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eLearning Papers
Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

Special edition 2008
http:// www.elearningpapers.eu
Editorial
Roberto Carneiro and Llus Tarn
Articles
HELIOS: Redefining eLearning Territories Claudio Delrio and Thomas Fischer Observing the eLearning phenomenon: The case of school education. Analysing the transformative innovation of eLearning Nikitas Kastis Open Educational Resources and Practices Sandra Schaffert and Guntram Geser Communities of Practice and virtual learning communities: benefits, barriers and success factors Patricia Margaret Gannon-Leary and Elsa Fontainha Digital Inclusion: Best practices from eLearning David Casacuberta
eLearning Papers is a digital publication created as part of the elearningeuropa.info portal. The portal is an initiative of the European Commission to promote the use of multimedia technologies and Internet at the service of education and training.
eLearning Papers
Edition and production
Name of the publication: eLearning Papers Edited by: P.A.U. Education, S.L. Postal address: P.A.U. Education, C/ Muntaner 262, 3, 08021 Barcelona, Spain Telephone: +34 933 670 400 Editorial team coordination: Elina Jokisalo Email: editorial@elearningeuropa.info Internet: www.elearningpapers.eu
The texts published in this journal, unless otherwise indicated, are subject to a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-NoDerivativeWorks 2.5 licence. They may be copied, distributed and broadcast provided that the author and the e-journal that publishes them, eLearning Papers, are cited. Commercial use and derivative works are not permitted. The full licence can be consulted on http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/deed.en
eLearning Papers | 2008
Editorial

Since 2006, when the digital eLearning Papers was launched, we have brought to readers articles showcasing different topics related to ICT in lifelong learning. Different aspects of these topics have been presented in our themed issues: inclusive eLearning; blended learning projects and initiatives; quality aspects of eLearning; observing eLearning; learning in communities of practice and, recently, learning in intercultural environments. Articles are provided by the very readers of the elearningeuropa.info portal who are interested in disseminating their work among their peers through our publication. It is worth mentioning that eLearning Papers provides readers with a very special feature: full texts are available in English and executive summaries of each article are translated in 19 languages. Moreover, the open online access of the publication enables a wide dissemination and visibility of the selected essays. This special printed edition is a collection of five selected articles published during the past year in the digital eLearning Papers. The editorial board has considered these articles of special interest to readers, and wishes to contribute with this initiative to the diffusion of knowledge and good practices in eLearning. Use of ICT for learning and training provokes a wide interest among different stakeholders, not only for its innovative character and ability to present novelties, but also for its social impact. The article HELIOS: Redefining eLearning Territories shows precisely and clearly different areas of impact of eLearning. In fact, the classification by territories seeks to go beyond the classical divisions by sectors and describes the phenomenon as 12 territories that develop in a multidimensional way. The authors, Claudio Delrio and Thomas Fischer, define it the best: Instead of focusing on unidirectional laws of evolution, taking a descriptive and inductive approach and attempting to insulate and spot coherent areas of eLearning, it is probably more appropriate to capture a multiform phenomenon such as eLearning. The eLearning territories are like additional layers of differentiation and articulation of ICT in lifelong learning. This enables us to understand better actual dynamics and future developments of eLearning. Using the scheme and dynamics provided by eLearning territories, the article by Nikitas Kastis centres on the school environment and on how it is affected by the transforming innovation of eLearning. The described perspective takes into account three strategic evolution dimensions: that related to decision-making processes (running of schools); that related to accessibility level in relation to the achievement of a standard quality and, finally, the emerging inter-twinning fields of professional teacher development and the value chain of content. The territory of content is often associated with the effectiveness of learning. The article Open Educational Resources and Practices by Sandra Schaffert and Guntram Geser describes the OLCOS project (Open eLearning Content Observatory Services). The authors clearly present how open resources can turn into one of the key elements of learning and training processes. The innovative learning practices that relay on open access and exchange and evaluation of ideas reinforce without a doubt the creative aspects of collaborative learning among students. The collaborative creation of content and the exchange of open resources among learning communities is the true catalyst of learning innovations. Furthermore, virtual learning communities and communities of practice can be considered as one of the territories obtaining growing attention and interest in recent years. Patricia Gannon-Leary and Elsa Fontainha present in their article the nature of this kind of networks formed by people with similar interest areas and people who use Internet for communication. Undoubtedly communities of practice and learning communities face problems, especially in the initial phase; however, we are most certainly looking at a phenomenon that possesses a great social impact and with a long future. To conclude the issue, the article by David Casacuberta provides us with an insight into another key territory: social inclusion. The article Digital Inclusion: Best practices from eLearning describes the five most promising strategies to establish best practices for the use of eLearning in eInclusion. The battle against the digital gap has many fronts and all of them deserve the highest possible attention. We hope you enjoy reading these and the other articles always available at eLearning Papers!
Roberto Carneiro,
Director of the Editorial Board, eLearning Papers
Llus Tarn,
Content Manager, elearningeuropa.info
Promoting innovation in lifelong learning 1
HELIOS: Redefining eLearning Territories

Claudio Delrio Researcher SCIENTER cdelrio@scienter.org Thomas Fischer Senior Researcher FIM-NewLearning, Friedrich-Alexander-Universitt Erlangen-Nrnberg thomas.fischer@fim.uni-erlangen.de
Executive summary:
For a long time, the evolution of industrial society has been represented in terms of growing functional differentiation between different social spheres. According to this paradigm, the more a social phenomenon is developing, the more it moves from an undifferentiated nature to its distinction in different social spheres or systems, assuming varied functions in each of these. Thus, it could very well be true that the evolution of eLearning over recent years has corresponded to its functional differentiation. However, it is not possible to assume that the only divisions of evolution for eLearning are to be associated purely with functional differentiation in social sub-systems. Many other possible divisions are emerging (e.g. by sector, purpose and target group) and have contributed to a growing differentiation of eLearning. Moreover, technology enables an increasing number of scenarios of use; eLearning has been often associated to face to face learning in blended formats, and country-specific eLearning developments can be identified. Instead of focusing on unidirectional laws of evolution, taking a descriptive and inductive approach and attempting to insulate and spot coherent areas of eLearning, it is probably more appropriate to capture a multiform phenomenon such as eLearning. Therefore, this article presents the so-called eLearning Territories, created by the HELIOS consortium. The eLearning Territories are considered useful for several reasons: They help to overcome views on purely functional differentiations of eLearning and its development; They contribute to overcome the debate on the disappearance versus full deployment of eLearning, as it is argued that eLearning is at different evolutionary stages in different territories; They provide a platform for dialogue for practitioners and policy-makers, and they are expected to nurture the research agenda of researchers; They support networking, coordination and integration among sectoral, specialised and national observatories and projects; They promote benchlearning, as they suggest a shift from comparative assessments towards reflective and adaptive analysis; They therefore contribute to the identification and collection of relevant indicators on eLearning development and impact within each territory. They can finally be used as a roadmap for e-earning developments, starting from a territorial, instead of an aggregating, position.
Keywords:
eLearning, eLearning Territories, evolution, mapping, observation
Introduction
In Greek mythology, Proteus is the son of Poseidon. He is blessed by the gift to be able to foretell the future, but first you have to catch him. This may be difficult as he is also able to change his appearance into all possible forms. Hence the word protean, with the general meaning of versatile, mutable, capable of
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assuming many forms, is introduced to describe the current eLearning phenomena. It can be argued that the evolution of eLearning over recent years mirrors its protean nature. And it is furthermore difficult to predict in a univocal way its evolution as it is taking many different forms in
different contexts, settings and individual and societal life worlds. For long time social scientists as mile Durkheim (1893) conceptualised the continued development of industrial society in terms of growing functional differentiation among different social spheres. According to this paradigm, the more a social phenomenon is developing, the more it moves from an undifferentiated nature to its distinction in different social spheres or systems (for instance the economic or the political sphere) assuming varied functions in each of these. Following this theoretical approach, it might be indeed true that the evolution of eLearning over recent years has corresponded to its functional differentiation. Certainly eLearning takes different forms, for instance, in different learning systems and their sub-systems (e.g. vocational training, corporate, education). However, a purely functionalist approach is not sufficient to seize the poliedricity of eLearning in complex societies (Luhmann, 1995). Among the several criticisms that have been raised to the functionalist approach (Coser, 1977), one is definitely central for eLearning: it is not possible to assume that the only cleavages of evolution for eLearning are to be associated purely with functional differentiation in social sub systems. Many other possible cleavages are emerging. Not only a rich debate, numerous documented practice cases and a growing amount of literature have enhanced (and at the same time threatened) the concept of eLearning by associating it to more established modes of learning, giving origin to the so-called blended learning approach. At the same time varying fields of application (e.g. by sector, by purpose, by target group) have contributed to a growing articulation and differentiation of eLearning. Moreover, these developments take place in a context where technology enables an increasing number of scenarios of use. Finally, country specific eLearning developments can be identified (Danish Technological Institute, 2004; L-CHANGE, 2004; Demunter, 2005, 2006; HELIOS, 2006).
developing a map of so-called eLearning Territories, which are still largely unexplored (Salmon, 2002). Some of the eLearning territories are already in the consolidation phase, while others are currently emerging. Some are clustered according to their purpose, some other according to the education or training sector in which they are mainly observable, and others are of more transversal nature. Every territory implies different visions and perceptions of eLearning, sometimes with rather permeable boundaries but also with clear identities that provide analytical ground for differentiation. All the emerging and consolidated territories of eLearning can be represented graphically according to their position on a map defined by a first continuum ranging from formal learning to informal/non-formal learning (Commission of the European Communities, 2000; CEDEFOP, 2002, 2004). Some of the territories still reflect the traditional articulation of learning systems into sectors and their physiognomy is influenced, but not overturned by eLearning. In contexts such as ICT for Learning Purposes within Schools or in Vocational Education and Training (VET), despite the introduction of eLearning (indeed with a varying degree of implementation) the vast majority of learning initiatives occur in a context that is organised and structured in a substantially formal and traditional way. On the other hand in territories as Non professional eLearning Communities or in Communities generating eLearning as a side effect, eLearning is usually not organised or structured, nor necessarily intentional from the learners perspective. One might therefore argue that informal eLearning (Conner, 2005; Cross, 2003;) sometimes circumscribed as GoogleLearning defines the vast and almost infinite universe of informal learning activities. Moreover, especially in the territories in which informal eLearning prevails, online services look increasingly centred on their users, or even are co-built with users, supported by the emergence of open source software and contents (such as Second Life, creative commons, YouTube or Flickr). Successful blogs, vlogs, podcasts, virtual communities and forums are indeed those, which are created bottom-up by individual or groups of netizens (Tapscott, 1999; Downes, 2005; Stephenson, 2005; Veen, 2005) and not imposed from the top. Another discriminating cleavage or continuum which may be useful for mapping eLearning territories is the distinction between intra-muros embodying the transition to a virtual environment of a group established in presence, and extended learning context, representing a diversification of learning contexts, settings, persons and organisations involved. There is nowadays a widespread pressure on learning systems towards openness, internationalisation,
How to catch proteus eLearning in contemporary societies?

