape in terms of Internet access, with Nordic countries having,
together with Austria, an average percentage of 95 to 100 of the enterprises connected and
Eastern European countries (like Romania and Bulgaria) or Southern European countries like
Greece showing much lower percentages. All in all an average of 92% of European enterprises
are connected, meaning that there is still a significant gap to be filled in to create the necessary
infrastructure to allow EU companies to learn and work on line.
Figure 1. Enterprises having access to the internet
Source: Eurostat 2008
Looking more specifically into ICT skills and particularly into corporate investments to upgrade
workers’ ICT skills, according to Eurostat 2007 the percentage of enterprises (at EU level,
including all 27 Member States) who provided training to develop/upgrade ICT skills of their
personnel amounts to: 65% for large enterprises and 19% for SMEs. This implies that:
♦
The percentage of enterprises investing in ICT training of their personnel is still far too
low. This could be due to the fact that companies expect personnel to be already trained
in the field of ICT as well as to the general reluctance of companies to consider training
in general as a strategic investment.
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♦
There is (still) a very high discrepancy between the rate of investment on ICT training by
large companies and by SMEs. As emerging from the report “Benchmarking policies and
initiatives in support of e-learning for Enterprises in Europe”10 investment in training and
particularly in e-learning is still particularly low in SMEs due to budget constraints and to
a lack of “training and learning culture”. The recently published Learnovation e-learning
territory report on e-learning at the workplace11 highlights the need to focus on the
elaboration of ad hoc strategies for the promotion of a learning culture within SMEs,
focused on learning by doing which emerges as the most common way people learn
within small and medium sized companies.
The most common solution adopted by companies in search for ICT highly skilled staff consists
in hiring ICT specialists. This is true especially for large enterprises: according to Eurostat 2007
70% of large enterprises throughout EU member states employed ICT and IT specialists. The
percentage decreases dramatically for SMEs, with an average data of 16%.
Another quite common solution consists in outsourcing ICT functions requiring ICT/IT
specialists. The percentage of enterprises where external suppliers performed (fully or party)
ICT functions requiring ICT/IT specialists (covering all EU 27, as from Eurostat - 2007)
♦
all enterprises (without financial sector): 41%
♦
large enterprises: 73%;
♦
Small enterprises: 41%.
If compared to the previous data, this suggests that outsourcing is a key strategy to address the
problem of IT/ICT specialists’ skills. These data suggest that SMEs tend to outsource such
services rather than hire specialists in the field of IT and ICT.
There is a quite controversial debate about the existence of a mismatch between demand and
supply of e-skills in Europe. Most companies claim that they have difficulties in hiring ICT
skilled staff and also IT/ICT specialists. Again according to Eurostat 2007 the main reasons for
hard to fill vacancies for ICT specialists jobs are the following:
♦
Lack or too low number of applicants
♦
Lack of work experience in the field of ICT
♦
Lack of ICT related qualification from education and/or training
♦
Salary requests too high
As mentioned in Chapter 2 of this report, the notion of ICT practitioners adopted in the Study
on e-skills exchange mechanisms includes not only IT/ICT specialists but also ICT users in
working environments. The evolution and speed of technological progress and the implications
this evolution has on working and learning shall in fact be taken into consideration when
designing and implementing a European exchange and networking mechanism for e-skills.
Owning at least a basic level of ICT and digital skills is becoming a key requirement for all
workers (current and future) of the Information and Knowledge Society. In this perspective, the
next section provides some data and insights on e-skills supply considering both ICT/IT
specialists and ICT users in working environments as defined in chapter 2.
10
11
Benchmarking Policies and Initiatives in Support of e-learning for Enterprises in Europe (draft), Menon
Network, study commissioned by the European Commission, 2007
Learnovation Consortium (2008-9), the Learnovation e-learning territories and cluster reports, available at
http://www.elearningeuropa.info/learnovation
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3.1.2
Supply
Eurostat published, in April 2009, a set of very useful and interesting data to get a clear picture
of e-skills supply in Europe. The data shown in this section have been extracted from the
Eurostat statistical database. Only relevant indicators to the aim of the study have been
considered.
The table below shows individual levels of computer skills at EU level (considering the EU27).
As of 2007, 33% of individuals consider their computer skills to be sufficient if they were to
look for a job or change job within a year. 25% of individuals consider such skills to be
insufficient. Though 33% of respondents consider their skills to be sufficient, only 24% state
they are able to detect and solve computer problems. Beside a general consideration on the still
low level of people who judge their computer skills sufficient, the question arises on what basis
self-assessment on computer skills is made given the lower percentage of people able to solve
computer problems.
Table 1.
Individuals level of computer skills EU 27: 2005-2006-2007
Percentage of individuals who judge their computer skills to be sufficient NA
if they were to look for a job or change jobs within a year
Percentage of individuals who judge their computer skills to be NA
insufficient if they were to look for a job or change jobs within a year
Percentage of individuals who have detected and solved computer NA
problems
NA
33
NA
25
NA
24
Source: Eurostat 2009.
As concerns individual level of Internet skills, the situation is similarly critical: if 57% of
respondents have created a web page, only 27% have found downloaded and installed software.
Despite the “boom” of social networking, only 24% of respondents claim to have posted
messages to chat rooms, newsgroups and online discussion forums. Nevertheless, the percentage
has significantly increased from 2005 and 2006 (+ 6 percentage points). 30% of respondents
were able to keep viruses, spyware and adware off their computer when using the Internet.
These data suggest that personal and professional use of Internet are still conceived as separate
spheres by Internet users: individuals are more keen on creating internet pages than in
working/learning/interacting in a secure environment and do not seem to perceive the capacity
to keep the Internet environment a secure one as a key skill.
Table 2.
Individuals level of Internet skills EU 27: 2005-2006-2007
Percentage of individuals who have created a Web page
Percentage of individuals who have found, downloaded and installed
software:
Percentage of individuals who have posted messages to chat rooms,
newsgroups or an online discussion forum
Percentage of individuals who have kept viruses, spyware and adware off
their computer
51
52
57
NA
NA
27
18
18
24
NA
NA
30
With regard to training and to the attitude of individuals towards being trained on e-skills and
acquiring e-skills, Eurostat provides interesting data on the reasons for not taking a computer
course. As evident from the table below, 23% of people believe their skills are already sufficient
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whereas much lower percentages (1-3%) are related to costs, perceived difficulty of the subject
and lack of a suitable offer.
Table 3.
Percentage of the reasons for not taking a computer course EU 27: 2007
Percentage of individuals who have not taken a computer course because of the course
costs
Percentage of individuals who have not taken a computer course because the courses
are too difficult
Percentage of individuals who have not taken a computer course because there is no
suitable offer available
Percentage of individuals who do not need to take a computer course because their
computer skills are sufficient
3
1
1
23
The above data suggest the need to investigate on the strategies adopted by individuals to
acquire (or improve) their e-skills. The table below presents relevant data to this respect, as
extracted from Eurostat 2009 for the period 2005-2007.
Figure 2. Ways of obtaining e-skills
Ways of obtaining eskills
25
IT skills acquisiition ways
20
15
2005
2006
2007
10
5
0
Percentage of individuals Percentage of individuals
Percentage of individuals
who have obtained IT skills who have obtained IT skills who have obtained IT skills who have obtained IT skills who have obtained IT skills who have obtained IT skills
through informal
through formalised
through self-study (learning through training courses
through training courses
through self-study using
assistance from
educational institution
by doing)
and adult education
and adult education
books, cd-roms, etc.
colleagues, relatives in
(school, college, university,
centres, on demand of
centres, on own initiative
friends and some other
etc.)
employer
ways
% of individuals
Source: Eurostat 2009
It is evident from the above data that acquisition of e-skills by individuals increasingly relies on
learning by doing as well as informal learning through peer to peer interaction. Self-study
through books and CD-ROMs follows whereas acquisition through attendance of courses - be
them part of formal education or recommended by the employer or even attended on the own
initiative of individuals - are the less used strategies to obtain e-skills.
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3.2
E-LEARNING FOR E-SKILLS IN EUROPE: PROVIDERS, CURRICULA,
DELIVERY AND DISTRIBUTION STRATEGIES.
Providers of e-skills training (be it classroom, blended or online) belong to a variety of actors’
categories in Europe. These range from international providers to local ones, with
diversification of curricula, certifications and qualification offers.
The taxonomy of providers considered in this Study includes the following categories:
♦
ICT industry;
♦
Corporate Universities;
♦
Open Universities;
♦
Vocational Education Training institutions.
This taxonomy is not intended to be an exhaustive description of all the existing providers and
available offer but a way to reduce the complexity of the market and to illustrate some relevant
experiences.
3.2.1
ICT Industry
The ICT industry is both a provider and a demander of e-skills. Big multinational companies
such as Microsoft, IBM, Sun Microsystems, Cisco, and Oracle are well established suppliers of
e-skills training at international level. The training offer they provide is usually relevant to their
products and services (as in the case of Microsoft) and to their specific core business (as in the
case of Cisco).
Their training offer is provided worldwide with the same common structure, list of courses and
available certifications, recognised worldwide.
Distribution and delivery of courses at regional/national level happens by means of accredited
centres/business partners (private and public such as VET institutions, academies and schools).
Courses are delivered:
♦
In classroom: in this case the accredited learning centre provides the location, support
services and instructors to deliver training and usually is responsible for the examination
leading to the formal certification.
♦
Via blended learning: combining on-line and classroom training (performed by local
accredited centres/business partners)
♦
On-line: in this case the role of the local accredited centre is usually restricted to the
performance and assessment of the exams leading to certification.
The offer of courses generally varies according to the chosen delivery format, meaning the same
course might not necessarily be available both on-line and face-to-face.
As concerns localisation strategies, the courses provided might vary from one region of the
world to another and from one country to another. Whereas in-classroom training implies often
adaptation in terms of language, on-line courses are offered in English.
All the courses offered by ICT providers and leading to certification are fee-based. Usually
subscription happens on-line and grants access to courses, including learning resources and
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support services. Entrance tests to assess the level of the learner and support him/her in the
identification of the most suitable course are generally provided for free.
Some examples of providers of e-skills through e-learning in the ICT industry are given below,
with focus both on ICT professionals and ICT practitioners as target groups.
IBM12
IBM offers the following e-learning courses to improve e-skills. First of all, users have to
choose their preferred e learning format and select the courses as follows:
♦
Instructor-led Online Training
♦
Self-paced virtual classes
♦
IBM online training
♦
Video Conferencing
Users receive the course materials in advance. For example, the instructor-led on-line format
offers:
♦
484 courses
♦
Prices ranging from 600 to more than 4.000.00$.
♦
Courses lasting 2 days minimum.
♦
Within six months of completion or when the certification test expires, whichever comes
first, users should be able to take the aligning certification test free of charge. The test is
valued at $200 USD in developed countries and $100 in the emerging market countries.
Usually every course has the following features: special note, audience, prerequisites; skills
taught; course outline. IBM e-learning courses are not made in partnerships and focus on IBM
products. Below, a sample image is shown about the first selection which should be done by the
user.
Figure 3. Selection of e-learning format. IBM.
12
http://www.ibm.com/us/en/
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The table below shows an example of the software and training courses offered by IBM. The
target users are mainly ICT professionals.
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Table 4.
IBM training provision
Software
Hardware
Application Development
Java, Object Technology, Web Services, and
XML
CICS
Citrix
Information Management
Cognos
Data Servers Cross Product
DB2 for Linux, UNIX and Windows
DB2 for z/OS
Dynamic Data Warehousing and Business
Intelligence
Enterprise Content Management
IMS
Information Platform and Solutions
Informix
U2
Internet Security Systems
IT infrastructure library (ITIL)
Lotus
Microsoft Technologies
Rational software
Service oriented architecture (SOA)
Telelogic
Tivoli and Systems Management
WebSphere
Application Integration
MQ, Message Broker, ESB, Transformation
Extender
Application Server
Business Process Management
Process Server, Business Modeler, Business
Monitor, Integration Developer, Business
Services Fabric
Commerce
Pervasive
Portal
Cisco
IBM System i
IBM System p, AIX, and UNIX
IBM System Storage and Storage Networking
IBM System x
IBM System z Mainframe
Linux
Networking Protocols and Tech.
VMware
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MICROSOFT
Microsoft IT Academy13
The Microsoft IT Academy program is designed for accredited academic institutions worldwide.
The subscription-based membership program offers curricula, courseware, and on-line learning
for students focused on a profitable career path, life-long learning, and Microsoft certification.
Microsoft IT Academy e-learning courses are available in English, Spanish (Latin America),
Portuguese (Brazil), Japanese, Chinese (Simplified), Korean, German, French, and Italian. The
main target groups are Educators, Students and Administrators.
The courses are divided in:
♦
Essential level e-learning courses.
♦
Advanced Level e-learning courses.
Highlights of the program include:
♦
Access to a wide variety of Microsoft curricula and certifications.
♦
Extensive teaching resources.
♦
e-learning courses for educators and students.
♦
Software licenses for lab and classroom use.
♦
A wide range of instruction, from computer basics to high-level programming and
architecture.
Users willing to attend these courses need to be registered to the Microsoft Learning
Community and enrol in local Microsoft IT academy centres with branches distributed
worldwide.
Some examples on the certifications offered for IT professionals are provided below:
♦
Microsoft Certified System Administrator (MCSA)
♦
Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD)
♦
Microsoft Certified Database Administrator (MCDBA)
♦
Microsoft Certified Applications Developer (MCAD)
To get certifications, learners are requested to have experience in the field (years and subjects of
experience obviously depend on the certification). Credits counting for the final assessment of
the test are provided by attending Microsoft courses (varying from one certification to another).
The Microsoft Learning Community has recently been involved in the provision of e-learning
content with a community-based approach: the Microsoft Learning Content Development
System (LCDS) is a free tool that enables the Microsoft Learning community to create highquality, interactive, online courses. The LCDS allows anyone in the Microsoft Learning
community to publish e-learning courses by completing the easy-to-use LCDS forms that
seamlessly generate highly customized content, interactive activities, quizzes, games,
13
http://www.microsoft.com/education/msitacademy/default.mspx
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assessments, animations, demos, and other multimedia. The LCDS is currently available in the
following languages:
♦
Chinese (Simplified);
♦
Hindi;
♦
Portuguese (Brazil);
♦
Russian;
♦
Spanish (Spain);
♦
Turkish.
The image below shows the steps for e-learning courses bottom-up creation as displayed in the
Microsoft Learning web site14
Create
Preview
Refine
Delight
Set up your course structure,
Experience your course from
Make your
Publish your course and
select a template for each
the learner’s perspective at any
desired
distribute it to your
topic, and author your
time. Use the Preview feature
changes and
audience via the Web or
content. Upload your images,
to view, verify, and interact
save your
a learning management
demos, videos, and audio. Add
with the full course as it is at
work.
system.
links, attach files, and more.
that moment.
CISCO NETWORKING ACADEMY15
Cisco Networking Academy is an education initiative that delivers information and
communication technology (ICT) skills to improve career and economic opportunities around
the world. Networking Academy provides online courses, interactive tools, and lab activities to
prepare individuals for ICT and networking careers in virtually every type of industry. Each
student who successfully completes a Networking Academy course receives a personalized
certificate listing the competencies gained through the curriculum.
Networking Academy utilizes a blended learning model that combines face-to-face teaching
with engaging online content and hands-on lab exercises to prepare students for industrystandard certifications and higher education in engineering, computer science, information
systems, and related fields.
The Cisco Networking Academy portfolio consists of 18 courses to help meet the diverse needs
of students with different interests and objectives. The Networking Academy courses should
encourage practical application of knowledge through hands-on activities to prepare students for
career opportunities, continuing education, and globally-recognized certifications.
The course catalogue offers:
♦
IT Essentials I: PC Hardware and Software
An introduction to computer components, laptops and portable devices, wireless n
connectivity, security, safety, environmental concerns, and diagnostic tools.
♦
CCNA v3.0
A foundational curriculum that covers networking design and operations.
14
15
http://www.microsoft.com/learning/en/us/training/lcds.aspx#languages
http://www.cisco.com/web/learning/netacad/index.html
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♦
CCNA Discovery
An overview of general networking theory that provides opportunities for practical
experience, career exploration, and soft-skills development.
♦
CCNA Exploration
A comprehensive overview of foundational to advanced networking concepts, with an
emphasis on theory and practical application.
♦
CCNA Security
The Cisco CNA Security curriculum provides a next step for individuals who want to
enhance their CCNA-level skill set and help meet the growing demand for network
security professionals.
♦
CCNP v5.0
An advanced overview of complex network configurations, diagnostic tools, and
troubleshooting processes.
SUN Microsystems
The Sun Academic Initiative16 is one of many programs Sun offers to foster its collaborative
relationship with educational institutions. As part of this program, schools become authorized to
deliver training on Sun technologies to their students, faculty, and staff. The Sun Academic
Initiative offers non-profit academic institutions access to free Web-based training and
curricula, including courses in the latest Java and Solaris technologies.
As a Sun Academic Initiative (SAI) Program participant, students, faculty and staff will receive
the following:
♦
Free access to an extensive portfolio of Web-based courses through SAI Learning
Connection (Sun's learning management system where users can access free training on
dozens of technology-related topics). With only a computer and an Internet connection,
students around the world can learn at their own pace about the broad range of Sun
technologies and prepare themselves for certification.
♦
Free Web-based ePractice Certification Exams (ePractice exams via Web. These tests
facilitate the preparation of candidates in view of the certification. The tests include
questions ePractice type, the correct answers with explanations and suggestions for
subsequent studies).
Academic Institutions can elect to utilize:
♦
Instructor Led Training (ILT) courseware
♦
Instructor-Led Training for Academic Institutions
An academic institution can elect to enhance their Sun Academic Initiative experience by
utilizing the Instructor Led Training (ILT) course materials developed by Sun. These courses
are available to the academic institution at cost. These materials include slides, speaker notes,
and online e-practice exams, and they cover many of the same topics available through Webbased training, including Java programming and Solaris administration. Using these materials,
teachers give students hands-on, personal training they can apply in the real world. Instructorled courses using Sun Academic Initiative materials work well as part of the syllabus in a
computer science class at a four-year university.
As concerns IT professionals, Sun offers certifications on:
16
http://www.sun.com/solutions/landing/industry/education/sai/index.xml
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♦
Application development (Java)
♦
System Administration (SOLARIS)
♦
Sun Software solutions
♦
Server administration
♦
Storage administration
The e-learning offer is differentiated according to the following target groups: individuals and
teams. The latter is addressed to companies and foresees for instance the provision of Sun
eLibraries, through which essential business training courseware is provided in self-paced
format, accessible by authorized users anytime, and from virtually anywhere, using a browser
and Internet connection. Available topics are incorporated into a host of offerings designed to
meet the demands placed on IT professionals.
ORACLE17
The company is the world's leading supplier of software for information management, and the
world's second largest independent software company. The company offers training to achieve
the following certifications:
♦ Oracle Certified Associate (OCA). The Oracle Certified Associate (OCA) credential is
typically the first step toward achieving the flagship Oracle Certified Professional
certification. The OCA credential ensures that the individual is equipped with fundamental
skills, providing a strong foundation for supporting Oracle products. An OCA credential is
available for several of today's most in-demand technology job roles.
♦ Oracle Certified Professional (OCP). The Oracle Certified Professional credential
recognizes achievement in mastering intermediate and advanced level Oracle skills.
Most Oracle certification exams are available only in proctored testing centres; a few are
available online (without a proctor). Oracle Certification Program proctored exams are delivered
at Oracle Testing Centres and Authorized Prometric Testing Centres.
Practice exams are provided to prepare for certification exams. Oracle University has partnered
with two providers of certification practice exams (Self Test Software and Transcender) to offer
authorized Oracle certification practice exams. Both providers offer the highest quality products
for Oracle Certification test preparation. Siebel practice exams are currently available through
Oracle University.
All Oracle exams are either proctored or non-proctored:
♦
Proctored exams are considered high-stakes exams and are therefore only delivered with
a proctor. These exams are offered at Prometric testing centres and some Oracle
University training locations.
♦
Non-proctored exams are available online without a proctor. These exams are thus a more
accessible way to get started on a certification path. Non-proctored exams do not require
preregistration or an appointment and are available on-demand 24 hours a day, seven
days a week.
17
http://www.oracle.com
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E-skills training provision and/or related services are managed also by vendor –neutral
institutions active at international level. Some examples are provided below.
CEPIS18
The Council of European Professional Informatics Societies (CEPIS) is a non-profit
organisation seeking to improve and promote a high standard among informatics professionals
in recognition of the impact that Informatics has on employment, business and society. CEPIS
represents 36 Member Societies in 33 countries across Europe. CEPIS is the representative body
of national informatics associations throughout greater Europe. The first area of focus for
CEPIS is to be a leading organisation in the promotion and development of IT skills across
Europe. CEPIS is responsible for the highly successful ECDL and EUCIP programmes and
produces a range of research and publications in the area of skills.
EUCIP, European Certification of Informatics Professionals, is a professional certification and
competence development scheme aimed at IT practitioners and undergraduates. It was
developed, like ECDL, by CEPIS.
EUCIP is a pan-European qualification, accepted and valued across Europe by all industry
stakeholders including corporations, government and public organizations19.
Candidates are offered a flexible delivery and examination approach
♦
Tuition can take the form of classroom based instruction and workshops or online
learning.
♦
A range of learning materials is available including CD ROMs, books, assignment
workbooks, sample solutions etc.
EUCIP Partners include:
♦
Licensees (Local Market Representatives): (partners) who run and administer EUCIP
certification in their countries and strive to promote IT Professional development in their
markets. In Europe many of EUCIP Licensees are directly associated with national
computer societies. The Licensees are responsible for establishing a network of Test
Centres in their country and working with government, academia and industry to ensure
the continual growth of the programme and widespread adoption of EUCIP as a national
standard in their respective markets.
♦
Learning Providers: making training and materials available for students to prepare for
the EUCIP qualification, either in taught courses or via distance learning schemes.
Learning Providers may also facilitate testing and certification for EUCIP Candidates.
♦
Test Centres: Learning Providers can also operate as Test Centres. Test Centre
accreditation by EUCIP ensures that the Learning Provider has the on-site capability and
all the necessary equipment to conduct testing for the EUCIP programme
The available certification profiles include: IS Analyst; Business Analyst; Software Developer;
Network Manager; Enterprise Solutions Consultant; X-Systems Engineer; Database Manager;
IS Project Manager; IS Manager; IS Auditor; Logistics & Automation Consultant; Sales &
Application Consultant; Client Manager; IT Systems Architect; Web & Multimedia Master;
Systems Integration & Testing Engineer; Telecommunications Architect; Security Adviser;
Data Centre & Configuration Manager; Help Desk Supervisor; IT Trainer
18
19
www.cepis.org
According to the information provided on the CEPIS web site.
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ISACA20
ISACA is a global organization for information governance, control, security and audit
professionals. It provides courses and certifications in the field of security for the following
profiles:
♦
Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA)
♦
Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)
♦
Certified in the Governance of Enterprise IT (CGEIT)
Courses are delivered on-line and subscribers become members of the network of professionals
of ISACA, with a set of benefits such as access to the ISACA library of resources and to the
ISACA Journal. Besides providing courses and certifications, this organisation has evolved into
a global network of professionals in the security field providing, beside education paths, also
knowledge brokerage services.
3.2.2 Corporate Universities
It is important to include in the analysis also the corporate universities, because they represent
an important stakeholder providing e-learning courses for e-skills. Corporate universities in the
field of ICT have been selected for the analysis. Traditionally, corporate universities only
offered internal accreditation and used them as means of channelling employee training toward
corporate goals, sharing corporate information or knowledge, and disseminating corporate
culture. More recently, some corporate universities have established links with academic
institutions in order to offer formal degrees.
ORACLE UNIVERSITY
21
To have access to the web site of Oracle University, users need to select the country they belong
or where they want to attend the course. After this, users can select courses by the following
training format:
♦
Instructor Led training,
♦
Live Virtual Class,
♦
Self Study CD ROM
♦
Self Paced On Line.
Courses have duration from 1 to 5, 6 days. They are ranked by the program “100% Student
Satisfaction”, which applies to those publicly scheduled and publicly available Oracle
University Instructor Led Training classes that are identified as part of the 100% Student
Satisfaction program on the www.oracle.com/education website at the time the class is
purchased.
