MetaCampus REAL [1] – a European Marketplace for Lifelong Learning
urn:nbn:de:0009-5-2140
Abstract
This article addresses the discussion about open source solutions in the e-learning business. In contrast to critics by commercial suppliers this article comes to different conclusions. On the one hand such a discussion seems to be useless in this early state of the e-learning market. On the other hand solutions without costs might have a strong influence of which commercial suppliers could profit as well.
Keywords: e-learning; service; european market place
In April 2004 started the EU e-Ten project MetaCampus REAL (subsidy: 1.2 Mio €) with a duration of 18 month as a follow-up project of MetaCampus, an EU IST-project (subsidy: 3.5 Mio €, 04/2001 – 09/2003).
The general target of the two projects was/is the development of a European-wide electronic marketplace for e-Learning services.
For that reason, in the first project there has been developed a MetaCampus Marketplace (MM) prototype, that should be lead to readiness for marketing during the current project.
Figure 1
The MetaCampus Marketplace offers a user-friendly life-long learning portal to assist citizens in their selection and purchase of those 3rd party learning resources best fitting their needs, preferences and profile. This is carried out by a matching process of existing competencies and target competencies. As a tool a nominal/actual value comparison is used to identify the competence gap between the user profile and the chosen training and the necessary training courses will be selected to close this gap.
The general purpose of the project is to confirm the adequacy of the MM services to the current needs of supply and demand in the e-Learning market before exploiting the service in Europe. To achieve these objectives, the market validation will be conducted simultaneously in three different countries, representing three of the most important language areas: Belgium, Germany and Spain (French, German and Spanish language area). Belgium and Spain are focussing on vocational training while Germany covers the home/personal training. The needed courses for proving the portal are provided by public and private educational institutions (i.e. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya – UOC or Klett GmbH).
The portal will be validated from the supply side (UOC and Klett GmbH) as well as from the demand side (Generalitat de Catalunya – DGOIE, University of Cologne and Le Forem). France Telecom R&D (FTRD) and Atos Origin S.A. Spain support the succesfull launching and maintenance of the pilot environment while GEC (Gestión del Conocimiento S.A.) will undertake tasks in the areas of market validation, dissemination and business planning.
For further information: www.eten.metacampus-real.com or
per mail: nadine.wenner@uni-koeln.de or bjoern.hekman@uni-koeln.de .
Nadine Wenner, University of Cologne, academic co-worker at the Chair of Economics & Business Education
Björn Hekman, University of Cologne, former academic co-worker at the Chair of Economics & Business Education