Instead of focusing on presumably unidirectional laws of evolution taking a descriptive and inductive approach and attempting to insulate and spot coherent areas of eLearning, not necessarily corresponding to traditional segmentations related to the functional differentiation paradigm, seems to be more adequate. The HELIOS consortium (HELIOS, 2006) attempts to escape simplistic views of eLearning differentiation by
enrichment and increasing boundlessness of learning contexts. Along these lines, the extension of eLearning contexts corresponds, for instance, to such trends as the increase of international virtual mobility exchanges and the multiplication of learning spaces and arenas (Stephenson, 2005; LEONIE, 2005). The extension of learning contexts should be also appreciated in the framework of the Lifelong Learning (LLL) paradigm. Due to the increased participation in
learning and the improved flexibility of the learning delivery, there is an increasing societal diversification of learning patrimonies (POLE, 2004) or learning contexts surrounding learning experiences. This diversification can be seen on the basis of such elements as (Sheinberg, 2001): Physical features: age, gender, disabilities; Educational background: fields of study, degrees earned, digital literacy;
Figure 1: HELIOS Map of eLearning Territories
Informal Learning
Individual Development through eLearning
Communities generating eLearning as a side effect
eLearning at the Workplace
Non-professional eLearning Communities
Virtual Professional Networks
Intra-muros
ICT for Learning Purposes in VET Institutions ICT for Learning Purposes within schools Inter-organisational Development through eLearning
Extended Learning Context
ICT for Virtual Mobility of Learnes
ICT for Learning Purposes within Tertiary Education
Training of Teachers and Trainers on (and through) eLearning
Evolved Distance Education
Formal Learning
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Cultural background: language, place of origin, traditions, sensitive subjects, migration status Occupational background: experience, time in current job, relationships with other participants; Psychological variables: needs, intentions, expectations, motivation. The whole notion personalised eLearning experiences is based on considerations on these fundamental contextual elements. On the other hand, the diversification of learning contexts has not meant the disappearance of classrooms and institutions. With regard to eLearning, this could imply the change of a school setting or a working group created in presence (or intra-muros) into a virtual environment. The most common dynamic of blended learning is transformation: group formed in presence and within the boundaries of a single institution or a number of institutions develops on-line with the possibility of further physical moments. In these situations, eLearning does not serve the purpose of going beyond traditional/institutional learning contexts, but helps to maintain the social (and emotional) ties,
eLearning Territory ICT for Learning Purposes within Schools Main Characteristics
which have been developed within the classroom or within the institutional context of the learning experience. In summary, it can be argued that a discriminating choice for present and future eLearning is either to go deeper (i.e. maintain, develop and reinforce the relational ties created intra-muros) or to go wider (i.e. allowing to expand relational networks beyond organisational and social cultures as well as geographic boundaries). The positioning of the eLearning territories represented in the following map (see Figure 1) depends on the proximity of each territory to the identified cardinal points i.e.: informal versus formal learning and intra muros versus extended learning context. The eLearning territories approach therefore advocates additional layers of differentiation and articulation in order to better understand the present and future dynamics of eLearning. The main territorial features are described in Table 1 together with current and emerging trends observable in different countries.
Use of ICT for learning within school settings. The range of institutions covered by the term varies from country to country. The term school refers to primary schools (sometimes divided even further into pre-schooling and junior schools) and secondary schools. The applications of eLearning within schools can take several forms: activities enabled through ICT conducted into classroom or at a distance (e.g. e-Homework); activities led by teachers or organised by learners group, activities involving a single classroom or classroom networks, school e-twinning, etc (L-CHANGE, 2004; EUN, 2007). Use of ICT for learning in universities, colleges etc., which may lead to an academic degree, and in research centres. The applications of eLearning can take several forms, ranging from lectures placed on line by a single teacher, to the dual mode or mixed mode (institutions offering programmes for both campus-based full-time students and off-campus part-time students), to the provision of degrees entirely on line. Even students or the faculty/teachers or even the university or region/country can lead initiatives (Bang & Dondi, 2001; L-CHANGE, 2004; PLS, 2004; SEEQUEL, 2004; OECD, 2005; Stephenson, 2005). Vocational Education and Training (VET) prepares learners for careers or professions that are historically non-academic, but rather related to a trade, occupation or vocation, in which the learner participates (or aiming at). Vocational education is in most cases a form of secondary or post-secondary education. In some cases, vocational education can lead to tertiary education study and an academic degree, however it is rarely considered in its own form to fall under the traditional definition of higher education. eLearning in the vocational training settings encompasses ways of delivery similar to those endorsed in school education or higher education, or to those endorsed in the corporate sector (i.e. eLearning chunks on demand/on the job). In any case the most significant trait dunion of the majority of eLearning application into VET is the competence based approach, directed at current and likely future jobs, duties and tasks within an occupation or industry (CEDEFOP, 2002; Kearns, 2002; L-CHANGE, 2004; Snook, 2004).
Table 1: Main Characteristics of the HELIOS eLearning Territories
ICT for Learning Purposes within Tertiary Education
ICT for Learning Purposes in VET Institutions
eLearning Territory eLearning at the Workplace
Main Characteristics Use of ICT for learning into the corporate sector and the public administration/agencies. Differences in the scope and in the delivery schemes of eLearning, between the public and the corporate sector, prevail mainly due to the organization structures and practices and the related human resources policies. In general, eLearning may take the form of structured training programmes fully on-line or blended schemes (complemented with seminar/ classroom based training), eLearning chunks on demand/on the job. The driving concerns related to most of these eLearning offers are the return on investment (emerging also in the public sector), the increased access and flexibility in training delivery, the contribution of the eLearning in achieving organisational change and fostering knowledge management practices. In this territory the slow emergence of communities of practice approaches is also observable in the most sophisticated organisations (Argyris & Schn, 1978; Kearns, 2002; Crompton & Munro, 2003; Piskurich, 2003; L-CHANGE, 2004; Snook, 2004; Stephenson, 2005). Virtual mobility is considered an instrument for internationalisation, learning, working, etc., further contributing to the integration of the European area. Virtual mobility has been at the heart of open and distance learning (ODL) projects of the European Commission since the second half of the 90s but its full scale development depends, to a large extent, on the establishment of strategic partnerships among education and training institutions focused on research collaboration and curriculum development. Constituting elements of virtual mobility are: trans-national lectures and/or learning materials, cross-border recruitment of students, intensity of communication flows, the international accreditation of learning achievements, the multilingualism, complementary to both physical mobility and conventional teaching (Bang & Dondi, 2001). According to its original definition, distance education takes place when a teacher and his/ her student(s) are separated by physical distance, whereby technology means, often in concert with face-to-face communication, is used to bridge this gap. Distance education programs can provide adults with a second chance at a college education, reach those disadvantaged by limited time, distance or physical disability, and update the knowledge base of workers in on-the-job training schemes. The evolution of distance education is mainly featured by the wide adoption of ICT, as delivery means (by the traditional distance universities and distance learning organisations), as well as at the institutional level, through the birth of a new generation of organisations exclusively offering distance and open education, in particular at the university level (e.g. UOC). In the foreseeable future teachers and trainers will make even more use of ICT for professional activities including lesson planning and preparation of didactic materials, recording learning progress of the students and other administrative tasks, as well as their own professional development and continuing education. Many governments are investing in preparing teachers and trainers for a technologically rich future: enabling them to acquire proficiency in using technology for education purposes and also challenging their pedagogic practice (Papert & Cavallo, 2000; L-CHANGE, 2004, EUN, 2007). Individual development through eLearning includes home learning as a whole, ranging from education to training related activities, together with any other technology-enhanced learning activities not necessarily mediated by formal E&T institutions, in a Lifelong Learning (LLL) perspective (Commission of the European Communities, 2000; Conner, 2005; Cross, 2003; Downes, 2005; eUSER, 2005; HELIOS, 2006; Tapscott, 1999). A professionally oriented virtual community is geared towards professionals and/or facilitates the dialogue on professional issues. Professionals participate in this type of communities, in order to contact each other and exchange information with people outside their own team or organization who require similar information to carry out their own (professional) duties. In these communities learning is sometimes intentionally generated in order to achieve professional development goals (although non professionally related learning might be a side effect; Brown & Duguid, 1991; Kearns, 2002; Piskurich, 2003; OMurchu et al, 2004)
ICT for Virtual Mobility of Learners
Evolved Distance Education
Training of Teachers and Trainers on (and through) eLearning
Individual Development through eLearning
Virtual Professional Networks
Inter-organisational Development through eLearning
Inter-organisational development can be described as a cooperative relationship between organisations that relies on neither market nor hierarchical mechanism of control but it is instead negotiated in an ongoing communicative process. Collaboration between organizations has come into focus in recent years with the recognition that success in a global economy comes from innovation and sharing of ideas. The more change there is in its environment, the more connections an organization needs with the outside world. eLearning, given the networking possibilities that it enables, is increasingly used for the purpose of interorganisational development (Argyris & Schn, Rashford & Coghlan, 1987; Senge, 1994; Piskurich, 2003; Holmqvist, 2003). Non-professional learning communities can be found, for instance, in the areas of E&T, if learning is shifted to the virtual space. They can be created by training providers as a complement of a course or by grassroots initiatives due to a common personal (nonprofessional) interest. Their learning purpose is explicitly perceived and agreed by all members of the community, although not necessarily leading to formal recognition. Learning taking place in these communities might contribute to the development of skills and competences for the workplace, but also for private and social life (Conner, 2005; Cross, 2003; Downes, 2005; eUSER, 2005; HELIOS, 2006; Tapscott, 1999). These virtual communities do not foresee learning as their main objective. Establishing a relationship to other members of these communities is prompted first and foremost by a common interest or common value commitment resulting from either geographical or intellectual proximity, demographic similarity, common hobbies, belonging to the same NGO or charity, to name a few. These communities may take the form of popular chat rooms, blogs, fora where informal learning takes place (Conner, 2005; Cross, 2003; Downes, 2005; eUSER, 2005; HELIOS, 2006; Tapscott, 1999).
Table 1: Main Characteristics of the HELIOS eLearning Territories
Non-professional eLearning Communities
Communities generating eLearning as a side effect
Conclusions
The presented analysis and the findings of HELIOS until today are not all suggesting an atomisation of eLearning as none of the introduced eLearning Territories should be conceived as insulated areas with impermeable and static boundaries, but implies that further research is needed on the interdependencies and interactions of territories and their contextualisation into learning patrimonies. Neither should be excluded that new eLearning territories may emerge and replace those proposed or significant re-restructuring or restructuring of eLearning territories may take place. Moreover, different representations and descriptions of the variety of present eLearning developments are equally plausible. However, the articulation of eLearning Territories and their assessment and analysis by the HELIOS eLearning Observatory as they evolve over time are considered useful for several reasons: They help to overcome views on purely functional differentiations of eLearning and its development; They contribute to overcome the debate on the disappearance versus full deployment of eLearning
(Ritzel, 2006) as it is argued that eLearning is at a different evolutionary stages in different territories; They provide a platform for dialogue for practitioners and policy makers, and it is expected to nurture the research agenda of researchers; They support networking, coordination and integration among sectoral, specialised and national observatories and projects; They promote benchlearning as they suggest to shift from comparative assessments towards reflective and adaptive analysis; They therefore contribute to the identification and collection of relevant indicators on eLearning development and impact within each territory. They can finally be used as a roadmap for eLearning developments starting from a territorial instead of an aggregating position. As proteus, eLearning is able change its appearance easily, rapidly and steadily. The trends listed above enframe current snapshots on eLearning as eLearning Territories, in order to achieve a more valid picture of the current state of play as well as the possible future of eLearning.
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Observing the eLearning phenomenon: The case of school education. Analysing the transformative innovation of eLearning
Nikitas Kastis President MENON Network nikitas.kastis@menon.org
Executive summary:
Over the past 25 years, the school sector has been the promising area for public policies and funding activities, as well as for commercial interests, to increase the availability of ICT in education. From the years when the questions basically addressed the needs of piloting innovations in the learning process, the international discourse about the impact of ICT on the outcomes of school education has gradually taken on a more mature and purposeful approach whereby the necessary changes that characterise interrelations with decision-making in education as well as with out-of-school developments are currently being taken into account. These interrelations have been greatly affected by the ICT penetration of society at large, implying a holistic approach to the evolution in learning at school level as regards the education outcome and its long-term impact on growth and social inclusion. A lot of public spending took place, in the form of subsidies for the development of end-products or funding of pilot products (mainly off-line) at both the national and the European level. Nevertheless, although there are not any well-documented surveys regarding the returns in terms of quality and effectiveness of learning, it seems that these targeted content applications have been put to use only marginally in school curricula. In the meantime, the changes in digital content (business) models, brought about by the continuous enhancement of Internet-based services, which are revolutionising the content services markets, are further undermining the traditional paradigm of knowledge building at school (from a straightforward push to a blended push-pull-push model). This means that the availability of hardware (infrastructure) and the (sometimes) abundance of textbook-like digital content (the fallacy of new textbooks in the electronic era) do not appear to be sufficient to cater for advanced, enriched and innovative learning experiences, thus marginalising any returns on investments. We have hereby considered three strategic evolution dimensions: that related to the decision-making processes (running of schools); that related to the accessibility level in relation to the achievement of a standard quality and, finally, the emerging inter-winning fields of professional teacher development and the value chain of content (knowledge) as it cuts across the traditional fragmentation between the creator and the consumer of knowledge .
Keywords:
Schools, innovation, education
School Education: the territory and social priorities