They are offered in a wide number of languages, as the Oracle universities have an almost
global spread.
20
21
(http://www.isaca.org/template.cfm?section=home
http://education.oracle.com/pls/web_prod-plq-dad/db_pages.getpage?page_id=3&p_org_id=1001&lang=US
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HEWLETT PACKARD22
Hewlett Packard (HP) offers the following courses regarding the subsequent topics:
♦
Operating systems;
♦
Hardware and printing;
♦
Server applications;
♦
IT processes.
The most part of HP courses are delivered on-line and in English. In the schedule presentation
of the course a rating scale is provided to measure difficulty, ranging from 1 (introduction to a
topic, with little or no prior knowledge) to 5 (advanced topics for experienced users). It is also
possible to get a certification course, like Project Management Professional (PMP). Subscription
to courses (fee-based) happens on-line and grants access to the selected learning path. An
example of a course is provided below.
CAMPUS CONNECT @ INFOSYS
Campus Connect23 is the corporate university of Infosys (India) launched in 2004 to improve
employability of ICT professionals and practitioners by supporting a better match between
demand and supply in the field of e-skills. It offers a variety of learning opportunities in the
field of e.-skills, ranging from conferences, seminars and webinars to courses leading to
qualifications.
22
23
http://www.hp.com/education/
https://campusconnect.infosys.com/Login.aspx
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3.2.3
Vocational Education Training
Focus has been placed on some innovative and experimental e-learning projects in the field of
vocational guidance and training. In every European country there are many different VET
institutions having as regulatory reference their national frameworks. Usually they do no just
produce and distribute courses anymore, but they provide a more complete offer (information,
promotion, orientation, tutoring and certification) to guarantee maximum fruition and easy
access, and to answer to the requirements of both private citizens and organisations interested in
an educational offer.
The training offer they provide for adult education relevant to the field of e-skills and e-learning
for e-skills varies from ICT industries licensing courses to lessons provided as citizen’s utility
service.
Some examples are provided below. The information displayed is intended to be exemplary and
not exhaustive: the variety of training systems not only among EU member states but also
within them (with frameworks often varying from one region to another as in the case of Italy
and Spain) does not allow to get a comprehensive framework of all the available offers and
experiences.
TRIO PROJECT24 (Italy)
TRIO is the on-line Web Learning platform of the Tuscany Region (Italy), which makes
available to all, totally free, training products, resources and services.
It offers more than 1,500 on line courses which cover subjects ranging from ecology to
languages. Regarding ICT, TRIO provides the following e learning courses:
♦
12 courses about graphic and technical drawing;
♦
35 about languages and web design;
♦
24 about Microsoft Office and ECDL
♦
35 about Open source
♦
20 about PC – Internet and networks
All the courses are offered in Italian. At the end of each course, users can check the level of
knowledge acquired through a final test and once passed the test they can apply for the
certificate of attendance.
TechonofuturTIC (Belgium)
TechnofuturTIC is a competence centre created at the initiative of the Walloon Region in 1998.
Active in the field of information technology and communication (ICT), TechnofuturTIC offers
a wide range of activities serving regional actors: companies, governments, the worlds of
education, workers, job seekers, and citizens. Founded by ESF and established as non-profit
institution, TechnofuturTIC may rely on different partners bringing complementary skills and
expertise.
24
http://www.progettotrio.it/trio/jsp/contents/homepage.jsp?service=ktrio&view=home
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It provides:
1.
Short courses: modules of 1 day up to 5 days conceived for workers, job seekers and
students in advanced fields such as: networks, Internet applications, software
development, databases, integration of multiple device environments, security. These
courses are designed to provide knowledge and know-how to people who must, as part of
their job or their job search, use new technological devices.
2.
Skills training for long-term unemployed: 6 months courses allowing people to enter into
new professional fields, such as databases developer and Web services developer, Net
and Database developer, Java developer, network administrator, LPI Certified Linux
Administrator, Manager PC networks, MCP Windows 2003. These courses are organized
in partnership with Forem and Cefora
3.
Distance learning: This form of training through the Internet addresses a wider public due
to its flexibility. Organized in a modular way, the learner is guided step by step, through
examples to practical learning. All students receive tailored support by a tutor.
4.
Tutoring and support of e-business: seminars and conferences, tools and methods to
enhance e-business in enterprises, especially SMEs and very small firms.
FIT “Fast Track to IT” (Ireland)
FIT (Fastrack to Information Technology) is an industry initiative involving major indigenous
and international companies (AIB, Alchemy, AOL, Analog Devices, Apple, BT, Creative Labs,
CSC, Danone, DELL, Dulux, Eircom, Halifax, HBOS, HP, IBM, ICT Ireland, Liberty,
Microsoft, O2, Oracle, Pivotal, Sercom Solutions, Siemens, Skillsoft and Symantec) who are
committed to the integration of marginalised job seekers into the workforce through the
acquisition or marketable ICT skills. FIT is a comprehensive partnership between the IT
industry, local communities (via LESNs/APCs) and government agencies (FAS/VECs).
FIT Programmes are market-led IT curricula in order to enable unemployed people leap-frog the
skills barrier into sustainable employment. They are currently 24, covering technical skills and
personal / professional development : Advanced Computers & Business Applications, AudioVisual Production for Broadcast, Broadband Communications, Business Through Computers,
Certified Internet Webmaster (Foundation), FIT Insights Programme, ICT Information &
Internet Securities, IT & Basic PC Maintenance, IT & Business Systems, IT & Customer Care
(Technical Support Agent), IT & Office Procedures, IT & Multimedia, IT & Support, IT &
Warehousing and Database Management, IT Office Administration & Design, IT Reception
Skills, IT Retail Sales & Customer Care, Microsoft Certified Professional (Operating Systems),
PC Maintenance & Servicing, Programming, Software Localisation Engineer, Software Quality
Assurance Tester).
The programmes have been developed by industry and are run in collaboration with existing
education and training provision. FIT promotes a professional standard or training provision that
is person-centred and provides ongoing support to the graduates of its programmes.
Centre of Information Society Technologies (CIST) (Bulgaria)
The Centre of Information Society Technologies (CIST) is an interdisciplinary research and
training institution of Sofia University.
The training activities of the Centre are focused on the transfer of internationally recognised
educational and qualification programs, for example:
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♦
International M.Sc. Programme on Educational and Training Systems Design (in cooperation with University of Twente, the Netherlands);
♦
Training specialists in public administration, banking and employment.
The courses developed are targeted towards wide spectrum of audience: students, graduating
basic objectives at the university, public administration, specialists from the business and
practically all individuals interested.
3.2.4
Open and Distance Learning Universities
The Open and Distance Learning Universities considered in this analysis propose a didactical
offer quite similar to classical universities, meaning that they provide Bachelors of Arts (B.A.),
Master of Arts (MA) Degrees, Doctorate Degrees (PhD), covering many subject areas. The
difference from classical universities lies in the possibility of tailoring the courses to the student
needs (workers, disables, isolated citizens, etc…) and in the spatial and temporal flexibility.
Most of the programmes aim strictly at people with a good command of the national language
because of the language of the study material. The interaction, collaboration, and
personalisation criteria vary dramatically among the different Universities but remain the core
of their existence.
Below a presentation of some relevant cases on Open and Distance Learning Universities
delivering courses on ICT subjects is provided:
OPEN UNIVERSITY (United Kingdom)
The Open University (OU) offers over 580 courses in 14 subject areas. Computing and ICT in a
broad perspectives are study subjects at OU (Computing course, Diploma of Higher Education
in Computing and its Practice, Diploma of Higher Education in ICT, Diploma in Information
Technology, Foundation degree in Information and Communication Technologies, etc.).
Most courses use printed paper materials. Many courses also include some interactive materials
such as a CD ROM, DVD or video. The material is provided in English.
Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (Spain)
Four different courses are provided within the ICT framework:
♦
Official Master in Education and ICTs (e-learning), studying this subjects in the Virtual
Campus (virtual classroom) will teach the user how to move in a virtual training
environment. This knowledge will be a useful experience and an added value for a better
exploitation of ICT tools, increasingly present in the various fields of education.
♦
Official Master in Knowledge and Information society
♦
Official Master in Free Software
♦
PhD on Information and Knowledge society
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OPEN UNIVERSITEIT NEDERLAND (The Netherlands)
The School of Computer Science of the Open Universiteit Nederland provides both a Bachelor
programme and a Master programme in computer science. Research and education focus on five
main areas: information systems and business processes, software technology, distributed
systems and communication technology, mathematics and artificial intelligence, human and
social aspects of computing.
Students may enrol at any time, are free to study at their own pace and can generally decide for
themselves when they are ready to take an examination. The modular system of instruction
means that students can enrol either for full length programmes or for individual courses.
Students can combine their course credits to obtain a diploma or degree is they choose so.
Most of the programmes aim strictly at people who have an adequate command of the Dutch
language, because study materials are generally in Dutch. That is why there are a few
difficulties foreign students might encounter at university. Although more and more courses are
in English, most professional or academic titles are out of reach for those without a good
command of the Dutch language. All examinations, whether standard or computerized, are
administered in the Netherlands, generally at one of the study or support centres of Open
Universiteit Nederland.
HELLENIC OPEN UNIVERSITY (GREECE)
The Hellenic Open University (HOU) mission is to provide distance education at both
undergraduate and postgraduate level. For that purpose, it develops and implements appropriate
learning material and methods of teaching. The development of the relevant technology and
methodology in the area of distance learning falls within the scope of the HOU’s objectives. The
HOU is divided in four different schools: Humanities, Social Science, Science and Technology,
Applied arts. All the schools have both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.
The School of Science and Technology of the Hellenic University offers education in Natural
Science, Mathematics, Computer Science, Environmental Science, Construction Design and
Management. Among all the courses offered there are an Undergraduate course in Computer
Science and a Postgraduate Course in Information Systems.
UNIVERSIDADE ABERTA (PORTUGAL)
The pedagogical model of Universidade Aberta is based on e-learning and on the intensive use
of new tools for on-line communication. Its model, which promotes the interaction between
students and teachers, is centred on the student as an active individual and provides the
maximum flexibility and on flexible learning provision: communication and interaction take
place according to the student's possibilities, sharing resources, knowledge and activities with
peers.
Since on-line learning requires specific skills from the students, all its certified programs will
include a free preparatory course. Therefore, students are able to acquire the necessary skills
before entering the program in which they have enrolled.
It offers 1st cycle courses (graduation) and 2nd cycle courses (masters), in the domains of
Humanities, Education Sciences, Exact, Technological and Environment Sciences,
Management, and Social Sciences.
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It offers a broad and heterogeneous range of Undergraduate and Postgraduate courses dealing
with ICT:
♦
Undergraduate: Accreditation of Certificated Practitioners, Data, computing and
information, Information and communication technologies at work, Networked living:
exploring information and communication technologies Beyond Google: working with
information online, Design and the Web, Digital photography: creating and sharing better
images, Digital worlds: designing games, creating alternative realities, Vandalism in
cyberspace: understanding and combating malicious software, Communication and
information technologies, Cisco networking (CCNA), Computers and processors,
Designing applications with Visual Basic, ICTs, change and projects at work, Information
and communication technologies: people and interactions, Software development with
Java, The server-side of application development, Web applications: design, development
and management, Databases within website design, Open source development tools,
Relational databases: theory and practice, Software engineering with objects,
Technologies for digital media, The computing project, The information and
communication technologies project.
♦
Postgraduate: Web systems integration, User interface design and evaluation, The
technology management project, The information systems toolkit, The e-learning
professional, Technology-enhanced learning: practices and debates, Technology strategy,
Technology policy and innovation research, Technology management: an integrative
approach, Relational database systems, Practice-based research in educational
technology, Multi-service networks, Multilayer switching - CCNP 3, Managing the
software enterprise, Innovations in e-learning, Information systems legacy and evolution,
Information security management, Exploring information systems, Accessible online
learning: supporting disabled students.
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4
EXCHANGE MECHANISMS AND NETWORKING:
STATE OF THE ART
4.1
EXCHANGE MECHANISMS
With the advent of the Web 2.0 and Web 3.0, e-learning is facing a new development era where
some of the main challenges are related to how to find the best solution both in terms of quality
of material and in terms of better accessibility (including language). In fact, in most cases these
important resources are difficult for most educational stakeholders to locate efficiently and
effectively. This is why e-learning Object brokerage Systems have emerged.
According to the article “Designing an e-learning Objects Brokerage System”25, an online
“brokerage system” is an on-line entity that acts as an electronic market place facilitating the
exchange of learning objects among organisations and individuals.
Annex 3 to this report contains a set of 21 ID cards showing the platforms, portals, web sites
and experiences considered relevant for the design of a European exchange and networking
mechanism for e-learning resources for e-skills. These have been selected through:
♦
consultation with the 50 interviewed experts;
♦
internet search
♦
Desk research (review of relevant documents, policy papers, reports, articles).
Portals, web sites, experiences supporting exchange of information and of learning resources as
well as networking have been analysed, focusing on e-skills as well as on e-learning in general.
Attention has been set particularly on the relevance of the mechanisms activated for information
and training brokerage.
The ID cards presented constitute a first input to the European Commission and to the Steering
Committee for the selection of the cases to be considered for further, strategic, in-depth analysis
which will feed the design and development phase of the European exchange mechanism for elearning resources for e-skills and for the networking of training and research centres.
This first phase of analysis provides an overview on the main features of the cases presented,
shortly described in the form of ID cards according to the following dimensions:
♦
name and website;
♦
geographical area;
♦
promoter;
♦
source of funding;
♦
no. of registered users (if available and relevant);
♦
starting date;
♦
objectives;
♦
target groups;
25
“Designing an e-learning Objects Brokerage System” by P. Avgeriou, L. Michael, I. Stavrou, S. Retalis.
Department
of
Computer
Science,
University
of
Cyprus,
Nicosia.
See:
http://iwi.eldoc.ub.rug.nl/FILES/root/2003/ProcICNUEAvgeriou/2003ProcICNUEAvgeriou.pdf
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♦
main features;
♦
products and services;
♦
contact person.
The ID Cards have been clustered into the following categories.
♦
Exchange and brokerage mechanisms for e-learning
♦
Other relevant platforms (for different aspects, such as, for instance, networking)
Exchange and brokerage mechanisms
Acronym
WLH
Lreforschools
Merlot
NordLet
OCWConsortium
Name
URL
EducaNext
www.educanext.org
Ariadne
www.ariadne-eu.org/index.php
21st Digital Marketplace
http://21stdigitalmarketplace.com/
Measure Up
www.measureup.com
World Lecture Hall
http://web.austin.utexas.edu/wl
h/
Online Learning.net
ALTC Exchange
www.altcexchange.edu.au
Fathom
www.fathom.com
Intrallect
www.intrallect.com
Learning Resource Exchange www.lreforschools.eun.org
for Schools
Multimedia
Educational www.merlot.org
Resource for Learning and
Online Teaching
Nordic Baltic Community for www.nordlet.org
Open Education
Open
Courseware www.ocwconsortium.org
Consortium
www.schoolofeverything.com
Wikieducator
Other relevant platforms
Acronym
HELB
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Name
E Practice
Hungarian Leadership Board
Digital Creator
eSkills UK
ITrain - online
Skillnets
URL
www.epractice.eu
www.helb.hu
www.e-skills.com
www.skillnets.com
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Though in-depth analysis of the design, development, implementation and networking strategies
adopted for the building and maintenance of relevant brokerage and networking platforms will
be carried out in the next phase of the Study, some general considerations on the main features
emerging from desk research are provided below, leading, together with the results of the
consultation with 50 EU experts on the feasibility of a European exchange and networking
mechanism for e-skills, to the conclusions presented in chapter 6 of this report.
OBJECTIVES: there are many different reasons that promoted the setup of the analysed
exchange mechanisms. These can be clustered in three main groups:
♦
Platforms created to foster the collaboration among educational institutions and to
improve the effectiveness/sharing/creation of teaching and learning by expanding the
access to high quality teaching and learning materials.
♦
Platforms responding to a very specific objective (strong regional or national connotation)
or devoted to the provision of assessments, certification and practice tests.
♦
Platforms responding to a bottom-up approach where free and open digital content is
available for upload and download.
GEOGRAPHICAL COVERAGE: Apart from some experiences with a clear regional o
national connotation, for example ALTC Exchange dedicated to exchange ideas about teaching
practice in Australia in the higher education sector or Nordlet Consortium created in order to
develop a Baltic specific perspective on the use of technology in learning, education and
training, it is possible to say that all the other platforms could by used potentially by an
international English speaking audience.
RESOURCES: Apart from a few platforms providing patented courses and certifications after
payment (such as Measure Up) all the other platforms offering learning resources do it for free
providing almost exclusively open educational content and utilizing creative common licence.
FUNDING provided by: European Union (see: e-practice, lreforschools,), National
Governments (see. e-skills UK,), Universities (Digital MarketPlace, Merlot, Nordlet, etc.). Only
two platforms are funded by user’s donations (Educanext, OCW).
ACTORS: The main actors involved in almost all the platforms analysed are: Universities,
Educational and Training Institutions, Industries, Governments and Publishers. They interact
through networks, sometimes they organize workshops, conferences and research projects (see
Merlot).
END USERS: it is possible to distinguish between different levels of user’s involvement:
1)
Platforms like Wikieducator and School of Everything where users are interactive actors
and integral part of the project because these are collaborative and peer projects.
2)
Platforms based on network systems like E-practice where users can share commentaries
and insights on the content, discuss, rate and evaluate the courses.
3)
Platforms like Measure Up where users have no real possibility of interaction and just
join the platform and choose the course they need.
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IPR: in the platform where the content is under Creative Commons licensing there is no real
IPR problem (lreforschools and Merlot, for instance.). All the platforms providing courses under
copyright have their own policies and procedures. In the WLH platform only the author or
owner of a course Web page may submit it to the platform database; the Measure Up platform
offers licensing products and certification with fees. The OCW platform provides material
which is IP-cleared.
LOCALISATION: The platforms based in English speaking countries provide materials in
English. The platforms with a clear international dimension provide content in English and
solve the localisation and adaptation issue by linking to national web sites; for example World
Lecture Hall publishes links to pages created by faculties worldwide who are using the Web to
deliver course materials in any language. In other cases such as ITRAIN ON LINE and
lreforschools homogeneity is guaranteed at international level in terms of subjects but not in
terms of available learning resources for the selected subject (for instance, in lreforschools one
will find completely different learning resources when looking at the same subject in different
languages.
4.2
NETWORKING
As explored in chapter 6 of this report, many are the critical dimensions to be considered when
planning to develop an exchange brokerage system. The analysed cases show that networking in
terms of gathering all relevant stakeholders and let them collaborate to the design and
development of the system plays a key role in guaranteeing sustainability. Evidence suggests
that research and training centres might play a key role in determining the success of such an
initiative, thanks to the scientific input they (research providers) can provide by linking research
results to societal needs and thanks to the support they (training centres) can provide in the
delivery of training.
The analysed cases as well as the opinion of the majority of the consulted experts lead to a
wider concept of networking (including partnerships) that is: integrating and federating all the
involved stakeholders (ranging from providers to final users’ representatives) to make sure that
rewarding in some forms (not necessarily financially) is guaranteed given that commitment and
involvement are provided by stakeholders through contribution (according to the different
fields of expertise and business) in the design and development of the platform.
The results of some networking experiences (the DECOM Declaration and eSkills UK) and the
potential of some others (the Network of Living Labs) are shortly reported here as a
contribution to the analysis to the role of networking in terms of input to platform design and
development as well as input on strategies and capacity to address contextual needs.
DECOM DECLARATION
The DECOM initiative was conceived during 2008 by ELIG, to help progress its understanding
of the needs and challenges raised by the production of new generation digital learning content.
In doing so ELIG sought to better support its sector members with suggested action lines and to
possibly inspire national and international public policies with the objective of better positioning
Europe’s educational publishing industry at this dawn of a new digital economy of learning
materials.
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The DECOM event, organised in Sestri Levante (Italy) in 2008, led to a set of recommendations
resulting from consultation among the participating experts. The most relevant
recommendations of the DECOM Declaration26 to the aims of the Study on Exchange
Mechanisms are provided below.
♦
New Opportunities & Business Models
◊
Ensure educational publishers are allocated a key role in the development of the
learning process since these publishers have the knowledge and technical expertise
to develop the basic content that is required and the services needed to ensure they
work effectively in support of pedagogical activity.
◊
Encourage business model experimentation for free and published content so as to
continue to increase usage whilst ensuring quality and sustainability. ELIG and the
EU Commission should promote experimentation but avoid regulation; users and
customers must remain free to choose how they wish to fund and pay for content
and platforms.
◊
Support experimentation in new business models for accessing and downloading
learning materials for mobile devices. ELIG and the EU Commission should
promote experimentation in mobile business models to help meet consumers
evolving needs.
◊
Encourage partnerships between educational publishers, learning system providers
and all stakeholders in the education and learning processes, in which the emphasis
is placed on the learning process
◊
Education and workforce up-skilling are major issues to be addressed actively and
within a short time horizon. The financial crisis is leading to shifting policy factors
– with great challenges arising for social cohesion in Europe and the preservation
of competitiveness. The European learning technology and educational publishing
industry needs to be a driving force in this process and should engage with
European policy makers to agree on lines for action. Close collaboration between
industry and public institutions is needed for this purpose.
◊
ELIG expects the shifting market to have implications on all its members.
Collaboration is central to enabling each member organisation to adapt to the new
drivers and remain competitive in the European marketplace and beyond.
♦
Learning Research Priorities
◊
Support for research into adaptation of content to enable educational publishers to
maximize the possibilities and capabilities of Web 2.0 technology and to engage in
mutually sustainable relationships with the learning communities they support.
Such relationships have to be based on trust and to acknowledge user expectations
of innovation, creativity, wealth creation and workplace activity.
◊
Support for research into the use of technology as a major enabler for new ways of
skill building and personal development. Business success is increasingly seen as
being reliant on innovation and workers’ abilities to innovate. Although
‘innovation’ cannot be taught formally in schools, technology can help to
encourage the development of innovation-related skills.
26
The DECOM Declaration. “Towards a Digital Educational Content Economy for Europe’s Knowledge Society”;
Output Recommendations from the DECOM 2008 event - Sestri Levante (Italy) - October 2008
http://www.elig.org/files/repository/web_content/elig_contents/5-Resources/1Elig%20Policy%20Papers/Decom_Final_Full_Conclusion.pdf
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♦
Learning Technology & Standards
◊
◊
◊
◊
◊
Facilitation and promotion of learning technologies and learning standards must
become a concerted effort of the learning and publishing industry, the official dejure European (CEN) and international (ISO)standardization bodies and global
standards consortia (e.g. IMS, AICC & OASIS). The current fragmentation of
standardization activities and the partial disconnection from real business and
education applications needs to be overcome and the focus of activities needs to
shift from a technology orientation to a learner, application and business
perspective. The publishing industry needs to facilitate this transition.
Standardization work must be better adapted to fast technological evolution and
ensure inclusion of learning technologies both in current use and emerging, through
use of established technology road-mapping vehicles such as the annual Horizon
Reports. European regulators and public institutions from the educational sector as
well as the EU are called on to support this process – e.g. by promoting open
standards in public procurement and actively supporting standardization
consortium activities.
Harmonization between American and European standards leading to international
consensus is critical and should not only extend to include new EU member states
but should also to enable other (mostly Eastern) European countries to adopt
harmonized standards. The EU can and should play a central role in this global
harmonization due to the unique European multi-cultural and multi-lingual
background and expertise in standardization (CEN).
Standard contractual terms for downloads and managing institutional content
acquisition is essential in order to preserve the business interests of educational
publishers at a time when the development of technology is challenging and
changing traditional educational publishing business models.
Learning content should become independent from the specific channels that are
used to access or deliver it. The adoption and use of XML-related standards in the
creation of learning content should be more widely encouraged. Current adoption
hurdles need to be researched and better understood.
eSkills UK
eSkills UK's mission is to ensure the UK has the skills for Digital Britain. eSkills UK works on
behalf of employers to ensure the UK has the technology skills it needs to succeed in a global
digital economy. e-skills UK brings together employers, educators and Government to address
together the technology-related skills issues no one party can solve on its own. It provides
advice, services and programmes that have a measurable impact on IT related skills
development in the UK.
