Infrastructures for e-learning

Institutions and organizations Newspaper articles Diverse

Institutions and organizations

• Studying online, "Studying online", is the main website, where students, university teachers and developers can get an orientation on which subjects, modules, and seminars are offered on the internet and what the requirements are to participate. The online-information system "Studieren im Netz" is a cooperation of "Bund und Länder in der BLK, Bund-Länder-Kommission". Virtual learning is intended to become a fixed part in studying at German universities
   
• The competence university network confederation MultiMedia (UVM, Universitätsverband MultiMedia) NRW  : The competence network university confederation is a network of universities from the state NRW, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany and supports high quality development and exchange of multimedia teaching modules. The university confederation sponsors projects for supporting programs. These programs aim to support multimedia teaching and learning modules at university teaching as well as to improve the quality of teaching and learning at universities.
  The competence network university confederation MultiMedia stands for:
  
  • Focusing specialized knowledge and supporting cooperations between faculty- and university comprehensive development and user partnerships.
  • Economizing resources through transparent project development and avoiding of multiple developments.
  • Creation of necessary infrastructure requirements for the development and constant use of multimedia teaching and learning software.
     
• The Association of Shareware Professionals was formed in April 1987 to strengthen the future of shareware (user supported software) as an alternative to commercial software. Its members, all of whom subscribe to a code of ethics, are committed to the concept of shareware as a method of marketing.
   

Newspaper articles of interest

• Federal Ministry of Education and Research:
  
  
  • New Media in Education, Funding Programme [ .pdf - 9,96MB ]
  • Online - Offline. IT in Education [ .pdf - 158KB ]

Diverse

• The growth of the Internet and the World Wide Web is transforming teaching and learning at all levels of education, in the workplace, and at home. IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc. (IMS) is developing and promoting open specifications for facilitating online distributed learning activities such as locating and using educational content, tracking learner progress, reporting learner performance, and exchanging student records between administrative systems.
  IMS has two key goals:
   
  • Defining the technical specifications for interoperability of applications and services in distributed learning, and
  • supporting the incorporation of the IMS specifications into products and services worldwide.
  IMS endeavors to promote the widespread adoption of specifications that will allow distributed learning environments and content from multiple authors to work together (in technical parlance, "interoperate").
  IMS is a global consortium with members from educational, commercial, and government organizations. Funding comes from membership fees, with organizations choosing to join as either Contributing or Developers Network members.
   
• The project VIROR is financed by the state Baden-Württemberg, Germany and is supported by Sun, who wants to support and develop the new technological and didactic possibilities. The aim is to create a multimedia teaching program in various subjects.
   
• In 1998, a group of German psychologists initiated the "Virtuelles Graduiertenkolleg" (VGK) as the first virtual Ph.D. program in Germany. The program is funded by the German Research Foundation DFG and started its work in April 1999. The general topic of the VGK "Knowledge Acquisition and Knowledge Exchange with New Media" addresses one of the most important research questions of the developing "global information society" from a psychological point of view. How can virtual groups be supported efficiently in teaching and learning with new media without getting lost in the "virtual space"? The work of the VGK reflects this topic in a twofold way: On the one hand, the VGK students' own knowledge exchange is organized by using new media. For example, the students collaborate in online workgroups and special online courses by means of teleconferencing tools, MBone, WWW, chat or email. On the other hand, the possibilities and limits of using new media for teaching and learning are themselves focused in all VGK research projects.
   
• The applied research unit Knowledge Communication and Knowledge Media (KCKM) brings together research scientists that share a common interest and who work in Tübingen within different institutional contexts. The research interests of the group focus on the following learning scenarios and combinations:
   
  • Knowledge communication on the web
  • Learning with knowledge media
     
  The applied research unit is also involved in various transfer projects and initiatives whose aim is to design, develop, implement, and evaluate web-based learning arrangements in relevant societal domains (university, adult education, vocational further education).
   
• Sharable Courseware Object Reference Model (SCORM). Starting in 1997, ADL began working with key industry leaders to identify critical technical interface points around which standards for web-based learning technologies might be developed. This involved meeting with standards organizations such as the Learning Technology Standards Committee of the IEEE, the Instruction Management Project, and the Aviation Industry CBT Committee. Version 1.0 of SCORM was released on January 31, 2000. Future versions are expected to expand the initial scope of the work as technologies further develop.