The term School Education refers to any form of learning that takes place at the age between 4-6 years and 17-19 years old. According to the dominant paradigm in the last century (20th), in all developed societies, any type of learning offer, covering subjects and programs, curricula and textbooks, or learning setting, basically school-based, including those from age to subject-structured school classes and project teams - or even those taking the form of home-based learning (home schooling) -, all these are to much extent prescribed, regulated and more often directed by the country/region education authorities, in the form of national or sometimes local curricula as well as through the established practice of teaching (patrimony) in the relevant school system. There has already been a lot of research on the introduction, use and the potential impact of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) on learning which takes place or is related to schooling, from
the Primary to the last grades of the Secondary Education (Upper Secondary). During the last 20-25 years, starting from the early 80s, computers and later on networking and communication technologies have continuously and in waves - been installed in schools, following their widespread adoption and penetration in almost all other social contexts. These installed ICT resources are being characterized by widely varying usage rates and even more varying returns, in terms of both the quality of the learning process as well as the learning achievements and the education attainment. Evidently, in these 25 years, the school sector has been the promising area for public policies and funding activities as well as for those commercial interests aiming at increasing the availability - and hopefully use - of ICT in education at large. Moving from those early years on, when the research questions were basically addressing the needs of piloting and validation of innovations in the micro-setting, the learning process, as it happened with the CAL (Computer Aided Learning) and other similar initiatives, at present the international discourse about
the rationale of the introduction, use and, eventually, the impact of ICT on the outcomes of school education, has gradually reached a more mature and purposeful approach. Whereby, the necessary changes which characterize the interrelations with the operational aspects and decision-making in education as well as with the outside-school developments, in the content services and entertainment (the home market), are currently being taken into account more systematically. These interrelations, between the micro-level, the learning process sometimes described by the term school practice - and the macro-level, when referring to policies and action planning for the running of the school system (education policy), have been greatly affected by the ICT penetration in the society at large. Thus, implying or better asking for a holistic approach to the analysis and understanding of the evolutions in learning at school level, the changes in terms of the education outcome and their long-term impact on growth and social inclusion (the social and individual values, the new balance between the public and private sphere, the social mobility etc.).
classrooms. The so-called infrastructure availability and access has always been the major in fact in most of the times the only - concern of all governments and the EU itself, in the context of the Lisbon Process (and the Education and Training 2010 Objectives). As regards particularly this policy priority, some countries, like the ones of Southern Europe, had to go a long way in order to bring their gap towards the Nordic countries and the UK into a reasonable range (see references about the latest figures, for the year 2002-3). Nevertheless, relevant progress in this area, as measured nowadays with the famous pupils-per-networkedcomputer ratio, seems not to be enough in order to facilitate the foreseen changes in schools (upgrade of the quality of the learning process and the outcome). To this under-performance we should also add the still problematic objective of sustaining a quantity and quality threshold of access to ICT resources, which turns to be a rather expensive exercise for the public authorities for the maintenance cost as well as the hardware and software upgrades. Apart from the main objective (pillar) of the infrastructure availability which is actually only partly defining the accessibility level (the access to learning resources) -, most of the self-respected education policies in EU member states addressing the school sector in the last 15 years, have dealt with the digital learning content availability, usually subsidising the cost (paying for) the develop ment and piloting of so-called educational software. It used to be and still is, at least for some of them, another demanding and controversial area of intervention and expanding policy making. There has been a lot of public spending in the form of either subsidies to the development cost of end-products (in the eligibility margins of the competition regulatory framework) or in the form of funding of pilot products (mainly off-line), under research and development support frameworks, at both the national and the European level. The driving objective being always the facilitation of a rich and expanding pool of quality digital learning materials, in order to provide the school communities with more demanding than drill and practice software with really engaging multimedia titles, using cultural and scientific content of high value from across Europe. Nevertheless, although there are not any well-documented surveys as of the returns, in terms of quality and effectiveness of learning, it seems that these targeted content applications have only found a rather marginal use in the school curricula. In the meantime, the changes in the digital content development and publishing (business) models, brought about by the continuous enhancement of the Internetbased services which takes place in the last 10 years and is still revolutionizing the content services markets, are further undermining the traditional paradigm of
Emerging Trends and Developments

The types of institutions defined by or using the term School does not vary a lot, at least in the European Union area. The term is used when referring to the pre-tertiary education establishments, which are either Primary (and nursery) schools or Secondary schools (Lower Secondary, ages 13-15 yrs and Upper Secondary, ages 16-18/19 years). All of them are in most cases run by the state or by other forms of socially accountable entities, like the municipalities or local educational authorities. The private sector has a rather marginal existence in some EU countries, mainly for purpose or target specific schools (like faith schools, etc.). Greece corresponds to an exception, as the system although dominated by the public school sector allows for the existence of tightly regulated private (in fact profit making!) entities offering school education (i.e. they own and run schools). The applications of eLearning in School Education can take several forms, ranging from the activities enabled through ICT, conducted in the classroom, to those at a distance (e.g. e-homework). Or, even more, from the activities addressing the teachers to those engaging the pupils and, from national programmes to grassroots initiatives involving only one school class and, finally, to virtual mobility programmes of school teachers and pupils. The advancements of ICT have usually been transferred to basically only technical enhancements in ICT-forlearning (eLearning) infrastructures in schools, thus constituting the driving concern of waves of public spending, in order to support widely accepted policies that were to sustain the availability of computers and, later on, of networking in the European schools and the school
knowledge building in the school (from a straight push to a blended push-pull-push model). Meaning that, whichever availability of hardware (infrastructure) and the (sometimes) abundance of textbook-like digital content (the fallacy of the new text-books in the electronic era), these do not seem enough to cater for advanced, enriched and innovative learning experiences, thus marginalizing the returns of the relevant investments. A common mantra as regards the rational approach to policy-making and design for the introduction of ICT-driven innovations in the school system used to go about focusing on all the three lines (areas) of potential action, namely infrastructure (equipment), learning materials (content) and teachers preparation (training, the human factor). And, going even further, including recommendations as regards the split of the available resources, with the golden rule of allocating a third to each action line. This is leading us to the most problematic policy area as regards the ICT-for-learning in School Education, which is related to the human factor, the school teachers. Although teachers have historically been considered the critical factor for the success of any type of innovation in education, it seems that both the scale and the potential effect of the ICT-driven changes in school education go beyond the capacity of the education system, which has to sustain an ever increasing level of quantity and quality of the teacher factor (the teaching capacity), considered enough to address the continuous increase of the demand for learning in our societies. The school education systems, with different reasons to look for in the developed and the developing parts of the world, are facing an intensifying problem of relative decrease of the teachers professional development capacity, which constitutes a challenge of the 21st century societies when considering the impact on the provision of school education and the effects on the social inclusion policies as well as on the productivity and the economic growth. In most of the widely acknowledged papers and research work, the impact of ICT on the learning processes implies significant changes of the role (job) of the teacher, asking for an increased capacity for strategic thinking, motivation and leadership and collaborativecommunication potential, in order to provide mentoring in new forms of learning experiences for her/his students. In this evolutionary context, how could we define good practice, in order to serve a bottom-up approach to the consolidation of new school learning paradigms and, at the same time, to constitute an effective approach to holistic policy-making, in order to reach the right balance with top-down planning, meeting the challenges of access to learning (see infrastructure-equipment), creation and sharing of knowledge (see learning materials) and building of competences in learning communities (see teachers training and professional development)?
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In the following, we come to foster the critical components of successful (effective) policy making and flourishing practice, through the reference to certain cases of innovative and sometimes successful policies and projects from across Europe. We tried to point to government initiatives or even school-driven projects, which have either been completed successfully or provide evidence of a long-term impact on future evolutions in the school system (e.g. the change of the role of the teacher, the consolidation of new service delivery schemes to schools, etc.)
Observing the Change: Is Innovation taking place?

We have considered three critical, strategic dimensions which should be brought to the attention of both education analysts (researchers) and policy makers. We start with what has to do with the decision-making processes and the running of schools, then we proceed with the dimension of the accessibility level in relation to the attainment of a standard quality (as regards access) and, finally, the dimension that defines the emerging interwinning fields of teacher professional development and the value chain of content (knowledge), as it cuts across the traditional fragmentation between the creator and the consumer of the knowledge. The competitive advantage of the autonomy at school or local level From the extended review of the ICT-for-learning policies and activities in the EU, it seems that those countries that are running a rather decentralized school system, whereby autonomy in decision-making concerning the curriculum, school program, equipping, etc., is high, as it is in the case of the Nordic countries, the UK and the Netherlands, show a comparative progress. This progress has to do with an increased and more demanding use of ICT in the learning process. In the HELIOS Comparative Analysis Report (an Observatory Action run by the MENON Network, www.menon.org), these countries usually correspond to the champions of eLearning and, as in most of the cases, they provide a policy-making practice that goes with a systematic evaluation work, accompanying any type of action and introduction of innovation. What is also very interesting, in these school systems, as documented by the PISA results, only a small part of the variation of the testing performance among the students can be attributed to the difference between the schools. How to go with investing in infrastructure and services to schools It has already been mentioned that the success of those policies that aim at providing the necessary computing and communication infrastructure to schools is very much dependent on the extent to which they are integrated in a much broader and more holistic approach
to education objectives, an approach which actually copes with the principle of accessibility or, in other words, the sustainability of a minimum access level to the ICT resources. This sustainability comes as the result of (a) the availability of funding to ensure a certain maintenance level for both hardware and software and (b) of the capacity of spatial and time-wise arrangements as well as the competence of the school staff to ensure significant use of ICT resources by the students. Joint actions for online learning materials and teacher professional development Many studies and surveys and the widely accepted understanding of education analysts suggest that the most critical evolution of the school system has to do with the changes related to the role/job of the teacher. Everybody is convinced that we need to cater for a more References
demanding job, which will ask for high-end competences related to knowledge and skills acquisition and cognitive procedures as well as to the communication and project management. This also implies a strong linkage to the emerging knowledge building schemes, whereby information i.e. content - with potential and varying learning value (sometimes named learning materials) is being developed, shared, used and repurposed dynamically, especially through communities of common interests see the parallel of project/subject or age-defined classrooms in the schools. It is promising for their education systems to mention that in both France and Germany, with still rather centralised and authoritative school systems, interesting policy cases have been identified. The cases point to the inter-winning of teacher professional development and the learning content and knowledge building in schools.
eEurope 2005: An information society for all, COM (2002) http://europa.eu.int/information_society/eeurope/news_library/documents/eeurope2005/eeurope2005_en.doc OECD planning paper 2002-4 Oversold and Underused: Computers in the Classroom, Larry Cuban, Harvard University Press, 2001: http://www.hup.harvard.edu/pdf/CUBOVE.pdf Peter Kearns Towards the Connected Learning Society , Global Learning Services, Draft Version. Australia 2002. Policies concerning ICT in education, Towards the third phase of policy making in ICT league countries, NL-Nordic alliance paper, February 2002 THINK and NOW studies: http://eminent.eun.org/workshop1.cfm; http://eminent.eun.org/THINK_FULL_DRAFT_2pp.doc Wired to learn: Whats holding up the school of the future, Tom McMullen, Adam Smith Institute, 2002 http://www.adamsmith.org.uk/policy/publications/pdf-files/ict-7-jan-02-doc.pdf The REFERNet Country Reports (HELIOS Observatory) 2005 Commission Staff Working Paper Progress towards the Lisbon Objectives in Education and Training, 2005 Report. Equipped, trained and now what? Trends and issues in e-learning in European school systems & INSIGHT Country Reports EUN INSIGHT team paper, Febr. 2006. Education in Europe: Key Statistics 2002-2003, Eurostat. Education in Europe Eurydice 2005. ICT in Education around the world: trends, problems and prospects W.J. Pelgrum and N. Law, UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning, Paris 2003. Commission Staff Working Paper: New Indicators on Education and Training Brussels 2004. Investment in Education: the implications for economic growth and public finances European Economy/ Economic Paper by A. Montanino, B. Przywara and D. Young, European Commission, DG Economic and Financial Affairs. Teachers matter: attracting, developing and retaining effective teachers, OECD publication, Education and Training Policy, 2005. The Teaching Profession in Europe: profile, trends and concerns, Eurydice 2003. Some Simple Analytics of School Quality, E.A. Hanushek, NBER Working Paper Series, 2004. Visions 2020: Transforming Education and Training through Advanced Technologies US Department of Commerce, 2002. Upon What Does the Turtle Stand? Rethinking Education for the Digital Age, Ed. Aharon Aviram & Janice Richardson, Springer, December 2004. Are Students Ready for a Technology-Rich World? What PISA Studies Tell US, OECD Report, 2005. Education at a Glance: OECD Indicators 2006, OECD Report, 2006. The Economics of Knowledge: Why Education is Key for Europe s success, Andreas Schleicher, the Lisbon Council Policy Brief, July 2006.
13
Open Educational Resources and Practices

