TENCompetence Workshop on Service Oriented Approaches and Lifelong Competence Development Infrastructures

Please click here to access the event report and presentations. Click here to access the proceedings.

Location: Manchester UK

Venue: The G-Mex and Manchester International Conference Centre Event

Date: 11th-12th January, 2007

Theme

One compelling argument for moving to a service oriented approach (soa) in e-learning applications and learning supporting systems is the promise of better support for lifelong learning. The online availability of resources such as formal and informal learning opportunities, past learning achievements and a variety of learning communities beyond the single institution is a key opportunity as well as a challenge for individuals and institutions alike.

At the same time, the functionality that can be made available using services promises to make it easier to integrate new, customised or innovative functionality in existing learning environments. Examples of such functionality includes simulations and collaborative learning activities. For this to happen, though, a number of issues need to be addressed that range from the purely pedagogical, via business model considerations to questions of software design and development.

To explore some of these issues the EU 6th Framework Integrated Project TENCompetence is organising a workshop on soa and lifelong competence development. The objective of the workshop is to identify and analyse current research and technologies in the intersection of the soa and lifelong learning fields, in the areas of their theory, application and use. This includes open, usable and accessible services for:

• the creation, sharing, discovery and use of knowledge resources, learning activities and learning paths by any individual, team or organisation.
• the development, use, monitoring and maintenance of competence frameworks for the different professions or domains of knowledge.
• the assessment of competences
• the registration, use and sharing of personal data (profiles, portfolios, ...)
• the discovery of suitable learning resources that are adapted to the users needs and profile
• the support of users to navigate through all the possible learning resources to build specific competences
• the support for users to learn in new fields and the support for the people who provide the support (e.g. by providing monitoring services, help by email handling).

Topics

Relevant topics for the workshop include, but are not limited to:

• Learning Design for formal and informal Lifelong Learning and Competence Development
• Knowledge Management issues related to competence development, lifelong learning or HRM
• Competence description frameworks for professions
• Monitoring (changes in) competences in professions * Competence assessment and learner positioning
• Methods and tools to support learners in distributed environments, peer tutoring, teaching, mentoring, coaching
• Personal data, profiles, and portable ePortfolios for competence registration
• Technologies for the discovery of suitable learning resources
• Collaborative filtering technologies, recommend or systems for learning
• Use of language technologies to support learning processes
• Navigational support to users in a learning network
• Authoring, discovery, advise and/or exchange of knowledge resources, learning activities or units of learning
• Open standards and specifications usable for learning networks
• Social software usable for lifelong competence development
• Dynamic discovery of, and collaboration between, informal learning groups
• New social theories and practices which have implications for Competence Development
• Models and tools supporting work-based learning
• Personalised and collaborative trails using knowledge resources or learning activities
• Mobile support for lifelong competence development
• Semantic Web and lifelong competence development
• Gender issues related to the design of educational applications

Workshop Language

English

Publication of Proceedings

All papers accepted for the workshop will be published in the workshop proceedings with ISBN and will distributed to the participants after the workshop. Selected papers will be invited to submit a full paper (6000 words) for a special issue of the International Journal of Learning Technology (IJLT) devoted to the outcomes of the workshop.

Programme Comittee Chair:

Rob Koper (Netherlands) Co-chair: Oleg Liber (UK)

Further information

For submission details as well as information on accommodation and travel visit the workshop web site. For further information please send an email to:

Relating to the programme, paper submissions and reviews:Dai Griffiths Relating to the location and practical arrangements: Chris Kew