Through its two Employer Boards, e-skills UK engages business leaders at the most senior level
to provide strategic guidance to the company and employer leadership on behalf of their
communities. The Employer Boards bring together serving line executives representing a
critical mass of the country’s most influential companies, along with SME representation.
eSkills UK is articulated into the following boards:
♦
The Co-ordinating Board, consisting of the Chair and the CEO of e-skills UK, and the
Chair and representatives from the IT & Telecoms Industry Board and from the UK
Businesses Board.
♦
The IT & Telecoms Industry Board comprising leading employers in the IT & Telecoms
industry.
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♦
The UK Businesses Board comprising leading CIOs/IT Directors (i.e. employers of IT
professionals) in other industries.
♦
The Employer Board for Scotland comprises representatives from Scotland-based
organisations.
Several Steering Groups have been established to help focus and drive action as defined in eSkills UK strategic plans. They bring together an authoritative spectrum of representatives from
industry, education and government:
♦
ABF (Awarding Body Forum) - representing the Regulatory Authorities and Awarding
Bodies for IT (users and professionals) and Telecoms;
♦
ADSG (Academy Development Steering Group)- overseeing planning for the creation of
the National Skills Academy for IT;
♦
e-skills internship Steering Group-monitoring the pilot of the professional placement;
♦
e-skills Professional Programme Employer Advisory Group - supporting development of
the programme to fast-track the careers of new IT professionals;
♦
Future Talent Employer Group- offering support and guidance to eSkills UK's
programmes in schools;
♦
ICTSAG (ICT Skills Action Group)-focusing on the skills needs of the UK IT and
Telecommunications sector;
♦
ITMB Employer Strategy Forum - enabling employer interaction on the IT Management
for Business degree;
♦
Welsh Employers Forum - bringing together employers and government to address IT
user skills in Wales.
eSkills UK partners include:
♦
The British Computer Society.
♦
Connect - trade union representing managers and professionals in the communications
industry.
♦
The Confederation of British Industry.
♦
The Federation of Small Businesses promoting and protecting the interests of the selfemployed and owners of small firms.
♦
The Institution of Engineering and Technology one of the world’s leading professional
societies for the engineering and technology community.
♦
Intellect is the leading trade association which serves to represent its members in the UK
technology industry.
♦
The National Computing Centre is the largest and most diverse corporate membership
body in the UK IT sector.
♦
SFEDI is the Government recognised UK Standards Setting Body for Business Support
and Business Enterprise.
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The strategies adopted to ensure involvement, collaboration and networking of all the above
stakeholders are not emerging from desk research, but given the relevance of this experience to
the Study it would be interesting to deepen the analysis of the networking and partnership
strategies adopted.
Network of Living Labs
The European Network of Living Labs is a grown up initiative coming from the own European
Living Lab and sponsored by the European Community through a number of European Projects
and coordinating actions like COLLABS, CORELABS, Laboranova, EcoSpaces, Co-Spaces,
C@R, WearIT@Work, VEP, etc…
The development of the network started in the year 2006 according to a road-map, based on the
project-plans of the EU coordination actions CoreLabs and CLOCK, in close cooperation with
the Living Lab sites and the Living Lab Open Innovation Community.
The CO-LLABS Thematic Network and the Living Lab Leadership-group have now taken over
the role to coordinate the development of the ENoLL.
Living Lab is a new concept for R&D and innovation to boost the Lisbon strategy for jobs and
growth in Europe. The founding idea is the human-centric involvement and its potential for
development of new ICT-based services and products.
The role of the network is to support efficient R&D processes through close interaction with
end-users. The services of the network help e-learning and training centres to find, analyse and
target the most relevant and important e-learning issues, in direct collaboration with the users
The European e-skills 2006 Conference declaration called upon the support to the networking of
e-learning and training centres in co-operation with the European Network of Living Labs so to
facilitate piloting and validation of processes and to contribute to a better understanding of
future e-skills needs. When implemented, such a networking could systematise the contribution
that research and training centres could bring to the platform.
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5.
RESULTS ON THE CONSULTATION ON THE
FEASIBILITY OF A EUROPEAN EXCHANGE
MECHANISM FOR E-SKILLS
This chapter is aimed at presenting the results of the consultation with EU experts on the main
challenges and requirements linked to the realisation of a European exchange mechanism for eskills, implying brokerage of learning resources (particularly e-learning) and enhancing
networking and collaboration of all the involved stakeholders (particularly training and research
centres).
The consulted experts were asked to express their view on the following main dimensions:
♦
perception of e-skills training needs in Europe;
♦
perception on the current state of the art of the supply and availability of e-learning for eskills (e-learning courses, portals, projects, websites, “on-line” hubs…);
♦
accessibility conditions of the European workforce to e-learning for e-skills resources;
♦
feasibility on the set-up of a European exchange mechanism of online e-skills training
resources and description of how such a mechanism should look like.
Reporting as presented in the following paragraphs has been structured along the key core
questions of the Study:
1.
Which e-skills needs/demand can be served by resource-based learning?
2.
What e-skills needs/demand would be better served by different forms of learning and elearning (e.g. work-based, learning communities, project work, e-skills portfolio, etc.)?
3.
What resources could be shared at what conditions?
4.
Who should be responsible for and whom shall be involved in multi-stakeholders
partnership?
5.
How would the European e-skills resource pool look like?
6.
What would be the role of research and training centres?
7.
What would be the expectations and concerns of the main demand segments?
8.
How to face access of SMEs, accessibility, IPR and standard issues?
9.
What economic and organisational model(s) would make the system sustainable?
10.
How to keep the system “flexible”, ready to adapt to and even anticipate change?
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5.1
WHICH E-SKILLS
NEEDS/DEMAND CAN BE SERVED BY RESOURCE-
BASED LEARNING
The focus of e-skills demand seems to be shifting from the capacity to run and manage
software applications to the capacity to critically and confidentially use one’s own skills in
line with the organisational and strategic needs of the company/institution. In this context,
Web 2.0 and 3.0 solutions shall be adopted.
In principle, e-skills demand can be served by resource-based learning, provided that the
potential of e-learning not only in terms of resources but also in terms of services and
interaction is fully exploited.
The many studies and research publications browsed through desk research tend to concentrate,
when analysing demand for e-skills, on highlighting the main tools and applications for which
the demand is growing or unsatisfied. When asked about the fields in which the demand for eskills is growing more rapidly the EU experts consulted focused on the following, as shown in
the graphical representation below:
♦
Complete and integrated software.
♦
Software design and integration.
♦
Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.
♦
Security.
♦
E-business communication.
♦
Digital media literacy.
The sectors of demand where the demand for e-skills is growing more rapidly turn out to be:
♦
health sector and services;
♦
SMEs;
♦
Education (from primary to higher education, including teachers);
♦
Lifelong Learning.
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Figure 4.
16
Fields where the demand for e-skills is growing more rapidly.
co mplete and integrated
so ftware
academic levels, teachers and
scho ols
Web 2.0 techno lo gies
15
14
digital media literacy
12
security issue
10
8
SM E fo r e-business
8
health services o r industries
7
6
eco nomic fields
6
Web 3.0
4
2
0
4
so ftware design and so ftware
integratio n
life long learning
3
2
2
2
2
1
business and web site
co mmunicatio n
Demand for e-skills is growing and expanding to less “conventional” sectors such as health and
the need for e-skills is increasing in education, given its role to create the next generation of
workers.
Given the potential of e-learning to satisfy such a need, experts were asked to rate the level of
availability (in terms of variety and quality and distribution across EU Members States) of
e-skills online training resources. 67% of respondents provided a negative assessment for the
following main reasons:
♦
Lack of systematic and complete information for professional users;
♦
Lack of offer related to Web 2.0 and 3.0 and social media applications;
♦
Missing exploitation of on-line training through mobile and other portable digital devices;
♦
Lack of low cost alternatives for college and university students.
The main weaknesses hindering exploitation of the already available offer and possibly even of
a better offer turned out to be the following:
♦
Misunderstanding and misconception of e-learning due to its supposed high costs and
efforts to keep it updated;
♦
Lack of an independent and scientific body with no commercial interests that screening
the quality of the available online training resources;
♦
Lack of suitable business models and of financial support (especially for SMEs);
♦
IPR management.
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5.2
WHAT
E-SKILLS NEEDS/DEMAND WOULD BE BETTER SERVED BY
DIFFERENT FORMS OF LEARNING AND E-LEARNING (E.G. WORKBASED, LEARNING COMMUNITIES, PROJECT WORK, E-SKILLS
PORTFOLIO, ETC.)
Online, Blended and mobile learning solutions shall be tailored to the specific needs of
learners and shall be user-friendly. As workers are increasingly required to be flexible and to
use their knowledge in a critical way, adapting it to the ever changing needs of their
organisation, project work, simulations, peer to peer learning through learning communities
shall be enhanced. The use of open source platforms and learning resources shall also be
considered to meet the financial challenge linked to e-skills training.
Quality of the offer, recognition and certification, IPRs are key challenges to be met at the
macro level. At the micro level there is a strong need for online training resources designed
along the needs of individuals and of the role within the organisations they are operating in
If it is true that the demand for e-skills remains unsatisfied, experts do recognise the existence of
structural problems, such as the lack of systematic and updated information on the available
offer, hindering a match between demand and supply. Thus, e-skills demand and supply
mismatch is also linked to the inefficiency of e-skills training offer in reaching the potential
target groups. When asked about the products and services needed in order to make e-skills
training resources more efficient in reaching the potential target groups, experts replied the
following:
♦
Need to reach the users wherever they are: the increasing use of social networking for
personal use implies the need to exploit social networks and Web 2.0 solutions for e-skills
training.
♦
Open platform and open learning resources shall be fully exploited to enrich the offer and
allow wider access.
♦
Online learning resources should be complemented by virtual classrooms.
♦
Provision of case studies and simulation are key in training learners on how to effectively
use their e-skills at work.
♦
Tutorial support mechanisms shall be activated in all possible forms (online, telephone
and face-to-face) and shall constitute a key component of online e-skills training.
At the macro level, experts called for:
♦
Need for Governments to invest on: a) awareness campaigns and training. b) Availability
of hardware equipment and internet access in education institutions.
♦
Need for involvement of local/regional government bodies so to link e-skills training to
the needs of regional economic clusters.
♦
Need for dynamic processes to evaluate competence gaps.
♦
Need to train school age pupils (16-19) category on e-skills and digital media literacy.
♦
Provided that ICT language is English, need to improve learning solutions related to this
language so to lead to an increased adaptability and competitiveness of ICT workforce at
national and European level.
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5.3
WHAT
KIND
CONDITIONS?
OF
RESOURCES
COULD
BE
SHARED
AT
WHAT
No real answer was provided in this respect.
Focus was set particularly on the need to exploit the potential of open source software to
build an open source based platform and on the need to provide systematic and continuously
updated information on the availability of open resources for e-skills training. This was
presented as a possible solution to the challenges related to IPR management as well as to the
critical aspect of how and to which extent private vendors shall be involved.
A quite shared opinion among respondents is that market suppliers of e-skills training would for
sure be interested in joining a European e-skills platform and would be willing to share
information on their courses offer, but not to provide access, through the platform, to their elearning resources. Only one of the respondents (an international vendor with consolidated
market) offered to provide access to their courses and tools (Open Space tools, entry level tools,
software development platform) and to allow the externalisation of some internal blogs (where
internal experts more and more take the initiative of establishing dialogue and reflection on
several issues). All other respondents offered in kind contributions in terms of expertise and
consulting.
5.4
WHO SHOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR AND WHO SHALL BE INVOLVED
IN MULTI-STAKEHOLDERS PARTNERSHIP?
Public authorities at the European (European Commission) and national (government) level
as well as suppliers and all relevant stakeholders (chambers of commerce, training and
research centres, trade unions, industry confederations, professional associations) shall be
involved in multi-stakeholders partnerships aimed at enhancing e-skills in Europe and
particularly in the building of a European platform on e-skills.
Public-private partnerships should be enhanced among schools, university and industry at
the implementation level and among governmental institutions, professional associations and
social partners at the policy design level to facilitate convergence approaches on standards,
IPR and competence recognition.
Public-private partnerships (PPPs) and multi-stakeholder partnership turn out to have a
key role to increase the use of e-learning resources for e-skills development. According to
respondents, PPPs could meaningfully contribute to the improvement of use, accessibility and
quality of e-skills training provided that:
♦
Fair representativeness of SMEs and micro-enterprises supplying e-learning for e-skills is
guaranteed so to avoid the risk of oligopoly of services, programmes and tools at the
national level, impeding competitiveness.
♦
Big multinational ICT companies like IBM, Nokia, Microsoft, and Google are engaged,
and the public sector plays an active role so to guarantee, for instance, that open source
software and open learning resources are taken into consideration and that the issue of
compatibility and interoperability is dealt with and joint effort is made towards a
convergent approach on standards.
♦
The importance of an interaction between schools, universities and the industry at the
local level constitutes one of the building blocks of such partnerships.
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Multi-stakeholder partnerships shall be enhanced to make e-skills on-line training more
appealing. Suppliers, public authorities and all relevant stakeholders (chambers of commerce,
training and research centres, trade unions, industry confederations, and professional
associations) shall be involved.
In particular, suppliers should:
♦
Be involved in a multi-stakeholder partnership for the establishment of the European eskills platform through a consultation, management and implementation role.
♦
Contribute to the enrichment of the e-learning for e-skills offer by providing content that
operates at a range of levels and in a range of native languages.
♦
Help to design and user-friendly interface, simple and intuitive.
♦
Contribute to a better understanding of job requirements and individual competence
gaps.
♦
Shift their focus from pure knowledge to competences, from class model
reproduction to interaction and matching of the contextual needs of organisations.
♦
Share information and models of exchange mechanisms typical for the technical forums
where suppliers usually interact.
♦
deliver multi-learner approaches tailored to different learning styles and not just use
one type of methodology.
Public authorities should:
♦
Put e-learning and training on e-skills as a top national priority.
♦
Support every kind of voluntary learning and accept and recognise informal learning.
♦
Offer suppliers and stakeholders opportunities to make their offering visible to the
market.
Stakeholders should:
♦
recognise different learning methods and build up competence management for e-skills.
♦
Support in getting a better understanding on how to match e-skills with organisational
needs and expectations.
Both public authorities and stakeholders should:
♦
Invest on the quality of e-learning resources for e-skills.
♦
Elaborate a joint roadmap to reach commonly agreed objectives and standards.
Suppliers, public authorities and stakeholders should:
♦
Find a common language enabling fruitful dialogue and cooperation.
♦
Contribute to the adoption of a commonly shared e-skills classification (for instance, the
EUCIP model).
♦
Stimulate users’ participation in the design of e-skills initiatives.
♦
Contribute to create resources more linked to working and organisational needs.
♦
Introduce self-assessment tools in online training for e-skills.
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5.5
HOW WOULD
LIKE?
THE
EUROPEAN
E-SKILLS RESOURCE POOL LOOK
♦
The European e-skills platform shall not repeat or overlap with already existing
portals, initiatives, and exchange mechanisms in the field. It shall build on their
achievements and federate them, providing a comprehensive new approach for elearning for e-skills provision and networking.
♦
The platform shall have an European/global dimension (e-skills is a global issue rather
♦
Training shall be in English, but national portals shall provide information on
available learning resources in the national language.
♦
♦
As a one stop shop platform it would attract developers, increase competition and have
a positive effect on quality, quantity and variety of online training offering.
♦
A Multi-stakeholder partnership involving suppliers, public authorities and
stakeholders shall be at the basis of the creation of the platform, each category having
different roles in the different phases of development.
♦
organisations but also ICT users. It shall contain self analysis and self assessment
tools. It shall include users’ ratings of the available resources.
♦
It shall provide a monitoring system on the available offer and incorporate, in an
evolutionary perspective, the input coming from educational and technological
research.
♦
It shall provide a space for collaboration among all the involved actors for the design
of a common competence, quality, and certification framework for e-skills.
The experts’ opinion on the weaknesses of e-skills supply in relation to demand suggested the
need for a brokerage system allowing access to information on e-learning for e-skills
sources and resources. Also, answers related to the role of public authorities, suppliers and
stakeholders in improving the state of the art suggested the need for a space for dialogue and
collaboration to work jointly on the key challenges related to e-skills, i.e.: IPR, interoperability
standards, certification, common e-skills framework based on EQF and on the e-Competence
framework.
Experts were therefore asked to express their opinion on the potential role of a pan European
exchange mechanism platform for e-learning resources for e-skills in improving the
variety, and quality of e-skills training offer in Europe.
Almost 10% of respondents stated that such an exchange mechanism would not be necessary. In
fact, the reasons provided for this scepticism are more related to the worry for this initiative to
overlap with already existing ones in the field. Other reasons were related to the risk of
addressing only the need of certain target groups against other and to the risk to waste resources
and money. Some experts stated they did not believe such a platform should be centralised, one
said that what is needed is “to create the services to connect the existing platforms to the
platforms where people really go. When there is a platform for one sector, or even a social
network like Facebook, we need to create access from there.
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It is all about federation, it is all about integration. most of the platforms are not really easy to
use. people are a bit afraid of intellectual property rights”.27
Even positive answers showed the need to face challenges related to: common quality and
technical standards; cultural and language differences among Member States; building of
reputation and credibility of the platform for its effectiveness; IPR; accreditation and
certification frameworks; capacity to provide the relevant content to individual e-skill needs.
Below is a list of the suggested features for the platform to contribute to the improvement of the
e-skills offer and access, with direct quoting from interviews:
♦
“a pan-European exchange mechanism could be a driver for innovative and open-source
resources. It could really be a test-bed for new approaches on how to combine the
understanding of the human brain and the learning process with the use of technology as
well as to combine different expertise in a new way”28.
♦
“The fact that it is specifically European is irrelevant, as e-skills is a global issue and it
has to be faced at global level”29.
♦
“There is a need to find proper ways for accessing it (also through instruments such as iphone, i-tunes, others).There is the need to provide several channels where the contents
should be available. Need of going where the people already are (again: social networks
and new technologies, I phones etc…)”30.
♦
“It would need to be done in such a way that it embraces the web2.0 way of doing things
that is bottom-up, open, horizontal, based on sharing and exchanging, etc...31.”
♦
“A One-Stop-Shop platform for online e-skills training would be an attractive market
place for developers of online e-skills training material. It would also increase
competition between alternative providers. Therefore, it would have a positive effect on
quantity, variety and quality of online training offering”32.
Figure 5 below shows the main categories of actors to be involved in the design,
development and implementation of the platform according to the view of the consulted
experts.
27
Quotation by a representative of the University of Jyvaskyla.
Quotation by a representative of the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK.
29
Quotation by a representative of Afiniti.
30
Quotation by a representative of BM Strategy & Change Senior Managing Consultant.
31
32
Quotation by a representative of Oracle.
28
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Figure 5. List of main actors
LIST OF MAIN ACTORS
Policy makers
Universities
12
11
SME
10
8
ICT trade associations
7
6
6
big training service
providers
5
4
2
4
2
2
2
Training centres
Chambers of Commerce
0
European Commission
Other categories mentioned are the following:
♦
Trade unions;
♦
Confederations of industry;
♦
Large organisations in both public and private sectors and top management thereof;
♦
Regional authorities;
♦
Relevant European institutes or associations (e.g. : CEDEFOP, European Software
Institute);
♦
Private vendors.
The following strategies were suggested for cooperation among stakeholders to design,
establish, validate and exploit the platform:
♦
“Policy makers have a role in promoting the platform and addressing national and
regional stakeholders, as well as for providing valuable information on local/regional
issues and specific needs, but once these have been addressed then it should be handed
over to the awarding bodies and other stakeholders. The involvement of policy makers is
fundamental in order to guarantee the quality and the spread of the national/European
frameworks and benchmarking standards”33.
♦
A board could be established representing different interests but with a leading role from
a public institution (EU Commission, CEDEFOP) responsible also for set up and
promotion. This could either lean on already existing bodies such as the e-skills ILB or on
a new entity or group created from scratch.
33
Quotation by a representative of Politecnico of Milan
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♦
The European Commission/body is to promote the mechanism through a very pro-active
approach. The presence of associations bringing the interests of stakeholders from
different sectors (academic, service providers, ICT companies) should play a key role
through consultation and planning mechanisms. Cedefop, each of the bodies producing
national qualifications frameworks, departments for education in each country, possibly
representatives of professional computer societies across Europe, like CEPIS, and
individual societies like the British Computer Society, GI from Germany, the Dutch
Computer Society as well as the major private players shall be involved.
♦
In order to have a strong impact at the national and local level, the platforms should be
promoted to and through national organisations and national programmes. National
players shall be included in the consultation process from the beginning, to make clear
that it is not just an academic approach, but that it has real market relevance. “If key
players in the market have joined the initiative, it will encourage others to follow suit.
You need to set up clear standards to allow providers to compete on an equal footing.” 34
♦
“One way of softening the stiffness of those most conservative national programmes, at
least, with time, would be to bet on “lead regions” or cities where the participation and
inter-collaboration of all those players would magnify the educational outreach of those
territories wanting to develop an innovative educational strategy and produce new
standards of educational involvement/performance. Typical deployment scenarios could
be worked out by those regions to send a trend”35.
♦
Associations of learning industries “(ELIG and others) should be involved, but also
managers of technology platforms36, to get a portfolio of learners (e.g. NESSI www.nessieurope.com; NEM www.nem-initiative.org; e-mobility www.emobility.eu.org)”.
♦
Training/content providers should be involved in early stages of the development as
prime stakeholders, so as to assure a broad consensus of development by these users, and
its sustainability, in later stages of the platform.
♦
Education Ministries and DG Education shall be involved as the e-skills issue is related to
education as well as training, in a lifelong learning perspective.
According to the consulted experts, the following target groups shall be addressed first:
♦
industry clusters;
♦
labour market bodies;
♦
EQF framework leaders;
♦
new economy industry leadership;
♦
Academic publishers;
♦
All education providers, both public and private;
♦
Representatives of companies and organisations to make clear what the market needs are;
♦
ICT professionals and users;
♦
Youngsters (students and people entering the labour market);
♦
Certification institutes to give extra value to training offerings and their outcome.
34
35
36
Quotation by a representative of Bitkom
Quotation by a representative of CDM - EPFL
Quotation by a representative of BM Strategy & Change Senior Managing Consultant
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The following strategies were suggested to collect their needs and expectations:
♦
Involve stakeholders in the design, development and testing.
♦
Investigate on stakeholders needs addressing also youth (consultation with teachers and
professors and consultation with young people through social networking sites or through
Serious game: http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serious_game).
♦
More in general the following could be used: focus groups, interviews, survey,
workshops, etc. but also it would be possible to exploit the 2.0 possibility like on-line
discussion board and wikis but the web solutions.
♦
“It would be a good idea to have two or three large providers from each country doing a
workshop in Brussels and try and define requirements from the side of the learning
providers or companies what functions have to be included in such a portal and how to
engage the interest of further partners. One way of collecting stakeholder needs is to offer
a scheme to learning providers to market the portal, inviting them to try the portal on a
European level, promote it as a certain framework or methodology of how to address
various target groups. The portal could offer a quality assurance mechanism so only
training courses which meet certain standards are included, linked to the National
European Skills Framework”.37
The European exchange mechanism and networking platform shall have the following
features, according to the view of respondents:
♦
The European e-skills platform shall not repeat or overlap with already existing portals,
initiatives, and exchange mechanisms in the field. It shall build on them and integrate
them, providing a completely new model for e-learning for e-skills provision and
networking.
♦
The platform shall have an European/global dimension (e-skills is a global issue rather
♦
Training shall be in English, but national portals shall provide information on available
learning resources in the national language.
♦
♦
It shall be a Web 2.0 community-based platform, where peer to peer interaction among
users plays a key role.
♦
It shall contain a database of the available offer and shall be user-friendly. It shall allow
access to open learning resources on e-skills. Whether to include private vendor offer or
not remains a crucial issue.
♦
organisations but also ICT users. It shall contain self analysis and self assessment tools. It
shall include users’ ratings of the available resources.