Dr. Sandra Schaffert Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft, Dept. EduMedia sandra.schaffert@salzburgresearch.at Dr. Guntram Geser Salzburg Research Forschungsgesellschaft, Dept. EduMedia guntram.geser@salzburgresearch.at
Executive summary:
In the last few years, Open Educational Resources (OER) have gained much attention. From January 2006 to December 2007 the Open eLearning Content Observatory Services (OLCOS), a project co-funded by the European Commission under the eLearning Programme, explored how OER can make a difference in teaching and learning. The project aimed at promoting OER through different activities and products such as a European OER roadmap and OER tutorials. In this paper we present some results of the roadmap which provides an overview of the OER landscape and describes possible pathways towards a higher level of production, sharing and usage of OER. Moreover, the roadmap provides recommendations on required measures and actions to support decision making at the level of educational policy and institutions. The roadmap emphasises that the knowledge society demands competencies and skills that require innovative educational practices based on open sharing and the evaluation of ideas, fostering creativity and teamwork among the learners. Collaborative creation and sharing among learning communities of OER is regarded as an important catalyst of such educational innovations. The OLCOS project also developed free online tutorials for practitioners. The objective of these tutorials is supporting students and teachers in the creation, re-use and sharing of OER. To promote hands-on work, the tutorials advise on questions such as the following: How to search for OER? Which materials may be re-used and modified? How to produce and license own OER? The tutorials will be accessible and, potentially, will evolve beyond the end of the OLCOS project, because they are published on an open and successful Wiki based platform (Wikieducator.org) and can be updated by anybody.
Keywords:
Open Educational Resources, Open Content, Open Source, Educational Policy, Roadmap, Tutorials, collaborative creation
Definition and Background
In the last few years Open Educational Resources (OER) have gained much attention, though an authoritatively accredited definition of such resources does not yet t hat for educational systems/tools software is exist. However, at the UNESCO-IIEP Forum (2001) it used for which the source code is available (i.e. was agreed that OER include Open Course Content, Open Source software) and that there are open Open Source development tools, and Open Standards Application Programming Interfaces (open APIs) and licensing tools. (cf. The International Institute for authorisations to re-use Web-based services as well as Educational Planning/UNESCO 2001) resources. (Geser 2007, p. 20) Stephen Downes observes that there is a great deal of debate extant concerning the definition of open open acces: content (including resources. (Downes 2007a, p. 299) In the OLCOS metadata) is provided free of charge project, Guntram Geser (2007) argued that experts who open licensed: liberally licensed for understand OER as a means of leveraging educational re-use, favourable free from restrictions practices and outcomes will define OER based on the open to modify, combine and repurpose following core attributes (see also figure 1): educational that access to open content (including metadata) is provided free of charge for educational institutions, content services and end-users such as teachers, students and lifelong learners;
resources open format: produced in open format and designed for easy re-use open software: produced with open source software
combine and repurpose the content; consequently, that the content should ideally be designed for easy reuse in the open content standards and formats which are being employed;
that the content is liberally licensed for re-use in Figure 1: The meaning of open in Open Educational Resources , educational activities, free from restrictions to modify, own illustration following Geser 2007, p. 20
These are rather demanding principles and, in fact, repositories of educationally relevant resources often do not fully abide by them. Hence, readers should be aware that when we refer to open resources, there may be several criteria that current OER projects do not meet while still being developed in the spirit of the current Open Access movement. Following Geser (2007), OER are understood to be an important element of policies that want to leverage education and lifelong learning for the knowledge society and economy. This expectation is to some degree influenced by the observation that the huge investments made so far in ICT-enabled teaching and learning have not brought about profound changes in educational practices. In particular, notions that the use of ICT would promote student-centred and collaborative approaches have not been fulfilled. Rather there is a considerable mismatch between teaching and learning as framed and maintained by typical educational institutions and the fabric of work in a knowledge-based economy out there. In addition, there is an obvious gap between current educational practices and what a younger generation of students uses almost naturally to communicate and form communities of interest outside the classroom. In this context, the importance of Open Content and Open Source Software tools that enhance learning processes has been acknowledged by international initiatives and organisations. For example, the OECD (2007) published a study about OER based on an international survey, and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation commissioned a review about the OER movement (Atkins, Brown and Hammond 2007). Furthermore, there are some projects cofinanced by the European Commission, for example OLCOS (focus on open educational content) and Bazaar (focus on Open Source tools). Open eLearning Content Observatory Services (OLCOS), a project that ran from January 2006 to December 2007 under the eLearning Programme, explored how OER can make a difference in teaching and learning. The project consortium comprised the European Centre for Media Competence (Germany), the European Distance and ELearning Network (Hungary), the FernUniversitt in Hagen (Germany), the Mediamaisteri Group (Finland), the Open University of Catalonia (Spain) and the project co-ordinator Salzburg Research, EduMedia Group (Austria). The project aimed at promoting OER through different activities: OLCOS produced a roadmap to provide educational decision makers with orientation and recommendations on how to foster the further development and use of OER. This study can be
downloaded freely from the project website, www. olcos.org. Furthermore the OLCOS project developed free online tutorials for practitioners. The objective of these tutorials is to support students and teachers in the creation, re-use and sharing of OER.
Open Educational Practices

The OLCOS road mapping has been carried out to inform and support a transformation in educational practices that brings learning processes and their outcomes closer to what individuals will need to participate successfully in the knowledge society. The OLCOS Roadmap 2012 on Open Educational Practises and Resources (Geser 2007) explores possible pathways towards a higher level of production, sharing and usage of OER and provides recommendations on required measures to support decision making at the level of educational policy and institutions. The roadmap emphasises that the knowledge society demands competencies and skills that require innovative educational practices based on open sharing and evaluation of ideas, fostering of creativity, and teamwork among the learners. Collaborative creation and sharing among learning communities of OER is regarded as an important catalyst of such educational innovations. Therefore, OER should become a key element of policies that aim to leverage education and lifelong learning for the knowledge society and economy. However, the project also emphasises that for achieving this goal it is crucial to promote innovation and change in educational practices. In particular, OLCOS warns that delivering OER to the still dominant model of teacher-centred knowledge transfer will have little effect on equipping teachers, students and workers with the competences, knowledge and skills to participate successfully in the knowledge economy and society. Therefore the OLCOS project focuses on open educational practices that are based on a competency-focused, constructivist paradigm of learning and promote a creative and collaborative engagement of learners with digital content, tools and services in the learning process.
Recommendations for Open Educational Practices and Resources

The OLCOS Roadmap 2012 provides recommendations on measures which stakeholders from educational policy makers and funding bodies to individual teachers and students can apply to promote and support open educational practices and benefit from sharing and reusing OER.
Recommendations for educational policy makers and funding bodies Promote open educational practices that allow for acquiring competences and skills that are necessary to participate successfully in the knowledge society Foster the development of OER, e.g. through creating a favourable environment for Open Access to educational content Support the development of widely used, state-of-theart and sustainable open access repositories Demand publicprivate partnerships to concentrate on ventures for innovating educational practices and resources In particular, educational policy makers and funding bodies should demand that academic and educational resources that have been fully or to a larger part publicly funded are made freely accessible under an appropriate license (e.g. Creative Commons or similar). With respect to educational open access repositories, funding criteria should demand an in-depth understanding of how an as broad as possible active usage of the repository can be established. Funding schemes should provide for a longer-term perspective, through initial funding for achieving full operation, and further funding based on a critical assessment of factual usage. Recommendations for boards, directors and supervisors of educational institutions Scrutinise whether educational institutions are employing innovative approaches beyond teachercentred knowledge transfer Promote the sharing and re-use of Open Educational Resources and experiences from open educational practices Establish reward mechanisms and supportive measures for developing and sharing Open Educational Resources and experiences Clarify copyrights and define licensing schemes for making Open Educational Resources available A very critical element in OER initiatives are reward mechanisms and supportive measures that stimulate the development and sharing of resources. Boards, directors and supervisors will need to question established values, traditions and practices, for example, the greater value that is often attached to research publications than to teaching material, particularly when it comes to academic promotion. The roadmap also urges that in many institutions it is far from clear who owns IPR/copyrights and what licenses should be employed when making resources available to others. A recommendation here is that
contracts of employed researchers and educators should acknowledge the IPR of authors, but require non-exclusive copyrights for the institution to make accessible educational resources under appropriate licenses. Recommendations for teachers Clarify the professional role, appropriate approaches and required skills of a teacher in a knowledge society Employ open educational practices to help learners acquire competences for the knowledge society Make use of tools and services that support collaborative learning processes and learning communities Share proven learning designs, content and experiences through open access repositories and open licenses In particular, teachers should change their role from dispensers of knowledge to facilitators of open educational practices that emphasise learners own activities in developing competences, knowledge and skills. Hence, teachers should favour learning designs that make use of novel, low-barrier tools and services (e.g. Weblogs, Wikis, RSS-based content provision, etc.) for collaborative learning and sharing of ideas, experiences and study results. The roadmap also suggests that teachers should share within a community of practice experiences, lessons learned and suggestions on how to better foster the development of students as well as their own competences and skills. This would be part of a new understanding of teachers professional work that includes a permanent questioning, evaluation and improvement of educational practices and resources. Recommendations for learners and students Demand educational approaches that allow for acquiring competences and skills for the knowledge society Suggest open learning practices using new tools and services Develop an own ePortfolio and make study results accessible to others Respect IPR/copyright of others and make ones own creative work accessible under an open content license Students should demand educational approaches that ensure that learning experiences are real, rich and relevant, for example through addressing real world problems, working collaboratively, using new tools and information services, and critically discussing content and study results. Students will also benefit from an own
e-portfolio for documenting and reflecting the progress and results of their study work, and to make results they are proud of accessible through an open access repository under an open content license (see also Attwell, Chrzaszcz, Hilzensauer, Hornung-Prhauser & Pallister 2007). Recommendations for educational repositories Do not follow a top-down strategy of delivering learning objects; empower teachers and learners Support individual content creators and communities of practice with useful tools and services Make licensing of content as easy as possible Allow for easy discovery of and access to resources Assist open content initiatives in the creation of rich metadata and provide semantically enhanced access to resources The key point with respect to educational repositories is that they should abandon the currently dominant top-down approach of trying to deliver learning objects to teacher-centred education, as this reinforces the still dominant knowledge transfer model of education and will not promote innovation in teaching and learning. Instead, repositories should promote open educational practices and empower teachers and learners to do and achieve something themselves. This is not about repository users as consumers but as potential cocreators of shared, commons-based resources. Recommendations for developers and implementers of eLearning tools and environments Involve teachers and students in the development of learning tools Promote open educational practices through help in setting up appropriate tools Favour institutional learning environments that support group-based, collaborative learning practices Closely observe the development and consider testing of Learning Design based systems At present there is a considerable gap between developers of eLearning tools and teachers and students. Developers should actively seek to involve teachers and students in collaborative development, which could help greatly in making tools more usable in educational contexts. In fact, for the adoption of a tool it will be important that the users develop a sense of ownership and take an interest in its further development. Within educational institutions, implementers of eLearning tools should favour environments that support collaborative, self-managed learning practices
and allow for making use of a variety of information sources. Such practices do not require large, centrally managed systems; rather, they will make use of easy to implement and manage tools and services such as Wikis, Weblogs, Web-based e-portfolios, RSS feed aggregators, and others.
How-to Guidance through Tutorials

Besides the roadmap and recommendations, the OLCOS project developed a series of free online tutorials for practitioners (Crcoles, Ferran Ferrer, Hornung-Prhauser, Kalz, Minguilln, Naust-Schulz & Schaffert, 2007). These tutorials provide information and guidance on how to plan, search, produce/reuse, share and publish open educational content for eLearning. In addition, an OLCOS collection has been built, presenting and providing links to many online resources such as OER repositories. To support the idea of OER, the OLCOS tutorials had to be open, free and collaboratively developed. The project team decided to use the WikiEducator project as a suitable platform to collaborate with authors external to the project and involve other interested parties. The WikiEducator is a community project working collaboratively with the Free Culture Movement towards a free version of the education curriculum by 2015. Its technical infrastructure is supported by the Commonwealth of Learning, which is an intergovernmental organisation created by Commonwealth Heads of Government to encourage the development and sharing of open learning and distance education knowledge, resources and technologies. (WikiEducator, 2007) The choice of this platform has been fruitful for both parties, as can be seen from the fact that the launch of the OLCOS tutorials in September 2006 was a highlight for the WikiEducator team with an average of 1000 hits per day; today, the hits are often even higher (WikiEducator 2007). In December 2007, Steven Downes in his Weblog named WikiEducator as best educational wiki: Numerous educational wikis could have taken the podium here Curriki, Wikiversity, more. WikiEducator is chosen as the most (apparently) active of these initiatives. (Downes 2007b) Concerning the content of the OLCOS tutorials, the basic concept is that through practical information and case descriptions the learners should be enabled to themselves solve some concrete assignments. The didactical templates of the WikiEducator (e.g. assignment, web-resources) as well as links to existing content on the Web have been used. The tutorials have been tested and evaluated in several workshops. Originally written in English, since August 2007 they also are available in German and Spanish.
guidance on how to find Open Content that can be re-used in a project. It shows efficient ways of searching the Internet for relevant material and how to keep upto-date about resources of interest. Tutorial: Produce & Remix OER Following the advice of the first tutorial, a user may find a course module or learning unit which fits her or his requirements very well. Usually, however, one will create his own material by mixing and adapting Open Content. Therefore, it is important to be aware of what is permitted by the content creators. In addition, Open Content is often produced collaboratively, which means that several teachers and learners work together in an open process. Furthermore, this tutorial provides information on content formats that can be published as OER, tools that support this process, and how to use standards and metadata. Tutorial: Share OER There are many possibilities to publish and to share Open Content. But one should bear in mind that employers might have interests and rights in ones work. This means that authors may have to ask before publishing their work as Open Content. This tutorial provides information and practical tasks in publishing and sharing OER, and how to facilitate the sharing of the new content by using suitable formats, licenses, educational metadata, and visibility strategies. Tutorial: Choose a License Before authors publish their content or before they start to build up a collaborative community creating Open Content, they should decide about the legal requirements for re-using the learning material. This is needed, because the established international copyright requires to ask the owner of the copyright of the material for permission to use, copy, modify the content, and to enter into a contractual relationship. With an Open Content licensing scheme such as Creative Commons the authors and users can benefit in several ways: From clear descriptions of the rights of the author(s) and the users, licensing formulations which are approved by legal practitioner, the awareness level of the license and the possibility (for others) to more easily discover the content with the most popular search engines. This tutorial provides information and practical tasks for choosing one of the most common licensing models, the Creative Commons licenses, and how they can be attached to learning materials. Tutorial: Use open source tools Open Source Software is based on and supports open standards and, hence, particularly suits the creation of Open Educational Content. As ever more such tools become available, this tutorial provides information about other services and lists that offer useful overviews
Figure 2: Screenshot of the tutorials
Users of the tutorials firstly are introduced to basic definitions and to the overall planning of didactical, technical and legal aspects. Then the tutorials show how open content practices can be developed. The top-level topics for this development are as follows: Find and evaluate existing Open Content Create Open Content with Open Source tools Publish and share of the content Technical considerations and planning Legal/license considerations and planning In the following, the tutorials are described briefly. Introduction: PLAN the use of OER The introductory section provides a definition of OER, information about benefits of using OER, and instruction on how to plan the (re-)use and creation of open content in the daily work of teachers, trainers, students and learners. In addition, we present some exemplary collections of Open eLearning content repositories Institutions with OER policy Open Content licensing approaches Open formats, educational standard and tools for producing open educational content Tutorial: Search & Find OER The first learning scenario we use in this tutorial is the following: In a project, a group of students is working on a presentation about pollination of apples. The group is trying to find materials which they can use for a project webpage. They not only want to collect hyperlinks, but also want to re-use the materials. For this purpose they need more information and advice. The tutorial provides practical information and
and recommendations on which tools to use for particular purposes.
Summary
Open Educational Resources (OER) can be an important element of policies that want to leverage education and lifelong learning for the knowledge society and economy. The urgency of the lifelong learning agenda in Europe and beyond makes OER initiatives targeted at driving participation particularly welcome. The OLCOS road mapping work was conducted to provide decision makers with an overview of current and likely future developments in OER and recommendations on how various challenges in OER can be addressed. In particular, OLCOS emphasises that besides offering OER it is crucial to also promote innovation and change in educational practices, because delivering
OER to the still dominant model of teacher-centred knowledge transfer will have little effect on equipping teachers, students and workers with the competences and skills to participate successfully in the knowledge society and economy. Teachers should change their role from dispensers of knowledge to facilitators of open educational practices that foster learners activities in developing competences and skills. Today the digital environment offers many opportunities for a creative and collaborative engagement of learners with digital content, tools and services in the learning process (eLearning 2.0 instead of click & learn). One such opportunity is the collaborative creation, evaluation and sharing of open content and learning experiences. A new generation of easy-to-use Web-based tools and services, e.g. Wikis, Weblogs, platforms for content sharing, RSS-based content provision, makes this easier then ever before.
References
Atkins, Daniel E.; Brown, John S. & Hammond, Allen L. (2007). A Review of the Open Educational Resources (OER) Movement: Achievements, Challenges and New Opportunities. Report to The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. URL: http://cohesion.rice.edu/Conferences/Hewlett/emplibrary/A%20Review%20of%20the%20Open%20 Educational%20Resources%20%28OER%29%20Movement_BlogLink.pdf (2007-09-01) Graham Attwell, Agnieszka Chrzaszcz, Wolf Hilzensauer, Veronika Hornung-Prhauser, John Pallister (2007). Grab your future with an e-portfolio Study on new qualifications and skills needed by teachers and career counsellors to empower young learners with the e-portfolio concept and tools Summary Report. Poland. URL: http://www.mosep.org/study (2008-01-05) Crcoles, Cesar; Ferran Ferrer, Nuria; Hornung-Prhauser, Veronika; Kalz, Marco; Minguilln, Juli; Naust-Schulz, Viola & Schaffert, Sandra (2007). Open Educational Content - Introduction and Tutorials. OLCOS materials. URL: http://www.wikieducator.org/Open_Educational_Content (2007-09-01) Downes, Steven (2007a). Models for Sustainable Open Educational Resources. In: Interdisciplinary Journal of Knowledge and Learning Objects, Volume 3, p. 29-44. URL: http://ijklo.org/Volume3/IJKLOv3p029-044Downes.pdf (2007-09-01) Downes, Steven (2007b). Not the Edublog Award Winners. Weblog Post. 2007-12-17. URL: http://halfanhour.blogspot.com/2007/12/not-edublog-award-winners.html (2008-01-06) Geser, Guntram (2007). Open Educational Practices and Resources - OLCOS Roadmap 2012. Salzburg. URL: http://www.olcos.org/english/roadmap/ (2007-09-01) Geser, Guntram; Hornung-Prhauser, Veronika & Schaffert, Sandra (2007). Observing Open ELearning Content: A Roadmap for Educational Policy and Institutions and Hands-On Tips for Practitioners. Full paper in the Proceedings of the Interactive Computer Aided Learning Conference (ICL) in Villach (26-28 September 2007). The International Institute for Educational Planning/UNESCO (2001). IIEP Virtual Institute Discussion Forum. The Impact of HIV/AIDS on the Organization of Educational Systems, 15 October 9 November 2001, Paris, France. URL: http:// www.unesco.org/iiep/eng/training/virtual/hiv_rep_2001.pdf (2007-09-01) OECD (2007). Giving Knowledge for Free. The Emergence of Open Educational Resources. Paris. URL: http://213.253.134.43/oecd/pdfs/browseit/9607041E.PDF (2007-09-01) Schaffert, Sandra & Hornung-Prhauser, Veronika (2007). Thematic Session: Open Educational Resources and Practices. A Short Introduction and Overview. Full paper in the Proceedings of the Interactive Computer Aided Learning Conference (ICL) in Villach (26-28 September 2007). WikiEducator (2007). About. URL: http://www.wikieducator.org/WikiEducator:About (2007-09-01)
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Communities of Practice and virtual learning communities: benefits, barriers and success factors
Patricia Margaret Gannon-Leary Northumbria University, United Kingdom pat.gannon-leary@unn.ac.uk Elsa Fontainha Assistant Professor ISEG Technical University of Lisbon, Portugal elmano@iseg.utl.pt
Executive summary:
A virtual Community of Practice (CoP) is a network of individuals who share a domain of interest about which they communicate online. The practitioners share resources (for example experiences, problems and solutions, tools, methodologies). Such communication results in the improvement of the knowledge of each participant in the community and contributes to the development of the knowledge within the domain. A virtual learning community may involve the conduct of original research, but it is more likely that its main purpose is to increase the knowledge of participants, via formal education or professional development. Virtual learning communities may have learning as their main goal or eLearning generated as a side effect. Virtual communities of practice (CoPs) and virtual learning communities are becoming widespread within higher education institutions (HEIs) thanks to technological developments which enable increased communication, interactivity among participants and incorporation of collaborative pedagogical models, specifically through information communications technologies (ICTs) They afford the potential for the combination of synchronous and asynchronous communication, access to -and from- geographically isolated communities and international information sharing. Critical success factors (CSFs) for a virtual CoP are discussed. These include usability of technology; trust in and acceptance of ICTs in communication; a sense of belonging among members; paying attention to cross-national and cross-cultural dimensions of the CoP; shared understandings; a common sense of purpose; use of netiquette and userfriendly language and longevity. The authors recognise the enormous potential for the development of CoPs through e-mail discussion lists and discussion boards but have themselves experienced the difficulties inherent in initiating such a community. These are corroborated and illustrated with text from interviews with academic staff. Much of the literature on CoPs emanates from outside Europe, despite the fact that eLearning articles have a large diffusion around Europe. The authors suggest further exploration of this topic by identifying and studying CoPs and virtual learning communities across EU countries.
Keywords:
Communities of practice; collaborative; environments; informal learning; interactivity; usability; eLearning
Introduction
A Virtual Community of Practice (CoP) is a network of individuals who share a domain of interest about which they communicate online. The practitioners share resources (for example experiences, problems and solutions, tools, methodologies). Such communication results in the improvement of the knowledge of each participant in the community and contributes to the development of the knowledge within the domain. Virtual CoPs may share news and advice of academic/ professional interest but are unlikely to undertake joint projects together this is more the role of a Distributed Research Centre (Bos et al, 2007). A virtual learning community, on the other hand, may involve the conduct of original research but it is more likely that its main purpose is to increase the knowledge of participants, via formal education or professional development.
Virtual learning communities may have learning as their main goal or eLearning generated as a side effect. Informal learning rather than more formal learning occurs within a virtual CoP and, according to Lave & Wenger this involves the process of becoming a full participant in a sociocultural practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991: 29) whereby more experienced participants pass on to neophytes the knowledge and skills they have acquired and, in consequence, the shared expertise of the participants is enhanced. Owing to technological developments, academic staff and students in higher education institutions (HEIs) now have the opportunity to operate in improved learning environments through increased communication, interactivity among participants, and incorporation of collaborative pedagogical models, specifically through information communications
technologies (ICTs) (Robey, Khoo, & Powers, 2000; Rogers, 2000; Stacey, Smith & Barty, 2004). Using ICTs in learning environments afford the potential for the combination of synchronous and asynchronous communication, access to -and from- geographically isolated communities (Hlapinis & Dimitracopoulou, 2007) and international information sharing.
Benefits of sharing and learning

Engaging in a virtual CoP enhances the learning environment since, according to Johnson (2001), the learning that evolved from these communities is collaborative, in which the collaborative knowledge of the community is greater than any individual knowledge (Johnson 2001: 34). This is similar to the concept of synergy in which two or more discrete agents acting together create an effect greater than that which would be expected from the separate activities of the individual agents. It also echoes Vygotskys (1978) argument that a persons learning may be enhanced through engagement with others, which enable the extension of that persons capability to a new, higher level. One example of this is the use by two researchers (Winkworth & Gannon-Leary, 1999) of a virtual CoP in the form of a discussion list to supplement research they had conducted for a conference paper. The topic was government interest in library performance measures, and they wished to gain an international perspective. Knowing that membership of a related discussion list (lis-perf-measures) comprised some 400 information professionals from more than 30 countries, they posted a request to the list for additional data. Using this method they were able to gain up-to-date information from fellow professionals about the situation in their countries. The data was presented at the conference and disseminated via the proceedings to the wider professional and academic community. Much emphasis is given, when virtual CoPs are discussed, to the concept of sharing, e.g. Wenger, McDermott and Snyder (2002) discuss how common ground is found by CoP members as they feel connected and have invaluable insights they can learn from each other (Wenger et al, 2002: 71). The same authors, discussing the development of CoPs in the workplace, see them as groups of people who share a concern, set of problems or passion about a topic and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis (Wenger et al, 2002: 4). Knowledge development in a CoP, therefore, is continuous, cyclical and fluid with no clearly defined beginning or end. As White and Pagano (2007) comment, the concept of a CoP has been given currency in the HE discourse by practitioners in emergent areas of networked
learning. Lave and Wengers work did not produce a new pedagogical approach but provided an analytical view of learning, questioning the place of formal education. This shifted the emphasis from the abstract bodies of knowledge taught in formal education towards the situated learning that occurs as people engage with real-world problems in ways which may already be mediated for them by existing CoPs (Brown, Collins & Duguid 1989; McLellan 1995; Fox 2005). As Fox (2005) says, networked learning has, as no educational process has had before, the capability to facilitate and enable new forms of imagined community (Fox 2005: 108). Lave and Wenger (1991) discuss learning as participation in a social world describing how people learn better in social settings and through social interaction. Virtual CoPs encompass this concept in that they establish a networked environment where the necessary interactions that improve learning can occur (Wenger et al., 2002). The interactions within these communities focus around knowledge sharing within the membership, who may range from experts through to novices. Via the interaction of the expert and novice, a neo-apprenticeship style learning, similar to that proposed by Vygotsky, can occur. Learners participating in a virtual CoP are assimilated into the sociocultural practices of the community and gain knowledge/skills from those community members positioned as masters (Lave & Wenger 1991). This view reiterates the model of apprenticeship or learning in social and situated contexts, especially in the workplace (Fowler & Mayes, 1999; Fox, 2000; Warhurst, 2003). Brown and Duguid (2002) suggest situated learning is knowing how to be in practice, rather than knowing about practice (Brown & Duguid 2002: 138), and thus involves a process of identity development for the newcomer through participation in the practice of the community. Becoming a member of a virtual CoP and developing knowledge and skills is, therefore, important in identity formation of the newcomer. This is about the member describing their own engagementin terms of what theyre hoping to learn out of itthey model their own capabilities, so that they create themselves as somebody who has more value in relation to the context that theyre working in (UK academic)[1] This factor has been subject to some criticism with regard to CoPs since it may result in the perpetuation of communities and commonality rather than supportive of growth, change and diversity (Eraut, 2003).
[1] The quotations are from the authors recent research with academics in the UK which, to date, has not been published elsewhere. The authors would like to thank contributors
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Barriers to virtual CoPs and virtual learning communities