♦
It shall provide self analysis and self assessment tools.
♦
It shall foresee user ratings of the available resources.
♦
a “Scientific” Steering Committee could be put in place to deal with quality assurance.
♦
“The platform shall provide an innovation framework, a test-bed for new approaches, a
living lab”38.
37
38
Quotation by a representative of Bitkom
Quotation by a representative of the Confederation of Finnish Industries EK
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♦
“it shall be an integrated solution that provides content, that provides tools, experience,
access to expertise, a whole range of things to help people learn and develop”39..
♦
It has to be open, towards also new courses and contents added by the community. It
would be necessary to realise it in an easy way, allowing users to upload information on
courses through not too sophisticated procedures. There should be an initial collection of
contents, followed by the integration of different elements and areas. A structure such as
the one offered by Web 2.0 would be deeply needed for the interaction of the community.
There would be also the need to explore new channels (soc. Networks, groups top
join….)40.
Figure 6. Platform design
How should such a platform look like?
12
web 2.0 platform community,
peer to peer
very simple
12
10
database of different courses
9
8
users’ ratings
8
open source resources
6
6
combination of a web platform
4
3
3
2
2
2
2
Learning modules - EQF
categories
Portal with regional websites
access to end users
0
39
40
Quotation by a representative of Global Learning for Reuters.
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5.6.
WHAT
WOULD BE THE ROLE OF RESEARCH AND TRAINING
CENTRES?
The role of research and training centres is key in the design, development and
implementation of the platform. Research centres can support, identify, develop, improve,
generate ideas and envision future learning needs. Training centres play a key role in the
design phase as they are aware of users needs. In the implementation phase, they can provide
a test bed as well as providers of support services. Their role in the development models of
local and regional areas makes them key stakeholders.
As far as networking is concerned, for research this is considered as a viable option.
Networking of training centres might help in improving the supply of e-skills provided it is
not driven by private vendors. Networking of trainers and mentors is considered to have
strong potential to contribute to the development of e-skills in Europe.
As regards the contribution of training centres to the European platform offering exchange
mechanisms for e-learning for e-skills and networking, the majority of respondents agreed on
their strategic role. The minority disagreeing stressed the need for an equal role among all the
involved stakeholders, suggesting that though their key role is recognised there should be a
balance in terms of representativeness among all the involved stakeholders. Some of them
highlighted the need for a direct consultation with representatives of training centres to
investigate on their level of interest of being involved.
The following list reports the most significant statements of respondents agreeing with the need
for the contribution of training centres, with direct quotations from interviews:
♦
Training centres play a big role in e-skills training in Europe. The offers of training
centres become more transparent and European. For some which have a proportion of elearning, could mean a reorientation of some the activities offered, in as far as the market
would saturate. For some also, their role in relation to the platform would be more a
regional one, one of service provider in relation to the different offered courses online.
But in general the supply would improve41.
♦
Training centres all over the world are at the moment almost always looking after the
role of e-learning for their offerings. They develop all kinds of training products often
with a mix of more traditional classroom trainings and e-learning, distance learning.
European course providers in general certainly will be interested in improving the supply
of e-skills online training42.
♦
Especially when in-class training is required, the existing training centres are the easiest
way to obtain scalability43.
♦
Looking at e-learning as a component of the mainstream learning, considering that a lot
of people still acquire competences through face-to-face training and that not all the
contents can be taught properly through e-learning, it might be good to have some
reference to training centres44.
41
42
43
44
Quotation by a representative of EADTU.
Quotation by a representative of EXIN.
Quotation by a representative of Oracle.
Quotation by a representative of ECDL.
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♦
They have the practice and the best practise so far, they know the problems of e-skills on
line training, they know the users and their problems, they may have an idea of what the
market want in terms of training so I think it’s important to include them in this project.
There’s the need that all the training centres, or part of them, collaborate together to
provide the best platform possible45.
♦
Training centres could benefit from this if they adopted the courses and provided a new
way of learning in their centres, instead of teaching the basics, students could learn the
basics on the e-learning content courses and the training centres run workshops to help
students get an understanding of what they are learning46.
♦
Training centres have a valuable role in the development models of local and regional
areas and would therefore be key partners in the platform. The networking of training
centres would not be helpful in improving the supply of e-skills training resources across
Europe but it would be helpful to encourage and support the networking of mentors47.
♦
Networking training centres could help improve the supply of e-skills but you need to
make sure that the vendors are not driving the process48.
As regards the role of research centres within the platform and their networking, few experts
provided a feedback. Generally speaking, there seems to be a widespread concern on the
capacity of research to support in the identification of e-skills needs. However, a significant
number of respondents agreed on the fact they could provide a crucial input by supporting,
identifying, developing, improving and generating new ideas and visions in relation to future
learning needs. This shall help improving the online training resources for e-skills.
5.7.
WHAT WOULD BE THE EXPECTATIONS AND CONCERNS OF THE MAIN
DEMAND SEGMENTS?
Consultation with experts suggests that a pan European platform working as an exchange
and networking mechanisms could help in filling the following gaps:
♦
Lack of systematised information on online training resources (by private vendors and
open).
♦
Need to solve the problems related to compatibility issues between different software
and technologies.
♦
Knowledge obsolescence: maintaining updated competences of the workforce in fast
changing technology space.
♦
Need for training on media and digital literacy.
♦
Need for more (basic and sophisticated) training on: e-security, e-identity, IPRs,
privacy; open standards, flexible systems, database and web technologies, as well as
user-interface design and usability, software ergonomics, requirements management,
design and documentation.
♦
Need for online resources more targeted to organisational needs, particularly SMEs’
needs.
45
46
47
48
Quotation by a representative of Cefriel.
Quotation by a representative of Trinity College.
Quotation by a representative of Sero Consulting LTD.
Quotation by a representative of Global Learning Reuters.
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5.8.
HOW
TO FACE ACCESS OF
STANDARD ISSUES?
SMES,
ACCESSIBILITY,
IPR
AND
Although all experts recognised the need to face the challenges given by IPR, and
standardisation for the successful development of a European e-skills framework and of a
European e-skilled population, no specific strategy was suggested on how to deal with these
key challenges.
As regards accessibility to e-skills online learning resources, SMEs workers, self-employed,
people working in non office-based environments and teachers were classified as having the
worst opportunities. Accessibility problems for ICT practitioners were judged as more linked
to infrastructural problems like the lack of broadband or structural ones like the limited offer
of free training.
Concerning the strategies to enhance SMEs access and use of online training resources for eskills, the need for ad-hoc content and services was highlighted. Also, the importance of
intermediaries such as Chambers of Commerce in facilitating information brokerage and
access was stressed. Last but not least, certification schemes recognised at European level
were stated to be potential motivators for SMEs to invest on training of their workforce.
As concerns the issue of access and accessibility to online training resources for e-skills, the
following categories have worst and best conditions according to respondents:
Worst conditions
Better conditions
♦
Workers in SME or self-employed.
♦
♦
those which never tested or used, in
their professional experience, e- ♦
learning or online learning tools.
♦
Blue-collars.
♦
Economically
deprived
and ♦
underserved populations (migrants,
♦
unskilled workers, manual labourers).
♦
♦
♦
People working in factories, building
sites
and
non
office-based ♦
environments.
♦
♦
Teachers and the public sector.
♦
People with low personal skills.
♦
Workers
in
environment.
an
office-based
Workers employed in medium-size and
large organizations.
people with an academic degree.
old people, cause of their free time.
ICT practitioners.
public employees.
workers in labour mobility.
Students.
workers
in
programme.
lifelong
learning
In general terms, experts suggested that motivation and engagement are key factors for having
access and lack of time is a key hindering factor.
When asked about access problems by ICT practitioners, a significant number of respondents
replied positively. The following motivations were given:
♦
lack of broadband connections;
♦
organisation, personal agenda or internal policies are sometimes interfering with access;
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♦
lack of interest of workers in personally investing on training (if training is not free or
paid by the company, workers will seldom take it);
♦
Learning is not really integrated in the daily business process or in the daily activities of
people.
Concerning the access of SMEs to online learning resources for e-skills, the following strategies
were suggested:
♦
Invest on training of young people, especially students of vocational schools;
♦
Provide the available offer in different languages;
♦
Design learning resources which are linked to daily business of SMEs so to ensure
relevance of training to the real needs of SMEs;
♦
Provide certifications acknowledged and accepted at European level.
In order to ensure access of SMEs to the pan European platform, the following strategies were
suggested
♦
The platform should contain content that would explore the effect of the changes in
society and how SMEs should develop their businesses and products and services to meet
the new need.
♦
Regional semi-governmental authorities and Chambers of Commerce shall collaborate to
promote the platform , its goals and the opportunities offered among SMEs;
♦
Training providers already working with SMEs shall be contacted and involved in the
definition of strategies to increase SMEs participation and access to on-line learning
resources on e-skills.
5.9
WHAT
ECONOMIC AND ORGANISATIONAL MODEL(S) WOULD MAKE
THE SYSTEM SUSTAINABLE?
A PPP or public authorities shall be responsible for providing the resources for the set up and
launch of the platform and for its management and promotion. The platform shall become
self-sustainable after the start up phase. Its business model shall be based on fees and
subscriptions. It shall be cost covering, but needs to be not for profit (the surplus generated
shall be reinvested in the platform).
To guarantee scalability and adaptability, the platform should face the challenges linked to
standardisation and interoperability of content.
It shall be user-friendly and offer support services to its users and personalised learning.
It shall also represent a space where to test new approaches, like a living lab.
Resources for the set up and launch of the platform should, according to the majority of
respondents, be allocated by Public-private partnerships. A significant proportion states EU
funds shall play a key role. National governments are also considered as necessary funders
(particularly through Ministries of Labour).
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The management and promotion of the platform shall either be a responsibility of a PPP or
be in the hands of Public authorities. The necessity to avoid the presence of members with
commercial interests was particularly stressed. Also, the need to set up implementation groups
at local level was recommended.
The following strategies were suggested to guarantee scalability and adaptability of the
platform:
♦
It needs to have links and contacts with policy makers. Focus on quality; focus on
learning, focus on learning outcomes and value added. The platform should serve as a
living lab;
♦
It shall support National certifications to evolve on a European scale;
♦
It shall offer integrated solutions: multilingual, multinational and clearly adaptable to the
needs of the target groups;
♦
It shall solve the problems linked to standardisation and interoperability of content;
♦
It shall be based on open and collaborative approach;
♦
It shall involve systematic measurement of success, its fitness for purpose;
♦
It shall be a huge-scale systems like e-bay;
♦
It shall be user friendly, offer personalised learning and be able to market its products.
All experts agreed on the need for public funding for the set up and launch of the
platform. As for its sustainability, the following strategies were suggested:
♦
Use of in kind contributions strengthening, this way, the offer provided on the platform
(in terms of quantity) and providing, at the same time, free promotion to courses and
resources providers.
♦
Involvement of the users. “As long as they are involved and have their own say in the
whole process and development sustainability will be achieved.”49
♦
Low/no fee charge in the start up phase, followed by regular fee subscription to support
the platform self-funding. (according to some such a fee shall be paid by public
authorities, according to others by the user themselves, as providing courses “for free to
users means that they are not valued”.50
♦
The business model can be based on fees and subscriptions; it should be cost-covering,
but needs/must not be for profit. “It should be non-for-profit but should be run on a
business-like basis, generating a surplus to be reinvested into the project. Some areas
could be very low-cost and other areas, where there is big demand, should be charged at
a local rate. People who can afford to pay should pay, and those who can’t afford it
should pay less. It needs to start with investment from European Union and member
states but once it has started, it should be self-sustaining very quickly”.51
♦
An alternative is to base the business model on membership, pay-per-use, by industry, by
government, by member state or by the Commission, with some forms of subsidy for less
advantaged categories like SMEs.
♦
“A fee is fair depending on the quality of the courses offered. Nowadays you can
download most of the course materials, the difference is not the content which is
49
50
51
Quotation by a representative of K.U. Leuven
Quotation by a representative of Trinity College
Quotation by a representative of Trinity College
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available worldwide, the most important thing is how we train, network and communicate
with our people”52.
5.10 HOW TO KEEP THE SYSTEM “EVOLUTIVE”, READY TO ADAPT TO AND
EVEN ANTICIPATE CHANGE?
IPR, standards, certification remain key challenges to be addressed to ensure the platform
will work effectively. In order to make the system ready to adapt or even anticipate change,
the following was suggested:
♦
Provide information on both commercial and non commercial (open) resources;
♦
As many online training resources are already available for free on-line, the platform
should, beside providing information on the available offer, distinguish itself for the
support and networking services provided to learners;
♦
Users shall play a key role in evaluating the platform: users’ ratings shall be included
and self diagnosis and self assessment tools shall be available;
♦
To be relevant to societal needs, the platform shall provide training also on digital
media literacy;
♦
The training resources and support services shall be so designed to teach people to
perform tasks rather than to use tools;
♦
The platform could support the development and implementation of a competency
framework for e-tutors.
52
Quotation by a representative of the University of Bremen.
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6.
EXCHANGE MECHANISMS FOR E-LEARNING FOR
E-SKILLS: DREAM OR REALITY?
Exchange mechanisms or brokerage services are typical for fields such as the movie and the
music industries where the connection between the global market offer and the local demand
needs is generally successfully addressed. In the music industry, the digitalisation of music is
implying a shift from the commercialisation of albums to the commercialisation of single songs
that users can buy independently from the full album so to create their own compilation of
favourites (see for instance iTunes). The trend towards “granularisation” and personalisation of
digital content is visible (though to a lesser extent) also in the TV and movie industry, where
users/consumers are increasingly offered the possibility to select their preferred movie(s) or
movie series and watch them at their preferred time independently of standard broadcasting.
Whereas the music industry addresses a global market with no localisation and adaptation needs
(only cultural and religious issues could prevent availability of certain songs or compilations,
but in this case censorship by government authorities is generally the solution) the movie and
TV industry presents several commonalities with the learning industry: it is characterised by the
strong presence of both global and local players, it offers a wide variety of products and services
either generated at local or at international level, it offers increasingly (due to the globalisation
phenomenon) formats of programmes (the Big Brother for instance) available worldwide with
the same common frame but with a different structure and content depending on the cultural
features of the national audience addressed.
Marketing studies as well as consumers’ ratings of programmes usually drive TV and movie
brokering agents in determining which products and services can be suitable to the demand of a
national audience. Needless to say, the commercial interests of the involved actors also play a
strong role in the game.
In the globalisation context we are living in, implying increased internationalisation of
education and learning, the availability of brokerage systems able to widen the offer and access
to learning resources is an emerging need. In parallel, the exploitation of new technologies and
networking services potential is more and more urgent to support the general trend of
“granularisation” and personalisation of content.
The review carried out on available brokerage systems for learning resources has highlighted
that the most significant attempts (planned or undertaken) to create an exchange mechanism for
e-learning resources address higher education.
In the US, the need to guarantee increasing access to learning resources in the higher education
sector and to keep pace with technological evolution (implying integration of paper-based and
digital learning content) has generated the proposal for the creation of a national digital content
market place for higher education institutions.
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Figure 7. Tomorrow’s challenge: creating a national digital marketplace
Source: “Turn the page – making college textbooks more affordable” A report of the Advisory
Committee on students financial assistance, May 2007
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As shown in figure 7 above, the system would be articulated into the following components:
♦
The transaction and rights clearing house processing multi-part transactions, collecting
funds from the purchasers and paying content providers;
♦
The Marketplace Web applications, i.e.: the software programmes enabling various
features of transaction and interoperability within the enabling infrastructure and with
content providers and institutional portals;
♦
Hosted infrastructure resources supporting the registry of learning resources as well as the
marketplace web applications.
The integration of Marketplace technology and services infrastructure together with the
integration of Industry and Institutional requirements, representations and services is at the heart
of the Digital marketplace, connecting users on one side (students and faculties) and industry on
the other (textbook publishers, content developers and book stores).
The main challenges to be faced for the realisation of such a system have been identified as
follows53:
♦
Need for an agreement on a single system taking into account the needs of all the
involved stakeholders ranging from final users to providers;
♦
Selection of technological standards for the marketplace enabling infrastructure,
providing the national marketplace transaction and rights clearing house, marketplace
web applications and hosted infrastructure resources;
♦
Changes in copyright policy to address digital content and build a framework to create
licences and standards for content users and owners. In particular:
◊
purposes.
◊
Institutional protection system against copyright violation and improper
distribution of materials by institutional users and others.
◊
Establishment of a business framework to ensure rewarding for both content
creators and providers.
◊
Privacy protection of individual users (to avoid advertising spamming, and
improper diffusion of final users confidential information).
♦
Availability of economic resources for start-up and implementation.
♦
Resistance due to the fear that the digital marketplace could:
◊
Eliminate certain stakeholders for the benefit of others;
◊
Undermine institutions control over learning content;
◊
Eliminate textbooks and other printed material;
◊
Imply the disappearance of fee-content due to the rise of free content;
◊
Require large investments by institutions in terms of infrastructure.
An interesting example of a digital market place already being tested is the one of the California
State University54, which was in fact an inspiration for the above mentioned plan for a national
digital marketplace in the US. The digital marketplace is a one-stop-shopping platform for the
discovery, selection, authoring and fulfilment of digital resources.
53
54
Turn the page – making college textbooks more affordable, a report on the Advisory Committee on students
financial assistance, May 2007 http://www.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/acsfa/turnthepage.pdf
http://www.21st-digitalmarketplace.com/index.html
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It aims to put in place a next generation digital learning resource discovery and delivery
infrastructure that directly addresses three high priority needs in the higher education
marketplace: Improve learning outcomes through change; Improve the accessibility of learning
materials; Significantly reduce student cost of learning materials.
The CSU digital Marketplace is intended as a means to effectively acquire, share, market, and
distribute commercial and non-commercial digital learning content and resources within the
institutional environment; and to integrate the content within instructional programs.
The CSU marketplace is currently being tested and deserves to be studied in-depth in the next
phase of the e-skills study (best practice analysis and prototype design) in order to analyse:
♦
the technical features adopted to ensure interoperability;
♦
the infrastructure adopted to let the system work as a clearing house;
♦
the solutions adopted to face IPR and copyright challenges;
♦
the networking and partnership mechanisms put in place to accommodate and integrate
the interests of the various stakeholders involved (ranging from students to publishers);
♦
the strategies adopted to actively involve relevant actors in the design and development of
the marketplace so to cover the institutional, organisational, technological, pedagogical
and socio-cultural aspects in an efficient and effective way.
In Europe, the UNIVERSAL project55 demonstrated the feasibility of an open exchange of
learning resources among European Higher Education institutions. The prototype developed is
an “open and flexible inter-organisational information system with integration of various
content and delivery systems such as learning management systems, web servers, media
streaming services and video conferencing tools [enabling] institutions to enrich their curricula
with remotely sourced material and compatible with the business models pursued by different
institutions, including open universities and alliances between peer institutions”56. The main
hindering factors to the actual implementation of the designed prototype identified were the
following:
♦
sustainability in the long term;57
♦
IPR issues and unwillingness to share as “teachers and universities consider their learning
resources valuable as part of their competitive edge”;58
♦
Extra-time needed (with no reward) by teachers to provide digital learning resources;
♦
Quality assurance for the content shared;
♦
Lack of policies for exchange of learning resources within higher education institutions.
Some of the aspects of the UNIVERSAL platform were further developed in the ELENA IST
project and contributed to the development of EDUCANEXT (see Annex 3). Born as a platform
for the exchange of learning resources, EDUCANEXT has recently turned into a communitybased brokerage system, where users having common interests can share/access learning
resources.
55
56
57
58
http://www.ist-universal.org
Sigrun Gunnarsdottir, Saemundur E. Thorsteinsson, Ebba Thora Hvannberg, UNIVERSAL: e-learning brokerage
service, 2002
Some of the concepts developed in the UNIVERSAL Project were further developed in a subsequent IST project,
ELENA. The Educanext platform (analysed in Annex 3) is the result of the activities conducted in UNIVERSAL
and ELENA.
Sigrun Gunnarsdottir, Saemundur E. Thorsteinsson, Ebba Thora Hvannberg, UNIVERSAL: e-learning brokerage
service, 2002
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This change of strategy was determined, according to an expert involved in the developments
since the launch of the Universal project59, by the fact that the lack of users’ involvement in the
creation and distribution of learning resources was putting at risk the existence of the platform
(less entries, decreasing use).
A very relevant initiative undertaken at European level in the field of e-skills training is the eskills Career portal60. The portal is supported by the e-skills Industry Leadership Board, which
brings together major stakeholders with SMEs, and managed by the ILB Career Portal
Committee with organisations such as Microsoft, Oracle, Cisco Systems, CompTIA, ECDL
Foundation, CEPIS, Siemens, Inlea Foundation, Econet and European Schoolnet.
The portal’s mission is to act as a one-stop shop for e-skills career guidance and as a brokerage
service to match demand and supply of ICT related jobs. Additionally, the portal addressed the
interests of policy and decision makers by providing a systematic monitoring of supply and
demand trends of e-skills. Finally, “for ICT skills providers, the Portal should raise public
awareness of the important role of non-formal training and educational channels to provide
market-relevant ICT skills through multi-stakeholder partnerships, to promote their skills’
programmes, career options and education programmes and tools, and provide an overview of
cross-industry skills; enable them to promote and/or sponsor specific initiatives within the
Portal community”61. The principal areas of the Portal are:
♦
Careers: a section focusing on the variety of ICT careers available throughout the whole
of the ICT-embedded industry and society. It will include career profiles, interviews with
individuals working in specific careers, tests to self-assess ICT skills and information on
ICT qualifications.
♦
Infobank: a database of relevant information relating to e-skills, including news, events,
educational resources, publications, courses and information about organisations active in
the field of e-skills.
♦
Community: a networking facility where members of the e-skills community can take
part in career of the month events, join online chats and more.
The portal does offer a brokerage system of learning resources by providing links to portals
of vendors of ICT certifications or to web site and portals of free/open learning resources on
e-skills. The mission of the portal relates also to enabling networking among practitioners
and supporting multi-stakeholder partnerships in the field of e-skills.
The main questions to be answered before starting the discussion of how a brokerage
mechanism for e-learning for e-skills shall be designed are the following: is an exchange
mechanism for e-learning content for e-skills perceived as a need? Is it perceived as feasible?
What do European experts think about the main challenges to be faced to build such a system?
59
60
61
Representative of Aalto University
http://eskills.eun.org/web/guest/home
Ibidem
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Consultation with 50 European experts62 on the feasibility of a European brokerage system for
e-learning resources for e-skills has evidenced a certain degree of reluctance: though the need
for harmonisation and integration of available e-skills resources is widely recognised, there is
some scepticism related to the possibility to put in place and efficiently run a brokerage and
networking system in the field of e-learning for e-skills.
The critical aspects or challenges to be faced relate to the following dimensions:
Strategic dimension:
♦
avoid duplication: a European exchange mechanism on e-skills is generally considered
as necessary, provided that it does not overlap with already existing initiatives but it
rather aims at complementing and systematising them.
♦
integration of vendor centric and vendor neutral interests: the e-learning for e-skills
supply is featured by private vendors (ICT actors, corporate universities and publishers,
for instance) active generally at global (and thus also at European) level and public actors
(such as higher education and VET institutions) active generally at national/local level.
The challenge is how to address them and make sure a revenue for both categories is
guaranteed (not only financially) to ensure their commitment and active involvement. In
addition, stakeholders’ role in the process of design, development, implementation and
monitoring of the brokerage system needs to be defined so to ensure that stakeholders
ranging from trade unions to industry confederations, chambers of commerce have a say
and can bring the views and concerns of final users of the system into the whole process.
♦
Networking: The platform shall provide facilities for the networking and cooperation
among all interested stakeholders.
Distribution, localisation and adaptation dimension: The exchange mechanism shall have a
European dimension compatible with national frameworks. The language issue remains a key
problem, though most experts suggest to stick to the English language as the “official ICT
language”. If this solution is adopted, the issue of distribution, localisation and adaptation will
be strongly linked to the harmonisation of the e-skills classification systems at EU level. In this
context, the European e-Competence framework could be considered as the starting point to
work on so to link it with available vendor and vendor neutral certifications. Its link to the
European Qualifications Framework implies an interesting potential to overcome national
differences Review of existing platforms suggests that the use of one single language is the most
effective option as otherwise the risk is to create a brokerage system that keeps on addressing
only the national level (with the European level being only a symbolic umbrella) and that
provides a scattered and inhomogeneous offer of learning resources across countries under the
same course/subject/certification/career profile heading.