The first potential barrier to the virtual CoP may be the discipline involved. In some areas, such as the sciences, cutting edge knowledge may be difficult to disseminate to large groups since it may require specialised expertise and may be difficult to aggregate or represent (Szulanski, 1992; Olson & Olson, 2000; Bos et al, 2007). Secondly, in many disciplines, academics enjoy a great degree of freedom and exist in a culture of independence, rendering open communication more difficult. With colleagues and people known personally to you, there is a sharing of tacit knowledge and transactive knowledge (i.e. you know what your peers know) (Hollingshead, 1998; Ozdemir, 2007). Each profession has its own terminology we have a very diverse language (UK academic) A few have said how much of a struggle they have had with the language. They have not all been from overseas a few have been in the UK it is all cognitive and cultural, all linked. (UK academic) The third barrier, therefore, is collegiality since motivation to join a virtual CoP may be weak where there is a context of high collegiality, e.g. a strong community of people who are physically co-located (Smith et al, 2005) Its more difficult to create the flow of information. We try really hard to get members to communicate within their own groupbut its quite difficult without the face-to-face thing to break the ice (UK academic) Lack of peer support and lack of contact with others The lack of contact was quite frustrating. (UK academic) Another barrier involves the shifting membership of a virtual CoP which as Wenger et al. (2002) point out is fluid in its composition. In consequence, virtual CoPs need to work hard to maintain energy and a high degree of participation. Individual members of a virtual community must engage with it in order that it may develop and grow and have meaning (McMillan, 1996; Gibson & Manuel, 2003; Ellis et al 2004). Stuckey and Smith (2004) argue that there are identifiable features to a successful CoP, and most importantly the ability to sustain the community, the chief of which is the need for leadership which, in the case of a CoP, may be a moderator, facilitator or list owner. When youre delivering it electronically, a lot of members just dont get it, but you cant spot that (UK academic) Some members dont say a word on-line. Theyll just sit there. Theres a lot of lurking going on (UK academic) [2]
[2]
A fifth barrier involves trust. The virtual CoP lacks the opportunity for face-to face interaction and socialising which can consolidate group membership. Consequently individuals may fail to engage in the CoP, preferring to work autonomously. Trust building is vital for sharing (Kirkup, 2002; Gibson & Manuel, 2003; Ellis et al 2004) and trust primarily develops through face-to-face interactions. In the virtual environment, identities can remain hidden and members may adopt different personas (Tomes, 2001; Turkle, 1997). Youre trying to replace a real learning environment with a virtual one its a very touchy-feely thing. Theres a whole raft of things that the virtual environment wont let you do (UK academic) A sixth barrier also involves trust but at an institutional level. Crossing virtual boundaries between institutions can result in institutional-related problems, especially legal issues, e.g. data protection, intellectual property (Stokols et al., 2003, 2005; Cummings & Kiesler, 2005; Bos et. al. 2007). I worry about intellectual property rights: We give too much away nobody else gives as much detail electronically (UK academic) A further barrier involves selectivity in the use of ICTs. Many academics, professionals and students are strategic users of ICTs (Schwen & Hara, 2003; Smith et al, 2005; Kelly et al, 2007), matching their usage to perceptions of meeting their operational needs, irrespective of the degree of their ICT skills. This is relevant to another barrier, revolving around whether the CoP is task-based or practice based. A virtual learning community may be short-lived have a finite beginning and end, being task-based, established for a specific learning activity such as a course or seminar. On the other hand, a practice-based or subject-based virtual CoP may develop more organically and be less transient (Fowler & Mayes, 1999). A final issue involves the use of technology to bridge the geographical gap which can lead to misinterpretation of messages, as a lot of non-verbal cues can be missing from the communication (Gibson & Manuel, 2003; Cramton, 2001; Gannon-Leary, 1999). ICTs lack the richness of face-to-face interaction. Much anecdotal information features misinterpreted communication online, easily exaggerated in the absence of cues and feedback. (Trayner, Smith & Bettoni, 2006) Organisations such as the UK National Health Service are increasingly using networked learning, eLearning platforms and blended learning but: Working with other practitioners, I know that their computer skills are not necessarily 100%. (UK academic)
Currently the preferred term for online behaviour whereby the participant reads the postings of the participants in a virtual CoP but does not actively contribute to the debate is ROP or read only participant.
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They lack familiarity with systems It means a new learning curve, but we are now in a society and a cultural and technological environment of constant change, so we just need to be able to engage with change in a way that doesnt feel like a constant step backwards (UK academic)
Critical success factors for virtual CoPs and virtual learning communities
One critical success factor (CSF) for a virtual CoP is the technology and its usability. Virtual CoPs need to make good use of Internet standard technologies such as listserv, bulletin boards, and accessible web technology. Moules (2006) findings suggest that a virtual learning community will need to ensure participants have the technological provision and necessary IT skills to support mutual engagement (Wenger 1998). Difficulties with access and ICT skills in relation to online discussions and e-based learning are acknowledged in the existing international literature (Andrusyszyn et al. 1999, Gillis et al. 2000, Hong et al. 2003). Technology needs to be regarded as an accepted and transparent means of communication (Campbell & Uys 2007). The evolution of a CoP is reliant upon the effective communication of the members, most easily achieved through face-to-face meetings (Hinds & Wesiband, 2003; Raven, 2003; Wenger et al. 2002). Personal interactions are valuable in building CoPs and Broady-Preston and Felice (2006) demonstrate the creation of an electronic relationship between library users and information providers in the University of Malta, adopting a customer relationship management and communities of practice approach. This progressed from a physical to an electronic relationship and demonstrated the ability of the internet to function as a medium for managing relationships as well as a facilitator for interaction and communication (BroadyPreston et al 2006) Communication, therefore, is another CSF and is fundamental in the development of trust and the community. Along with trust, communication allows the CoP to grow, change and achieve its objectives. Trust is built through continued interaction developing common values and a shared understanding (Gibson & Manuel, 2003; Amin & Roberts, 2006). A third CSF involves CoP membership. Andrews and Schwarz (2002) have reported the benefits of identifying group members with prior knowledge of each other to help consolidate membership and develop trust. Fourthly, CoP members must have a sense of belonging, of being an insider (Brown & Duguid 2002; Wegerif 1998). Trayner, Smith and Bettoni (2006) add that paying attention to cross-national and cross-cultural dimensions in international online communities adds to the complexity, challenges and value in such
an accomplishment. This is illustrated by the HSBC advertisements on television that identify different gestures which convey different meanings in different cultures when one is doing business in a global context. From this follows on a fifth CSF, that there should be shared understanding. Consideration needs to be given to the influence of culture in the use of ICTs in the development of a community (Campbell & Uys 2007). Culture impacts on the ability of the members to develop a shared understanding and sub-groups of the community, based on these cultures can easily emerge. Shared repertoire may include developed routines, language, ways of working and stories within the practice of the community, generated through negotiating meaning (Wenger 1998). It is postulated that virtual learning communities with a brief existence may not have the longevity of engagement required to develop shared repertoire (Fowler & Mayes 1999). Identifying elements of shared repertoire proved problematic in Moules (2006) analysis of the online environment, which lacked the richness that might be observed in a physically located CoP, where presentations of gestures, nuances, routines and stories are made manifest. Another CSF involves having a sense of purpose. A virtual CoP must have a purpose and this purpose must be achievable via ICTs (Dube et al, 2005; Campbell & Uys 2007). A CSF which helps achieve this sense of purpose involves leadership which Stuckey and Smith (2004) have exemplified as sustaining a CoP through sensitivity in monitoring, regulating, maintaining boundaries and responding to change. As the community becomes more distributed, the need for driving leadership becomes more important (Chavis et al 1986; Gibson & Manuel, 2003). Attendant on this is the CSF of netiquette and the modelling of good practice and the way guidelines about conduct in a virtual CoP are put into practice by facilitators (Trayner, Smith & Bettoni 2006; Gannon-Leary 1999). This is especially important in the case of neo-apprentices in virtual CoPs who may be wary about contributing because they feel what they have to say is not sufficiently worthy or weighty. Seeing other people flamed or send abusive emails on virtual CoPs is likely to inhibit contributions from putative members. Another CSF involves the CoPs usage of user-friendly language and what Trayner, Smith and Bettoni (2006) describe as the ecology of communication modes and skills, or graceful ways of bringing people into conversations. A final CSF revolves around time. Longevity of a CoP improves engagement, as mentioned in connection with task-based vs. practice based CoPs. Time is needed both for communication and to build up trust, rapport and a true sense of community (Trayner, Smith & Bettoni, 2006).
Benefits Enhanced learning environment Synergies created Capabilities extended to higher level Knowledge sharing & learning Gaining insights from each other Deepening of knowledge, innovation & expertise Cyclical, fluid knowledge development Feeling of connection Ongoing interactions Assimilation into sociocultural practices Neo-apprenticeship style of learning Identity development and formation Practice-based usage
Barriers Perpetuation vs. change and diversity Disciplinary differences Culture of independence Tacit knowledge Transactive knowledge Specialist language Collegiality, strong physical community Shifting membership, Creating and maintaining information flow No F2F to break the ice Read-only participants (formerly lurkers) Hidden identities, adopted personas Lack of trust personal and institutional Selectivity in ICT use No body language, misinterpretations Task-based usage
Critical Success Factors Good use of Internet standard technologies Technological provision ICT skills Institutional acceptance of ICTs as communication media Good communications Trust Common values Shared understanding Prior knowledge of membership Sense of belonging Cultural awareness Sense of purpose Sensitivity in monitoring, regulating, facilitating Netiquette User-friendly language Time to build up the CoP Regular interaction Good coordination to achieve regular but varied communication Material resources or sponsorship to bolster and build up the community
Table 1: Benefits, Barriers and Critical Success Factors
Final comments
The potential import of virtual CoPs is recognised by increasing interest in Europe in networked learning and eLearning, as witnessed by the development of organisations engaged in studying and producing data on the topic, e.g. Eurostat, Eurydice, IEA, Eurobarometer, EC projects. Among the last mentioned are eLearning: Designing tomorrows Education (Commission of the European Communities, 2003) and i2010: European Information Society for growth and employment which was launched in June 2005 as a framework for addressing the main challenges and developments in the information society and media sectors up to 2010 (Commission of the European Communities, 2006). Another example is the LEONIE project that specifically indicates that one expected outcome to evolve between now and 2010 is the creation of learning communities. (Alfaro et al, 2006) The goals of the HELIOS Project (Horizontal E-Learning Integrated Observation System) include the building of a systematic observation and foresighting platform on eLearning at EU and national levels (HELIOS 2007: 1). It stresses that virtual
communities, even if they do not foresee learning as their main objective, could generate eLearning as a side effect. (Del Rio & Fischer, 2007) The recently published European Commission Green Paper (2007) is currently inviting views on its proposals for a European Research Area (ERA). The paper suggests that the ERA progressively structure itself along the lines of a powerful web of research and innovation clusters. Their reach should be amplified through virtual research communities created by pooling and integrating activities and resources from different locations in Europe and beyond (European Commission 2007: 9). It also suggests that virtual research communities can constitute a powerful vehicle to ensure the inclusion of researchers and students from all around Europe and other countries. (European Commission 2007: 18). One of the questions it poses in its concluding remarks is one of interest to the authors: How can the EU and Member States best stimulate the emergence of European and global virtual research communities, exploiting fully the potential of computing, information and communication infrastructures? (European Commission 2007: 19).
The Internet offers the potential for access and interaction with a universally accessible, democratic and interactive hub of speedy, lowcost communications and resources connecting individuals, disciplines, departments and services. We see ourselves as a world player in the development of the eLearning community. There is a lot of potential for development of community through the Internet. (UK academic) We are still a long way off from providing a satisfactory experience (UK academic) The existence of virtual CoPs such as discussion lists afford opportunities for collaboration which have been facilitated by networked technology such as e-mail, which many academics use regularly (Ciolek, 2000). Discussion lists may serve as virtual CoPs since they provide for interested professionals/academics to engage in discussion and debate; give others the benefit of their experience, and often save themselves reinventing the wheel by finding out what others have done when faced with particular problems (GannonLeary, 1998). In academia there are a variety of these special interest groups exchanging messages on a range of topics. In theory, the CoPs should add a new dimension to academic research and its communication. Mooted benefits of networking and communication include rendering physical location unimportant and isolation from the peer group less problematic when academics are scattered geographically or work in small institutions, since virtual CoPs can grow up based on interests rather than on physical proximity enabling collaborations, sharing of specialist interests and affording access to mentors and like-minded individuals (Schmitz and Fulk, 1991). Among a group of people with a common interest in a topic, there is no natural hierarchy except the one which evolves from participation and natural experts can emerge (Anderson et al, 1995). Enhanced access is afforded to information, academics may strengthen their command of their field of work and that work is made increasingly visible to others (Ciolek, 2000). CoP members share information, insight and advice and, in so doing, derive value from their interaction. Over time it is possible to develop a unique perspective on a topic in addition to a body of common knowledge, practices and approaches. While the concept of CoPs is not new, the development of the ICTs, combined with the need for more intentional, systematic management of knowledge means that electronic communications may afford an opportunity not only to manage knowledge as an asset but also to keep apace of change and core knowledge requirements.
Although the potential for virtual CoPs through e-mail discussion lists and discussion boards would seem enormous, the authors recent experience in setting up and moderating such a list, coupled with the comments derived from academics trying to sustain discussion boards, suggests this potential is not being realised. The authors experience was that the announcement of the introduction of a new list, along with its aims and scope, resulted in many wouldbe members from all over the world signing up and, by so doing, indicating an interest in the list theme, but few of the signees subsequently made an active contribution. List members included international experts in the list topic, with much valuable experience which they could share with others so this lack of exchange of interaction was a matter of concern. Many of the articles cited in this paper are from areas other than Europe from the USA (Gibson & Manuel, 2003; Hinds & Wesiband, 2003; Robey et al, 2000), Canada (Andrusyszyn et al, 1999; Gillis et al, 2000) and Australia (Andrews & Schwarz, 2002; Campbell & Uys, 2007; Smith et al, 2005; Stacey et al, 2004). Fox (2005) comments on the fact the Internet is dominated by American-English and stresses the need for networked learning to engage with the issue of languages and through that the issue of other cultures and communities. (Fox 2005: 108) Recently Petersen (2007) from Denmark suggests that concepts of learning in communities of practice might be further developed and Wubbels (2007) from the Netherlands discussed the need for further research in this area. The authors would concur with this, given that networked learning and eLearning articles have a large diffusion around Europe, and would like to further identify and study CoPs and virtual learning communities across EU countries. What are the benefits, barriers and success stories in Europe? Have we been slower to take advantage of the potential of ICTs? Do Europeans display special characteristics which differentiate their use of electronic media, specifically CoPs, from that made by their counterparts in North America and Australia? Does the diversity of cultures and languages militate against European academics engaging in CoPs to the same extent? It would appear from the literature that there is currently a lack of knowledge about CoPs in Europe, especially those associated with post tertiary and University education. One academic recognised potential benefits beyond those to himself: If youre involved in distance learning you can easily become involved in on-line communities that revolve around your subject. Theres a lot of benefit that could be gained by the HEI from that sort of involvement both in terms of student recruitment and in terms of world renown. (UK academic)
Another academic expanded on her own Utopian vision of a CoP as an updated version of the eighteenth century European salon which provided a base for the discussion of social, artistic and scientific questions: Scholarly exchange, the building up of research communities... people really becoming part of a References
research network in a very active way, even though theyre thousands and thousands of miles apart the democratising potential of that...recreates the conditions, almost, of a mass intellectual salon where people are able to argue and discuss, and be in contact (UK academic)
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Digital Inclusion: Best practices from eLearning