Sustainability dimension: Public funding (at EU and national level) would be necessary for the
start up phase of the platform, though most experts agree that in the long term alternative
sources of funding shall be retrieved. If the strategic dimension is well addressed in the start up
phase, cases like the one of CSU show that investment (not necessarily in financial terms but
also in terms of time and resources) can also come from the private actors involved (vendors,
publishers, etc).
62
See Annex 1 and 2 for the list of European experts contacted and consulted in the frame of the Study field
research activities.
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Technological dimension: Experts suggest that In the design of the exchange mechanism, a
bottom up perspective shall be combined with the more classic top down approach, in
particular:
♦
Web 2.0 and 3.0 solutions shall be considered for the exchange mechanism leading to a
community based approach where user ratings and interaction shall be key in guiding ICT
practitioners in the choice of the right e-learning resource for e-skills acquisition.
♦
The Open source “industry” as well as open source available e-learning resources for eskills shall be taken into consideration.
♦
The cases of existing brokerage platforms presented above show the need for a strong
effort on the technological design of the platform so to make sure that its clearing house
and resources hosting and distribution infrastructure works efficiently through a system
allowing interoperability. A deep analysis of the UNIVERSAL-EDUCANEXT case and
of the CSU digital marketplace is suggested in the next phase of project development to
investigate further on the technological solutions adopted and proceed to prototyping.
Security dimension: though the challenges linked to IPR were unanimously recognised, no
solution was given. Again, an in-depth analysis on the strategies adopted for copyright
protection, IPR protection and privacy protection of the users in the above mentioned systems
shall be carried out in the next phase of project development to evaluate the adaptation of such
strategies into the e-skills context. In particular, focus shall be set on:
♦
purposes.
♦
Institutional protection system against copyright violation and improper distribution of
materials by institutional users and others.
♦
Establishment of a business framework to ensure rewarding for both content creators and
providers.
♦
Privacy protection of individual users (to avoid advertising spamming, and improper
diffusion of final users confidential information.
Quality dimension: though not emerging as the most urgent issue to be dealt with, it is the
belief of the e-skills consortium that the quality of learning resources distributed through the
exchange mechanisms is a key challenge to be faced. The e-skills SC group recommended
users’ ratings of the resources. The question remains whether this shall be coupled with a
system of quality assessment by a group of pedagogical and technological experts or not.
Usability: user-friendliness and user involvement emerge as key aspects to ensure the
sustainability of the platform in the long term.
Finally, as regards the mission of the European exchange mechanism for e-learning content for
e-skills, the following suggestions were made:
♦
The platform could host a systematic monitoring system on the developments of e-skills
in Europe (demand and supply trends).
♦
The platform shall provide a brokerage service for information on available learning and
e-learning resources for e-skills.
♦
The platform shall support networking among all the e-skills stakeholders.
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Additional suggestions made by experts are the following:
♦
The exchange mechanism shall help industry to understand how to operate in an
environment where informal learning and user-generated content are playing an
increasingly important role.
♦
The relevance of the study (and of the Exchange Mechanism) to the modernisation
requirements of society is key to ensure success. The notion of e-skills shall include not
just ICT skills, but also digital skills. Focus shall therefore be on digital literacy as the
skills people need at the moment and will need in the future are at a high level of
sophistication. In this perspective:
◊
the definition of the e-skills “industry” sector shall include not only the e-learning
content providers and the ICT industry but also the digital media industry (even if
not recognised as an industry sector yet);
◊
Target groups of the e-skills exchange mechanism shall be ICT practitioners
including ICT professionals across all sectors, ICT users in large companies, SMEs
and Public Administration; ICT users willing to become ICT professionals.
Finally, in the SC meeting of Spring 2009, the e-skills Study Consortium together with some
representatives of the SC group proposed the following design principles of the platform. These
are provided as a starting point for the work to be developed in the second phase of the contract.
The design principles of the platform shall be specified across the following dimensions:
♦
Scope setting
♦
Implementation
♦
Market impact
♦
Governance and partnership
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The actions to be taken for each dimension are specified in the graphical representation below:
Scope setting:
Implementation
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Keep tracking existing EU policies and
committee/groups on e-skills.
Acknowledging evolution of digital industry.
Keep a broad view on target groups.
Adopt a segmentation approach to understand
the need of different groups: no one size fits all
solution. Language issue shall also be dealt
with.
Address buyers’ as well as users’ perspectives.
•
•
•
•
Incentives to “innovate jointly”.
Refer to state of the art qualification
framework while supporting harmonisation.
Include innovative tools and practices that
may be useful to provide immediate solutions,
not only qualifications (e.g.: sharing, peer
production, open source tools…).
Include self assessment tools.
Leveraging from the success criteria of social
software.
Include innovative quality approach (also
users’ review).
Market impact
Governance and Partnership
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
User rating, experts’ views, peer review.
Guidance to choose.
Localisation to sector, context (geo and
working).
Experiment new models for IPR (Creative
commons?).
Avoid protective behaviour of main providers
Include a free exchange area (digital assets,
library for e-skills in Europe).
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Public-private partnership (e.g.: foundation).
Involve all relevant stakeholders respecting
specialisation and roles (e.g.: University:
Living Labs).
Federate, not absorb.
Add value for each participant.
Keep bottom-up stream.
Form vertical and horizontal communities.
Build capacity to moderate/animate what is
happening.
Provide a policy input.
Involve relevant stakeholder groups.
Ensure contribution to the broader innovation
policy area.
To conclude, field and desk research have demonstrated that many have been the attempts to
create on-line brokerage systems for learning content. Only some of them have survived. Given
the increasing importance of e-skills to ensure employability of individuals and to support the
growth of the European economy, a European exchange mechanism for e-learning for e-skills
could represent a one-stop-shop solution for the brokerage of information and of learning
resources on e-skills as well as networking of relevant stakeholders and delivery of updated
information on the evolution of e-skills demand. In order to avoid overlapping with existing
initiatives and capitalise on past experiences, the platform could be built on the already existing
platforms Technological, security, quality, strategic, distribution and sustainability challenges
have to be addressed in the prototyping and business planning phases of the study. Existing
cases such as the ones mentioned in this chapter and others analysed in depth in the Best
Practice Report (to be delivered in Autumn 2009) will play a key role in capitalising the already
developed knowledge and experience in the field.
The main recommendation emerging from the desk and field research conducted is to consider
the specificity of the field addressed (e-skills), strongly related both to commercial interests and
to educational values and trends. Beside all the challenges listed above, a major challenge to be
addressed is to merge the concept of brokerage systems and access to open educational content
with a community-based approach.
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♦
ICT CLUSTER
http://clusters.wallonie.be/tic/en/the-ict-cluster/about-us/index.html
♦
INLEA FOUNDATION
www.inlea.org
♦
INTEL HIGHER EDUCATION PROGRAM
http://www.intel.com/intel/education/index.htm?iid=gg_about+intel_education
♦
INTELLECT
www.intellectuk.org
♦
INTRALLECT
www.intrallect.com
♦
ITB
EUROPE
http://www.itbeurope.org/about.html
♦
ITC LEARNING CORPORATION
www.itclearning.com
♦
ITRAIN – ONLINE
♦
KIBNET
www.kibnet.org
♦
LEARNING RESOURCE EXCHANGE FOR SCHOOLS
www.lreforschools.eun.org
♦
MULTIMEDIA EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE FOR LEARNING AND ONLINE
TEACHING (MERLOT)
www.merlot.org
♦
MICROSOFT ACADEMY
http://www.microsoft.com/education/msitacademy/default.mspx
♦
MICROSOFT TRAINING
http://www.microsoft.com/en/us/default.aspx
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♦
NETWORK OF LIVING LABS
http://www.ami-communities.eu/wiki/NetworkofLivingLabs
♦
NORDIC BALTIC COMMUNITY FOR OPEN EDUCATION (NORDLET)
www.nordlet.org
♦
NORWEGIAN NETWORK UNIVERSITY
http://www.nvu.no/english_intro.php
♦
ONLINE LEARNING.NET
♦
OPEN COURSEWARE CONSORTIUM (OCWConsortium)
www.ocwconsortium.org
♦
OPEN TRAINING PLATFORM
www.opentraining.unesco-ci.org
♦
OPEN UNIVERSITEIT NEDERLAND
http://www.ou.nl/
♦
OPEN UNIVERSITY
http://www.open.ac.uk/
♦
ORACLE UNIVERSITY
http://www.oracle.com/education/chooser/selectcountry_new.html
♦
SCHOOL OF EVERYTHING
www.schoolofeverything.com.
♦
SCOTTISH ESKILLS ACADEMY
www.eskillsacademy.com
♦
SFIA
http://www.sfia.org.uk/
♦
SIEMENS ENTERPRISE COMMUNICATION
www.enterprise-communications.siemens.com
♦
SKILLNETS IRELAND
http://www.skillnets.com/index.html
♦
SKILLSCERT IRELAND
http://www.ics-skills.ie/cert_about_skills_cert.aspx?sm=79
♦
SUN ACADEMY INITIATIVE
http://www.sun.com/solutions/landing/industry/education/sai/index.xml
♦
TECHNOFUTUR TIC
http://www.technofuturtic.be/code/fr/hp.asp
♦
TISIP (NORWAY)
www2.tisip.no/engelsk/index.html
♦
TRIO PROJECT
http://www.progettotrio.it/trio/jsp/contents/homepage.jsp?service=ktrio&view=home
♦
UNICORN COLLEGE (PRAGUE)
www.unicorncollege.cz
♦
UNIVERSIDADE ABERTA
http://www.univ-ab.pt/
♦
UNIVERSITAT OBERTA DE CATALUNYA
http://www.uoc.edu/portal/english/
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♦
WIKIEDUCATOR.ORG
♦
WORLD LECTURE HALL
http://web.austin.utexas.edu/wlh/
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EUROPEAN EXCHANGE MECHANISMS FOR E-LEARNING
CONTENT FOR E-SKILLS AND NETWORKING OF TRAINING AND
RESEARCH CENTRES
ANNEX 1
LIST OF INVITED EXPERTS FOR INTERVIEWS
Aho
Name
Marita
Institution
Position
The Confederation of Finnish Senior Adviser, Foresight
Industries EK
Internet site
http://www.ek.fi/www/en/in
dex.php
Amiral
Auer
Esteve
Michael
Blamire
Bonfiglioli
Bradley
Roger
Elena
Stephen
Brown
Michael
Carter
Dave
Choppy
Christine
Clementi
Erich
IBM Central Holding GmbH
Cobb
Marco
Regional Manager Europe
Coyne
Paul
Dabic
Marina
Devine
Jim
Durando
Marc
CISCO NETWORKING
ACADEMY
Principal Consultant
Emerald Group Publishing
Ltd
University of Zagreb (Faculty Professor
www.efzg.hr/
of Economics)
Director
Dun Laoghaire Institute of
Art Design Technologies
EUN
Executive Director
www.eun.org/
Ehrke
Michael
Innovation in IT" at IG Metall Senior Consultant
MENON NETWORK EEIG
Carinthia Institute of
Technology
Vice President Professional
Learning
SkillsNet
Manchester Digital
Development Agency
Academic organisation
Informatics Europe
Professor
BECTA
eskills ILB
Elsevier Science and
Technology
CEO
www.skillsnet.net/
Vice president,
http://www.informaticsLaboratoire d'Informatique europe.org/
de l'Université Paris Nord
Vorsitzender des
http://www.ibm.com/de/de/
Aufsichtsrats
www.igmetall-itk.de
proposed by:
Markku
Markkula- Aalto
University
Angelos Ktenas
Andras Szucs
Claudio DondiMENON Network
Nikitas KastisMENON Network
Angelos Ktenas
Siada El RamlyESA
Gerhard SatzgerKarlsruhe Service
Research
Institute
Jim Herbolich
Stefan Pfisterer-
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Institution
Name
Position
El Ramly
Siada
Federer
Peter
Gow
Christopher
Guitert
Montse
Hagedoorn
Holmberg
Johnson
Peter
Carl
Carsten
k von Essen
Fredri
DACH (Germany, Austria,
Area Manager
Switzerland) of the CISCO
Networking Academy (Berlin)
IT Företagen (Sweden)
Project Manager
Klasina
Hara
EICTA
KorhonenYrjänheikki
Kari
The Finnish Association of
Graduate Engineers TEK
Korte
Lecke
Werner B.
Markus
Littig
Peter
EMPIRICA
Director
HR Development Department Senior Consultant
of Deutsche Telekom
DEKRA Academy
CEO
Lueders
Hugo
e-skills ILB
Secretary General
Marinoni
Clementina
Massimo
Fabio
Fondazione Politecnico di
Milano
Aesse.Net / CNA
marinoni@fondazionepolit
ecnico.it
Director
MENON NETWORK EEIG
Internet site
proposed by:
BITKOM
Siada El RamlyESA
Stefan PfistererBITKOM
European Software
Association
"Gesellschaft für Informatik"
(Association of IT
Professionals), German
branch of EUCIP (Bonn)
Cisco
Secretary General
www.europeansoftware.org/
CEO
www.gi-ev.d
Project Manager
Universidad Oberta de
Catalunya
AB member
Professor
www.cisco.com/web/index.ht Hara Klasinaml
EICTA
Andras Szucs
EUROCIO
Manager - Digital
Economy Policy
Director, Educational
Policy
www.academy.createnet.org/
Hara KlasinaEICTA
www.eicta.org/
Hara KlasinaEICTA
Markku
Markkula- Aalto
University
www.bitkom.org/en
Emprica
www.telekom.de
www.dekra-akademie.de
http://www.e-skills-ilb.org/
Siada El Ramly
ESA
www.fondazionepolitecnico.it Claudio Dondi/
MENON Network
Sebastiano
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Institution
Name
Mendoza
Elizabeth
Miller
Position
Project Manager
Riel
MFG Baden-Württemberg
mbH
Senior Consultant
Pallot
Marc
ESOCE
Patini
Franco
Member of the Board of
Directors
Federcomin
Pawlowski
Pegge
Jan M.
Bart
University of Jyvaskyla
ICT-Office (Netherlands)
Niitamo
Veli-Peka
Nokia & Univ. of Helsinki
Pfisterer
Stefan
BITKOM (DE)
Price
Punie
Raimondi
Karen
Yves
Italo
Rinta-Kousa
Sami
Robine
Bruno
Santoro
Roberto
Vice President Ibero/Italy
Region
Helsinki University of
Technology, Lifelong
Learning Institute Dipoli
GPNI, Groupement
Professionnel National de
l'informatique
ESOCE
Schaerf
Mirella
Professor
Member of the Board of
Directors
University of Rome
Scherfig Gilberg
Ulla
ITEK (Denmark)
Project Manager
MENON NETWORK EEIG
Vice President
Internet site
XperidoX
Professor
Policy Advisor
www.ictmarktmonitor.nl/
Head of Department
www.bitkom.org/en
eskills UK
IPTS
McGraw Hill
Unit Manager, ICT-training www.dipoli.tkk.fi/english/
President
proposed by:
Toffaletti
PINSME
Annemarie
Boonen
Angelos Ktenas
http://www.gpni.com/
www.itek.di.dk
Ulf Ehlers
Hara KlasinaEICTA
Markku
Markkula- Aalto
University
Sebastiano
Toffaletti
PINSME
Angelos Ktenas
Hara KlasinaEICTA
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Schgör
Seufert
Seymour
Sharpe
Stoy
Name
Paolo
Sabine
Julian
Mike
Finn
Stracke
Suvanto
Christian
Mari
Szucs
Andras
Thoben
Klaus-Dieter
Toffaletti
Sebastiano
Van Petegem
Wim
MENON NETWORK EEIG
Institution
AICA
Swiss Centre for Innovations
in Learning
General Manager
Blythe Valley Innovation
Centre
IT-forum midtjylland
University of Duisburg-Essen
The Finnish Information
Society Development Centre
TIEKE
Center for Learning
Innovation and Adult
Learning Budapest University
of Technology and
Economics
BIBA - Bremen Institute of
Industrial Technology and
Applied Workscience
PIN-SME Pan European ICT
& eBusiness Network for
SME
K.U.Leuven
Position
Internet site
proposed by:
Executive Director
www.scil.ch
Jim Herbolich
CEPIS
President
http://www.ukita.co.uk/
Sebastiano
Toffaletti
SME
Sebastiano
Toffaletti
SME
President
Professor
R&D Director
http://www.itforum.dk/
http://www.tieke.fi/in_englis
h/
Executive director
PIN-
PIN-
Markku
Markkula- Aalto
University
Andras Szucs
Angelos Ktenas
Secretary General
Professor
www.pin-sme.eu
www.kuleuven.ac.be
Sebastiano
Toffaletti
SME
Annemarie
Boonen
PIN-
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ANNEX 2
LIST OF CONSULTED EXPERTS
MENON NETWORK EEIG
Name
Institution
Position
Country
Markus Lecke
HR Development Department of Deutsche Telekom
Senior Consultant
Germany
Ed Mahood
DEKRA Academy
Strategic Project manager
Germany
Stefan Pfisterer
BITKOM (DE)
Head of Department
Germany
Fabio Massimo
Aesse.Net / CNA
Director
Italy
Finn Stoy
IT-forum midtjylland
President
Denmark
Sebastiano Toffaletti
PIN-SME Pan European ICT & eBusiness Network for SME
Secretary General
Belgium
Mari Suvanto
The Finnish Information Society Development Centre TIEKE
R&D Director
Finland
Senior Adviser, Foresight
Marita Aho
The Confederation of Finnish Industries EK
Veli Peka Niitamo
Nokia & Univ. of Helsinki
Michael Brown
SkillsNet
Clementina Marinoni
Fondazione Politecnico di Milano
Prof. Dr. Sabine Seufert
Swiss Centre for Innovations in Learning
Executive Director
Switzerland
Jan M. Pawlowski
University of Jyvaskyla
Professor
Finland
Wim Van Petegem
K.U.Leuven
Professor
Belgium
Jim Devine
Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art Design Technologies
Director
Ireland
Stephen Bradley
Vice President Professional Learning
Elsevier Science and Technology
Mirella Schaerf
University of Rome
Professor
Riel Miller
XperidoX
Senior Consultant
Franco Patini
Federcomin
Vice President
Italy
Julian Seymour
CEPIS
General Manager
Belgium
Marco Cobb
CISCO NETWORKING ACADEMY
Regional Manager Europe
Europe
Carl Holmberg
ICDE
Secretary General
Norway
Paolo Schgör
AICA
Chairman CEN/ISSS ICT Skills Workshop
Italy
Jochen Boekel
ORACLE
Vice President Oracle University EMEA
Germany
Fredrik von Essen
IT Företagen
Project Manager
Sweden
Ulla Scherfig Gilberg
ITEK
Project Manager
Denmark
Carsten Johnson
Christine Choppy
Cisco Systems GmbH
Academic organisation Informatics Europe
Area Academy Manager
Vice president, Laboratoire d'Informatique
Germany
France
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Finland
Finland
CEO
USA
Italy
Italy
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Name
Institution
Position
de l'Université Paris Nord
Professor
Project Manager
Professor
Montse Guitert
Elizabeth Mendoza
Klaus-Dieter Thoben
Yves Punie
Kees-Jan Van Dorp
Charles Jennings
Christine Lewis
Universidad Oberta de Catalunya
MFG Baden-Württemberg mbH
BIBA - Bremen Institute of Industrial Technology and Applied Worksience
IPTS
EADTU
Reuters
BECTA
Research director
ex- Learning Development executive
Assistant Director, e-Strategy
David Kay
Sero Consultancy Ltd
Director
David Kernohan
JISC
Programme Manager for e-learning
Dudley Dolan
Professor
Ed Monk
Trinity College Dublin/ Chairman of Q Validus (international certifications
provider)
IITT
Elmar Husmann
IBM
Strategy & Change Senior Managing
Consultant
Fabio Giani
Franck Mockler
Jan Dirkx
Joe Wilson
CEFRIEL
EDCL Foundation
EXIN
Scottish Qualifications Authority
Program Manager
Portfolio Manager
Head of New Ventures Team
Pierre Rossel
Roberta Letorio
Seamus Fox
Seb Schmoller
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
CEFRIEL
Dublin City University
ALT
Professor
Training Project Coordinator
Professor
Chief Executive
Steve Jones
Bovis Lease and Lend
Head of Learning and Development
Tony Small
Afiniti
Director
MENON NETWORK EEIG
Country
Spain
Germany
Germany
Spain
Belgium
United
Kingdom
United
Kingdom
United
Kingdom
Ireland
United
Kingdom
Germany
Italy
Ireland
Netherlands
United
Kingdom
Switzerland
Italy
Ireland
United
Kingdom
United
Kingdom
United
Kingdom
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Draft Synthesis Report on
“Exchange mechanisms and networking for e-skills training: State-of-play, trends and developments in Europe”
ANNEX 3
GOOD PRACTICE CASES: ID CARDS
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EXCHANGE AND BROKERAGE MECHANISMS
Name
EducaNext
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
Sources of Funding
http://www.educanext.org/register/?return%5furl=%2fdotlrn%2findex
Europe/world
ELENA Consortium (IST Programme)
Financially supported by:
Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Austria); Knowledge Markets Consulting
(Austria); Institut NatHautes Etudes Commerciales (HEC), (France); Institut
National des Télécommunications (INT) (France); Hautes Etudes
Commerciales (HEC), (France); Institut Jozef Stefan, (Slovenia);
Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich, (Switzerland); Information
Multimedia Communication AG, (Germany), Forschungszentrum L3S,
Universität Hannover, (Germany).
Starting date
N. of registered users
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Other sources of funding can be obtained by: fees and membership
subscriptions; Subsidies, donations
2003 - ongoing
427 members
EducaNext is a non-profit association that aims at:
− Supporting the creation, exchange and dissemination of knowledge using
Information and Communication Technology (ICT);
− fostering collaboration among higher education institutions, research
institutions, and other organizations producing knowledge, both at an
individual and institutional level using ICT;
− increasing excellence in teaching, learning and research;
− developing, deploying and maintaining an Internet portal to facilitate the
exchange of learning resources;
− encouraging the creation of learning resources by sharing ICT-based
tools and services;
− Sharing technological know-how to implement similar knowledge
sharing spaces on the basis of the Universal Brokerage Platform or other
suitable technologies.
ICT users, teachers, learners, researchers
Users interaction
Community chat: is a tool used by members to meet each other and to
exchange their opinions and experiences.
Community groups: it is like community chat, but more focused for groups
and not for single member.
Technical forum: it is a forum where technical issues proposed by users are
discussed.
Users features
Personal space: where users can see their communities, their Forums and
their FAQs and if someone has visited their profile.
Calendar: the place where users describe their events in order to promote
them between the other members.
Photo album: users could download their personal picture to be shown to the
other members.
Contacts: users can enjoy of a personal contact and of a mail box
Products and Services
Software features Open source platform.
After registration, users can use the following tools to exchange their
experiences and opinions.
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−
−
Contact Person
Page of events: description of every event hour by hour;
Survey: is a tool use to make the state of the art regarding the main
features of this platform, like the number of members reached, the main
topics discussed in the forum or chat;
− Repository: is the space where every user can download resources;
− Control panel: space where users can see their privacy status and they
can update their information available on the platform;
− Conferences and workshops for all members and other interested parties
in order to provide a face-to-face communication environment.
EducaNext
c/o Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien
Augasse 2-6, 1090 Wien
+43 1 31336 4380
peter.kreuzinger@educanext.org
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Name
Ariadne
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
Sources of Funding
http://www.ariadne-eu.org/index.php
European Union
Ariadne Foundation
Exploitation of ARIADNE and ARIADNE II European Projects.
Organizations can join the ARIADNE Foundation for a yearly fee of 1000
Euros. The membership supports the Foundation and entitles the
organization to participate in the yearly General Assembly that determines
the priorities for the next year.