David Casacuberta Digital Area Project Management Transit Projectes, Spain dcasacuberta@transit.es
Executive Summary:
eLearning 4 eInclusion (EL4EI) is a EU-funded project seeking to build a community for those with valuable expertise regarding the use of eLearning for digital inclusion. The project seeks to gather and catalogue relevant best practice cases and, ultimately, to compose an eLearning charter which will be a reference tool for professionals working towards social inclusion. In this paper we describe the new methodology used to analyse, filter and present results and describe some of the key results gathered so far. Thanks to the innovative ways suggested for the recovering and processing of material, and a cognitive approach instead of a pure technological one, our project is able to clearly point the way towards important new solutions. So far, one of the most valuable achievements of this project has been to clearly indicate the need of a new paradigm, one based on more informal teaching environments, wherein the communication among peers is fundamental and damaging stereotypes regarding new technologies are avoided. The practice of digital inclusion has to combine both technical and cognitive approaches. EL4EI demonstrates that teaching technical skills involving the use of a computer or Internet turns out to be useless if unaccompanied by motivation and contextualization. Of course it goes without saying that these practices are all unviable without a necessary minimum of infrastructure, i.e. access to a computer and the internet. The battle against the digital divide must be waged on both fronts. According to the current research, the five most promising strategies in terms of establishing best practice in the use of eLearning for social and digital inclusion are: combining teaching ICT with other non-digital knowledge equally important to social inclusion communication to the target groups establishing peer to peer teaching systems creating informal environments using teachers similar to the students themselves, especially in cases of eLearning focused towards women.
Keywords:
eInclusion, eLearning, cognitive approach, community of practice, teachers, education, disabilities, European charter, EL4EI
Introduction
eLearning for eInclusion (EL4EI) is a European Union project, funded by the programme eLearning. The project seeks to build a community for those with valuable expertise regarding the use of eLearning for digital inclusion. Furthermore, it sets out to gather and catalogue relevant cases of best practice, and ultimately, to compose an eLearning charter which will be a reference tool for professionals working towards social inclusion. In sections 2 and 3, this article presents three conceptual innovations in the pursuit of social inclusion through eLearning: a reconsideration of the concept of digital inclusion from a social focus and in terms of empowerment; information processing from a cognitive perspective of problem resolution, and thirdly, an ontological approach to the indexing of information obtained.
Sections 5 and 7 feature a practical presentation of key results gathered thus far. In the interest of brevity, these have been curtailed to those involving issues of multiculturalism, social inclusion and eLearning.
Objectives
Most projects concerned with digital inclusion tend to centre their focus on issues of hardware: donation of computers, cabling homes, the use of wireless devices, etc. Though such issues are obviously unavoidable, they are not all there is to the matter. Moreover, the ultimate beneficiary being targeted is all too often ill-defined. Generally they are of two types: F irst, we have the handicapped people; in which case the targeted beneficiary is usually well analysed and segmented into specific groups, given that considerations are different for the blind, the colour blind, the visually impaired and so on.
Then, we have the general fallout of the so-called Digital Divide; in which case the single identifying characteristic is one of computer illiteracy. Thus one finds little distinction being made among such diverse targets as senior citizens, the unemployed, convicts, disadvantaged youth, and so forth. The blanket approach taken for all these groups is to organise practical courses wherein these diverse individuals are taught the how to of surfing the net, e-mailing and whatnot. Considering the undifferentiated reasoning underlying such tactics to be specious, we propose an alternative approach based on the following imperatives: 1. Overcoming mental barriers as opposed to simply technological ones. We find at present that major causal factors of marginalisation from the information society are those such as the mistrust often felt towards new technologies and the lack of any content attractive or useful to either the socially excluded or those at risk of being so. 2. An approach based on empowerment. We hold that what is important is not so much knowing how to use, for instance, Netscape or Outlook, but rather the educational and liberating potential of new technologies. We seek to make the internet an instrument for integrating the socially excluded by using it to equip them with the skills that will make them employable in the information society. Furthermore we seek to develop their capacity to think critically, to form their own political views and to organise themselves as citizens and cultural groups. The potential realisation of such substantial goals advocates thinking about ICT in more social terms rather than through a reductive technical approach.
it is unwieldy to have to sift through a twenty-page document in order to access a very precise bit of information on, say, something such as how best to present a virtual forum to a group of women senior citizens. Rather, we favour a cognitive methodology, analysing best practices as proposals for solving a given problem. In such an approach the goal is not to document the experience in detail instead, it is to establish what problems are to be solved, what possible solutions are available and how effective each one might be. This approach is specifically based on the pioneering work carried out by the architect Alexander [1], and in particular on his developments within the field of cognitive science and artificial intelligence [2]. The idea is one of an approach through cognitive patterns, in which experiences are considered examples of patterns on how problems can be solved. Thanks to this type of analysis, an experience becomes a pattern, a prescription for solving a problem from a given perspective. To do so, one adapts a system for classifying experiences [3]. The following is an outline of the main considerations used in analysing best experiences: Purpose: The objective of the practice analysed. Problem: The problem which the practice seeks to resolve. Solution: In which way the practice offers a solution to the problem within the context in which it appears. Target: The segment of the socially excluded population at which the proposal is aimed. Actors: The different actors involved in the practice. Effects: How things will change once the practice is adopted. Implementation: Practical instructions on how to put the practice to use. This systematic means of classifying data produces information which, unlike in the situation described at the beginning of this section, brings forth the generally applicable elements of the experience, while at the same time only needing the annotation and processing of genuinely relevant information, leaving aside other data for more traditional reports. Once the information is compiled using the cognitive models [described in 2], different patterns are brought out, in a systematic and directed way, from the cases that, in terms of empowerment (as described in the previous section), use eLearning for social inclusion.
Methodology
Normally, the description of best practice is carried out through detailed reports. As if some clerical task, dates, places and names tied to the experience are compiled, the context of the experience, the characteristics of the responsible organisation are assiduously described, and so forth. Such reports function well enough to document work done and as a tool in the pursuit of further funding and support. However, towards fulfilling a more scientific role they have the following drawbacks: Given that the information is highly contextualized, it becomes difficult to discern which may be applied successfully elsewhere from which is tied to the specificities of the occasion. Due to the high degree of detail, it can often be difficult to determine which information is the most important or relevant. Though not undoable,
Description of technology
Cognitive patterns are a powerful tool for ordering information relevantly and systematically. This facilitates research enormously, as explained in the previous section. Furthermore, the intuitiveness of the cognitive pattern means that it is also highly recommendable for the organisation of information on a website. This encourages us to implement the findings of cognitive analysis in a programmable ontology facilitating the indexing and the location of information, so anyone interested in the use of eLearning for social inclusion can find the solutions proposed in the easiest possible way. Technologically, we settled on the use of topic maps[4]. We did so because topic maps offer a good general framework for building interconnected content networks. Hiring a large company to custom build a system is a solution which, aside from being expensive, is difficult to transport and maintain. Whereas a system based on topic maps is standardized, flexible and easy to maintain, as well as independent from the computer application being used. Most vitally, the advanced architecture of topic maps facilitates the conversion to a computerised format of something such as methodologies against social exclusion through eLearning, which would seem to not lend itself easily to quantification. Finally, we greatly appreciated the way topic maps facilitate the conversion of information into visual form. In the field of digital inclusion it is particularly necessary to use structures that are intuitive and easy to understand and process. Hence, the dynamic visual maps expressing the breakdown of subjects are extremely useful. Presently, we are at work processing the best practice cases as they come in, abstracting the relevant cognitive patterns and including them in an ontology on social inclusion which is being developed in XML using topic maps. For October, we expect to have the eLearning for social inclusion library fully up and running. The vocation of the library is to become a reference tool in the field of social education and, potentially, a point of reference in the future theoretical development of eLearning.
This is vital, because the members of the consortium often propose solutions described in an overly anecdotal way. For example, one best practice involved using karaoke in teaching children to read. By means of the ontology and other tools it was possible to re-classify this experience. On one hand it was classified as a motivating process, based on entertainment as a key psychological factor, on the other, as a process whereby ICT was used to instil knowledge that is basic for social inclusion and necessarily previous to any digital inclusion (i.e. literacy) One of the key results of this process has been to produce a rigorous classification of problems and solutions. This will greatly facilitate future discussions among experts, which will articulate recommendations and best practices to be presented in the European Charter for digital inclusion. The rate at which different problems and solutions have appeared in reports and documents has been statistically calculated so as to establish the relative importance of each. We consider a key finding of this study that though most of the actions taken towards inclusion involve entirely technical solutions and training when the cases of best practice are studied exclusively, more than half of the proposals involve motivation, the development of specific contents and more cognitive solutions. More specifically, the findings show that, among the more than 600 activities in favour of digital inclusion analysed, about 40% of the solutions proposed were exclusively to do with the improvement of technical infrastructure (affordable computers, the cabling of cities etc.), almost 75% combined such infrastructural improvement with the teaching of technical skills (such as the use of browsers and e-mail). However, when only the 100 best practices so far gathered are considered, it is found that in the majority of these solutions (about 50%), the key to their success was the motivation of subjects through methodologies and tailored content. In the light of such findings it can be quite interesting to consider the failure of digital inclusion projects such as the Spanish states Plan Info XXI. In this particular case, the plan was to increase the number of internet users in Spain by a million; what in fact happened during the period of the projects operation was that the total number decreased. One of the most valuable achievements of this project thus far has been to clearly indicate the need for a new digital inclusion paradigm. Of course, none of this goes to deny the need for technical infrastructure, since, obviously, without a computer or network there would be little sense in teaching the use of new technologies. But rather, the point is that, such exclusively technical
Developments and achievements