Organizations can also request the ARIADNE Foundation to host the
repository and client services for them. This typically entails a yearly fee of
5000 Euros.
Not available
Not available
A European Association open to the World, for Knowledge Sharing and
Reuse. The core of the ARIADNE infrastructure is a distributed network of
learning repositories.
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Expected benefits for the citizen: better continuous formation schemes,
easier access to formation for a number of disadvantaged socio-geographic
categories.
Expected benefits for the users of the application: more effective and
motivating learning scenarios (learners & trainees), better productivity and
new philosophy of collaboration (authors of pedagogical material), better
communication and co-working schemes (researchers).
Expected benefits for the European Industries: Better, faster and more
economical entry-level or continuous training schemes.
The contribution to EU-policies: possible factor for harmonizing education
& training policies throughout Europe. Important factor in promoting
collaboration between European educators and comprehension between
European learners.
Faculty, Education Managers, Students.
Producers & administrators of training courses: Trainers, Training
Managers, Engineers.
End Users: Researchers; Students, Trainees, Open & Distance Learners.
The ARIADNE Foundation was created to exploit and further develop the
results of the ARIADNE and ARIADNE II European Projects, which created
tools and methodologies for producing, managing and reusing computerbased pedagogical elements and telematics supported training curricula. The
technologies and/or approach used:
− Share & reuse of pedagogical components through indexing and storage
in knowledge pools.
− Use of adequate telematic channels according to situation; use of novel
authoring & segmentation tools.
− Pedagogic components approach, structured curricula; individualized
view of course.
The ARIADNE foundation is a member of the Global Learning Objects
Brokered Exchange (GLOBE).
Although it targets integration of services into third party applications, it
offers a query and indexation tool that allows for publishing and describing
learning objects (http://ariadne.cs.kuleuven.be/AriadneFinder)
Federated Search (GLOBE): middleware software that enables
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transparent search into various repositories (GLOBE, ProLearn,
MACE & MELT). The following sites have integrated this federated
search engine: ProLearn - Network of Excellence in Professional
Learning and Ariadne Search & Indexation tool. These sites rely on
standards such as SQI and LOM for doing federated search.
The following sites, federate queries to ARIADNE: GLOBE, Merlot
Federated Search, NIME glad - Gateway to Learning Ability Development
Integrated Learning Management Systems an experimental tool that
queries the ARIADNE KPS is integrated in two LMS.
The first LMS, INES (an LMS developed by the University of Amiens France), gives access to the "Invited Training" in which users are able to
create, modify, or delete courseware. User can access the tool in the section
"ESPACE
PEDAGOGIQUE".
INES
is
accessible
at
:
http://lkptest.ariadne-eu.org/ines
The second LMS, MOODLE (one of the most popular LMS), allows users to
create, modify, delete courseware and to view existing ones which do not
require
a
password.
Moodle
is
accessible
at:
http://lkptest.ariadne-eu.org/moodle
Phoenix: authoring tool that allows indexing pedagogical material and
inserting it into the Knowledge Pool System. Download the tool on the
UNIL
ARIADNE
Server
at
:
http://ali2.unil.ch/
Core tools of the foundation
The core tools of the foundation are composed of two main applications:
1. the Ariadne Web Services that allows you to set up your own
Learning Object Repository
2. the Search & Index Learning Object (SILO) software that provides
you with a web application to search and index content from/into your
repository
1. The Ariadne Web Service (AWS) is a software package that runs on a
Jakarta tomcat server. This tool offers web services through which
external applications can communicate with the ARIADNE knowledge
pool system. This tool is thus not intended to be used by end users. The
tool however offers a webpage through which an ARIADNE
administrator can create ARIADNE account, manage and test an
ARIADNE KPS instance.
Installation/reinstallation
This wizard enables the installation of an ARIADNE KPS on top of a
relational database management system. Both Oracle and Postgresql are
supported.
User Management
Through this tool, a ARIADNE administrator can create accounts with the
following roles:
− Reader: A reader account can query the database and can download
learning object that are freely available.
− A trusted reader can download objects that are freely available and that
are available to the Ariadne community.
− An creator/indexer can download the objects a trusted reader can, and
can in addition publish learning objects.
− Replication.
− An ARIADNE node can replicate its learning objects and their metadata
to several other ARIADNE instances. The replication manager enables
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adding and removing ARIADNE instances.
Import/Export
Export, Import are utilities which allow you to write data in an textual
format from the database into operating system files and to read data back
from those operating system files.
The ARIADNE Search & Indexation tool (SILO) allows ARIADNE users to
upload, describe and publish learning objects. Silo supports 4 usage
rights levels that can be associated to every learning object:
− Negotiation is the most restrictive option and implies that only the
account that published the material can download it.
− Users of this server means that only users with an account on the
same ARIADNE server can also download this material.
− ARIADNE members only means that all ARIADNE users, will be
able to download this learning object.
− Everybody is the less restrictive option. Everybody, regardless
whether he or she has an ARIADNE account can download the
learning object.
The ARIADNE community is currently in the process of moving this license
mechanism to creative commons.
Publishing
Only users that possess an ARIADNE account can publish learning objects
through SILO. After they have selected & submitted a learning object, the
tool will present the user with metadata that has been generated with the
automatic metadata generation framework. Doing so, the burden of user
having to manual fill in all metadata fields is lowered. Furthermore an
authenticated user can preset some metadata fields (like author name, usage
rights, etc ) through the use of custom templates.
Contact Person
Searching
Although publishing learning objects is restricted to authenticated users,
searching is not. By choosing the "anonymous login", a user can search and
browse the ARIADNE Knowledge Pool System (KPS). Anonymous users
however only can download materials that have as usage rights "everybody".
Silo offers 3 search tabs: Simple search allows a user to specify some search
terms that will be used to search on textual metadata fields. Through
advanced search, a user can search in metadata fields. A user can for
instance search for all learning objects that have "English" as document
language and have a file size lower than 300 kB. Federated search offers the
same functionality as simple search but will federated the search request to
other learning object repositories, ARIADNE is affiliated with.
A form to contact the Foundation is available on the website. No mail and email address are provided
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Name
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
Digital Marketplace
http://21st-digitalmarketplace.com/
California (USA)
California State University (CSU)
Technology companies:
− Oracle
− CISCO
− Sun
− Apple
− HarvestRoad
− Desire2Learn
− Microsoft
− VitalSource
Publishing companies:
− Wiley
− Pearson
− Thomson
− Houghton Mifflin
− Bedford Freeman Worth
− Giunti
− O’Reilly
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
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The CSU already manages an alliance of higher education institutions in the
MERLOT Consortium
CSU
2007-ongoing
Not available
The Digital Marketplace (DM) Initiative aims to put in place a next
generation web-based infrastructure that directly addresses three high
priority needs of the CSU:
− Improve learning outcomes through accelerating teaching innovations.
− Improve the accessibility of learning materials to students.
− Significantly reduce the cost of learning materials (textbooks) to students
The Initiative should focus first on enabling cost-effective discovery and
distribution of digital learning resources to faculty, students and institutions.
The DM infrastructure wants to enable a flexible, convenient and cost
effective exchange of learning resources between many providers and many
consumers.
Students, Professors, Faculties, CSU Campuses, Institutions, Content
Providers.
General overview:
The Digital Marketplace is a new digital network or exchange for faculty
and students to access digital learning resources that should ensure:
− Affordability: reduce the cost to acquire digital learning resources by
establishing an electronic exchange and commerce trading presence to
discover, share, sell, and distribute academic technology goods,
educational content, and services to students and faculty of the CSU and
other institutions of higher education.
− Accessibility: build accessible capability directly into the Digital
Marketplace architecture and content standards.
− Choice: make widest range of resources available in a single session to
faculty and students. Improve learning outcomes over time through
analysis of the use of these resources in the classroom.
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Partnerships:
−
−
−
−
−
−
Education area: CSU, California Education Technology Collaborative,
San Bernardino Community College District, Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Tennessee Board of Regents, University of Michigan,
Oklahoma Board of Regents, MERLOT, California Community
Colleges, Connexions.
Learning Management area: Blackboard, Desire 2 Learn.
Standards area: Innovation Adoption Learning, Open Knowledge
Initiative, Dublin Core Metadata Initiative.
Publishing area: Elsevier, Bedford, Freeman & Worth, Wiley
Publishers, Pearson, Cengage Learning, Ingram Digital.
Technology area: Cisco Systems Inc., Oracle, Soft Chalk, Giunti Labs,
Xlibris.
Other area: Verbena Consulting, Nolaria Consulting, American
Foundation for the Blind, National Association of College Stores,
CS4ED.
Licensing
Providers of learning resources are free to put conditions of use on their
property. Furthermore, providers and users are free to negotiate terms as
appropriate.
Interoperability
This exchange operates independently of the application which uses the
education content (e.g. LMS or portfolio).
The interoperability is assured by holding to specific standards and
protocols. The Digital Marketplace makes use of certain common
interoperability standards that foster a “network effect” among institutions.
Digital Marketplace is focusing on a service-oriented architecture (SOA)
with stable integration boundaries between service consumers (typically
client applications) and service providers.
SOA hides provider
implementation detail from consumers, allowing independent technical
evolution of providers and consumers. SOA separates concerns among
services and between providers and consumers. Use of appropriate
standards for interfaces and what flows across it (e.g. metadata, identity),
widens the range of providers and consumers that can be mixed-andmatched.
SOA also has specific implications for risk mitigation:
implementation changes in the provider or consumer implementation,
appropriateness of or change in the integration boundary, etc.
Governance
The Digital Marketplace should be governed by an independent organization
responsible for the continuing development of these common standards,
expanding the use of the Digital Marketplace by a growing number of
institutions, and providing common services such as clearing transactions on
behalf of the institution.
Access to enterprise systems of record: content management systems,
identity systems, authorization services, student information systems, and so
on, can be unified and structured through a services-of-record. For example,
a single federated-search service in support wide access to various forms of
content, can organize heterogeneous systems behind a single coordinating
interface.
Networking
The Digital Marketplace already shares a special relationship with the
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching
(MERLOT), a premiere online community for faculty.
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Products
Digital Marketplace offers learning resources, which could be acquired
directly from the provider or through third parties including the institution.
The resources list content acquisitions by the students are known by the
institutions.
Services
Faculty discover content and catalogue required materials that the student
acquires. Users are free to gather content from any source available
Resources
The Open Knowledge Initiative offers and education standard that (the
Repository OSID) that has been shown to work in integrating content from a
variety of institutional systems.
In additions, there have been
demonstrations with MERLOT (www.merlog.org) and Connexions
(www.cnx.org). Furthermore, Digital Market contain library resources like
systems such as DSpace or ExLibris MetaLib , which have been connected
to The Digital Marketplace.
The Digital Marketplace provides access to library help-desk for contextsensitive, content questions; access to institutional “recommender” service;
reserves and e-reserves; interlibrary loan; license management; reporting to
library about demand for pay-per-view items in support of subscription
planning.
Content
The Digital Marketplace offers a federated search service. This service
includes commercial publisher content, library systems content, open / free
content, etc. Searches can be general or advanced where a user expresses
specific resource types, field values, result ranges, etc. The Digital
Marketplace searches its own content, institutional resources, and external
systems. It is important to Note that not every content provider may offer
the same kinds of searches for their content systems.
Content Ranking
The service considers a user’s profile, institutional business arrangements,
past searches and, use patterns, actual results, etc to filter and rank results.
Fees
There are no restrictions on the business model that underlies a particular
content provider. The Digital Marketplace Project at California State
University has already prototyped interactions with commercial publisher
content, publisher content aggregators, the institutional library system, and
repositories of open / free content.
Contact Person
Pricing
The Digital Marketplace can include prices (or pricing rules) for users based
on role, campus affiliation, etc. There is also an exchange of pricing and
other data about specific assets while Digital Marketplace applications are
running.
Gerard L. Hanley, Ph.D.
Senior Director, Academic Technology Services
Information Technology Services and Academic Affairs
California State University, Office of the Chancellor
ghanley@calstate.edu
Jack Gunther
Special Consultant, Academic Technology Services
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Responsible for Digital Marketplace Partner Relations & Get-it-Now “GIN”
Services.
jgunther@calstate.edu
Vince Enriquez
Special Consultant, Academic Technology Services
Responsible for Digital Marketplace Technical Program Management
venriquez@calstate.edu
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Name
Measure Up
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
Sources of Funding
http://www.measureup.com/Default.aspx
USA
Founded by Kevin Brice, currently President and General Manager
Not available. Might be advertising from the corporations which sell their
products on Measure Up platform.
1997 - ongoing
More than 1,000,000 of persons who have obtained certifications.
MeasureUp's mission is:
− to become the leading provider of high-quality assessments and practice
tests to the individual, training and publishing partners and corporate
markets.
− to become the most widely recognized and respected provider for quality
content, advanced question types and cutting-edge applications.
Everyone interested in ICT certifications
Framework
MeasureUp is an assessment and certification practice test company,
providing the necessary tools to reinforce learning and validate knowledge.
MeasureUp assessment and practice test customers include a broad range of
companies and higher-education learning institutes, such as Microsoft, New
Horizons, Pearson/VUE, Lockheed Martin, and Herzing College.
MeasureUp specializes in creating assessments that can be used for training,
placement, and proving knowledge retention. MeasureUp practice tests are
recognized for their innovative use of simulation question types,
comprehensive explanations, complete coverage of exam objectives,
multiple delivery modes, and in-depth reporting.
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Partnerships:
CompTia, Course Technology, Element K, Microsoft, Pearson Vue, Robert
Half International.
Contact Person
Fees
All the courses are fee-based. It is possible to have a free demo before
buying the product.
They offer products and certification from the following corporations:
Cisco, Ciw, CompTia, ECCouncil, ECDL/ICDL, HIPAA, HRCI, Microsoft,
Oracle, PMI, SCP, Sun.
Users can get:
Online Courses: it is possible to have a free demo before choosing the
course
Practice Tests: The essential preparatory tool before users take the exam.
Microsoft Exam Vouchers: is it possible to get vouchers for any Microsoft
MCP Certification Exam.
Mailing Address:
MeasureUp, Inc.
11660 Alpharetta Highway, Suite 490
Roswell, GA 30076
Telephone: 1-800-649-1687
Fax: 770-777-0732
Email:
General and Technical Information - support@measureup.com
Sales Information - partnersales@measureup.com
Marketing or Press Information - marketing@measureup.com
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Name
World Lecture Hall (WLH)
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
http://web.austin.utexas.edu/wlh/
Texas (USA)
Team Web of the University of Texas
University of Texas
1993 - ongoing
Not available. The company has 700 employees.
The main aim is to allow users access to free online course materials from
around the world.
University teachers, developers, students, and everyone who could be
interested in all these subjects.
World Lecture Hall publishes links to pages created by faculty worldwide
who are using the Web to deliver course materials in any language.
Structural features:
WLH is like a search engine, in fact it maintains a database of universitylevel course materials freely available over the Internet. WLH also maintains
a search engine to find courses or materials for the public
All the services are completely free
WLH is a clearinghouse to locate university course materials that have been
put online, but does not administer any courses nor the content associated
with those materials.
Questions about enrolment, fees and the like are re-directed to the
administrator of a specific course or to the content creator at the published
URL.
Privacy policy:
World Lecture Hall does not publish or use any email or personal
information, except for the following:
Course authors' names and institutional affiliates are displayed in the results
pages of the Advanced Search, Browse by Area and Find a Course utilities.
WLH contact course authors via email with information about new features to
the Web site; to inform authors when their pages have flaws or their links no
longer work; and to petition course authors to submit new course pages and
suggestions to WLH.
Licensing: Only the author or owner of a course Web page may submit it to
WLH.
WLH provides 83 categories to browse, complete not to mention locating
systems such as their find and advanced search utilities. If users can't find
what they're looking for on WLH, they have the opportunity to send W.L.H.
an email or check out the link About WLH, which contains a useful links
page with links to sites such as distance learning, degree programs and the
Center for Instructional Technologies.
WLH contains links to course materials for university-level courses. Some of
these courses are offered entirely over the Internet, some offer college credit
through distance learning. All are courses offered at accredited colleges and
universities around the world, and all course materials reachable through
WLH are free and publicly available.
WLH focuses on higher education, but it is possible to check the useful links
section for other options.
Users can browse, view, use, and search for course materials through WLH
without having to log on. Users can submit a course on the web site using the
“add a course” page.
wlh@www.utexas.edu
Target groups
Main features
Contact Person
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Name
Online Learning.net
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
http://www.onlinelearning.net/index.html?s=421.y080d992j.057a422s60
USA
Online Higher Education division of Laureate Education, Inc.,
Fees paid by users
1996 - ongoing
More than 30,000 students
The aim is to be an online supplier of professional development courses,
offering busy teachers with the tools to pursue their lifelong learning
objectives.
Students, teachers, education associations
Partnerships:
American National Education Association
Users interaction:
Instructor Discussion Forum: it is about the following topics: Computers and
Information Systems, Education, Writers and Humanities, Business and
Management, Technical Communications, Technical Q & A, Open
Discussion.
Instructor Community: teachers have the possibility to join the Instructor
Community in order to exchange opinions, impressions and asking questions
to the colleagues. Obviously they must log in to enter.
Fees
The education providers who work with OLN are ultimately responsible for
hiring, providing contracts, and paying their instructors.
Licensing
OLN does not claim any intellectual property rights or copyright ownership
for courses offered by its education providers and their instructors. Each
education provider has its own policies, procedures, and arrangements with
its instructors regarding intellectual property and copyrights.
Course catalogue:
Target groups
Main features
OnlineLearning.net offers an average of 253 courses
The courses are provided by the University of San Diego, which divided
them in two main certified and sequenced programs: Character Education;
Cross Cultural Language and Academic Development.
Description of the courses:
− courses are generally six to eight weeks in length, have a specific start
and stop date, and are typically organized by week.
− No more than 20 students for class.
− The model is primarily asynchronous-not in real time-which means that
within each week instructor and his/her students may log in at a time that
is most convenient for them.
− instructor will generally log in four to five times per week to give timely
feedback and interact with their students.
− instructor will communicate with students in a shared classroom space
featuring threaded discussion forums, and a real-time chat is available.
Students services:
Student Services and the Personal Start Page give enrolled students access to
the software orientation, textbook information and a step-by-step guide to
get started. Prospective students can manage interests, updates, emails and
reminders for upcoming courses. It is necessary to log in to have the
possibility to use these services.
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Software features:
OnlineLearning.net provide all the software free of charge. It's designed
especially for online learning and allows anyone with even basic computer
skills to be up and running in no time. Users will receive a free online
orientation in advance.
Credits policy
Contact Person
Users can earn college credits through some of their online courses, and
those credits can be transferred and applied toward a degree at another
institution (at that institution's discretion). They also offer certificated
programs and courses to earn professional development credits.
OnlineLearning .net Corporate Office:
12975 Coral Tree Place
Los Angeles, CA 90066
Geri Sakuma
Coordinator, Online Courses Division
(800) 733-1711, ext. 4865
Ken Jaedicke
Enrolment Specialist, Online Courses Division
Ken.Jaedicke@laureate-inc.com
1-800-733-1711 ext. 4363
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Name
ALTC Exchange
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://www.altcexchange.edu.au/
Australia
Australian Learning and Teaching Council, ACODE (the Australasian
Council on Open, Distance and E-learning), ascilite (the Australasian
Society for Computers in Learning in Tertiary Education), education.au
Australian Learning and Teaching Council
2006 - ongoing
Not available
Organisational features
The Exchange is an online service providing learning and teaching resources
and supporting communication and collaboration across the national and
international higher education sectors. The Exchange is a hub for the
exchange of ideas about teaching practice in the Australian higher education
sector. It is a place to explore, discover and experiment with issues,
technologies, processes and ideas.
The Exchange is for:
− connecting people with people
− providing opportunities to share knowledge, experience and know-how
− contributing to the Exchange knowledge store
Sector higher education: teachers, students, workers implied in this field.
Framework
The Exchange is a key mechanism for identifying, disseminating and
embedding good individual practice and institutional practice into the higher
education sector. The Exchange supports networking and the development of
communities of practice across the higher education sector.
Licensing
The resources contributed to, or made available through the ALTC
Exchange will be made available under the Creative Commons AttributionNon-commercial-Share-Alike 2.5 Australia License.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share-Alike 2.5 Australia License.
The Creative Commons Attribution-Non-commercial-Share-Alike license
enables users to the ALTC Exchange to share their work with others, adapt
the work as long as attribution for its production is associated with it, the
work is not used for commercial purposes, and that any derivative or
adaptation is also made available under the same licensing conditions. Social
networking contributions are covered by the Terms and Conditions of Use
Policy agreed to by members of the Exchange when they join. Users are also
covered by the Code of Practice Policy. The default position for such
contributions is the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial
License (see http://creativecommons.org/about/license/).
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
In addition, social networking contributors license the Australian Learning
and Teaching Council to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, sublicense,
create derivative works from and incorporate in other works that material at
any time in the future, in any form and for any purpose, and warrant that the
contributor has the right to grant this license.
Resources shared within private groups should comply with the provisions
of copyright law.
The Exchange provides:
− access to quality resources that support teaching and learning.
− access to learning materials for sharing and repurposing.
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−
Contact Person
information about new technologies that impact on teaching practice and
student learning experiences.
− ideas about learning and teaching practice.
− opportunities to network with other academics with similar interests in
group spaces.
− the ability to save resources, and search results to users personalized
“MyExchange area”.
− opportunities to comment on and exchange ideas about the relevance and
usefulness of particular teaching resources and to view the comments of
others.
− opportunities to participate in discussions, debates and dialogue about
teaching in higher education.
e-mail: exchangeinfo@altc.edu.au
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Name
Fathom Knowledge Network Inc.
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
www.fathom.com
USA
Founded by Columbia University. Fathom Consortium: American Film
Institute, The British Library, The British Museum, Cambridge University
Press, Columbia University, London School of Economics, Natural History
Museum, New York Public Library, RAND, Science Museum, University
of Chicago, University of Michigan, Victoria & Albert Museum, Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Maybe Columbia University (no data available)
1999 - ongoing
More than 65,000 visitors
Aims:
− providing high quality educational resources to a global audience
through the Internet.
− reducing barriers to online learning, using free seminar series and
interdisciplinary learning centres.
Students, professionals, educators, and lifelong learners.
Licensing
Managed by the Columbia University that respects the intellectual property
rights of others, and requires that the people who use the Fathom Archive
do the same. In appropriate circumstances, Columbia University may
terminate the registration of any user who is responsible for any act of
copyright infringement.
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Contact Person
Jurisdictional Issues
Columbia University controls and operates the Fathom Archive from the
United States. Persons who choose to access the Fathom Archive from other
locations do so on their own initiative, and are responsible for compliance
with local laws, if and to the extent local laws are applicable.
Fathom offers free courses in the following subjects: Arts and Humanities;
Business and Economics; Education; Global Affairs; Health and Medicine;
History and Society; Law and Politics; Science and Nature; Technology.
help@dkv.columbia.edu
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Name
Intrallect
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
Sources of Funding
Starting date
http://www.intrallect.com/
U.K.
It is a spin-out from the University of Edinburgh
Not available
2000 - ongoing
Intrallect is used, for example, by the following organisations:
− The SIESWE Learning Exchange, which is a British repository of
interactive learning materials for education and training in social work.
− Jorum, which is a British repository of re-usable learning resources
created for and used in higher and further education in the UK, stored
and exchanged as IMS Content Packages.
− IVIMEDS and IVINURS are international membership organisations
which collect and share learning materials for training, respectively,
medical and healthcare practitioners, and nurses.
Intrallect aims to help organisations such as universities, colleges, schools,
professional bodies and corporate to better manage their digital resources at
a strategic level.
Universities, colleges, schools, professional bodies and corporate
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Organisational features
The company specialises in helping organisations such as universities,
colleges, schools, professional bodies and corporate to better manage their
digital resources at a strategic level. Intrallect takes an independent
approach to developing intraLibrary through providing interoperability with
other key learning technologies. The company is an active contributor in the
development of industry standards.
Licensing
IntraLibrary is available under two license models. The "contributor" model
is designed for small projects or cross-organisation collaborations. The
software is licensed for any number of users, but the number of users who
may contribute resources or metadata to the repository, known as
"contributors", is constrained..
The institutional model is designed for adoption of intraLibrary by a whole
institution or organisation. In this model the number of contributors is not
constrained, and the price is based on the number of staff in the
organisation..
Rating.
Users can give a resource one to five stars. When looking at search results,
intraLibrary displays the average number of stars for the resource. Users can
also go in and look at all of the individual ratings and comments.
Access
Once users have found a resource they want to use, users can either
download it or they can create a Public URL link for it and put the link
where others can click on it to access the resource. A Public URL means
that users can give access to a resource held in the repository to someone
who doesn’t have a user account.
Contributions
IntraLibrary is usually licensed by the number of Contributors, with the
number of Users being unlimited. Users are only limited by the numbers of
Contributors on your licence. Contributors are able to place content within
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intraLibrary, whereas Users can access intraLibrary to view and download
content.
Software
IntraLibrary is commercial software, and is not released under any opensource license. However, Intrallect supports open standards of
interoperability. .
IntraLibrary:
It is Intrallect's Digital Object Repository that can manage collections of
learning objects on behalf of groups, without requiring a separate digital
library
IntraLibrary can be used for Business in order to:
make expensive resources easy to discover for all staff, across
departments and across multiple sites in the organisation
− avoid costly duplication of effort where staff “reinvent the wheel”
because they don’t know what content already exists
− maintain and update existing materials, whilst ensuring the quality of
new materials that are being produced
− provide clarity on how items can be used including any external digital
rights associated with them
− keep staff up to date with new digital learning content as and when it
becomes available
−
Contact Person
Knowledge Base
The Knowledge Base is intended as a source of general information
regarding Digital Repositories, including the wider learning environment in
which they operate. Resources include:
− White papers - a series of white papers addressing key issues including
the rationale for Digital Repositories, granularity of learning objects and
identifiers in metadata
− General articles - covering topics such as Creative Commons, DRM,
IPR and SCORM compliant content
− Research projects - a selection of major research projects Intrallect has
been commissioned to carry out
− Glossary - an invaluable glossary of specialised terms and acronyms in
use within E-learning and wider education in general.
Intrallect Limited
Regent House
Blackness Road
Linlithgow
EH49 7HU
U.K.
Phone: +44 (0) 870 234 3933
Fax: +44 (0) 1506 670 922
e-mail at enquiries@intrallect.com
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Name
Learning Resource Exchange for Schools (lreforschools)
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://lreforschools.eun.org/LRE-Portal/Index.iface
Europe
EUN
The LRE builds on work carried out in the large-scale, CALIBRATE,
MELT and ASPECT projects.
CALIBRATE was a project supported by the European Commission’s
Information Society Technologies (IST) Programme that ended in March
2008.
MELT was a project supported by the European Commission's eContentplus
Programme (ended in March 2009).
ASPECT is a Best Practice Network supported by the European
Commission's eContentplus Programme.
European Commission
2008 - ongoing
Not available
The LRE is responding to the wish of Ministries of Education to make ‘open
content’ more widely available to schools. As a first stage, the LRE is being
designed to make it easier for Ministries to share these resources and make
them more widely available across national borders. However, the LRE
system can also be adapted to support a range of standards-compliant rights’
management schemes and can accommodate a wide variety of content
distribution and business models. If required, for example, the LRE can also
support fully authenticated licensing models involving end-to-end
authenticated exchanges and complete tracking of end user actions.
Educators, pupils and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching and
learning.
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Structural features
The Learning Resource Exchange (LRE) is a portal for schools where users
can find open educational resources and assets from many different countries
and providers, including 17 Ministries of Education. From a technical
standpoint, it consists of an infrastructure that: Federates systems that
provide learning resources – e.g., learning resource repositories, authoring
tools – and Offers a seamless access to these resources by educational
systems that enable their use – e.g., educational portals, virtual learning
environments (VLEs). Over 130,000 learning resources/assets are currently
provided in the LRE including those from 17 Ministries of Education:
Austria, Belgium (Flemish-speaking community), Catalonia (Spain), Czech
Republic, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Ireland,
Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden. Content from France and
Portugal will also be included in the LRE shortly as part of the ASPECT
project. European Schoolnet and K.U. Leuven/ARIADNE Foundation and
commercial companies - such as Cambridge-Hitachi in the UK and
Skolavefurinn in Iceland also provide contents.
Additional content from LRE Associate Partners (such, OER Commons,
Promethean, Cité des Sciences...) is available online in the LRE website and
new Associate Partners from around the globe will be announced soon. Later
in 2009, the LRE will also provide opportunities for teachers to upload their
own resources.
Licensing
The vast majority of LRE content is provided under a Creative Commons
license.
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Strictly speaking, all the content that is available via the LRE portal can be
thought of as ‘learning objects’. In order to help users refine their searches,
however, a distinction is made between what is called learning assets and
learning resources.
Learning assets can be thought of as the single, multimedia assets or
components that are used to create learning resources including learning
objects - text, audio, still images, graphics and perhaps short video clips. On
their own, or grouped in collections, assets can be used to support learning in
a wide variety of contexts and may be particularly useful for teachers and
pupils who wish to create their own learning resources.
Contact Person
Learning resources can be thought of as a diverse group of digital
materials (often composed of several types of learning assets) that are
accessed online and that can range from simple hypertext pages, Java applets
and Flash animations, through to complex learning objects, web sites, online
projects, learning modules etc.
Users have to look for the subject they are interested in. For example: if
they searched for "Informatica /TIC" the system found 755 result(s). They
give users sort results by Popularity / Rating
email: lre-info@eun.org
post:
EUN Partnership aisbl
Rue de Trèves 61
B-1040 Brussels
Belgium
telephone: +32.2.790.75.75
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Name
Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online
Teaching - MERLOT
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://www.merlot.org/merlot/index.htm
California (USA)
Merlot enjoy the support of the following partners:
California State University Center for Distributed Learning (CSU-CDL at
www.cdl.edu);
System Partners and Affiliates: California Community College System;
Louisiana Board of Regents; Minnesota State Colleges and Universities;
Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education; South Dakota Board of
Regents; Tennessee Board of Regents; University of Michigan; University
of North Carolina System; University of Wisconsin System; Virginia
Community College System.
Campus Partners and Affiliates: Cornell University; Indiana State
University; Montana State University - Billings; Northern Michigan
University; Ohio State University, Queens College, City University of New
York; St. Petersburg College (Florida); Troy University; University of North
Dakota; Wesleyan University.
California State University Center for Distributed Learning (CSU-CDL at
www.cdl.edu)
1999 - ongoing
70352 members (18913 members of Science and Technology field).
MERLOT is committed to improving the effectiveness of teaching and
learning by expanding access to high quality teaching and learning materials
that can be easily incorporated into faculty-designed courses.
Faculty, students of higher education
MERLOT is a free and open resource designed primarily for faculty and
students of higher education. MERLOT is built on the collaboration of its
partners, community members, registered members, and users.
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Users features
Users can:
− contribute learning materials;
− create a personal collection;
− develop a personal profile;
− share his/her online expertise;
− receive peer recognition.
Technological features
MERLOT use the following technologies to develop their platform:
Mobile Search: MERLOT has partnered with BlackBerry to develop an
application to search MERLOT from your smart phone. The MERLOT
Mobile Search will allow users to search MERLOT virtually anywhere they
take their mobile phone.
Importing Materials to Collection: MERLOT supports batch processes for
members who wish to contribute large numbers of materials to our
collection. These processes allow users to add metadata about their digital
library into the MERLOT collection and enable people to discover their
materials through MERLOT, as well as their existing strategies.
RSS Feeds: RSS allows current MERLOT content to be displayed on
anyone's web site. With RSS, the content updates automatically given
additions to the MERLOT materials collection. The MERLOT RSS
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functionality has been created to allow controlled, distributed access to
MERLOT data for display on websites beyond MERLOT. The format is
designed to make it easy to incorporate MERLOT content into a large
number of websites, portals, and applications that otherwise would not be
able to display MERLOT content (or would have a much more difficult time
doing so). The content is displayed using the RSS format (a standards-based
XML format that has been widely accepted for the syndication of frequently
changing content such as news). Any material search completed in
MERLOT can be turned in to an RSS feed.
Federated Search: MERLOT's federated search technology allows users to
search a number of partner collections and digital libraries (including
MERLOT) at one time. These other digital libraries include NSDL, EdNA
Online, ARIADNE Foundation, NIME, ComPADRE, University of North
Carolina Professional Development Portal and the IEEE Computer Society.
Federated search can be thought of as one giant search engine, searching
across many collections at once, and returning results from all the collections
in one list. This allows users to get results from many collections at once
instead of going to each individually. Thus, the time it takes to find and
evaluate material can be significantly reduced. Search results are combined
into one hit list and sorted by relevance, title, or originating collection. All
results are presented in order of relevance, the relevance ranking being
defined by the search service provider.
Licensing: MERLOT’s content is licensed under Creative Common License
Learning materials: users have the possibility to download them, having also
peer review, personal collections, comments, assignment and author
snapshot. These tools are very useful to understand the quality and the
raking of the learning material itself.
Communities:
MERLOT has created a variety of Community Portals categorized by
discipline and program area to provide users with "one-stop shopping" for a
broad spectrum of resources related to online teaching and learning.
Community Portals provide MERLOT members with differentiated
information about exemplary teaching strategies professional associations,
journals, conferences, and other resources for continuous professional
development. MERLOT categorizes Community Portals as: Disciplines
communities (disciplines users will find in most colleges and universities);
Compass (list of open resources for users’ institution’s academic support
services and programs); Partner Communities.
Merlot Projects
COMPASS: MERLOT's Strategy for Institutions' Academic Support
Services. It is divided in four sections:
− The MERLOT Collection will include online materials that will help
managers, administrators, and leaders of educational institutions in
planning and implementation of their academic support services with
technology more effectively and more efficiently by providing easy
access to quality resources.
− The MERLOT Community will provide a collaborative venue for
comments, recommendations, and evaluations of the various online
resources and strategies for using technology for academic support
services. By building upon the value-added network of academic
leaders, campuses and their academic technology staffs can better
leverage resources and effective practices.
− MERLOT Consultation will provide experts to visit the campus and
provide support to MERLOT partners’ implementation of academic
support services using technology and MERLOT.
− MERLOT will Customize tools for planning and execution of projects
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with MERLOT partners to support the successfully and timely
implementation of an institution’s academic support services with
technology.
Contact Person
Merlot Programs:
− GLOBE (Global Learning Objects Brokered Exchange) is a consortium
of online services and tools that provide an integrated, worldwide search
of learning objects. The consortium was formed to provide a distributed
network of learning objects that meet quality standards. By sharing the
resources through a federated search, strategic alliances and technical
interfaces need only be made once, but all of GLOBE benefits from these
partnerships.
− ELIXR is intended to develop and test new collaborations amongst
faculty development centres and online resource repositories. The goal is
to create innovative models for the development, sharing and use of
discipline-oriented resources which illustrate exemplary teaching
practices and which also support faculty with exemplary learning objects
to help implement those practices with their students.
MERLOT
401 Golden Shore, 6th Floor
Long Beach CA 90802-4210
(562) 252-3553
Email: webmaster@merlot.org
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Name
Nordic Baltic Community for Open Education – Nord let
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://www.nordlet.org/
Baltic Countries
Nord let is promoted by the following academic institutions:
− The Finnish node and coordinator is the University of Jyvaskyla, a.
− The Norwegian node is Oslo University College assisted by a small
SME, Hypatia A/S..
− The Lithuanian node is Vytautas Magnus university,.
− The Icelandic node is Keilir - the Atlantic Centre of Excellence
− The Swedish node is Umeå University.
− The Danish node is University of Aarhus
− The Estonian node is Tallin University .
− The Latvian node is Riga Technical University,.
Not available
2009- ongoing
Not available
The main goal of the Nordlet project is to build a Nordic-Baltic network and
Community of Practice set to develop and harness a region-specific
perspective on the use of technology in Learning, Education and Training.
The common ground for the NORDLET Open Educational Community is to
provide a single cross-sector, cross-country access point to educational
resources within a dynamic network. Their focus is to promote sharing, reuse and enhancement of learning scenarios and learning resources across all
levels of the educational systems of the Nordplus countries. Furthermore, the
NORDLET community wants to follow the Nordic tradition of creating open
dynamic educational opportunities for all - providing networking and
technology tools to enhance cooperation and communication across
countries and sector boundaries to improve the exchange of educational
materials, pedagogical and technological expertise.
Organizations and people (educators, learners, teachers, decision makers and
researchers) willing to supporting the idea of Open Education and Open
Educational Resources (OER).
The community has been officially launched in Jan. 2009. The preparatory
activities are available on the website and in the corresponding Facebook
group. (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47334945518).
Collaboration and re-use regarding Open Educational Resources.
Officers NORDLET Consortium: Erlend Øverby (Høgskolen i Oslo), Tore
Hoel (Høgskolen i Oslo), Christian Dalsgaard (Aarhus Universitet), Peter
Karlberg (Sweden), Fredrik Paulsson (Sweden), Kati Clements (University
of Jyvaskyla)
webmaster@nordlet.org, info@nordlet.org
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Contact Person
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Name
Open Courseware Consortium
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://www.ocwconsortium.org/
USA (Massachusetts, MIT)
Consortium members belongs to the following Countries:
Afghanistan, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Colombia,
Costa Rica, Dominican Republic; France; Iran, Israel; Japan; Korea,
Lebanon; Mexico, Netherlands; Palestinian Territory; Peru, Puerto Rico;
Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia; South Africa; Spain; Switzerland;
Taiwan; Thailand; Turkey; United Kingdom; United States; Venezuela; Viet
Nam; Affiliate Organizations.
There are a number of ways to support the OpenCourseWare Consortium:
− Foundations – MIT's initial OpenCourseWare (OCW) project has started
with the financial support of the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation,
the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Ab Initio Software
Corporation. Many of the other OCW projects around the world are also
receiving foundational support.
− Individuals – The member institutions of the OpenCourseWare
Consortium have published their faculty's course materials freely and
openly. However, in order to sustain these projects long-term, they rely
on the financial support of those who support their mission to advance
global education. So, if users donate $50, $100, or $500, they enable
Consortium to continue to offer a high-quality publication of open
educational materials.
− Copyright holders – Most faculty include passages from books, quotes,
graphics, or images in their teaching materials that cannot be published
in an OCW environment due to copyright restrictions. So, a publisher of
books or software, or an owner the Intellectual Property rights to content
specifically referred to in an OCW-based course from any member of the
OpenCourseWare Consortium, could make a donation.
− Technology – While OCW projects are not technology projects, all the
OCW projects participating in the OpenCourseWare Consortium rely on
Web-based technologies to enable the open sharing of knowledge. It is
possible to support the Consortium through a donation of technology or
software.
2005
Not available. Data available refers to more than 50 OCW-like initiatives
underway at universities in the United States, and around the world.
An OpenCourseWare is a free and open digital publication of high quality
educational materials, organized as courses. The OpenCourseWare
Consortium is a collaboration of more than 200 higher education institutions
and associated organizations from around the world creating a broad and
deep body of open educational content using a shared model. The mission of
the OpenCourseWare Consortium is to advance education and empower
people worldwide through opencourseware.
Higher educations institutions, Universities, organizations.
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
OCW Framework
OCW is a concept developed at MIT by a faculty committee that posited that
the best way to advance education around the world was to share their
course materials openly and freely, utilizing the World Wide Web. The
OCW concept is a part of the larger open knowledge movement that
promotes free and unrestricted access to knowledge. An OCW site provides
open access to the primary teaching materials for courses taught at
educational institutions, enabling educators to draw on the materials for
teaching purposes, and students and self-learners to utilize the materials for
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the development of their personal knowledge in a particular subject area.
One of the milestone of this platform is the sharing, because Educators and
learners around the world benefit from access to OpenCourseWare (OCW),
and universities participating in the OpenCourseWare Consortium believe
providing global access to knowledge connects fundamentally with their
institutional missions.
Structural features
The platform is divided in three parts:
a) use: possibility to find course materials by browsing individual
OpenCourseWare sites or by searching across all courses. The groups
are divided by country, language and Institution name.
b) share: referring university’s courses (above described);
c) support: the OCW Movement (above described).
Users interaction
Blog and newsletters
Contact Person
Licensing
It is IP-cleared, meaning that the OCW publisher has the rights to make the
materials available under open terms and that nothing in the materials
infringes the copyrights of others.
An OCW site offers:
− publishing of course materials created by faculty (and sometimes other
colleagues or students) to support teaching and learning from at least 10
courses from a duly accredited institution;
− the materials free of charge for non-commercial use;
− universal access via Web;
− use, reuse, adaptation (derivative works), translation, and redistribution
of the materials by others.
feedback@ocwconsortium.org
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Name
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://schoolofeverything.com/
UK
The Young Foundation, charitable trust which carries on the work of
Michael Young, founder of Which Magazine and the Open University.
£350,000 seed funding from Esther Dyson (journalist), Rocco Pellegrinelli
(founder of Imaginventure), JP Rangaswami (economist and financial
journalist), the Young Foundation and Channel 4 Education.
2006 - ongoing
Not available
The School of Everything Ltd was founded in September 2006 by a group of
friends who wanted to reinvent education. They created it as a commercial
web start-up because that seemed like the best way to reach the widest
possible audience and create something which would have a lasting impact.
Their goal is to open up a huge and fertile space between the professional
and the amateur. A space where people teach what they know and learn what
they don't. It's this vision of a bottom-up learning system.
Teachers, students, everyone who is interested in this programme
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Contact Person
Structural features
School of everything is completely free and this is an important factor to
draw more users as possible. If a user become member, s/he gets the
possibility to contact anyone on School of Everything, discuss his/her
subjects and arrange to meet up and learn. Users can also see who's learning
what in his local area, start new subjects and invite their friends.. This
platform is like a virtual space, where everyone looks for what he wants to
learn and teach. Users can make their teaching profile: in this way they can
be contacted by others interested in their subject. There is no intermediation
between each other. This platform is diffused in UK, USA and many
European Countries with the maps about every country, so users can find
quickly the city where they need a teacher, if they want personal lessons.
Teachers register online and create a personal page giving information on
their lessons, the qualifications offered and the format in which they teach for example workshops or one-to-one sessions. Potential pupils find a tutor
who's right for them simply searching by subject, learning category and
location. They can then send them a message, arrange to meet and begin
learning their new subject. Users can charge what they like for teaching, or
share their skills for free - and unlike most schools, users can teach or learn
whatever want (as long as it's legal). There is the space for “advertising”:
this means that someone could create a teacher page and offer his skills to
the community and the world at large.
Subjects covered include: arts and crafts, changing the world, driving and
transports, environment, everything else, food & drink, games and hobbies,
home & lifestyle, IT & technology, languages, Mind, body and Spirit,
Music, performance & media, Sport & fitness, tutoring (Academic), Work &
business. Users can also join in the blog, where they can find all the
information from the other bloggers about many tasks. There are a forum, a
newsletter and users can share this platform with Twitter and Flickr.
Tel. +44 (0)20 8980 8435
School of Everything
18 Victoria Park Square
Bethnal Green
London
E2 9PF
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Name
Wikieducator
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
Sources of Funding
http://www.wikieducator.org/Main_Page
All Countries
Commonwealth of Learning (COL), Free Culture Movement,
William and Flora Hewlett Foundation gave $100,000 grant for the
Learning4Content project e cosa c’entra con wikieducator? spiegare
2006 – ongoing
September 2008: 5941 users.
Wikieducator aims to build a thriving and sustainable community of
practitioners and policy makers throughout the Commonwealth who have
the capacity to work collaboratively on the international development of free
content by leveraging the connections that are enabled by strategic networks
and relevant digital technologies.
Everyone user who could be interested in this field.
WikiEducator is a community project working collaboratively with the Free
Culture Movement towards a free content resources in support of all national
curricula by 2015. Driven by the learning for development agenda they focus
on: building capacity in the use of Mediawiki and related free software
technologies for mass-collaboration in the authoring of free content;
developing free content for use in schools, polytechnics, universities,
vocational education institutions and informal education settings; facilitating
the establishment of community networks and collaboration with existing
free content initiatives in education; fostering new technologies that will
widen access, improve quality and reduce the cost associated with providing
education, primarily through the use of free content. They work actively in
the social inclusion and participation of all people in their networked society
(Access to ICTs is a fundamental right of knowledge citizens - not an excuse
for using old technologies); in the freedoms of all educators to teach with the
technologies and contents of their choice, hence their commitment to
Free/Libre and Open Source technology tools and free content. That
educational content is unique - and by working together they can improve
the technologies they use as well as the reusability of digital learning
resources.
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Licensing: Wikieducator content is licensed under Creative Common
Attribution Share-Alike License.
Wikieducator offers the following services:
Community portal: it is a web space, where users can do many things as help
them to design and restructure access to WikiEducator content
Wikieducator tutorial: a support for user from a teacher/educator, who must
be able to develop free content for education.
Group discussions: they use a Google group to facilitate discussion around
WikiEducator. Some topics are for example: mini Online Workshop; web
research community service; getting into WE. The idea of group discussion
could be useful, because it allows to verify always the state of art about the
platform and users can suggest new ideas and new focuses.
Active working groups: Learning design work group; OER Policy Brief
work group; WikiEducator Workgroups; Technology Policy Workgroup.
This is very functional, because allows to users to find quickly the group
which is interested in and give the opportunity to skimming people who
work in this platform.
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Wikiversity: it is a community devoted to collaborative learning. They build
learning resources from the ground up and also link to existing internet
resources. Wikiversity uses wiki software, which makes collaboration easy.
Wikiversity participants are constantly improving the educational content of
Wikiversity's pages;
Connexions: place to view and share educational material made of small
knowledge chunks called modules that can be organized as courses, books,
reports, etc.;
Free-reading.net: is a high-quality, open-source, free reading intervention
program addressing literacy development for grades K-3.
Schools and teachers everywhere can use the complete, research-based 40week program for K-1 students, or use the library of lessons to supplement
existing curricula in phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary,
comprehension, and writing. The site is also filled with free, downloadable
supplemental materials including flashcards, graphical organizers, illustrated
readers, decodable texts, audio files, videos and more). Finally, there is a list
of projects by Country.
Contact Person
Interesting aspects of this platform include:
− The plan for the creation of a Pool of Quality Reviewers (instructional
designer pool), who would assure the quality of uploaded materials and
that its set standards are met.
− The available “Wishlist” to describe the growing list of community
needs, because it is like a way to monitor constantly the needs and the
wishes of the users.
Users must be registered to contact people who can help them. Anyway in
the http://www.wikieducator.org/Help:Contents is possible to find a list of
users to be contacted.
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OTHER RELEVANT PLATFORMS
Name
E practice
Website
http://www.epractice.eu/
Country/region
EU
Promoter(s)
European Commission
Sources of Funding
EU funds
Starting date
2007 - ongoing
About 11500 members
Objectives
The aims of ePractice.eu are:
to create a dynamic community of practitioners, driven by a participative
approach, which enables capacity building through proactive
dissemination, exchange and assessment of good practice in the
eGovernment, eHealth and eInclusion domains;
− to support users to share their real-life cases by publishing them on the
site;
− to give users the opportunity to meet peers from across Europe and
expand their professional networks by creating a personal profile;
− to show users how they can learn from the experience of others, rate and
comment on the published cases.
−
Target groups
Practitioners from EU, EU-member candidate states and EFTA countries
Main features
E practice Framework
It is an interactive EC exchange scheme for the professional community, to
empower its users to discuss and influence open government, policy-making
and the way public administrations operate and deliver services.
ePractice.eu is a platform to share good practices and news, meet peers, and
learn from each other in a target community of 50 000 practitioners who
value networking, good practice exchange and taking part in a community
of practice. It aims to enhance efficiency and effectiveness in public service
delivery areas, relevant subjects include:
− High impact online portals;
− Open Source and standardisation;
− Customer centricity;
− Organisational change and leadership;
− Service delivery;
− Laws and regulations.
Software features
The ePractice platform is based on open source software.
Languages features
The portal language is English, but users have the possibility to select
documents from the resource database in their own languages In the future,
e Practice should implement multilingual features.