At the present stage of development we have a partial ontology of problems and solutions available to us. In addition, we have a series of data mining tools for connecting data and gathering solutions in the most useful way possible.
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considerations are a wasted effort if not backed up by a cognitive plan to motivate the users.
significantly reinforces the cognitive relevance of what is being explained and greatly boosts motivation. The fourth strategy is to create informal environments, and has the advantage of being applicable for various target groups. For instance, the traditional class environment for teaching computer skills can be very boring for children who are not used to such. Organising something more informal and experimental where the children use the computer as a toy can be highly effective. Likewise, such formal teaching environments might be intimidating for immigrants whose cultural background is significantly different from the host countrys; they may feel more comfortable in less formal circumstances. Moreover, much the same can be said with regards to certain groups of women and senior citizens. The fifth strategy is to use teachers similar to the students themselves, something that is particularly well documented in cases of eLearning focused towards women. Since digital technology tends to be thought of as mans world, adolescent girls often dont feel motivated by it. Hence, it can be advantageous to use female monitors to explain the use of a given eLearning environment, as well as female avatars to present content, Though the effect may be a subconscious one, it can be important nonetheless, as it goes towards breaking the stereotype that only men can handle ICT. A similar phenomenon has been observed in the case of immigrants; an instructor from the same culture tends to be more motivating, however well the immigrant speaks the local language.
Results
The following is a list of the five strategies that, at this stage in the research, seem the most promising in terms of establishing best practice in the use of eLearning for social and digital inclusion. In first place is the strategy of combining teaching ICT with other non-digital knowledge equally important to social inclusion. An example of this approach is the case of a gypsy community wherein computers where used as a tool to prepare a driving licence exam. The usefulness of this tool was enough to convince several adults from the community to participate in eLearning activities. Similarly, it has been found in other best practices that, in order to motivate adults to use such tools as Microsoft Office or a web browser, it was vital to show them how such knowledge would help them to find employment. This is an effective strategy for three reasons. Firstly, the students are much more motivated, since they associate learning ICT with something of genuine concern to them (obtaining a drivers licence, a job etc.). Secondly, there is an efficiency factor to combining learning purposes; that is, at the same time the learners acquire internet skills, they also acquire others (such as learning how to drive). Thirdly, the fulfilment of the goal of social inclusion is greatly enhanced, given that not only digital skills are imparted, but also other skills which, though not digital, are nonetheless vital to social inclusion. The second key strategy is communication. Our analysis of failures has demonstrated that if the proposal is not properly communicated, it will not fulfil its objectives. There are innumerable websites dedicated to helping women or immigrants that, however well they may be designed and organised, dont succeed in doing so because the target does not know they exist. Communication needs to be appropriate to both the target and its geographical situation i.e. if it is local, national or international in character. Furthermore, it must make use of non-digital means to deliver the message, given that the target group is precisely the digitally excluded. A third strategy is to establish peer to peer teaching systems. That is, in the degree to which it is possible, it is desirable for the students to teach each other. This can be structured either formally or informally. In the former case, the students are promoted to the level of teachers; the important implication here is that if enough students are inspired to adopt a teaching role, sustainability is guaranteed. Meanwhile, in less formally structured situations, the help students offer
Business applications
Though our study is focused on the socially excluded, thus having a basically ethical and social objective, many of the practices being compiled can be perfectly useful for other groups. In fact, one of the criteria used in putting together the cases mentioned in the previous section was that they are also usable outside the social exclusion context. The following is a cursory overview of how practices drawn from our study can also be effective in other types of projects. Firstly, all the findings regarding accessibility for those with physical and sensorial handicaps can be applied to a commercial eLearning venture. Obviously, both from an ethical and commercial point of view, it is important that, for example, visually impaired people are able to use the eLearning application made available to them (for the purpose of, say, learning a foreign language). Following similar reasoning, what has been said about excluded children can be entirely pertinent to perfectly integrated children as well. That is, formal learning situations might be counterproductive, whereas
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informal environments learning through play can be much more motivating to them. A large part of are studies are centred upon developing universal user interfaces, whereby students from different cultures can intuitively use the same eLearning application. Such findings are obviously useful to any eLearning project, commercial or otherwise, targeted at international or multicultural users. Combining two types of learning seems to us to be a potentially powerful strategy, as well as an underused one in the eLearning sector. If a digital project can be successful in seeking to motivate a group with such little initial proclivity such as the gypsies to use ICT to acquire skills (driving skills in this case), the potential of such strategies must presumably be quite large. For instance, one might think of learning at the same time the language, history and geography of a country. Finally, teaching by people from the same group as the students is a strategy which is both underused and potentially capable of making the development of eLearning products more efficient and less costly thus more competitive. If a significant amount of learning is based on the students mutually supporting each other through on-line networks, the implication for the company involved is a course that transmits more relevant information more cheaply.
Conclusions
In summary, ELearning 4 E-inclusion, as it is in its present state, demonstrates how the practice of digital inclusion has to combine both technical and cognitive approaches. Teaching technical skills involving the use of a computer or internet turn out to be useless if unaccompanied by motivation and contextualisation. The conjunction of these elements is what makes such know how genuinely useful to the target group and effective in the fight against social exclusion. Thanks to an innovative means of recovering and processing material, our project is able to more clearly and rigorously point the way towards important new solutions that had been all too often overlooked, due to the predominance of an exclusively technical focus on the issue. In essence, the strategies put forth are moving towards a new paradigm, one based upon more informal teaching environments, wherein the communication among peers is fundamental and damaging stereotypes regarding new technologies are avoided. Of course it goes without saying that these practices are all unviable without a necessary minimum of infrastructure, i.e. access to a computer and the internet. However, it is just as clear that investment based on providing technical means is ineffective when unaccompanied by a new methodology, one based on contextualisation and motivation. Rather, the battle against the digital divide must be waged on both fronts.
References
[1] Alexander, C., Ishikawa, S., Silverstein, M., The Timeless Way of Building, New York: Oxford University Press, 1979. [2] Gardner, K., Cognitive Patterns: Problem-Solving Frameworks for Object Technology, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998. [3] Shalloway, A.,. Trott, J. Design Patterns Explained: a new Perspective in Object-Oriented Design,. Cambridge (Mass): OReilly, 2001. [4] Park, J., Hunting, S., XML Topic Maps: Creating and Using Topic Maps for the Web,Cambridge (Mass): OReilly, 2002.
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Editorial board
Director: Roberto Carneiro, Dean, Institute for Distance Learning, Catholic University of Portugal; Professor, School of Human Sciences (Portugal) Llus Tarn, Content Manager, elearningeuropa.info portal; Training and development, TicSalut (Spain) lf-Daniel Ehlers, Director, European Foundation for Quality in E-Learning; University of Duisburg-Essen U (Germany) ojciech Zielinski, President of the Board, MakoLab Ltd; Member of Academy of Humanities and Economics W in Lodz and Polish Virtual University; Secretary of Association of Academic E-learning in Poland Richard Straub, Secretary General, European Learning Industry Group (eLIG) (Austria) Claire Blisle, Research Engineer, CNRS (National Scientific Research Centre); University Lumire Lyon 2 (France) Nicolas Balacheff, CNRS Senior Scientist, Grenoble Computer Science Laboratory (France) Jean Underwood, Professor of Psychology, Nottingham Trent University (UK) Antonio Bartolom, Professor of Audiovisual Communication, University of Barcelona (Spain) Jos Beishuizen, Director of Centre for Educational Training, Assessment and Research (The Netherlands) Tapio Koskinen, Senior Advisor, Helsinki University of Technology, Lifelong Learning Institute Dipoli (Finland)
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eLearning Papers
Submission of articles
We publish articles, interviews and good practices provided by the members of the elearningeuropa.info. Researchers and eLearning practitioners on every level are invited to submit their work to eLearning Papers. Through these articles, the journal promotes the use of ICT for lifelong learning in Europe. The articles will be peer-reviewed and the authors are informed about the reception and acceptance of their texts. Article structure Language: Full text need to be presented in English. Title: The title should be no longer than 15 words. Executive summary: Every submission must include an executive summary of 250-300 words in English. The abstract shall present the main points of the paper and the authors conclusions. Keywords: 3-6 descriptive keywords need to be included Full texts: Full texts must be of 2,000-6,000 words divided into chapters with indicative subtitles. The text may be enriched with non-textual data, such as pictures, tables and figures. References: All the references need to be cited clearly and listed in alphabetical order at the end of the article. Author profile: The authors must provide their full details and a short bio to be published in the portals Experts directory.
Copyright policy and responsibilities:
Authors remain responsible for the content of what they submit for publication. The editors reserve the right to edit the contents, to publish or reject the material submitted and to select the publication time.
See the complete submission guidelines at www.elearningpapers.eu
Contact information
Email: editorial@elearningeuropa.info Internet: www.elearningpapers.eu
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eLearning Papers | 2008
eLearning Papers is originally a digital publication created as part of the European Commissions elearningeuropa.info portal. The portal and eLearning Papers promote the use of multimedia technologies and Internet at the service of education and training. The printed edition of the eLearning Papers responds to the necessity to further promote this initiative. eLearning Papers adds a new dimension to the exchange of information on eLearning in Europe and stimulates research. As such, the articles provide views regarding the current situation and eLearning trends in different communities: schools, universities, companies, civil society and institutions. eLearning Papers provides all those interested with an opportunity to have their texts published throughout Europe. Through these articles, the journal promotes the use of ICT for lifelong learning in Europe. By registering on the elearningeuropa.info portal, you will receive an email alert when a new edition of eLearning Papers is published. Currently there are over 27,000 registered users in the elearningeuropa.info community. www.elearningeuropa.info www.elearningpapers.eu
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eLearning Papers

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

Edition and production

eLearning Papers | 2008

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

HELIOS: Redefining eLearning Territories

How to catch proteus eLearning in contemporary societies?

Figure 1: HELIOS Map of eLearning Territories

Individual Development through eLearning

Communities generating eLearning as a side effect

eLearning at the Workplace

Non-professional eLearning Communities

Virtual Professional Networks

Extended Learning Context

ICT for Virtual Mobility of Learnes

ICT for Learning Purposes within Tertiary Education

Training of Teachers and Trainers on (and through) eLearning

Evolved Distance Education

ICT for Learning Purposes within Tertiary Education

ICT for Learning Purposes in VET Institutions

eLearning Territory eLearning at the Workplace

ICT for Virtual Mobility of Learners

Evolved Distance Education

Training of Teachers and Trainers on (and through) eLearning

Individual Development through eLearning

Virtual Professional Networks

Inter-organisational Development through eLearning

Non-professional eLearning Communities

Communities generating eLearning as a side effect

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

School Education: the territory and social priorities

Emerging Trends and Developments

Observing the Change: Is Innovation taking place?

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

Open Educational Resources and Practices

Definition and Background

Open Educational Practices

Recommendations for Open Educational Practices and Resources

How-to Guidance through Tutorials

Figure 2: Screenshot of the tutorials

and recommendations on which tools to use for particular purposes.

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

Benefits of sharing and learning

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

Barriers to virtual CoPs and virtual learning communities

Table 1: Benefits, Barriers and Critical Success Factors

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

Digital Inclusion: Best practices from eLearning

Developments and achievements

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

Promoting innovation in lifelong learning

Copyright policy and responsibilities:

See the complete submission guidelines at www.elearningpapers.eu

Email: editorial@elearningeuropa.info Internet: www.elearningpapers.eu

eLearning Papers | 2008

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