Users interaction
− Communities which gather members with common interests, offering
messaging, blogging, calendar and document sharing tools as well as
networking opportunities. Communities are open and help ePractice.eu
users to connect even better with other peers to share knowledge and
news. Any ePractice.eu registered member can start a community or
voluntarily join one.
− Blog where all registered users can post opinions, questions and links to
news related to eGovernment, eInclusion and eHealth.
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The exchange process of ePractice.eu goes beyond the creation of a simple
case study database. The initiative includes:
− a web portal,
− a weekly newsletter,
− country factsheets: the ePractice eGovernment and eInclusion factsheets
provide an overall picture of the situation and progress of eGovernment
and eInclusion in 34 European countries (European Union, EU
candidates and EFTA countries);
− an online library: directory of documents on eGovernment, eInclusion
and eHealth;
− practitioner profiles,
− events calendar,
− TV: users can download short demo concerning issues on eGovernment,
eInclusion and eHealth;
− European Journal of ePractice.
Furthermore, ePractice offers a co-branding strategy to contribute to
provide visibility and know-how exchange to eGovernment, eHealth and
eInclusion events..
Contact Person
http://www.epractice.eu/contact
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Name
HELB Hungarian EUGA Leadership Board
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://www.helb.hu/
Hungary
Helb is promoted by the following members:
IT and ICT Industries:
Cisco Systems Hungary Ltd.; FreeSoft plc; Hewlett-Packard Hungary Ltd.;
Intel Hungary; Magyar Telekom plc; Microsoft Hungary Ltd.; Open SKM
Agency Kft.; rEVOLUTION Software Ltd; Számalk Ltd.; XAPT Hungary
Ltd.
Members of the Advisory Board: Enterprise Europe Network, Hungarian
Association of IT Companies, IT Coordination Forum, IQSOFT - John
Bryce Training Centre, Hungarian Association of Teachers for Informatics
(ISZE), John von Neumann Computer Society (NJSZT).
EU funds in line with the New Hungary Development Plan.
2005 - ongoing
Not available.
HELB’s mission is represent the needs and demands of the IT industry,
providing guidance for IT development objectives best serving the interests
of Hungary and by taking the lead in developing projects to implement such
objectives. More specifically, HELB’s aims are to:
− create synergy between resources, needs, potentials and the highest level
of skills,
− rely on ongoing dialogue in determining, formulating and representing
the IT development directions deemed right by the industry,
− represent the importance of IT development as a top priority for the
national economy with the government,
− initiate and closely monitor the development of specific and high-level
IT development programmes, their channelling, approval and
implementation,
− proactively mobilise the shared resources and skills of members and
advisory members for the shared objectives,
− collect, evaluate and utilise the experiences accumulated by peer
organisations and programmes already under way in the EU, while also
seeking to assume the role of the pioneer, to act as a model;
− motivate the present and future workforce to obtain e-skills and to
provide them with such skills,
− raise awareness of willingness by ICT professionals to learn and
improve their competence,
− extend the multi-stakeholder partnerships aimed at e-skills, increase
their efficiency to foster employment and productivity,
− provide support and forecasts about e-skills demands for the near future
in this rapidly changing technological and economic environment.
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
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The most important strategy focus points for the TITAN Framework
Programme aimed at developing ICT skills are as follows:
− European and international competitiveness of Hungarian businesses;
− transfer the expectations of the digital economy;
− acceleration of SMEs’ adaptation to the changing technologies;
− adjust the training culture of employers to the market demand;
− the levels and up-to-datedness of employees’ skills in line with the job;
− standardised accreditation and certification pillars;
− the minimisation of red tape and own funding in the tendering processes
for SMEs.
Users, IT industries, SME
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Main features
Contact Person
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Target features:
It has carried out a survey on how the Hungarian labour force is prepared
for Information Technology by GKIeNET Internet Research. This platform
is concerned especially for IT industries and ICT market. It shows
economic cutting and it is very useful to make the state of art about this
kind of market in Hungary.
TITAN (Training Frame Programme for Increased Adaptability of the
Information Society) Programme. It aims to make the state of art about the
demands of the market.
It offers a constant monitoring of the quality of training, provide the
potential to train IT specialists efficiently and to high standards and
tendering, implementation and monitoring should be carried out on the
government and the participants’ side. The TITAN programme recognises
and provides an integrated approach to the different e-skills levels existing
in society.
Subprogramme I: PROTEUS – Competitiveness and reaching the cutting
edge. The objective is to reduce the multiple skills shortages in the ICT
sector, by IT-Pro people trained in line with the market demand, to high
standards and in a diversified manner, to rapidly improve the
competitiveness of ICT-intensive business in Hungary.
Subprogramme II. DIG-IT– Digital economy and the strengthening of the
SME sector. The objective is to improve the competitiveness of the
Hungarian SME sector by providing decision-makers in the sector with
ICT-focused training in business and more up-to-date skills in e-business.
Subprogramme III DIG-IT-ALL programme – E-inclusion with an
employability focus. Training of digitally illiterate employees and potential
employees or those with basic IT skills, to assist them in getting better jobs
and positions, to foster start-up e-businesses.
Between 2009 and 2012, the TITAN Frame Programme intends to present
model results to the above-mentioned objectives of the Pan-European
Employability Alliance and the national programmes in different stages in
European member states.
Secretariat of HELB Foundation:
Phone: +36/30-657-8066
Fax: +36/30-697-8605
E-mail: secretariat@helb.hu
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Name
Digital creator
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://www.digitalcreator.ie/
Ireland
Dun Laoghaire Institute of Art, Design and Technology [IADT]
(http://www.iadt.ie/en/)
Not available.
Not available
Not available
The main objectives are:
− Building a new and funny brand to help people who want to improve
their skills about digital media;
− encouraging learners to create real life digital media projects that build
into an innovative digital assessment e-portfolio.
People who would create and edit their own digital videos, add their own
sound track and effects. Individuals interested in using a digital camera to
take photo's in different ways and then learn techniques on how to improve
them. Users involved in digital animation.
The courses provided by Digital Creator look simple and easy to follow,
because users can take one step at a time, as well as instructions can be
listened to or watched: in fact users can even download them onto their iPod
or MP3 player.
Digital Creator staff is 24 hours a day on line available to help users.
users can gain access to all their work 24 hours a day, so they are free to
choose when to work on their projects.
as users progress Digital Creator staff will help them showing examples of
what they are aiming to achieve to support users check their own
understanding as they go along.
The Digital Creator Award has been designed to fulfil the educational needs
of a large group of learners who wish to attain accreditation for the creative
use of digital media associated with a variety of digital devices they own and
use on a daily basis in and out of educational establishments. It is broken
down into 8 units. The first five concentrate on creativity and the last three
on how users can share their work.
− Unit A // Digital Audio: to learn what digital audio, what the different
formats mean and how things like mp3's work and can be shared. Users
will also learn how to create and edit their own music from scratch,
without having to play an instrument. Digital Creator will also show
them how to share all their work in different ways (like on their iPod)
once it's completed;
− Unit B // Digital Still Images: to get a better understanding of how
digital photo's work and how users can improve the way they take them.
Users can learn how to enhance, edit and play with their photo's with
some great and funny techniques;
− Unit C // Moving Image Language: to become a budding film maker or
just dazzle users’ friends by learning all about the language used in film
production, from finding out about camera movements and positions to
the different colours and effects that can be added to create users’ own;
− Unit D // Digital Video: to learn all about digital video and how it works
- including how to capture, store, edit and share your videos. It will be
shown users editing techniques and they'll create their films for family,
friends or to start their way on a career in film;
− Unit E // Storytelling with Animation: to learn how to create impressive
animations. They will understand all they need to know about timing,
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
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movement and combining sound;
Unit F // Sharing with Optical Media: to learn about different optical
media, such as DVD and Blue-Ray and how they can publish their work
onto them so they be played on a computer or DVD player;
− Unit G // Sharing on the Internet: to learn how to share their work on the
internet, by putting their projects onto websites, setting up links to their
work, downloading podcasts, etc.
− Unit H // Sharing using Multimedia Presentations: to learn how users can
use their own creations for making a presentation to different groups of
people.
−
Contact Person
Courses offered by Digital Creator are recognized as an international
qualification. Users interested in those products, above described, don’t
need to have exams or tests to take.
Email: qualifications@digitalcreator.ie
Telephone: Tel: +353 1 2144990
Fax: +353 1 2144991Ciaran McCormack
Digital Creator Ireland
Suite 101,
The Media Cube
Kill Ave, Dun Laoghaire, Co. Dublin
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Name
e-skills UK
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://www.e-skills.com/
UK
Digital Britain’s project (UK government);
Coordinating Board: IT & Telecoms Industry Board; UK Businesses
Board;
Steering Group:
− ABF (Awarding Body Forum) - representing the Regulatory Authorities
and Awarding Bodies for IT (users and professionals) and Telecoms;
− ADSG (Academy Development Steering Group) - overseeing planning
for the creation of the National Skills Academy for IT;
− e-skills internship Steering Group - monitoring the pilot of the
professional placement;
− e-skills Professional Programme Employer Advisory Group – supporting
development of the programme to fast-track the careers of new IT
professionals;
− Future Talent Employer Group- offering support and guidance to e-skills
UK's programmes in schools;
− ICTSAG (ICT Skills Action Group)-focusing on the skills needs of the
UK IT and Telecommunications sector;
− ITMB Employer Strategy Forum - enabling employer interaction on the
IT Management for Business degree;
− Welsh Employers Forum - bringing together employers and government
to address IT user skills in Wales.
Partners: British Computer Society; Connect; Confederation of British
Industry; Federation of Small Businesses; Institution of Engineering and
Technology; Intellect; National Computing Centre; SFEDI
It is a legal entity governed by a board which are primarily government
funded agencies/offices either directly or indirectly funded through awarding
contracts by governments for the performance of specific services.
2000 - ongoing
Not available
The main objectives are:
− bringing together employers, educators and government and unite them
on a common employer-led agenda for action on skills;
− creating a skills pool in the UK that enables the unrestricted growth of IT
and Telecoms, with the whole economy benefiting from the opportunities
offered by technology exploitation.
Small and Medium enterprises; private actors; students; business people;
employers who want to learn about e-skills; others.
eSkills UK's mission is to ensure the UK has the skills for Digital Britain.
eSkills UK works on behalf of employers to ensure the UK has the
technology skills it needs to succeed in a global digital economy. e-skills UK
brings together employers, educators and Government to address together
the technology-related skills issues no one party can solve on its own. It
provides advice, services and programmes that have a measurable impact on
IT related skills development in the UK.
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
Through its two Employer Boards, e-skills UK engages business leaders at
the most senior level to provide strategic guidance to the company and
employer leadership on behalf of their communities.
eSkills UK offers a wide variety of learning products and services related to
the development of e-skills as explored in the section below.
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eSkills UK offers different programmes, as follows:
e-skills Passports: a way to control all aspects of skills management and
training across user’s organization. e-skills Passport Office allows them
to customize and manage e-skills Passport across their organization. It is
a simple-to-use, online skills management tool that enables an
organization or training provider to: assess current IT user skills; set
learning targets; identify skills gaps; plan more effective learning; and
record staff improvement. (Over 15, 000 people from more than 800
companies are already using e-skills Passport to identify skills needs and
boost productivity).
− ITQ: is fully integrated with e-skills Passports and it is an innovative
qualification structure that is unique in being based on the IT user skills
which employers define as essential for particular jobs. Attainments are
recorded on an e-skills Passport so employers, present and future, know
exactly the skills a member of staff has achieved. This should give
employers and trainers a reference point for designing the most
appropriate ITQ courses for the employee’s and the business’s future.
− The Business IT Guide (www.e-skills.com/bitg): this online tool is
designed to help small businesses identify ICT that could help their
business, through a wide range of high quality business IT advice, and to
support them in taking action.
− Diploma in IT (www.e-skills.com/diploma): it is an interesting and
flexible qualification for 14-19 year olds, designed in partnership with
universities and employers. It reflects the blend of business, technical
and interpersonal skills needed in modern IT professional roles. The
Diploma in IT wants to prepare young people for further study or work
through a blend of theoretical and applied learning.
− BigAmbition (www.bigambition.co.uk): BigAmbition is a program
whose primary strategy is to attract teenagers towards education and
careers
within
the
IT
sector.
The initiative focuses on helping 14-19 year olds make informed choices
in an inspiring and accessible way – stimulating demand among young
people for technology-related degrees and careers plus improving the
gender imbalance in IT. They offer a huge range of interactive features as
well as articles about specifically targeted technology relevant to the
teenage audience – social networking, gaming, fashion, music and so on
– in order to show young people that technology forms a crucial element
to their lives and that careers in IT can be both relevant and rewarding.
They also have university, company and employee profiles which
showcase a number of companies, their inspirational uses of technology
and some of the people behind that technology. In addition, there is a
section of the website dedicated to a staff room facility, so that teachers
are able to utilize a separate function from a classroom and monitor the
students’ careers progression route from their login area etc.
− Bring IT ON (www.bringitonni.info): it is similar to Big Ambition
programme. It is also is an IT careers attractiveness, targeted to teen
agers.
− e-skills careers (www.e-skills.com/careers): It is a useful link, where
users can find out all the information available regarding the ICT labour
market. It is divided in following sectors: Job roles (written job profiles
and a selection of short video interviews with IT and Telecoms
professionals and apprentices; animated showcase of IT in the
workplace, aimed particularly at younger people). Here is also a sector
dedicated to IT and to Telecoms industry and users can look for more
information looking at IT careers videos (Video interviews with IT
professionals) and IT job roles (Descriptions of different occupations,
written by IT professionals). There also these programmes of action
−
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Contact Person
made by a partnerships between government and private, public and
voluntary sectors to address the gender imbalance within the IT and
Telecoms workforce, as follows:
− CC4G - The award-winning Computer Clubs for Girls programme
developed by e-skills UK is changing the way girls think about
technology and IT careers;
− Women in IT forum - Intellect's Women in IT forum seeks to inspire,
lead and influence the action to increase the number of women in
IT. (www.intellectuk.org/women).
− ITMB Degree (www.e-skills.com/itmb): Management for Business is a
degree designed by some of the biggest employers in the IT industry.
Develop the skills needed for a successful career in IT.
− Apprenticeships: they are an integrated programme of learning leading
to the acquisition and application of the skills , knowledge and
understanding required by employers. An Apprenticeship is made up of:
an NVQ (National Vocational Qualification) or SVQ (Scottish
Vocational Qualification), which demonstrates the apprentice's
competence in their job role. N/SVQs are based on e-skills UK's
employer defined National Occupational Standards (NOS); Key or Core
Skills, which give the apprentice the generic skills they will need in
business (e.g. Communication, Numeracy, Problem Solving); The
technical knowledge which underpins the apprentice's job role. This is a
broad based qualification that can be integrated with your in-house
training and other relevant technical qualifications (e.g. Microsoft, Cisco,
Oracle); Employment Rights and Responsibilities (ERR) which is not
formally assessed, but ensures that an Apprentice knows the key rights
and responsibilities they have whilst at work.
− e-skills PROCOM
(http://www.e-skills.com/Skills-Frameworks/1906): e-skills procom is
the basis for e-skills UK's work to reform and simplify the qualifications
map for IT professionals. It will help IT professionals to achieve
recognition for their skills, and employers to plan training and
development. It is also helping providers of education and training to
develop new courses to meet the needs of different IT disciplines.
info@e-skills.com;
e-skills UK
1 Castle Lane
London
SW1E 6DR
Tel: 0207 963 8920
Fax: 0207 592 9138
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Name
Itrain - online
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://www.itrainonline.org/itrainonline/english/index.shtml
International partnerships.
The Partners are:
− Association for Progressive Communications (APC);
− Bellanet International Secretariat; FAO;
− International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD);
− International Network for the Availability of Scientific Publications
(INASP);
− Oneworld Network; Telecentre.org; UNESCO;
− Alternatives (Canada);
− AMARC (International);
− APC Women's Networking Support Programme (International);
− Making IT Work for Volunteers (Canada);
− Panos Institute - West Africa;
− Wamani (Argentina);
− Women'sNet (South Africa);
− Radio for Development (UK);
Founders: infoDev (USA), DFID (UK), DGIS (DE), IDRC (CA) and OSI
(USA).
Not available
Not available
ItrainOnline aims:
− to provide a selection of the best and most relevant computer and Internet
training resources for development and social change;
− to provide access to high quality and appropriate information that is
suited to the ways development organizations and civil society groups in
the South learn about and use ICTs;
− to concentrate on training and "how-to" guides for development
organizations and civil society groups;
− to promote the free and fair sharing of development information.
Civil society organizations (CSOs) and other development actors; people
and know-how with the needs of ICT learners and trainers.
This platform focuses mainly on the importance of the materials and
annotated links to high-quality resources in English, Spanish, French and
other languages, on topics ranging from computer and Internet basics to
highly technical areas and the ways that civil society and development
organizations can increase their impact using these tools.
ItrainOnline offers many Courses. Some examples are below:
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
Main features
BASIC SKILLS:
− Computer Basics: Resources to help users to understand how their
computer work, how to maintain computers and use them safely, and
how to protect their computer from viruses.
− Office Productivity Software: users can find articles and tutorials which
will help them use common office productivity software such as MS
Word and Excel. Users will also find information on Open Source
alternatives to mainstream commercial software.
− Internet and E-mail Basics: it contains a number of resources on Internet
and e-mail basics, selected for their clarity and ease of use. Topics
covered range from general introductions to the Internet, to guidance on
specific tools such as e-mail and web browsers.
− Finding Information Online: Finding useful information on the Internet
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requires a combination of familiarity with the search tools and resources
available, an understanding of search strategies and language, and
persistence. This ItrainOnline section aims to provide tools and resources
to help guide users find the information they need, and to evaluate the
quality of that information.
STRATEGIC USE:
− Strategic Use of the Internet: Topics include using the Internet for
activism, knowledge management, conducting research online, and
strategic technology planning.
− Building Online Communities: Internet-based group collaboration tools
range from simple e-mail to sophisticated multimedia environments. The
resources of this section should help users to choose and use appropriate
software for their groups and help them develop the facilitation skills
needed to build an online community; Multilingual Computing; Open
Source and Open Content.
WEB DEVELOPMENT:
− Web Design: Resources to take users through the whole process of
designing a web site, from learning HTML and page design tools, to
designing usable web sites and writing for the web.
− Web Site Management: Resources relating to the ongoing management
and maintenance of web sites, including site promotion, evaluating sites
and using web statistics, web servers, and site security and privacy.
− Web Site Usability and Accessibility: Resources to help users make their
site easy-to-use and accessible to the widest possible range of users.
Topics include usability and usability testing, writing for the web, and
designing for accessibility.
− Web Programming: Web programming allows users to add greater
interactivity to the visitors of their site. This section will take users to
resources ranging from basic topics such as JavaScript and style sheets
(CSS) to programming languages such as PHP and ASP.
− Databases: Databases are an important tool for managing information,
keeping track of contacts and projects, sharing information with remote
users, and even automating the updating of your web site. This section
provides resources on databases from basic to advanced levels, including
information on content management systems.
MULTIMEDIA:
− Audio Online: offers resources on the general, technical and content
aspects of taking audio online and broadcasting via the web.
− Video Online: provides general information about the current
applications and future opportunities of video on the Internet. These links
will introduce users to new multimedia terms, help them understand
different online video formats and highlight innovative examples of
websites that successfully use video.
− Community Radio: provides resources on community radio basics,
technical tips and tricks, along with programming ideas and resources.
− Telecentres: points to resources on setting up, sustaining and evaluating
telecentres, or "community multimedia centres", as they are sometimes
known.
TECHNICAL:
− Online Security: points to materials which will be of use to both those
new to online security and privacy issues, as well to more advanced
users. Topics covered include viruses, network and server security,
encryption, and Internet security in the workplace.
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−
Computer Networking: the term "computer network" can refer to
anything from two computers connected together, to large-scale Local
Area Networks (LANs), to the Internet itself - the "network of networks."
This page offers a small collection of links to introductory and general
resources on the topic.
− Wireless Networking: the high cost of conventional "wired"
infrastructure is an obstacle to those looking to harness the potential of
ICTs for development and social change. Wireless technologies offer
tested, low-cost options to complement conventional infrastructure.
− Web Programming: allows users to add greater interactivity to the
visitors of their site. This section will take users to resources ranging
from basic topics such as JavaScript and style sheets (CSS) to
programming languages such as PHP and ASP.
RESOURCES FOR TRAINERS:
− Effective Training: resources to help users to become a more effective
trainer and develop training strategies for their organization.
− Topic-Specific Resources: Annotated links to resources on specific
topics, from Internet basics to advanced technical skills. All resources
listed include materials specifically for trainers, such as handouts, slide
shows, and workshop outlines; ItrainOnline MMTK: The Multimedia
Training Kit is a series of modular training materials for use in
workshops developed by ItrainOnline partners and others. The materials
share a common easy-to-use format, and are freely available for noncommercial use.
Contact Person
RESOURCES FOR WOMEN. It offers links to resources specifically
targeted at women. The resources are divided into the following categories:
− General women- and gender-related training resources;
− Women-focussed ICTs resources grouped by topic;
− All these courses are available in the following languages: Albanian;
Bosnian; Czech; French; Portuguese; Serbian; Spanish.
resource.centre@apc.org
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Name
Skillnets
Website
Country/region
Promoter(s)
http://www.skillnets.com/
Ireland
Founded by the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment from the
resources of the National Training Fund. Promoted by the Industry
Associations and Federations, Chambers of commerce (i.e. employer
organisations) or Trade unions (employee organisations). Individual
companies; Specific companies (to which their members subscribe).
The Skillnets network programmes receive grants drawn from the National
Training Fund thereby enabling network member companies to avail of
significant discounts on market training rates. The member companies also
contribute to the grant aided programme with match funding to a ratio
agreed by the network.
1999- ongoing
Number not available. Skillnets has facilitated over 18,000 Irish enterprises,
in over 200 networks to improve the range, scope and quality of training and
allowed over 150,000 employees to up skill and meet their work related
training needs.
The objectives of Skillnets are:
− promoting and facilitating of in employment training and up skilling as
key elements in sustaining Ireland's national competitiveness;
− supporting and funding networks of enterprises to engage in training
under the Training Networks Programme.
Stakeholders: Chambers Ireland; Congress; Construction Industry
Federation; Small Firms Associations; Irish Business Employers
Confederation; Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment Any
group of enterprises or any enterprise-led association.
Skillnets offers the following programs:
− Training Networks Programme: group of three or more enterprises that
decide to cooperate as a group in order to a establish an industry training
programme or undertake an industry initiative that individual members of
the group would be unable to undertake as successfully acting alone.
− Learning Network Activity: engagement of network companies;
provision of staff, office facilities and administration required for
network activities; provision of accounting services necessary to manage
and administer network grants and network matching funds; analysis of
training needs of individuals, enterprises, sectors or regions; provision,
development and customisation of training programmes for managers
and staff within enterprises; commissioning of trainers to design, deliver
and evaluate training for network members; engagement of industry and
training and development experts to assist in the development and
carrying out of learning activities within the network; best practice visits,
case studies, networking events and other inter-firm learning activities;
networking events and activities including workshops, seminars and
conferences; provision of inter-firm mentoring, coaching and other
knowledge transfer activities; publication and promotion of new training
materials and information; development and administration of
certification within the context of the National Qualifications
Framework; development of methodologies, tools and materials to
support best training practice; surveys, studies and evaluations of the
impact of network activities of business performance and staff
development; development of strategic partnerships between enterprises,
providers, industry bodes and certification awards bodies; development
of training and development plans, processes and people (decision
Sources of Funding
Starting date
Objectives
Target groups
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makers, trainers and staff ) within enterprises to improve the internal
capacity of firms to identify and meet training needs; development of
processes at sector or regional level to provide strategic support and
direction for skills development to meet future market needs and
competitive challenges.
Contact Person
Networks types: Networks for Sectors; Networks for Small Business;
Skillnets for Regions. Skillsnets News Edition available four times a year.
List of the main networks built by Skillnets
Skillnets Ltd.,5th Floor, Q House, Furze Road, Sandyford, Dublin 18
Tel: + 353 1 2079630; Fax: +353 1 2079631
General Information: info@skillnets.com
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State of Play, Trends and Developments in Europe

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